Completing Zoo Tycoon 2: How far we've come?

yoav_r · Aug 15, 2022

So, I noticed we are very very close to completing the roster of Zoo Tycoon 2 (fully marine and extinct animals not included).

Here's the analysis:

Animal	Zoo Tycoon	Zoo Tycoon 2	Planet Zoo
Aardvark		V	V
Addax		V	V
Afican Lion	V	V	V
African Buffalo	V	V	V
African crested porcupine			V
African Penguin			V
African Savannah Elephant	V	V	V
African Spurred Tortoise		V	V
African wild ass			V
African Wild Dog	V	V	V
Aldabra Giant Tortoise			V
Alpine Ibex	V	V	V
American Alligator			V
American Bison	V	V	V
American black bear	V
Arctic Fox			V
Arctic Wolf	V		V
Asian Black Bear	V	V	Formosan
Asian Elephant	V	V	V
Asian Rhino	Javan	Javan	Indian
Asian Small-Clawed Otter			V
Asian water monitor			V
Baboon	Olive		Hamadrayas
Bactrian Camel			V
Baird's Tapir		V	V
Barbary Ape		V
Bengal Tiger	V	V	V
Bighorn sheep	V
Binturong			V
Black-and-white Ruffed Lemur			V
Blackbuck	V
Black Rhino	V	V	V
Black-Tailed Prairie Dog			V
Black wildebeest			V
Blue wildebeest	V	V	V
Bongo	V	V	V
Bonobo			V
Bornean Orangutan	V	V	V
California Sea Lion	V	V	V
Capybara			V
Caracal		V	V
Cheetah	V	V	V
Chimpanzee	V	V	Western
Chinese Pangolin			V
Clouded Leopard	V		V
Collared Peccary			V
Colombian white-faced Capuchin			V
Common Ostrich	V	V	V
Common Warthog	V	V	V
Common Wombat			V
Coqueral's sifaka			V
Cougar	V	V	V
Cuvier's Dwarf Caiman			V
Dall sheep			V
Dama gazelle			V
Dhole			V
Dingo			V
Dromedary Camel	V	V	V
Emu			V
Elephant Seal	V
Emperor/King Penguin	Emperor Penguin	Emperor Penguin	King Penguin
Ethiopian Wolf		V
European Badger			V
European Fallow Deer			V
Fennec Fox		V	V
Fossa			V
Galapagos Giant Tortoise		V	V
Gelada		V
Gemsbok	V	V	V
Gerenuk		V
Gharial			V
Giant Anteater	V		V
Giant Otter			V
Giant Panda	V	V	V
Gibbon		Crested	Lar
Giraffe	V	Reticulated + Masai	Reticulated
Gorilla	Western Lowland	Mountain	Western Lowland
Gray Wolf	V	V	V
Greater Flamingo	V	V	V
Green Sea Turtle	V	V
Grey Seal			V
Grizzly Bear	V	V	V
Himalayan Brown Bear			V
Hippopotamus	V	V	V
Honey Badger		V
Indian Peafowl		V	V
Japanese Serow	V
Jaguar	V	V	V
Japanese Macaque			V
Kirk's dikdik			V
Koala		V	V
Komodo Dragon	V	V	V
Leatherback Sea Turtle		V
Leopard	V	V	Amur + African
Little blue penguin			V
Llama	V		V
Lynx		Spanish Lynx	Eurasian Lynx
Malayan Tapir	V		V
Mandrill	V	V	V
Maned Wolf			V
Markhor	V	V	V
Meerkat		V	V
Moose	V	V	V
Musk Ox		V
Mute Swan			V
Nile Crocodile		V
Nile Lechwe			V
Nile Monitor		V	V
Nine-banded Armadillo			V
North American Beaver		V	V
North island brown kiwi			V
North Sulawesi Babirusa			V
Nyala			V
Okapi	V	V	V
Pallas's cat			V
Plains Zebra	V	V	V
Platypus			V
Polar Bear	V	V	V
Proboscis Monkey			V
Pronghorn			V
Przewalski's Horse	V	V	V
Pygmy Hippo		V	V
Raccoon			V
Red deer			V
Red Fox			V
Red Kangaroo	V	V	V
Red-necked Wallaby			V
Red Panda		V	V
Red Ruffed Lemur			V
Red-crowned Crane			V
Red river hog			V
Reindeer	V	V	V
Ring-tailed Lemur		V	V
Rockhopper Penguin		V
Quokka			V
Sable Antelope	V	V	V
Saiga			V
Sand cat			V
Saltwater Crocodile	V		V
Scimitar-Horned Oryx		V	V
Sea Otter	V	V
Secretary Bird		V
Siamang			V
Siberian Tiger	V		V
Snow Leopard	V	V	V
Southern Cassowary			V
Spectacled Bear		V	V
Spectacled Caiman			V
Sloth Bear			V
Spotted Hyena	V		V
Springbok			V
Striped Hyena		V	V
Striped skunk			V
Sun Bear			V
Takin			V
Tasmanian devil			V
Thomson's Gazelle	V	V	V
Walrus	V	V
Wisent			V
White Rhino		V	Southern
Wild Boar			V
Wild Water Buffalo			V
Wolverine		V	V

