Summer DLC Discussion? Summer DLC Discussion!

[Veah]

From the meta wishlist:

1. Amur Leopard
2. Przewalski's Horse
33. Scimitar-Horned Oryx
55. Siamang (sharing the spot with the Nile Crocodile)

Despite this pack not being exactly to my taste, I am very happy and grateful that Frontier listens to its community time and time again.

Well, the siamang could be consider to fill the Lar gibbon 6th place, this pack is a beast, Meta Wishlist's nemesis

In fact, I don't want to spoil the fun, but just sharing my fears:
Isn't this pack too much good?? Like, any of those 4 habitat animals could have been the main star of its own pack with other 3 or 6 species (depending on if scenery or animal DLC)... Doesn't it feel a bit like throwing all the great stuff at the end of the party?

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

Well, the siamang could be consider to fill the Lar gibbon 6th place, this pack is a beast, Meta Wishlist's nemesis

In fact, I don't want to spoil the fun, but just sharing my fears:
Isn't this pack too much good?? Like, any of those 4 habitat animals could have been the main star of its own pack with other 3 or 6 species (depending on if scenery or animal DLC)... Doesn't it feel a bit like throwing all the great stuff at the end of the party?

While i totally understand, it honestly makes sense with the theme, the fact that ots a scenery pack and the ressources invested.
It wouldnt be a stretch to say that most of the work went into the scenery and brachiation, so to compensate they picked two super popular but rather easy to make animals and a cool, thematicly fitting antilope with medium popularity.
In other words, we got 1 completly new animals, two super popular "clones" (ik they still put a lovely amount of effort into them but you know what i mean) and a cool antelope that many would have groaned about in another context.

But what this also does is free up space in likly biome packs for the future for more interesting or even similar animals.
While before addax and SHO have been a deal of one or the other, now they could easily get away with adding the addax as well in a desert pack.
A possible grassland pack also got a space freed up and a bunch of possible head liners like the maned wolf, saiga (which notably isnt here) or the secretary bird.
The Siamang spearheaded brachiation, making its slot in a future dlc easily available the spider monkeys, the equally flagshipable sloths or even just another gibbon species.
And lastly, with the leopard we got all panthera species and people will finally stop asking for them.

So yeah, this pack roster doesnt feel like its limiting the future but elevating possible future packs by taking out must includes early while still leaving enough big numbers for their respective likly packs.
So yeah, kick ass scenary pack,brachiation and better dlc in the future?
Now thats a win win win scenario for literally everybody

 

[yoav_r]

Well, the siamang could be consider to fill the Lar gibbon 6th place, this pack is a beast, Meta Wishlist's nemesis

In fact, I don't want to spoil the fun, but just sharing my fears:
Isn't this pack too much good?? Like, any of those 4 habitat animals could have been the main star of its own pack with other 3 or 6 species (depending on if scenery or animal DLC)... Doesn't it feel a bit like throwing all the great stuff at the end of the party?

I have the same fear, unfortunately, but well, only time will tell. Honestly, they were looking for animals which are:

1. Popular
2. Endangered
3. Are a conservation success stories
4. Are common in zoos

With these in mind it really limits your potential choices, as most popular animals are not endangered, and many endangered animals are not in zoos (hi there Saigas).

 

[GreenRocket]

Hello,
Does anyone think that maybe the free update coming alongside the pack will include "zookeeper mode"? I have a funny feeling about this. The announcement trailer states "Embrace the role of conservation" while showing a very close-up image of a zookeeper at work. I know there have been other trailers that show the keepers, but none quite like this. Also, I think it was mentioned that we are getting "backstage items", I think that is the word they used. What better way to embrace a role than to allow the players to actually go backstage to work?

They did give us the new Explore Mode camera a while ago, it could have been laying the groundwork for "zookeeper mode". Perhaps we will be able to work as other staff members too.

I would be ecstatic about Zookeeper Mode, and I know it has been requested before. I very much hope this will eventually be added to Planet Zoo.

