I would like that they release more DLCs or at least put more animals in each DLC.....
DLCs
- Thread starter FranzCamillo
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Look, I am pretty convinced Frontier would like to do so also. But their goal is to give us high-quality and diverse animals for this game. That is a lot of work. They must study the animals - in documentaries and (I guess if possible) in local zoos. They have to take pictures and videos of the animals moving, sleeping, beeing agressive, playing, swimming and now diving. A lot of recherche work here. They draw "story boards" of how the animal will behave ingame. Then they must build new rigs and meshes or alter the already existing ones. These need to be animated. And another team creates skins and shaders. Not to speak of sounddesign. This is a hole lot of work for three months. Frontier isn't a roman galley where someone just hits the drums faster. And no, you can't use the people who do the building pieces or the plants to do more animals. These are totally different specialized teams. I'm fine with the DLC content, because they are doing high quality work. All it requires of us is patience (and of course a few bucks each couple of months). I know not everyone will like this, but that's how it is.
Catch 22 - more animals, more time and money to make. More time and money equal longer waits in between DLC and presumably a higher selling price. Which, in turn, produce hand wringing that the developers have abandoned the game/that the game is dead/why is it taking so long and "too expensive" and other similar responses.
Personally, I don't understand the desire for more animals. In all likelihood, we would end up with the same number of new species each year, we would just instead have fewer, more expensive DLCs. I think that rigging video has causes a lot of confusion about how long it takes to make an animal. As mentioned above, the research needed to bring these animals to life goes waaay beyond just rigging, so adding a couple more animals per pack probably isn't a difference of a few extra days in between DLCs, but weeks. People already complain about the game getting stale in between DLCs. Plus, they probably did some thorough market research before launch and found that people would be more willing to buy cheaper, smaller DLCs on a more frequent basis than fewer, more expensive, larger DLCs.
I like the current DLC format, it is at an easily digestible price point for me, and the frequency means a more steady flow of new content than if they went the larger but fewer route.
I like the current DLC format, it is at an easily digestible price point for me, and the frequency means a more steady flow of new content than if they went the larger but fewer route.
I've said it a number of times before but I think a monthly surprise animal would be a great compromise if it really is impossible to add more animals - and we don't know that is the case - to each DLC.
They could be relatively low-impact work wise like a black and white ruffed lemur or a Brazilian tapir.
They could be relatively low-impact work wise like a black and white ruffed lemur or a Brazilian tapir.
If the reason they can’t/won’t release a standalone animal like a black-and-white ruffed lemur or Malayan tapir is just because of the research aspect for zoopedia purposes, literally I’ll do it 
Well, the hope would certainly be true that as time goes on, they can modify them a little faster, but there's still quite a few missing branches of the animal worlds. Meerkats, Sloths, , Wombats, Moose, Capybara and Porcupines (and other larger rodents), civets, badgers, small cat species, Wolverines, (not to mention birds and fully marine animals) would all have to come from new rigs I'd imagine. Of course, the animal world is much wider than that, but those are some popular animals mentioned a bit.
No reason we couldn't get a white or black rhino fairly easily though.
I don’t quite understand how people think how easy these “re-skins” would be. I might give you the tapir and white ruffed lemurs, but most of these examples are quite different. The white/black rhino would need unique behaviors and it’s certainly not a simple remake. Would deer just go off the reindeer? If so, not really all that simple.
Most of the reskins would not be a simple color fix(and because of variants it would be multiple shades per species). It would require new behaviors, sounds, zoopedia entries, reshaping of certain rigs to fit the somewhat major differences of the animals(Black rhino has dual horns, no armor plates, and a different size, etc) requirements, coat/skin textures, and more.
I want more animals too, but it’s not a simple make an Indian Rhino into a Black Rhino and give it to us.
No, it definitely shouldn't be just a renaming and putting on a new coat of paint, so to speak- there should be some modification involved with all animals as there's a reason they are taxonomically (is that a word?) unique. but it's definitely easy to see that some animals would be easier to modify existing rigs into another animal. As well as behavior coding and needs. The Rhino is a great example. Seals would require a new rig I can imagine, I'd be shocked if not. But once we have one seal rig it's not too much to imagine it being modified to others in time. I feel that's why kangaroo were left out of the base game, their entire skeletal structure and animation is unique. And I suspect that's a hold up with meerkats as well; the closest in game to them may be the lemurs but I imagine they may just use a new rig completely when (and it better be when and not if) they come.
Of course a new rig will take more time, but people are saying two more penguins and another otter should be included in the announcement thread because they’d be easy. It’s not as if remodels are easy by any means.
