Anyone else than me who prefers not so usual animals?

peafowl

P
As in animals that are rare in captivity.

I see a lot of people wish for certain species because they are so common in zoos, which I totally understand. You want to build for realism or maybe for animals that you see in zoos around you, and Frontier wants to make money and go with a lot of safe bets that they know the majority will love.

But on the other hand this game is about conservation, and big part of conservation is awareness. I 100 percent agree that they should only include animals that do well in captivity, but I really love it when they pick an animal that is unusual to see. There can be many reasons they're uncommon, specific requirements, breeding is tricky, they're endangered, and so on. And these are factors that play a big role in the game already.

I would love to hear everyones opinion on this, I know it's not black and white. I too of course have some common in zoos favorites, but the rarer ones always tend to take most of my interest.
 

FoxyDee

FoxyDee
Yeah I like the unusual and lesser known animals, that is what I really liked about SEA pack. I feel like Frontier does amazing job at including all the fan favourites (especially in the last few packs) while throwing some oddballs into the mix. It is a great way to teach people about these animals. I did not know much about cassowaries or babirusas before they came into PZ and now they are among my favourites animals in game and even made me more interested in them in real life, where before I would just pass on them on my regular zoo trip, now I am eager to see those animals in real life.

From a pure gameplay perspective, I also think its important to have both commonly kept species as well as some more unique ones, because maybe you just feel like creating a zoo that is well-known for keeping unusual animal. It is nice for creating varied zoo backstories.
 

DarthQuell

DarthQuell
Yes, totally.

Like, yeah, ok, a puma and gator, they're important for a US zoo. I'm happy for these.

But, I also love obsvure species. The binturong was awesome, the dhole was awesome, the giant otter was awesome (don't hate me).

But to be fair, I'm happy with any pack, even an all gray wolf subspecies pack, so yeah...


But anyways, a pack like SEA, stuffed with unknown animals would be amazing to me
 

nutrit

nutrit
I love’em most 🤩
I’d super excited with inclusion of Sumatran rhino or saiga.
I loved all obscure animals that were added to the game already, like giant otter (love them to pieces), pangolin, Dhole or babirusa.
The more the better! Bing’em all 🤩
 
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NZFanatic

NZFanatic
I like a mix of both, and it depends on the context. I've long been an advocate for the Sumatran rhinoceros, and I love the proboscis monkey, but I felt let down by the giant otter because it's the only otter. Both the rhinoceros and monkey would be just one of several options for their respective families, but right now the giant otter is what we're stuck with even though hardly any zoos keep them.
 

biggest_dreamer

biggest_dreamer
Both big name and obscure animals have their merits. In a real zoo, I almost always spend the majority of my time with the more obscure animals. And I fully appreciate all of the ones we've gotten in the game. But at the same time, you'd be hard pressed to find a real zoo whose main crowd-drawers include a binturong, pangolin, and nyala. That's why those big ABC animals are so important, they're the lifeblood of the zoo. So when it comes to building zoos, we really need as many super-recognizable big cats, dogs, bears, iconic hoofstock, etc. as we can get. Thankfully, though, we've nearly exhausted the list of the true all star species, so hopefully that means we can start truly focusing on the lesser species. As others have said, the SEA pack was a godsend for that purpose.
 

SanRazo618

SanRazo618
I’m all for them! I like to role play that my zoo is well known for the fact that they can hold an obscure in captivity species. So bring them on!
 

nutrit

nutrit
NZFanatic said:
I like a mix of both, and it depends on the context. I've long been an advocate for the Sumatran rhinoceros, and I love the proboscis monkey, but I felt let down by the giant otter because it's the only otter. Both the rhinoceros and monkey would be just one of several options for their respective families, but right now the giant otter is what we're stuck with even though hardly any zoos keep them.
Click to expand...
I’m not sure how it’s in America but in Europe Giant otters are quite common and are present in 21 zoo’s so they are maybe not as common as small clawed otter but still present and not so rare.
 

NZFanatic

NZFanatic
nutrit said:
I’m not sure how it’s in America but in Europe Giant otters are quite common and are present in 21 zoo’s so they are maybe not as common as small clawed otter but still present and not so rare.
Click to expand...
Every other otter is still more common.
 

KönigDerKaffeebohnen

K
Just gonna leave this here
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arafan

A
I also think we need a mix of both, but the Proboscis monkey shouldn't have been included, as it is so rare in captivity. There are also so many other SEA primate species which are lesser known but more common in captivity. The babirusa and giant otter were some very good decisions, they have stable populations in zoos, even though they are rarely seen and a lot of people don't even know about their existence. But I wouldn't be too keen on seeing Sumatran rhino, saiga, saola and brown- throated sloth, for example. I really think they deserve a lot more attention but I'm really not sure if it would help in anything.
 

Ounze

O
Indeed. I think showing off the strange helps create a thirst for more (in people IRL). Because it makes you wonder what else might live if this strange thing does. Like (Bombardier) beetles that basically fart boiling liquid. Or a carnivorous mouse (Grasshopper mice), or a rodent-like thing with hooves (Hyrax).
 

biggest_dreamer

biggest_dreamer
arafan said:
I also think we need a mix of both, but the Proboscis monkey shouldn't have been included, as it is so rare in captivity. There are also so many other SEA primate species which are lesser known but more common in captivity. The babirusa and giant otter were some very good decisions, they have stable populations in zoos, even though they are rarely seen and a lot of people don't even know about their existence. But I wouldn't be too keen on seeing Sumatran rhino, saiga, saola and brown- throated sloth, for example. I really think they deserve a lot more attention but I'm really not sure if it would help in anything.
Click to expand...
I agree with this. There's a pretty stark difference between those "common enough" animals that simply aren't recognized by most people (binturong, babirusa, dhole, giant otter, nyala, bongo, cassowary, etc. etc. etc.) and a species that is almost nonexistent in captivity. There's plenty of other species they could have gone with that would work in realistic zoos that aren't restricted to a single geographic region.

It's especially rough considering how few monkeys are in the game to begin with, and now we've got one that has a very limited use case.
 

becks474

B
I like both. I would like to have the further classics (dromedary, baboon, Leopard, small Otter, ...) but I also would like to have some more or less exotics (Dik Dik, aye aye, mara, ...). In the game I really like the Dall sheep and also the "creepy" Otter
 

yoav_r

yoav_r
peafowl said:
As in animals that are rare in captivity.

I see a lot of people wish for certain species because they are so common in zoos, which I totally understand. You want to build for realism or maybe for animals that you see in zoos around you, and Frontier wants to make money and go with a lot of safe bets that they know the majority will love.

But on the other hand this game is about conservation, and big part of conservation is awareness. I 100 percent agree that they should only include animals that do well in captivity, but I really love it when they pick an animal that is unusual to see. There can be many reasons they're uncommon, specific requirements, breeding is tricky, they're endangered, and so on. And these are factors that play a big role in the game already.

I would love to hear everyones opinion on this, I know it's not black and white. I too of course have some common in zoos favorites, but the rarer ones always tend to take most of my interest.
Click to expand...
So generally speaking, most zoos have both omni-present animals (emus, lemurs, alligators), local regional fauna, and "stars" (pandas, jaguars)...
The unusual animals would usuallybe the rare and exotic stars in real life zoos (the giant otters for example), but when we are lacking a few omni-present animals it hinders us from building realistic zoos.

What I say is I'd like a mix of common and uncommon.
 
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