 

[DarthQuell]

Hello,
Does anyone think that maybe the free update coming alongside the pack will include "zookeeper mode"? I have a funny feeling about this. The announcement trailer states "Embrace the role of conservation" while showing a very close-up image of a zookeeper at work. I know there have been other trailers that show the keepers, but none quite like this. Also, I think it was mentioned that we are getting "backstage items", I think that is the word they used. What better way to embrace a role than to allow the players to actually go backstage to work?

They did give us the new Explore Mode camera a while ago, it could have been laying the groundwork for "zookeeper mode". Perhaps we will be able to work as other staff members too.

I would be ecstatic about Zookeeper Mode, and I know it has been requested before. I very much hope this will eventually be added to Planet Zoo.

If this is the case, it's a wonderful addition. But, I'm not gonna expect it, just so that I'm not hyped up, then disappointed

 

[yoav_r]

If this is the case, it's a wonderful addition. But, I'm not gonna expect it, just so that I'm not hyped up, then disappointed

Plus, it's not so practical in PZ. In ZT2 you had one click for all tasks, and there was no staff buildings. Here there is a building you have to get to to di every task.

 

[jcp011c]

Well, the siamang could be consider to fill the Lar gibbon 6th place, this pack is a beast, Meta Wishlist's nemesis

In fact, I don't want to spoil the fun, but just sharing my fears:
Isn't this pack too much good?? Like, any of those 4 habitat animals could have been the main star of its own pack with other 3 or 6 species (depending on if scenery or animal DLC)... Doesn't it feel a bit like throwing all the great stuff at the end of the party?

I do worry about that. I commented elsewhere there aren't a lot of "big draw/star" animals we have left that aren't from Oceania or birds or marine. I figured we'd get the Przewalski's Horse and Amur (or other species) Leopard this year but I really did think they'd be in two different packs.

 

[becks474]

Flagship animals are always a bit overrated. I mean we had a beaver and the sun bear as flagship animals. And to be honest normally the Cabypara is also not a typical number 1 pick for a pack. On the other hand we still have the Emu, the Dromedary, the Tasmanian Devil which all work very well for this. Further we have the sloth, a baboon, porcupines (I mean beavers were used), the red river hog, wombat, the musk ox, red deer and some of the habitat birds. So I do not see any problems with flagships.
In fact last years summer DLC has even used more popular animals than this pack. Meerkats and White Rhino, which clearly could have been a separate flagship, were also number 1 and 2 and the Fennec when I remember right also under the top 10 (at least top 20).

 

[DarthQuell]

Yeah. When I do a hypothetical pack and I choose the flagship/star animal/s, I used to choose popular choices on the meta-wishlist, but lately, especially after the North American pack, I've kinda done a mix of something popular, but that'll better represent the pack's theme.

Like, in NAAP's case, I would've made the moose or the puma as the stars, but they placed the beaver in frotn

 

[arafan]

This pack is a real surprise, as I really would have expected it to be one of the last ones to be released, as an animal pack with more representantes of more continents.
Even though I'm not that excited for the roster (I mean, the oryx is great, but the lack of a bird is a bit sad), but the siamangs alone alone is amazing and of the few pictures they shared it looks so realistic! It may be one of my new favorites.
I'm feeling a bit strange about the fact that the update announcement will be after the DLC announcement, I really hope this game has a bright future for this and the next year.

 

[jcp011c]

This pack is a real surprise, as I really would have expected it to be one of the last ones to be released, as an animal pack with more representantes of more continents.
Even though I'm not that excited for the roster (I mean, the oryx is great, but the lack of a bird is a bit sad), but the siamangs alone alone is amazing and of the few pictures they shared it looks so realistic! It may be one of my new favorites.
I'm feeling a bit strange about the fact that the update announcement will be after the DLC announcement, I really hope this game has a bright future for this and the next year.

Yeah we don't even know what the update will bring, except likely brachiation. Which will probably only be extended to orangutan at this point.

Kind of exciting actually. I'm really hoping for more shops this time around.

 

[SalamAnders]

While they are all popular animals, 3 of them are also very easy to make from animals we already got. Those 3 even all share a genus with at least one species already in game. I guess we have never been closer to a "clone" pack.

So they could go with 3 easy to do but popular species, or they could have went with less popular choices which might have been more time consuming. So I understand why they did it like this.
Because of that I don't think this means we are nearing the end.

