Aviaries: what are you expecting

[Spiderhawk]

Hey everybody, I know some people have mixed opinions on animals per content, mixed feelings on how PZ is releasing content and have suggestions on pricing, can we please steer back to talking about how aviaries can work. Thank you.
Anyone have any creative builds for what you would want aviaries to look like?

 

[ChicagoZohan]

Hey everybody, I know some people have mixed opinions on animals per content, mixed feelings on how PZ is releasing content and have suggestions on pricing, can we please steer back to talking about how aviaries can work. Thank you.
Anyone have any creative builds for what you would want aviaries to look like?

Building pieces already have hit detection (note how snow piles on a roof, and then doesn't fall onto the ground below). So it should be possible to draw a "reachable area" in 3d space, not just 2d. Give birds a fairly large hit box when flying - their full wingspan - and you could have birds walk around on the ground, and fly to reach transversible areas they can't reach by walking. That's enough for peacocks or hornbills. But you can also add a "perching" need for some birds; these birds will want to fly up to a climbing piece or a tree and perch on it. Finally, you can let more aerial birds fly just for fun using the same sort of logic that I hope penguins and seals will use to swim around.

 

[Davic]

So no, is not as simple as just flying from one perching station to another. Many birds, specially the little ones you will find soaring at visitor level, and often spending a considerable amount of time in low branches. Other species like storks will prefer canopies and might soar/fly at high altitudes. There are birds that will spend most of their time on the ground, and will sporadically hop and fly short distances (similar to the flamingoes in the game) other birds will have odd behaviors, and rituals, this can be quite complex.

Thanks for sharing your experience Danny. It was quite fascinating.

Hmmm, now I am wondering what would be the most viable birds would be for an aviary (at least for the game), and which of the ones have the least complex behaviors and modeling requirements. Perhaps the team will be working on those. I see the aviaries they have in Jurassic Park and note they were able to do a great job with soaring/flying animations, so there is no doubt they can animate them in non-freeform settings.

 

[Danny_zoo]

Hey everybody, I know some people have mixed opinions on animals per content, mixed feelings on how PZ is releasing content and have suggestions on pricing, can we please steer back to talking about how aviaries can work. Thank you.
Anyone have any creative builds for what you would want aviaries to look like?

They will work exactly like every other barrier system, but you will be able to hit X and manipulate the barriers as you do terrain. You will have flexibility in the shape of the aviary, but will have a maximum allowance on the height of the barriers, not sure about the length, but would imagine that it works in a similar way, so a limitation in size there as well. The material is steel mesh, as it is used in modern RL aviaries. I would like to see a variant that adds traditional mesh used often in lower budget zoos and older facilities.

As far as creative builds for what I would want them to look like, nope, what would be the point? It has been done to exhaustion by other players, and nothing currently in the game allows for any true realism in optics and scale. So I have never really wasted time with it, and just kept on waiting for the official release. Just never imagined it would take them this long.

 

[Danny_zoo]

Thanks for sharing your experience Danny. It was quite fascinating.

Hmmm, now I am wondering what would be the most viable birds would be for an aviary (at least for the game), and which of the ones have the least complex behaviors and modeling requirements. Perhaps the team will be working on those. I see the aviaries they have in Jurassic Park and note they were able to do a great job with soaring/flying animations, so there is no doubt they can animate them in non-freeform settings.

You said it best, had they wanted to include them in a non-freeform setting, we would have received them a long time ago. If I knew nothing else, this along would be a dead giveaway. The only real question I have in that respect is the level of animations and behaviors included, how far would Frontier take it? How much can the system and new mechanics handle? I think...actually I know that when it comes to birds, one of their cardinal rules of not having any small animals has already being broken, so we will definitely receive at least one small and beautiful bird. As far as the overall look of the DLC, I'm really not sure, if they are the next entry sometime in the Spring, then I think it would be a very limited DLC, similar to the aquatics. If somehow they take their time after all the mechanics of the introduction are in place, and keep the animations and behaviors simple, then we could receive a nice variety of species.

