Animal Variants!

[VetGirl330]

Whilst some of the variations posted above look super cool, I think that the variations in the update are more likely to be on the order of variation within the (statistically) normal range, rather than additional rare variants (like the golden moon bear, or the red-striped or spotted zebras and, honestly, that's fine with me.

I think AND hope you are right ElectricMonk. I would much rather see common, natural variations in the game than bizarre mutations. It already bothers how a large number of players only see interested in the leucistic or albino variations, and how inundated the market is with them. These animals tend to be exceedingly rare and often associated with major health consequences, or propagated in captivity by extensive inbreeding at the expense of animal health and reproductive potential. I would love to see more negative consequences associated with these mutations (decreased immunity, fertility, and longevity) in game and protesters protesting their propagation.

I only included the striped zebra foal picture because I think its super cute. I don't expect it in game, not sure I would even want it, because then I would seeing a thousand others on the market and in every zebra exhibit. I deliberately didn't include blonde or white zebra photos because they are exceedingly rare.

 

[Indoraptor27]

I think AND hope you are right ElectricMonk. I would much rather see common, natural variations in the game than bizarre mutations. It already bothers how a large number of players only see interested in the leucistic or albino variations, and how inundated the market is with them. These animals tend to be exceedingly rare and often associated with major health consequences, or propagated in captivity by extensive inbreeding at the expense of animal health and reproductive potential. I would love to see more negative consequences associated with these mutations (decreased immunity, fertility, and longevity) in game and protesters protesting their propagation.

I only included the striped zebra foal picture because I think its super cute. I don't expect it in game, not sure I would even want it, because then I would seeing a thousand others on the market and in every zebra exhibit. I deliberately didn't include blonde or white zebra photos because they are exceedingly rare.

I would really hate if that happened in-game. I'm not trying to sound excessively rude, but the reason these are bad IRL is because they're pretty much impossible to create without inbreeding, whereas in game it's very easy to not inbreed. I know Planet Zoo should be realistic about ethical issues and not include hybrids, cub-petting, being able to sell babies, but albinos and leucistics are already in the game, and the way they are obtained in Planet Zoo isn't really that bad. We aren't killing regular colored "duds," nor are we inbreeding, at least not very often, since it will mess up genetics. And I really wouldn't mind "bizarre" mutations, as long as they actually occur in the real world. I mean, can't you just not buy them?

 

[Caemoxie]

I think AND hope you are right ElectricMonk. I would much rather see common, natural variations in the game than bizarre mutations. It already bothers how a large number of players only see interested in the leucistic or albino variations, and how inundated the market is with them. These animals tend to be exceedingly rare and often associated with major health consequences, or propagated in captivity by extensive inbreeding at the expense of animal health and reproductive potential. I would love to see more negative consequences associated with these mutations (decreased immunity, fertility, and longevity) in game and protesters protesting their propagation.

I only included the striped zebra foal picture because I think its super cute. I don't expect it in game, not sure I would even want it, because then I would seeing a thousand others on the market and in every zebra exhibit. I deliberately didn't include blonde or white zebra photos because they are exceedingly rare.

I would agree with you... but only for the albinos. Albinos do tend to have a lot of health issues. But as Indoraptor already said, that bridge has very much already been crossed and burned. And in a game setting I think including them is a reasonable compromise between raising awareness and creative freedom (though a good way to remind people that albinism has consequences would be to not permit albino animals to be released into the wild if that's not already a feature, I haven't had any albinos yet and so I don't know, I am determined to breed my first albino "naturally"). Leucistic animals can have more health problems than "standard" colorations, but from what I can tell from cursory research this has more to do with the inbreeding of captive populations. Wild leucistics tend to be healthy, provided they live in an environment where the coloring is not a detriment to their ability to hunt or evade predators. In rare cases it is a benefit, not a bug. Melanistic and pseudomelanistic animals don't tend to have any medical problems associated with their coloration that I could find, and is commonly considered an adaptive and beneficial trait for many species in an increasingly dark and polluted world.

