Alright, let's get serious about birds...

[TheDuckKnight]

Okay, FIRSTLY, let me be very clear, I AM very excited about the new pack. The scenery and new foliage are BREATHTAKING. And for what it is, I think the roster is imperfect but strong. Honestly, at the end, the continuation of PZ in any capacity is a win for the entire community.

NOW, WITH THAT SAID.

How are we feeling as a community about birds? And not just flying birds, but birds in general. Personally, it does feel like if there was ever a pack to implement flying birds in WE, it have a been this one.

With that said, I understand the practicality of sloths in WEs, and completely acknowledge their needed presence in the game - sloths are by far the most iconic species hold-out amongst the mammals, and they have major, major appeal being so many people's favorite animals. So that's why I can't be too mad. PZ needed sloths, the current habitat system doesn't properly accommodate them, WE are the only solution.
It's just unfortunate they took the slot from our first potential flying birds - especially in a theme where they'd fit so well.

I think a lot of folks in the bird camp are feeling a similar way: we don't want to sound ungrateful or whiny or copium-filled, but we also want to express constructive criticism about our fine feathered friends.

From my perspective, Planet Zoo is the best zoo game ever - we are never going to get a game this quintessential to the genre ever again. But the absence of birds - flighted or otherwise - just feels like a glaring omission on having a truly perfect Zoo simulation experience.
Personally, I feel birds are vital part of any zoo, and their lack in the game is a bit detrimental to my experience. I LOVE this game, but without birds, it ceilings at 9/10 or A-, for me.

So where do go from here?
How can we illustrate to Frontier our desires without sounding like trollish lunatics?
Would pressing them for more transparency on the feasibility of flying bird mechanics work? A hard no may be hard to swallow, but at least we would have an answer. They take no issues in continuously stating there are no plans for a console release, so maybe the same level of transparency could be reflected here.
Maybe a revision to the ever popular Meta-Wishlist to include flying birds could implemented?

What do we all think? And let's keep this a safe space for pragmatic, softer-toned responses. Birds are very sensitive topic around here, so let's keep it cool...like a penguin.

 

[NachoB]

By now, if they trully read the forums, they should be well aware of the claim for birds (and not just flying birds), yet they keep choosing not to include them in their packs other than obviuos options like the emu (because it was a glaring omission from the Australia pack). So either they have a plan to make a bird focus DLC in the future or they just don't like developing birds and just decided they don't care about them to add them to the game.

 

[TheDuckKnight]

So either they have a plan to make a bird focus DLC in the future or they just don't like developing birds and just decided they don't care about them to add them to the game.

Lol I can picture the one developer who loves birds that the rest of them make eat lunch alone at the office

 

[DarthQuell]

What if feathers are hard to animate? Yes, JWE 2 has feathers species, but if I'm not mistaken, that's another development group, right?
Maybe the PZ team hasn't had much experience with feathered animals?

But yes, I would like more birds. I think we're at a point where it'll be too late to fill in the gaps, but we can at least get a huge jump forward with an avian DLC and maybe 1 bird per other DLC

 

[NachoB]

What if feathers are hard to animate? Yes, JWE 2 has feathers species, but if I'm not mistaken, that's another development group, right?
Maybe the PZ team hasn't had much experience with feathered animals?

But yes, I would like more birds. I think we're at a point where it'll be too late to fill in the gaps, but we can at least get a huge jump forward with an avian DLC and maybe 1 bird per other DLC

Ok but, why we have a peafowl but no other galliform since, like a pheasant? We have ostrichs and emus, and still no rhea. We have cassowary but no kiwi. We got the japanese crane but not the grey crowned crane. What i mean is, that they could've included a bird that doesn't require that much the classical feather work in every pack yet we still don't have ducks, swans, ibises, spoonbills, storks, guineafowls or even the secretary bird.

