What’s Next For Planet Zoo

[DrStephenMeyer]

I understand that interest to have more interaction with the animals on your side but I think it is not bad if a zoo game have some limitations on it because of two reason:

• most animals in Zoos are not pets, they are not domestic
• I would think (but this is just my opinion) that the goal for a Zoo would be to teach us something about an animal and to take their part of conservation of the species, but would keep the animals as wild as possible

Most of the comments like yours i see is very negative at least i got solution what solution do you provide that will make the game interesting???? I am drawing on experience from other developer of why my ideas will succeed. And i have read negative comments like yours where it was about women not being in the game cause there were more men then women or that its not historical right and all the nonsense. So please be constructive about this and not just we need more teaching...

Zoo animals are not pets
The goal of the game is also to allow players to do what they want with the animal and their zoo so there is no reason why the zoo keepers and guess can't see tiger as pet and make them tame and approachable. People can learn about conservation even though the animal are tame! Zoo keeper have a very close relationship with the wild animals and they allow them to come close to them just look at the video and see how close they get!

We need more teaching...
Majority of players do not want more teaching as most play it not for the teaching but for the fun and the experience with the animals and with management. And if we want more teaching in the game the mechanics need to be there too.. You have suggested none on this post..

MORE WILDLIFE INTERACTION
Right now you do not have a bond with your animals in the zoo as most comment here have said that once they played everything it gets boring. So is solution to this is more teaching???? Is this the right answer? No!

If you want more teaching then the life of the animal needs to get deeper so you can do more things with the animals, staff behavior need to be added! Everything needs to go up at another level! DLC can be brought out for this purpose as its quality over content.

We can have conservation, teaching, all those things and see keep the game deeply entertaining as the animals have a life of their own! Is this not something everyone wants? Pumping out more maps, more animals is not the way to keep it interesting as again i draw on developer experience of open worlds.

You want teaching where is the Library where is the mechanic where you go about teaching the guess about conservation? Showing them what not to do with a wild animals? Show the guess how you care for your animals each day? Again the mechanic of cruelty is not there and if you want conservation you got to have cruelty. Like a tiger that has been mistreated or an elephant that has its horn sawn off. So you bring it into the zoo and the mechanics are there to know how to care for it properly. And showing the guess what you do?? Like having tours where players are looking and guess are watching how well you perform in caring for the animals? All these critical steps? Its not in the game and no one really is talking about wanting to do this more.

Most of the things talk will never make it to the game has it not been the developer goal to do these things or the dlc will reflect this but i hope this will change.

So anyway please be constructive with your comments then just saying its not a good idea and please post something like what i have posted on conservation and teaching.

AND HERE IS A SHORT STORY OF CARING FOR WILD ANIMALS

Shom has a trusting relationship with his keeper, Alec. Their bond revolves around an animal care plan at the Park Zoo that’s based on positive reinforcement, such as food and touch instead of punishment, force or coercion.

“The lions need to partake in their own healthcare,” Alec said. “These guys are like my family, and I want them to live long, happy, healthy lives, and that’s what positive reinforcement is really for. It’s what allows me to come in and make sure that Shom gets fluids and his kidneys are functioning right and that he’s going to continue to thrive.”

Alec started training Shom by touching the 483-pound lion with his index finger, then with a needle-like tool to help prepare him for the medical procedure. When Shom stood still, he received a treat. If he moved away, he was not punished but released back into his main habitat. That slow, voluntary progress is what positive reinforcement training typically looks like.

 

[Thtp15]

Most of the comments like yours i see is very negative at least i got solution what solution do you provide that will make the game interesting???? I am drawing on experience from other developer of why my ideas will succeed. And i have read negative comments like yours where it was about women not being in the game cause there were more men then women or that its not historical right and all the nonsense. So please be constructive about this and not just we need more teaching...

Zoo animals are not pets
The goal of the game is also to allow players to do what they want with the animal and their zoo so there is no reason why the zoo keepers and guess can't see tiger as pet and make them tame and approachable. People can learn about conservation even though the animal are tame! Zoo keeper have a very close relationship with the wild animals and they allow them to come close to them just look at the video and see how close they get!

We need more teaching...
Majority of players do not want more teaching as most play it not for the teaching but for the fun and the experience with the animals and with management. And if we want more teaching in the game the mechanics need to be there too.. You have suggested none on this post..