So Overall, PZ completely surpassed both ZT Games:

	Zoo Tycoon	Zoo Tycoon 2	Planet Zoo
Number of Terrestrial animals	61	81	153

Now, here's a list of species found in Zoo Tycoon/Zoo Tycoon 2 That are not yet in Planet Zoo.

Species
American Black Bear
Bighorn Sheep
Blackbuck
Elephant Seal
Japanese Serow
Olive Baboon

Species
Barbary Ape
Crested Gibbon
Ethiopian Wolf
Gelada
Gerenuk
Giraffe (Masai)
Honey Badger
Iberian Lynx
Leatherback Sea Turtle
Musk Ox
Nile Crocodile
Rockhopper Penguin
Secretary Bird

Species
Emperor Penguin
Green Sea Turtle
Javan Rhino
Sea Otter
Walrus

Do you think they are necessary? We are extremely close to "completing the PZ roster"

Edit: Changed lists format

jcp011c · Aug 15, 2022

That's a pretty good summary, I was considering this myself lately. I'd think most of those would still be important to get. I could see the Sea Turtles, Striped Hyena, Gerenuk, Japanese Serow, Gelada and Elephant Seal being passed over though and would be fine with their omission.

General requests aside, the Wolverine, Walrus, Secretary Bird and Baboon seem to be the higher requested animals. And I think it's important we get one more of the bears not in the game - the Spectacled Bear makes the most sense since it's diversifying the bear roster region wise with a South American representative.

Sea Otter, African Spurred Tortoise, Markhor, Caracal, Honey Badger and the other bear (ABB?) would probably fall in a spot between the two above sets. Not necessary but wouldn't object to their inclusion (some are even on my own wishlist)

SalamAnders · Aug 15, 2022

Interesting topic

But I'm not sure I get the logic with all the reasonable substitutes.

How are none of the bears a reasonable substitute for the American black bear, when a white rhino apparently can be as good as a black, even though those species look and behave quite differently?

Doran · Aug 15, 2022

Edit: nvm
I think there are better options.

yoav_r · Aug 15, 2022

SalamAnders said:
Interesting topic

But I'm not sure I get the logic with all the reasonable substitutes.

How are none of the bears a reasonable substitute for the American black bear, when a white rhino apparently can be as good as a black, even though those species look and behave quite differently?

The logic was whethrt they require the same/similar habitat.

So for two morphologically similar species, If you could take a habitat for a PZ species and without modifications put in the missing ZT species, I consider it a "replacement".

This is of course subjective, but it's the closest I came to an objective measurement.

The animals in the list without substitutes either don't have any morphologically similar animal in PZ, or they have one but they require different habitat setup (biome, sizs requirements...). Those with the question mark are the ones I was unsure about.

yoav_r · Aug 15, 2022

Doran said:
Edit: nvm
I think there are better options.

Do tell. The whole point of this is to spark discussion. The post is just my personal opinion.

KönigDerKaffeebohnen · Aug 15, 2022

yoav_r said:
The logic was whethrt they require the same/similar habitat.

So for two morphologically similar species, If you could take a habitat for a PZ species and without modifications put in the missing ZT species, I consider it a "replacement".

This is of course subjective, but it's the closest I came to an objective measurement.

The animals in the list without substitutes either don't have any morphologically similar animal in PZ, or they have one but they require different habitat setup (biome, sizs requirements...). Those with the question mark are the ones I was unsure about.

I dont agree with the subsitutes then.
Barbary Macaque and Japanese Macaque are morphologically very close, but very different in climate, which makes them very distinct in any kind of not simple rock habitat or even slightly themed habitat they are very different from each other.
Same for the dall and the bighorn sheep, but to a lesser degree.
Ethiopian Wolf and Dhole again live in very different habitats. Jungles, temperate and boreal forests are not substituable for dry mountainranges.

Animals that i would add to the substitues are the Addax for the SHO, ABB and any other climbing bear, Gerenuk with any african savnah antelope, striped and spotted hyena and lastly badger and wolverine.
All of them can easily substitute each other, but thats nothing bad. We allready got lots of that in game allready, often with them just fitting better certain themes or visual differences, like the arctic wolf and normal wolf, rein and fallow deer, siberian and amur leopard, african wild dog and lions, all the african savanah antelopes and more. In fact, its pretty easy to make habitats that would be a great fit for multiple animal.