I think it's important to remember that coloration of every animal we see today is the result of mutations. What is "bizarre" today could very well be the standard for the species 100 years from now. Learning about rare variations that have occurred in a species is educational too.

Point being, while I expect that this update will likely be focused on more commonly occurring varieties, I see nothing wrong with rare variations being included too and sincerely hope they eventually include more of these fascinating critturs.

 

[NL_Mutso]

Personally think that the current in-game animals get a one-time variations update and future DLC animals will have variations from the start.
(maybe not in the first upcoming DLC)

So adding rare variations to new animals and not to the "old" ones - would somewhat contradict my personal view on current/future variations updates.
Not against the idea but I don't think this is very likely.

 

[avietar]

I think most animals will get at least different color shades. Some animals will get a medium level of color variation like lions (shades + manes), asian elephants (shades + pink pigment), cheetahs (shade + spots), where animals can be quite strikingly different from each other, but they don't differ in too many ways. And then there are animals like wolves, African wild dogs, lamas, springboks, and reindeer, that can radically differ from each other in many ways, including shades, coloring, and markings.

 

[Doctor Hyena]

Well, I for one am very excited about the newly announced variant coloring coming with the next update and so thought I would take a stab at predicting which animals will fall into which variant category! And which ones may get left behind. I will also note if there are specific variants I am hoping for where applicable. I will also note that I am nowhere near an expert in what color variations animals occur in nature, so a lot of these are based on my knowledge of particular favorite species and google searches. Here we go!

No Change
African Buffalo
Bairds Tapir
Colombian White-Faced Capuchin
Common Ostrich
Dall Sheep
Formosan Black Bear
Giant Panda (unless the qinling variant is different than the existing albino)
Okapi
Plains Zebra
Pygmy Hippo
Sable Antelope
Thomson Gazelle

Subtle
Aardvark
African Elephant
American Bison
Bongo
Bonobo
Bornean Orangutan
Cheetah (Jumping to Major if Frontier is glorious and gives us King variants, but I don't think it terribly likely for this update)
Common Warthog
Giant Anteater
Himalayan Brown Bear
Hippopotamus
Indian Elephant
Indian Rhinoceros
Janguar
Japanese Macaque
Mandrill
Nyala
Polar Bear
Pronghorn
Red Panda
Red Ruffed Lemur
Ringtail Lemur
Snow Leopard
Springbok
Western lowland Gorilla


Medium
African Wild Dog
Aldabra Giant Tortoise (I'm not sure about this one generally, but I know that some tortoises can have really variant/interesting shells, and my google search suggests these guys can have some variation there, but it's hard for me to tell (especially since I can't really be sure if pic is labelled with the correct species))
Arctic Wolf
Bactrian Camel
Black Wildebeest
Chinese Pangolin (to my surprise these guys appear capable of ranging from black to tan?)
Galapagos Giant Tortoise (Same as above)
Gemsbok
Gharial
Greater Flamingo
Komodo Dragon
Nile Monitor
Reindeer
Reticulated Giraffe
Saltwater Crocodile
Siberian Tiger
Spotted Hyena
West African Lion (hoping for a black-maned male)
Western Chimpanzee

Major
Bengal Tiger (my fingers are crossed for golden tabby and psuedo-melanistic black tigers!)
Grizzly Bear
Indian Peafowl (there are so many varieties here and I'm hoping for all of them (however, since I believe many of these were selectively bred, I'm not sure that they'll be included), but special mention to the pied varieties)
Llama (hoping for painty and patchy fellows!)
Springbok (apparently they come in black and copper too)
Timber Wolf

So that is my mix of prediction and wish list for the color variants! What do you think, any alternative predictions you are championing? Got a color morph that I don't know about?

The spotted hyena and African wild dog should definitely have major.

 

[NZFanatic]

I'm certainly hoping for a lot more variation in the African wild dogs especially. No two are the same, and while that's a tall order for this game at least three or four pattern variations would be great to add some diversity to the in-game packs.