I know I've made/updated an analysis thread after each of the last few packs comprising of what's most likely to come in the future, but I'm tackling this one slightly differently. I wanted to give a set of criteria and then see how the animals highly ranked in the meta list stack up to it. I realize Frontier is not beholden to follow the Meta List, but I do think it may play some role in animal selection.
The categories I'm organizing here are popularly requested, species recognition, zoo staples, similarity to existing animals, Uniqueness, and conservation. I am...for now...leaving off fully marine animals and flying birds that have little ground activity (so wading and aquatic birds could still make it in - your storks, ibises, cranes, herons, pelicans, swans and the like).
This first post will be a work in progress for now...since I don't want to type a lot of things and lose it should the window close or something. lists will grow larger to a point, but starting off with 2-3 animals right now. Animals can obviously show up in more than one category, but for this first draft I'm trying to keep animals to one criteria for larger representation.
Popularly Requested - going by the meta list. It's probably the best source to use since Frontier has almost surely used that list in some part of animal selection. This list has been amazing and I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking it's got to be the single most important thread in the entire PZ forum. I'll start off here by taking the top 2 animals in this list. The Tasmanian Devil and the Maned Wolf. There's a bit of gap from 2nd to 3rd spot, and these two animals have consistently been in the upper regions of the list from the start. Sure, they didn't start out at #1 or #2, maybe not even top 10 the first go-round, but the logic here is that they're in the top two spots because everything else above them has been made. There's no real reason to think Frontier will not continue that pattern. At some point, they'll have to stop but I don't believe we're at that point now.
Species Recognition - many of us on the forums will be able to recognizes dozens upon dozens of different animals, so I'm going to use, what is in my opinion, a more general public knowledge of what species are. I'm not going to go into the exact species, but the two animals i'm picking here are a Porcupine and a Sloth. I feel like they both have a level of recognition of what "type" of animal it is more than the rest of the top few spots. The downside to both of these, I can see design reasons why both of these may not make it in. But I'm hoping that Frontier will want to have animals that not only we know and love, but also that the more casual player and casual animal enthusiast will as well.
Zoo Staples - animals that are common in zoos and should be considered as "near necessary" animals for the game just on the basis of being able to represent more real life zoos to a larger degree. For that, I see both the Emu and Red River Hog as the front runners here. I feel like Frontier has hit the main points in the "non-aviairy/non-aquaria" habitat selection, in fact they did so with the Conservation pack. But still...some animals are just going to be more common in zoos than others and I do feel these two represent that well.
Similarity to existing animals/existing rigs - While it's been said that even similar animals will take a good amount of work to do, it should also be obvious that some animals are going to take more effort than others. I'm not downplaying the developers work in any way, or mean to insinuate they don't work hard, because I think they do. What i mean is that they need to spend more time on some animals than others. I'd prefer them to keep doing that actually. I'd rather them give us another feline/bear, so that we can have something truly unique like a sloth or porcupine, instead of giving us more of something in between the two. We're to the point now that a Gibbon rig could start life as a rig already in the game, and while some of the others already mentioned in this post would certainly qualify, I do have to go outside of the ML top 10 for this one. The Dromedary is pretty popularly requested and would start its life from the Camel's rig.
Conservation - This criteria is a little weaker. The Conservation pack's whole point was for animals that were endangered. The Twlight, European and North American packs were all animals of Least Concern (to my knowledge, please correct me if I'm wrong!) I may be wrong too in thinking that every other pack has a mixture, but right there that's 4 packs out of 11 that do not. And there are plenty of animals that are not endangered in the base game. Still, I'd like to think Frontier has an eye towards adding in more animals that are not least concern status. Some from above points would qualify, but from the top 10 I'm going to go with the Secretary Bird and the Fossa.
Uniqueness - this brings me to the final point, the converse of the 4th point which plays on similarity for design ease. This is for animals that occupy a look, behavior, biome, range, or role in the ecosystem that would be unlike anything else in the game - or at most similar to one or two animals. Again, I could use some of the other animals already note,d but here I'm going to put in the Wolverine and the Tree Kangaroo. We have other mustelids and marsupials, but nothing like these two. The Wolverine gives us a smaller taiga predator, with very notable (you could almost say legendary) behavior patterns, and also a very widescale range. From a visual standpoint, it's closest visual comparison in the game would be the Binturong. On the other hand, absolutely nothing looks like a Tree Kangaroo. Not a koala, not a monkey, not an ape, not a kangaroo...just nothing at all. I guess you could say visually it would be most similar to a Lemur, and that's to say not at all. It would also give us some range recognition for New Guinea.
Couple of notes here, I almost added the Secretary Bird to point 4, but I'm not sure how similar the rig would be to the Red Crowned Crane. My thoughts...probably not very.
I know this is lengthy but i enjoy things like this. Sometimes I get information wrong and I'm happy to be corrected. I'm also happy for discussion and additional animals. Just keeping in mind though that I purposely did choose different animals for each criteria. Some of the animals chosen could fit into several of the criteria. Other criteria and examples are also welcome!