Sorry, there seems to be a missunderstanding. I did not say, I want to have more teaching in the game. I just say, that I think teaching is one main goal of a Zoo. As Frontier seems to follwoing the mentioned goals (conservation and teaching) and this game is a simulation (which trys to illustrate the reallity) I would expect that your suggestion (as you compared them to pets in my previous understanding) would it maybe not make in the game (but this is just my opinion and it surely could be wrong).

MORE WILDLIFE INTERACTION
Right now you do not have a bond with your animals in the zoo as most comment here have said that once they played everything it gets boring. So is solution to this is more teaching???? Is this the right answer? No!

If you want more teaching then the life of the animal needs to get deeper so you can do more things with the animals, staff behavior need to be added! Everything needs to go up at another level! DLC can be brought out for this purpose as its quality over content.

We can have conservation, teaching, all those things and see keep the game deeply entertaining as the animals have a life of their own! Is this not something everyone wants? Pumping out more maps, more animals is not the way to keep it interesting as again i draw on developer experience of open worlds.

You want teaching where is the Library where is the mechanic where you go about teaching the guess about conservation? Showing them what not to do with a wild animals? Show the guess how you care for your animals each day? Again the mechanic of cruelty is not there and if you want conservation you got to have cruelty. Like a tiger that has been mistreated or an elephant that has its horn sawn off. So you bring it into the zoo and the mechanics are there to know how to care for it properly. And showing the guess what you do?? Like having tours where players are looking and guess are watching how well you perform in caring for the animals? All these critical steps? Its not in the game and no one really is talking about wanting to do this more.

Most of the things talk will never make it to the game has it not been the developer goal to do these things or the dlc will reflect this but i hope this will change.

So anyway please be constructive with your comments then just saying its not a good idea and please post something like what i have posted on conservation and teaching.

I did not want to say that keepers do not have a relationsship to the animals they care for but mostly it is not like pets (especially when the goal is to maybe return the animals to the wild). As NZFanatic said it is mostly to help the keeper to care for the animal.

Indeed. When I was in the zoo industry a common complaint from recruiters was that a lot of people applying to be zookeepers or the like honestly believed they'd be playing tug-of-war with lions and brushing zebras like horses. People think "captive = tame". In reality the job is incredibly hands-off where possible, with training done only to allow for less intrusive health checks (such as conditioning a tiger to rear up against a mesh barrier so you can see its underbelly and claws). I remember the first time I spoke to someone about joining the industry and the first thing they said to me was, "most of the job involves poop. You shovel poop, sweep poop, and hose out poop." It's dirty, arduous work ninety percent of the time, not cutesy fun-times with the animals.

And you mentioned it too in your last post:

AND HERE IS A SHORT STORY OF CARING FOR WILD ANIMALS

Shom has a trusting relationship with his keeper, Alec. Their bond revolves around an animal care plan at the Park Zoo that’s based on positive reinforcement, such as food and touch instead of punishment, force or coercion.

“The lions need to partake in their own healthcare,” Alec said. “These guys are like my family, and I want them to live long, happy, healthy lives, and that’s what positive reinforcement is really for. It’s what allows me to come in and make sure that Shom gets fluids and his kidneys are functioning right and that he’s going to continue to thrive.”

Alec started training Shom by touching the 483-pound lion with his index finger, then with a needle-like tool to help prepare him for the medical procedure. When Shom stood still, he received a treat. If he moved away, he was not punished but released back into his main habitat. That slow, voluntary progress is what positive reinforcement training typically looks like.

So maybe I missunderstand how you used the term 'pet' because you compare the animals with a dog in this context. Sorry for that.

 

[giu94]

I been going on that this game needs more care on the animals so they become like a pet so we care for them more. People getting bored cause they do all the same thing again and again. why dont they put in more TLC into the animals? Give them more behaviour bring them closer to the real thing?

More TLC with what is going on in the environment in the zoo? So players will stop and take a look at those things? Have a system where there is wildlife flocking to areas of the zoo making it their home.

Why can't they do this? Look at Sims 4 Dogs dlc? So simple and player spent hundred of hours caring and doing things for their pet so why can't this also happen for the animals. Bring the player close to the animal create a bond? Cause right now after they seen everything it just gets boring.