 

[DarthQuell]

Ok but, why we have a peafowl but no other galliform since, like a pheasant? We have ostrichs and emus, and still no rhea. We have cassowary but no kiwi. We got the japanese crane but not the grey crowned crane. What i mean is, that they could've included a bird that doesn't require that much the classical feather work in every pack yet we still don't have ducks, swans, ibises, spoonbills, storks, guineafowls or even the secretary bird.

I dunno

 

[NachoB]

Also this is the full list of birds in game:

1 Ostrich
2 Emu
3 Southern cassowary
4 Greater flamingo
5 King penguin
6 African penguin
7 Red crowned crane
8 Indian peafowl

And that's it.... so sad really. The bias is clear.

Oh and two wetlands packs and still no waterfowl lol

 

[jcp011c]

@TheDuckKnight your post summarizes so many of my own thoughts so well. Leaving New World Monkeys (our other big need) to the wayside for now, Birds are right up there in need. I'd love flying birds. I really would, and while I completely understand and have no issues with the Sloth being a WE animal, I think most of us just figured the next exhibit animal would be birds. Now I do have to being to wonder if they're even possible through exhibits and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

But even taking flying/exhibit birds out of the equation, there are still many birds that would be perfectly appropriate for habitat animals, like the Red Crown Crane is. It's like pulling teeth to get any honestly. It almost feels like since we get get flying habitat birds, to just stick with birds incapable of flight. But I'd totally be fine with birds like the Shoebill, Swan, Ibises, the Secretary Bird, Roseate Spoonbill and so forth being in habitats and having the same capabilities of the Red Crown Crane - that is, yes can fly in real life, but not in the game. It's not ideal but it's fine. We just need more.

I think Planet Zoo is a wonderful game and to me is the new high mark for zoo simulators. Honestly is my favorite game ever at this point. If the game ended after this pack, which it's not going to, but if it did, what would I miss most? It's the birds. Granted that includes habitat birds as above as well as things like Macaws and Eagles. There's a handful of mammals I'd like to see but still wouldn't look at the game as feeling incomplete if we didn't get them. As I've said before, the Wombat was the last "must have" mammal for me. But birds are so much a part of zoos, that it's really the one big disappointment from the game, the one thing I truly need more of. In terms of game mechanics I'd like to have customizable exhibits...but I need more birds.

 

[Captain Callum]

My opinion although i tried my best to not trigger our bird lovers:

Funnily enough the forums is actually the nicest place to discuss everything about birds, other social media results to directly insulting frontier and everyone who doesnt support the idea of birds must take centerplace of all future dlc. Frontier is bound to know the community wants birds since most social media bombards every post with birds requests or rather spam at this stage. Without sounding too negative, the best way to voice our opinion on birds is like all the other wishlist threads where we dont degrade each others opinions and speculate actual working themes that birds will realistically fit in.

But constantly pressing frontier to do something with birds just ruins this community as a whole, it looks desperate and sad. We dont know frontiers personal agenda on what they visualise the game to be, maybe they base off animal inclusions based on general community satifaction after a dlc is released by seeing what is tagged on twitter, instagram, reddit etc. If i remeber correctly the red crowned crane was overshadowed by the much much more popular capybara , if its just a couple people loving the new bird on the forums that tells frontier most couldnt care less and value cute mammals over possibly more expensive to make birds.

Im sure #teambirds will get something eventually, it would be weird to receive the walkthrough exhibit with its wide potential and not get any sort of bird. People who have been wanting a non crocodillian reptile since the release of the base game can now rejoice with the asian water monitor. While controversial it is a welcome addition if one has a mindset on the bigger picture of representing as many animal groups as possible, but uh yeah lets look at birds

I have voiced my opinion on flying birds before, personally i really dont think they are possible outside the walkthrough exhibit due to the sheer amount of animations and complex behaviours needed to correctly portray birds naturally. The walkthrough exhibit allows birds to behave like they should using predetermined animations and perches like a preplaced tree, perches, feeders etc. Pretty much like our butterflies which look really good when placed in a lively (lots of animals) exhibit, the more animals you have in the exhibit the less likely you can spot looping patterns.