Also new "complicated" behavior like the Siamang got to some extent, usually opens the door for species which we didn't consider as options before. Just like how the meerkat helped the prairie dog find its way to the game.

Warning: I wrote this at 6 in the morning, so the grammar might be bad

 

[peafowl]

If the game ends here with just 7 birds then idk lol. I would be extremely disappointed.

 

[FoxyDee]

I dont agree that there are not enough headliner animals left. Sloths, Porcupines, Maned Wolves, Tasmanian Devils, Wolverines, Birds in general and alot of others are still highly requested animals that could easily headline a pack. Plus North America and Africa also had most of its animals from the top of the meta-wishlist and it did not mean the end either.
The species chosen here are all kind of conservation icons, and happened to be on the top of the wishlist at the same time, so it makes sense they got chosen. Also, looks like they saved themself the Tasmanian Devil for something.

 

[TheHippoGirl]

We never know of course but I'm quite optimistic we're not nearing the end of support for the game. There are still so many requested animals and so many things they could do. Why would they stop making DLCs if they keep selling well? Moreover, when I see the efforts they are still putting to make the game better after more than two years, it doesn't feel to me like they are almost done with it. Maybe I'm too optimistic, only future will tell - but I think it's very possible we could get more DLCs in 2023.

 

[Ratman01]

Looking forward to the new DLC but I also think that a few critically endangered animals have Been missed, like the animals from New Zealand. The Kiwi about 68000 population, the Kakapo 124 population (large flightless bird), white heron 100-140 population, bat unknown population, southern elephant seal 250 population, and there are many other sea animals that are endangered more seals and dolphins and whales (might be abit big for a zoo), the kiwi is currently in a breeding program where the flightless birds a released into predator free areas, then these the Tuatara a lizard that has the name of "living fossil " with a population of about 60000, please don't forget about us at the bottom of the world.

 

[PeppyPepp]

My gut tells me today will be update announcement. My gut also said this will be an animal pack so...

 

[yoav_r]

Looking forward to the new DLC but I also think that a few critically endangered animals have Been missed, like the animals from New Zealand. The Kiwi about 68000 population, the Kakapo 124 population (large flightless bird), white heron 100-140 population, bat unknown population, southern elephant seal 250 population, and there are many other sea animals that are endangered more seals and dolphins and whales (might be abit big for a zoo), the kiwi is currently in a breeding program where the flightless birds a released into predator free areas, then these the Tuatara a lizard that has the name of "living fossil " with a population of about 60000, please don't forget about us at the bottom of the world.

I'd love NZ animals, but they don't go well with the theme. All animals chosen in this pack are famous and very succesful conservation stories, and also animals very common in zoos.

 

[PeppyPepp]

I'm going to be a bit of a Debbie Downer...This update and pack really aren't my cup of tea. Out of all the updates and DLCs, this is by far my least favorite. I don't dislike it, it just doesn't appeal to me. The only good thing out of the update is the smaller shops and the small habitat gates. Sure, the education stands are cool and all, but it'll end up just being another thing you put down and then forget about it. There's no real gameplay behind it. Guests taking pictures is...fine? I could do without it, and I feel it's not really a needed addition to the game. I barely use primates in my zoos so the new climbing items and brachiation weren't exactly my top priority. I do look forward to the new animals (especially the leopard), and I hope the building pieces are great.

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

I'm going to be a bit of a Debbie Downer...This update and pack really aren't my cup of tea. Out of all the updates and DLCs, this is by far my least favorite. I don't dislike it, it just doesn't appeal to me. The only good thing out of the update is the smaller shops and the small habitat gates. Sure, the education stands are cool and all, but it'll end up just being another thing you put down and then forget about it. There's no real gameplay behind it. Guests taking pictures is...fine? I could do without it, and I feel it's not really a needed addition to the game. I barely use primates in my zoos so the new climbing items and brachiation weren't exactly my top priority. I do look forward to the new animals (especially the leopard), and I hope the building pieces are great.

What about the new sniffing behaviour, affecting allmost all animals and making them able to interact with every object we place, also animating them to use more of their habitats?
Thats honestly my favourite Part, as it is a good step into deeper and more diverse animal behaviour, which is honestly something everybody can appreciate.