The thing with birds, and it really only applies to birds and maybe exhibit animals, is that you can easily change a Hyacinth macaw for a Military macaw with very little work needed. They could keep the animations exactly the same. That can be applied to a variety of bird families, toucans, hornbills, vultures. Of course some more than others, but no reason to want extremely realistic behavior here, when we have compromised in almost every other area of the game. I would prefer birds to be a large compromise in behavior if we can get double the species.

 

[KaoRu]

Toucans and hornbills require far more specialist care than a bald eagle, so the opposite is true. Bald eagles are not vicious at all and would not attack a human, and are generally like seagulls in parts of America (Alaska).

Edit: In saying that, I believe I know of at least one walkthrough aviary with toucans in it. Not sure about hornbills in general, but I know the great hornbill requires fairly specialist care.

Dunno about Seagulls in Alaska but here in the UK they are nasty.

 

[Spiderhawk]

Dunno about Seagulls in Alaska but here in the UK they are nasty.

I live seasonally in Alaska and all along the coast lines the bald eagles are dominant, further inland is golden eagle territory
We get a lot of glaucous wing gulls and black legged kittiwakes.
What’s a seagull? A ranger I used to work with would say “as a birder, I do not know what a “seagull” is. I do know of a gull that fly’s over the bay called a baygull that tastes good with cream cheese!”
Ah gotta love bird nerd/dad humor

 

[SotF]

Again I think you have misunderstood me for the second time, lol, but no worries, I do write a lot, so some things might get overlooked. I'm not suggesting that Frontier hires more devs, even thought they are perfectly open to the idea as stated by Chantee in a previous thread I created. What I suggested was to allocate a couple of more devs already at frontier and that have experience with the animal models to further bulk the roster in the game. The compromise here would be that future DLCs that are bigger than four animals and commissioned a higher number of resources to create, would cost a little more.

An example, the current Aquatic DLC has 4+1 animals at $9.99 (using the USD price point to simplify it) an alternative DLC that would have included 7 habitat animals plus 2 exhibit ones would not have been an unreachable or unrealistic expectation with a few more resources devoted to it. The price could have been 16.99 usd, an insignificant amount of money for most adults, and children I'm assuming still would have to go thru their parents, so I hardly think that a few dollars more would have made a difference. The game and all its DLCs are still completely undervalued. Maybe the money difference would not have been substantial, but the three extra habitat animals and one exhibit animal would have made a world of differences.

As far as comparing Frontier to grade schoolers or being entitled for suggesting they add more resources to the game at a higher price point, you lost me there, not sure where you got that from, but it is not what I wrote.

For the number of animals in the DLC, there is also the time for it. Upping the species would, likely, up the development time for each DLC and spread them out far more...and consider things like the thread about people wanting an anniversary DLC for that one.

$10 is also a cap thing for a lot of younger players to easily get. It's the reason why a lot of basic action figures and dolls are at that price, it's a thing parents are far more willing to put out for something. It's a sales point that most people don't think that much about spending for things. It's about the same amount as a basic lunch somewhere (at least before the lockdowns).

But for animal numbers, part of me expects that once the various mechanics for things gets hammered out with packs, we might get more animals in them because a lot of tech side development time is done, and might require prior dlcs to operate such as an Aquatic Pack 2 requiring the current one for chunks of it in making it work. So, you might have your larger number of animals but less on the new mechanics side of thing. Same with similar animals such as other seals, penguins, and the like where once you have the basics for them down, it's easier to copy and adjust the setup for another one.

 

[peafowl]

Not my place to comment on it, at least in detail. But yes, it has been on the works since before the base game was released, at least in concept, research and theory. In recent times, they definitely seemed to have come very close to finishing what they started. Based on what I know it would not surprise me for it to be the next DLC. Even though if it is going to be another four birds, I much rather they take their time and release it when they have more to offer. That is just my opinion, it would be better received then.

May i ask how you know this?

 

[LN]

May i ask how you know this?

He probably doesn't and it's purely speculation. Or someone told him something he shouldn't know.

Besides that, it's obvious these animals would be of need for the game to be a proper game with enough animal variation, so it's just as obvious that there is probably at least 1 person within Frontier figuring this out and putting something on paper. So it's just as easy to say "something has been in the works for some time". Which is most likely to be very true.