Spiderhawk · Aug 16, 2022

IMOP
I would like to have
Blackbuck
Caracalel
Elephant seal
Gelada
Green sea turtle or leatherback
Japanese serow
Markhor
Olive baboon
Sea otter
Secretary bird
Spectacled bear
Walrus
Wolverine
Also weren’t there red wolves in the deluxe game?

NZFanatic · Aug 16, 2022

yoav_r said:
This is of course subjective, but it's the closest I came to an objective measurement.

I don't see the need for an "objective measurement" here. If the species isn't in PZ, then it isn't in PZ. If people feel like there's a reasonable substitute then that is one animal from ZT that they don't want in PZ.

Speaking subjectively, I don't believe in "reasonable substitutes".

NZFanatic · Aug 16, 2022

Spiderhawk said:
Also weren’t there red wolves in the deluxe game?

Nope.

yoav_r · Aug 16, 2022

NZFanatic said:
I don't see the need for an "objective measurement" here. If the species isn't in PZ, then it isn't in PZ. If people feel like there's a reasonable substitute then that is one animal from ZT that they don't want in PZ.

Speaking subjectively, I don't believe in "reasonable substitutes".

Okay, I'll remove the substitutes list. Although, it's worth noting that many animals, especially in ZT1, were not realistic choices for zoo animals, and Frontier did choose similar but realistic animals in most cases.

Like the Indian Rhino over the Javan Rhino, where there are barely any Javan rhinos in zoos.

TuchA · Aug 16, 2022

GOOD WORK!
The only mistake is that the Scimitar-Horned Oryx was already in ZT2. I think this is an oversight...

Never mind, as I wrote earlier, the list shows some animals that are still not in the game.... But do I want them all? If space allows then yes, but choosing the most necessary I would take from 10 animals? This list doesn't include the Tasmanian devil, which is now (I suppose) the most anticipated animal.
Plus porcupine, wombat, birds (because only the secretary bird is on the list)...

yoav_r · Aug 16, 2022

I changed the lists' format and split them by from which game(s) the missing animals are.

SalamAnders · Aug 16, 2022

TuchA said:
birds (because only the secretary bird is on the list)..

Crazy how none of these games had pelicans and emus, big well-known birds. Frontier, you still got time to do it better.

TuchA · Aug 16, 2022

From what I remember, pelicans were only in the wildlife park game series. I'm mostly writing about the wildlife park 2 game because I mostly played it right after ZT2.

I think Widlife park 2 merged with Zoo Tycoon 2 to form Planet Zoo.... Of course, it is mainly "based" on ZT2, but only in Widlife you can change the weather, there are different shades of animals (I know, there is a white tiger in ZT2, but only a tiger)... such loose thoughts

paul78 · Aug 16, 2022

I’m kinda mixed on the zt2 and zoo tycoon roster. They got somethings right and some just ok imo. Overall I like planet zoos roster better and I’m glad planet zoo didn’t do a carbon copy of the zoo tycoon rosters. I do feel planet zoo needs some of the animals in zoo tycoon mainly the dromedary and black rhino. The Secretary bird would be great too.

AlexSea · Aug 16, 2022

Out of these animals, the only ones that I explicitly don't want to see are the Javan Rhinoceros and Emperor Penguin, because we already have the very similar Indian Rhinoceros and King Penguin.

yoav_r · Aug 16, 2022

SalamAnders said:
Crazy how none of these games had pelicans and emus, big well-known birds. Frontier, you still got time to do it better.

To be fair, Pelicans are extremely hard to model and animate. I'm surprised about the Emu, and that until Planet Zoo no zoo game had an american alligator, despite them being the most common crocodilian in zoos.

yoav_r · Aug 16, 2022

paul78 said:
I’m kinda mixed on the zt2 and zoo tycoon roster. They got somethings right and some just ok imo. Overall I like planet zoos roster better and I’m glad planet zoo didn’t do a carbon copy of the zoo tycoon rosters. I do feel planet zoo needs some of the animals in zoo tycoon mainly the dromedary and black rhino. The Secretary bird would be great too.

They both had a much more balanced base roster than PZ, but their final roster is very lacking in many ways. Many of the animals in their expansion packs are extremely unrealistic animals for zoos (and I'm not even counting extinct animals here).

TuchA · Aug 16, 2022

yoav_r said:
To be fair, Pelicans are extremely hard to model and animate. I'm surprised about the Emu, and that until Planet Zoo no zoo game had an american alligator, despite them being the most common crocodilian in zoos.

Only Zoo Empire game had alligators