Do i actually want birds? Yeah of course but they are not essiental to me. I know it can confuse people that a person who loves recreations doesnt actually need birds, why? Well the walkthrough exhibit is absoulty massive in comparison to real life aviaries and not exactly flexible for round or small square aviaries due to the length of the exhibit. For butterfly gardens, bat caves and large bird aviaries it works really well but get into realistic sized box aviaries then you get a big problem especially when these are exhibit animals which ignore all scenery pieces. What about free flight? Ha no the performance is dreadful enough as it is and thats not including say 200 highly detailed birds flapping their wings repeatly. However im all for more habitat birds which is a far more realistic option that free flight

 

[DarthQuell]

What about a half-sized WE? Basically the same thing but half as long and can't house as many animals as a normal WE

 

[Captain Callum]

What about a half-sized WE? Basically the same thing but half as long and can't house as many animals as a normal WE

Add in a quarter sized one while you're at it then that's the perfect small Aviary size

 

[DarthQuell]

Add in a quarter sized one while you're at it then that's the perfect small Aviary size

And the same for standard exhibits. One half the size and maybe a 1/4 size will be perfect

 

[NachoB]

We really need size options for exhibits.

 

[jcp011c]

But constantly pressing frontier to do something with birds just ruins this community as a whole, it looks desperate and sad.

I agree with much on your post but using this to bring some humor in. It looks desperate and sad because we are desperate and sad.

 

[zoomaster1994]

aside from flying birds, which I really doubt we ever gonna get, PZ lacks severely when it comes to birds. Sure we have a pretty solid ratite roster, only missing the Kiwi and the Rhea, both of which could still be coming in a future DLC.

Other birds like wading or waterfowl, chances are getting slimmer sadly. Pelicans, large storks, ground dwelling birds, swans, more cranes? the chances are slim. Pelicans could come in some sort of Coastal animal pack? As well as a third species of penguins? or a tundra animal pack?

 

[jcp011c]

aside from flying birds, which I really doubt we ever gonna get, PZ lacks severely when it comes to birds. Sure we have a pretty solid ratite roster, only missing the Kiwi and the Rhea, both of which could still be coming in a future DLC.

Other birds like wading or waterfowl, chances are getting slimmer sadly. Pelicans, large storks, ground dwelling birds, swans, more cranes? the chances are slim. Pelicans could come in some sort of Coastal animal pack? As well as a third species of penguins? or a tundra animal pack?

Yeah, that's the big thing here. While many of us would love to have flying birds, if they're not technically feasible even in exhibits, there is absolutely no reason that non-flying birds and even larger birds that spend a good amount of time on the ground cannot be added in.

 

[zoosaurus]

I’d pay like 20 Euro for 15 looped animation birds in a exhibit box without guests walking through.

Plus points if we get flexible sizes for that

After that, same with fish and I’m pretty much happy

 

[DarthQuell]

Y'all, I don't wanna rub salt and chili peppers into the wound, but I just realized the perfect bird for this DLC because of the theme and the architecture: the red junglefowl...

Not only is it a visually striking bird, but it can also settle some of the requests for domestics, because technically the domestic chicken is a subspecies of the red junglefowl and there are chicken breeds that resemble it

 

[NachoB]

Y'all, I don't wanna rub salt and chili peppers into the wound, but I just realized the perfect bird for this DLC because of the theme and the architecture: the red junglefowl...

Not only is it a visually striking bird, but it can also settle some of the requests for domestics, because technically the domestic chicken is a subspecies of the red junglefowl and there are chicken breeds that resemble it

Umm yeah but for me personally it would've been just a rooster lol i prefer other types of tropical birds like the scarlet ibis or the shoebill

 

[Captain Callum]

Y'all, I don't wanna rub salt and chili peppers into the wound, but I just realized the perfect bird for this DLC because of the theme and the architecture: the red junglefowl...

Not only is it a visually striking bird, but it can also settle some of the requests for domestics, because technically the domestic chicken is a subspecies of the red junglefowl and there are chicken breeds that resemble it