The categories I'm organizing here are popularly requested, species recognition, zoo staples, similarity to existing animals, Uniqueness, and conservation. I am...for now...leaving off fully marine animals and flying birds that have little ground activity (so wading and aquatic birds could still make it in - your storks, ibises, cranes, herons, pelicans, swans and the like).
This first post will be a work in progress for now...since I don't want to type a lot of things and lose it should the window close or something. lists will grow larger to a point, but starting off with 2-3 animals right now. Animals can obviously show up in more than one category, but for this first draft I'm trying to keep animals to one criteria for larger representation.
Popularly Requested - going by the meta list. It's probably the best source to use since Frontier has almost surely used that list in some part of animal selection. This list has been amazing and I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking it's got to be the single most important thread in the entire PZ forum. I'll start off here by taking the top 2 animals in this list. The Tasmanian Devil and the Maned Wolf. There's a bit of gap from 2nd to 3rd spot, and these two animals have consistently been in the upper regions of the list from the start. Sure, they didn't start out at #1 or #2, maybe not even top 10 the first go-round, but the logic here is that they're in the top two spots because everything else above them has been made. There's no real reason to think Frontier will not continue that pattern. At some point, they'll have to stop but I don't believe we're at that point now.
Species Recognition - many of us on the forums will be able to recognizes dozens upon dozens of different animals, so I'm going to use, what is in my opinion, a more general public knowledge of what species are. I'm not going to go into the exact species, but the two animals i'm picking here are a Porcupine and a Sloth. I feel like they both have a level of recognition of what "type" of animal it is more than the rest of the top few spots. The downside to both of these, I can see design reasons why both of these may not make it in. But I'm hoping that Frontier will want to have animals that not only we know and love, but also that the more casual player and casual animal enthusiast will as well.
Zoo Staples - animals that are common in zoos and should be considered as "near necessary" animals for the game just on the basis of being able to represent more real life zoos to a larger degree. For that, I see both the Emu and Red River Hog as the front runners here. I feel like Frontier has hit the main points in the "non-aviairy/non-aquaria" habitat selection, in fact they did so with the Conservation pack. But still...some animals are just going to be more common in zoos than others and I do feel these two represent that well.
Similarity to existing animals/existing rigs - While it's been said that even similar animals will take a good amount of work to do, it should also be obvious that some animals are going to take more effort than others. I'm not downplaying the developers work in any way, or mean to insinuate they don't work hard, because I think they do. What i mean is that they need to spend more time on some animals than others. I'd prefer them to keep doing that actually. I'd rather them give us another feline/bear, so that we can have something truly unique like a sloth or porcupine, instead of giving us more of something in between the two. We're to the point now that a Gibbon rig could start life as a rig already in the game, and while some of the others already mentioned in this post would certainly qualify, I do have to go outside of the ML top 10 for this one. The Dromedary is pretty popularly requested and would start its life from the Camel's rig.
Conservation - This criteria is a little weaker. The Conservation pack's whole point was for animals that were endangered. The Twlight, European and North American packs were all animals of Least Concern (to my knowledge, please correct me if I'm wrong!) I may be wrong too in thinking that every other pack has a mixture, but right there that's 4 packs out of 11 that do not. And there are plenty of animals that are not endangered in the base game. Still, I'd like to think Frontier has an eye towards adding in more animals that are not least concern status. Some from above points would qualify, but from the top 10 I'm going to go with the Secretary Bird and the Fossa.
Uniqueness - this brings me to the final point, the converse of the 4th point which plays on similarity for design ease. This is for animals that occupy a look, behavior, biome, range, or role in the ecosystem that would be unlike anything else in the game - or at most similar to one or two animals. Again, I could use some of the other animals already note,d but here I'm going to put in the Wolverine and the Tree Kangaroo. We have other mustelids and marsupials, but nothing like these two. The Wolverine gives us a smaller taiga predator, with very notable (you could almost say legendary) behavior patterns, and also a very widescale range. From a visual standpoint, it's closest visual comparison in the game would be the Binturong. On the other hand, absolutely nothing looks like a Tree Kangaroo. Not a koala, not a monkey, not an ape, not a kangaroo...just nothing at all. I guess you could say visually it would be most similar to a Lemur, and that's to say not at all. It would also give us some range recognition for New Guinea.
Couple of notes here, I almost added the Secretary Bird to point 4, but I'm not sure how similar the rig would be to the Red Crowned Crane. My thoughts...probably not very.
I know this is lengthy but i enjoy things like this. Sometimes I get information wrong and I'm happy to be corrected. I'm also happy for discussion and additional animals. Just keeping in mind though that I purposely did choose different animals for each criteria. Some of the animals chosen could fit into several of the criteria. Other criteria and examples are also welcome!
and I fully support that. I would only add Coati to uniqueness or zoo staples category. I really can not imagine any zoo without them. 