The black rhino is 1800 lbs lighter than an Indian rhino and has a much different appearance. That would take major rig modifications.
Having the rig may make it slightly easier, but much much more goes into their animals, and some are acting like it takes “little effort” to make a new animal if a somewhat similar rig exists.
Look, with this pack I'm not even talking sea lions anymore. Of course I would love to have it, but I get it: Frontier needs staple animals to sell dlcs. But you can't just praise yourself for how easy it is to implement new species now and that rigs can be re-used and then not include more common variants in a dlc in addition. Talking harbour seals, humboldt penguins and asian small clawed otters here. No sea lions. No walrusses, that might not even be on Frontiers list because people do not say it loud enough for them to hear it in the back. (I'm from north germany, we have a special relationship with walrusses).
I just don't get it, sorry. I KNOW they worked hard on the animals we get and I appreciate. But at the moment they seem like school children. Working hard on their duties on one side of the paper but forget to turn it around. And when they see it has another page they look at you startled.
Now, believe me, my building heart beats faster just looking at the pieces. They are stunning, perfect, I can not wait to use them! And I would never want to miss them in any pack. But my animal lover heart, that loves to build diverse and realistic zoos and actually appreciates "reskins", is becoming more and more resignated. This.is.a.zoo.game. Not (only) a building simulator.
The weirdest part about all of this is, that they gave us a wonderful, incredible strong base game with a lot of animals - and the numbre was raised because of "reskins" and it was an absolute brilliant idea. Why on earth do they not follow the same successful pattern with their dlcs? Why do the packs become EA style, minus the overpricing? I can't name any other pack where adding additional species without a bunch load of extra work would have been so easy - and they missed the mark,
And yes, I would have paid more for 3-4 more "reskin" animals. Wholeheartly.
I just don't get it, sorry. I KNOW they worked hard on the animals we get and I appreciate. But at the moment they seem like school children. Working hard on their duties on one side of the paper but forget to turn it around. And when they see it has another page they look at you startled.
Now, believe me, my building heart beats faster just looking at the pieces. They are stunning, perfect, I can not wait to use them! And I would never want to miss them in any pack. But my animal lover heart, that loves to build diverse and realistic zoos and actually appreciates "reskins", is becoming more and more resignated. This.is.a.zoo.game. Not (only) a building simulator.
The weirdest part about all of this is, that they gave us a wonderful, incredible strong base game with a lot of animals - and the numbre was raised because of "reskins" and it was an absolute brilliant idea. Why on earth do they not follow the same successful pattern with their dlcs? Why do the packs become EA style, minus the overpricing? I can't name any other pack where adding additional species without a bunch load of extra work would have been so easy - and they missed the mark,
And yes, I would have paid more for 3-4 more "reskin" animals. Wholeheartly.
I think what RabidOkapi is saying is the assumption on your part seems to be that in the 3 months between the DLC releases they could do more than they are currently doing easily and produce reskin animals alongside the more novel ones (sorry of that's not what you are getting at). You may be right but rigging is one part of a process and the rigs for the animals then get passed on to the artists to render them and then back to the animators to make sure it all works etc. etc. That video talking about the new rigging explained that it took them 3 years to produce the base game dinos for JWE but they came up with a way of speeding up the whole process for the PZ base game. If the development team with the artists is 3 people then it doesn't matter how much faster the basic rigging gets done - there's a bottleneck. The implicit assumption you are making is that if they wanted to they could, within their current team and resources, expand the current DLC with more animals but we don't know that they have the staff to do that or that it would be financially viable for them to do so.
Your comment on them praising themselves is the bit I find a bit off - they are proud of an innovation that allowed them to produce this game and they talk about it in a video linked to campaign to recruit new staff. It shouldn't be used to say 'ah so it's easier than you thought, that means you can do more'. It's the equivalent of a new restaurant opening and announcing it's specialty is cooking pies that most places would need 2 hours to produce in half the time so they can serve you faster with a wider range of pies. That's the USP Then you going in and demanding that because they've said they can do it faster they should be able to give you 4x as many pies in half the time. Maybe they actually could and the cooks have some down time, maybe they can't and cooks are rushed off their feet, maybe the cooking isn't the bottleneck at all and now it's the deliveries and storage or the number of waiters. The point is none of us know.
I should add I'd be happy with more animals too and like you I would pay more but not everyone is as lucky as I am and they may be going with small packs to keep the price point low so they can sell more to people who have less money to spend and who couldn't pay more for the extra reskins and wouldn't be happy to. This forum is awesome because everyone is so passionate about the game but it's also an echo chamber for the same reasons.
