Thanks for the update, Frontier!
So far, the variants are adding a breath of fresh air to the game. Yet it feels a little... incomplete, leading some of us to assume this feature will be improved upon on in the future. (Well, that, and the developer's statement on the flamingo food mechanics, if that's anything to go by!) I'm going to base my review on this assumption, since such feedback is only really helpful when developers have time (and the intention) on improving a feature. It's something I really appreciate Frontier doing, so I'm hoping they expand on it and make it more complete:
First off, I was pleasantly surprised with the llamas, and how good their variants look. It provides a perfect example of what an animal with "major" variation should look like. This species did not feel incomplete at all. However, the perfection here just makes it more obvious, when other species are lacking.
For instance, the wolves do not seem like they deserve the label "major." User Moonfox actually pointed this out earlier; I agree with their statement that even some "moderate" animals look more varied. The llamas have completely different patterns, not just a shifted hue or saturation, and it works great. So for the wolves, anything from light faded shades to solid black coats shouldn't look out of place either. Moonfox also pointed out some others that might belong in the "major" category, if updated properly: African Wild Dogs, which can even look like this:
and King Cheetahs, which are actually way more common than the spotless cheetahs currently in game:
Oh, and tigers:
There's also been discussion on the reasoning for no peafowl variants. Not to be nitpicky of course; it wasn't really a highly-requested species. But when we saw Frontier's explanation-- that peafowl don't naturally have much variety, and it's only a domesticated feature-- this confused a lot of people. Llamas also have their varied colouring due to their domestication. On top of this, dingos were brought to Australia by humans. So why would we ignore the peacock for its domesticated traits? Or the black wolf for theoretically gaining the colouring 12-15,000 years ago? Animals like the dingo, wolf, peacock, and llama were all affected by human interaction. But I don't think that makes their diversity any less worth celebrating.
Lastly, there's been a widely reported bug where the description of a coat colour doesn't match the animal's actual colour seen in game. But I know this has been widely reported, and already on the developers' list. There must be a lot to deal with at once right now, so I thank them for their hard work!
Overall though, it's really cool to see a feature that was so sorely missed. Not a bad start, I'm hoping and looking forward to any improvements on it!
So far, the variants are adding a breath of fresh air to the game. Yet it feels a little... incomplete, leading some of us to assume this feature will be improved upon on in the future. (Well, that, and the developer's statement on the flamingo food mechanics, if that's anything to go by!) I'm going to base my review on this assumption, since such feedback is only really helpful when developers have time (and the intention) on improving a feature. It's something I really appreciate Frontier doing, so I'm hoping they expand on it and make it more complete:
First off, I was pleasantly surprised with the llamas, and how good their variants look. It provides a perfect example of what an animal with "major" variation should look like. This species did not feel incomplete at all. However, the perfection here just makes it more obvious, when other species are lacking.
For instance, the wolves do not seem like they deserve the label "major." User Moonfox actually pointed this out earlier; I agree with their statement that even some "moderate" animals look more varied. The llamas have completely different patterns, not just a shifted hue or saturation, and it works great. So for the wolves, anything from light faded shades to solid black coats shouldn't look out of place either. Moonfox also pointed out some others that might belong in the "major" category, if updated properly: African Wild Dogs, which can even look like this:
and King Cheetahs, which are actually way more common than the spotless cheetahs currently in game:
Oh, and tigers:
There's also been discussion on the reasoning for no peafowl variants. Not to be nitpicky of course; it wasn't really a highly-requested species. But when we saw Frontier's explanation-- that peafowl don't naturally have much variety, and it's only a domesticated feature-- this confused a lot of people. Llamas also have their varied colouring due to their domestication. On top of this, dingos were brought to Australia by humans. So why would we ignore the peacock for its domesticated traits? Or the black wolf for theoretically gaining the colouring 12-15,000 years ago? Animals like the dingo, wolf, peacock, and llama were all affected by human interaction. But I don't think that makes their diversity any less worth celebrating.
Lastly, there's been a widely reported bug where the description of a coat colour doesn't match the animal's actual colour seen in game. But I know this has been widely reported, and already on the developers' list. There must be a lot to deal with at once right now, so I thank them for their hard work!
Overall though, it's really cool to see a feature that was so sorely missed. Not a bad start, I'm hoping and looking forward to any improvements on it!