There is alot more that can be done in this area to make the zoo fun and alive again!

More things for the guest to do in the park! More things that players can manage for them! Why can't they do this??? Then just release 1-2 animals???

They can bring up updates like bringing life to the ponds in the park have you notice its lifeless???

Like this if each enclousure was brought to life like this players will go crazy! More things to do in the pond then just water.....more things to see and do for guess and animal! Just more things!

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsOsfU4G5ok

RIDING ANIMALS PLAYERS CAN MAKE A ZOO WHERE GUESS CAN DO THIS!!! More adventure for players to build that special trip!

THESE ARE ANIMAL ENCOUNTERS THAT CAN USED AS DLC SO PLAYER WHO HAVE SPECIFIC ANIMAL ENCOUNTER CAN BUY THOSE DLC.
Quality content is what we are looking for not just basic content or content like with EA where its $40 for some small little pack players get MAD at this

Management Game
Have a look at Project Hospital and the management they have there. Each DLC is a new type of management area for the hospital. Why can't PZ be like that too with some of its dlc? Expand on the management and people will go crazy for it! Expand on more complicated things and people will go crazy on it.

It will take time but these are good quality DLC that players will love as shown with other indie developer. So they got the right perspective of what makes a good management game. And if PZ do not do this then some developer will bring it out as i seen it happen! Look at sim city and how they never really listen to players feedback. And then Cities skyline came along and blow the expectation of players. So much more depth and things to do.

I hope frontier will not just let this slip by.

Prehistoric kingdom is one such indie developer with a deeper management system.

I agree for some things, but riding animals at zoo is a terrible idea :/ not fair at all. But having animals interacting with guests would be super cool.

 

[Spiderhawk]

StenellaDolphin.
Reading your post I had some thoughts.
I played sims4 pets and enjoyed it, are you suggesting the sim and pet bond or training could be similar to keepers and certain animals. Just curious where you are going with it.
cities Skylines is one of my favorite game and I love how it knocked sim city 2013 right out of the park. Colossal Order I’ve noted has listened to fans and been able to deliver at slow and steady paces while keeping their Facebook in communication with fans. They have added requests when possible but kept the game fun during the time period between dlc content.
While PH has been in development for a while and with a smaller team, I’m wondering if they will blow expectations over PZ.
PZ should realize, cities skylines has bird aviarys for their zoos and so can PZ! Lol
I think there should be an educator staff member who can do talks on animals or encourage animals to come up closer to guest viewing during said talks.

 

[delete account]

Do people just ignore the fact that with every DLC there's a huge update?

Yeah lets just forget that if they did not done these huge updates the game would be a disaster. Just think about the first weeks when the game went out. If they just left it with that Frontier would be out of business within no time.

 

[LN]

Yeah lets just forget that if they did not done these huge updates the game would be a disaster. Just think about the first weeks when the game went out. If they just left it with that Frontier would be out of business within no time.

Makes me wonder why Ubisoft and EA are still around.
With other words, that would most probably not happen.

 

[Swjosdotschka]

PZ should realize, cities skylines has bird aviarys for their zoos and so can PZ! Lol

That is absolutly comparing apples with oranges. Did I miss the irony in your post or are you serious? The animals in Cities are barely seeable and are just a bunch of random loop animations.

Animals in PT react to their enviorment, need path finding, have a huge amount of quality sound and graphics. So comparing this two games in this aspect does not make sense in the slightest. There goes A LOT more programing in the animalspf PZ.

 

[Spiderhawk]

That is absolutly comparing apples with oranges. Did I miss the irony in your post or are you serious? The animals in Cities are barely seeable and are just a bunch of random loop animations.

Animals in PT react to their enviorment, need path finding, have a huge amount of quality sound and graphics. So comparing this two games in this aspect does not make sense in the slightest. There goes A LOT more programing in the animalspf PZ.

Just being funny

 

[Swjosdotschka]

Just being funny

Oh, I see. Sorry for not getting it, but we had people on here that actually were serious with similar things, so bare with me please ^^

 

[Spiderhawk]

Oh, I see. Sorry for not getting it, but we had people on here that actually were serious with similar things, so bare with me please ^^

We cool.