Just jumping in ti say I know that there is more ti a new animal than the rig. But as I said, with the ones naped even the sounds etc. woudln't be so different. And in my opinion we are at a point were Frontier needs to invest more (manpower) to make this gane a success. And I still think it can be one and can be a money machine. But it feels like they are missing oppurtunity after oppurtunity.
Aquatic animals will bring a lot of players back and that is great! But I doubt four animals will keep them here longer.
Aquatic animals will bring a lot of players back and that is great! But I doubt four animals will keep them here longer.
Agreed that they may not be so different, but will still take there own research to understand all of the behaviours, colour variations, sounds, etc. Having research on another animal will not help on this front, they may be able to share some animations, but they first need to spend the time finding out what the natural behaviours are for the new species. I also doubt they reuse vocalizations between species and likely record new audio for each. Another time consuming step.
I can't see anyway they could cut corners on the research side of things, which likely take most of time for designing a new animal.
I can see it both ways. But here’s the problem with the simple reskins. When you look at the base game with the two brown bear subspecies this didn’t sit well with a lot of people. Same could be said with the additions of the Arctic wolf and dingo. Although unique in their own way it was very similar to the animals currently in game as opposed to a maned wolf for example. Now me personally I’m a fan of the Sumatran tiger as it’s a very popular zoo animal in some regions. A lot of other people say no thanks we currently have two already. Same with a giraffe subspecies and so on. The one exception being the Malayan tapir for the most part which seems to be a favorite. I wouldn’t object this animal of course but my actual fav tapir is the Brazilian. Anyway if you look back at zoo tycoon 2013 the major problem was subspecies. At first I didn’t mind because I thought we’d get more and more animals. But when that didn’t happen the disappointment settled in. I get it the game was for console and it was cheaper to reproduce animals. But a shame because the game could have been so much more. It would have been better to feature 40-50 unique animals as opposed to 100 reskins. Lesson learned quality and variety are the way to go imo. Even if it means less overall at the end of the day.
They made the Orang walk like a Gorilla though. The elephants share the exact same animations. That doesn't seem to me like they really put that much effort into researching what seems to them similar species. And believe me, the zoopedia entry doesn't take that long.
And honestly, maybe we wouldn't need a dlc every 3 month if the dlcs we got were more sunstancial and get players occupied for longer. The price point is also no argument fpr me, to be fair. Look at the Sims. People are absolutely willing to buy bigger expansions for their game - with EA obviously even if they are overpriced and half-baked.
Tailoring DLCs is not only a thing of dedication and emotions. Tailoring DLCs involves product management, marketing and sales guys as you know. Thus, I am pretty sure that the DLC model for PZ is mostly directed at the 10 €/ USD etc. price point to have a low downside risk when producing DLCs and to attract more people by a low price point per DLC as possible. It could also be a lesson learned from previous games, esp. JWE, for which DLCs at higher price points may not have gained enough success.
However, I am with many other content creators that have (recently) stated that a bigger DLCs (more animals, more new mechanics etc.) could lead to a much sustainable success (renewed push) for the game. As the biggest content creator for PZ said yesterday: A bigger aquatic DLC could have been like a second release for the game.
Whoever said that put it perfectly. I agree. It would have been a complete refreshment of the hype. Now many people are comming back, yes. But I am unfortunately absolutely sure we will hear the same "I've burned out of this game" by the same people in 8 weeks after release anyway.
Will happen with a bigger expansion as well. Maybe for some people (including me) that means you just have to stop playing for a while. This is an "issue" with most games.
The Sims and Maxis have a huge following - 20 years of building a fanbase is not the best comparison with Frontier and the Planet franchise - which isn't that well known. TheSims is a milestone in video games.
I think the Sims DLC is overpriced (at least some packs) but outside TheSims which other expansions are overpriced and half-baked?
Most people have an issue with microtransactions/lootboxes - not content - which is a choice.
And people are spending more money on these every single year - so while people complain, they still buy it.
Don't get me wrong - i think EA is setting a bad example for years when it comes to pricing the base game/season pass and the gambling. But when it comes to expansions, not much difference with other publishers.
Agree with this. PC strategy seemed to work for Frontier.
For most games I'm not willing to pay € 40,- in 1 purchase, while € 10,- every couple of months is fine.
For the big expansions I usually wait for the discount weeks (or it has to be something really special or highly wished). When I played Ark most people bought the expansion packs in discount weeks - only few bought it at full price.
The biggest problem would be creating a huge expansion pack for € 40,- and only few are willing to pay that price. That's a big gamble and not sure if a publicly traded company would do that. (don't know who pointed this out but the traded company argument is nice POV to consider sometimes)