But, but...
- There are plenty of animals in the game that are not kept in captivity
- It is distinct from other elephants. It is 2-3 feet shorter than the Asian elephant. It has bigger ears, a longer tail, straighter tusks and is described as having a "baby face"
- It has a strong conservation/education purpose befitting of the game's ethos
- It lives in a very different habitat to other elephants: thick rainforest. It is much shier and not domesticated or used for work, unlike other Asian elephants. For the Indian elephant you can build a temple or market or savannah or dry brush type habitat. For the Bornean you can go thick jungle, mixed with the macaque and maybe the babirusa.
- They rep the Bornean rainforest, a large and essential (and underrepresented) virgin rainforest
- we haven't had another elephant since base game and this is the perfect one
People want another zebra, another giraffe, we have multiple leopards and foxes and wolves, we have two flamingos, so many pigs and goats and antelope, we're getting a fourth deer...
I get that it takes up a slot and isn't everyone's pick. But why must everyone jump on this horrible bandwagon. Using words like "rancid" is just so extremely hateful. This animal is nearly extinct, I feel so sad that such a vulnerable animal is being spoken about this way on a forum of animal lovers.
As im the one who used that Word, no animal is rancid irl, i hope for every animal the best and my Hobby is literally going around and taking pictures of cool Bugs and other invertebrates, but this is a game and for the purpose of a zoo game a third elephant is not just unnessceccary, its entirely unneeded, a genuine waste of space and work effort and adds nothing the base game elephants didnt do allready. Im no stranger to hyping up oddball picks, but its because i have reasons to Promote the animal. Its unique, got a clear different niche, is common in zoos, would be nice to go along animal xy, etc.
Now to dismantle your points one by one:
- yes there are animals not kept in captivity and all of those are misses in my humble opinion. In a zoo game your basic requirement should be to be present in a zoo and if not atleast be unique to a point that you cant easily be replaced by another animal. An example of a decent one is the saiga, as really no other animal can do what the saiga does in being a cold climate central asian antelope with a very unique face. The elephant meanwhile is very much replaceable by the allready in game asian elephant.
- it is smaller, ill give you that, but the asian elephant allready is to small and the rest is Details that wont be observed if not side vy side
- the games conservation Ethos is thin at best, not present outside of its Initial Promotion at worst. Its a buzzword, nothing more and again i wish the best for the species, but saying that conservation Status ever matterd for what choices make it to the game just isnt true. If it was, where are the deep Cuts then? Why do highly endangerd animals mostly get added as clones? The only unique conservation deepcut was the pangolin all the way back in base game and the widely disliked nile lechwe (an animal i very much approve as it has an actual zoo presence). All the other highly endangerd animals tend to either be desireable regardless of their conservation Status like most of the conservation pack, common in zoos and rather well known. Im not saying thats Bad, but its just how it is. Conservation status is only used to make undesireable animals more desireable while animals that actually are great additions like a duck dont get devalued cause they are least concern. For Real zoos its great and to be applauded when they prioritise endangerd animals that would benefit from ex situ conservation over more popular ones but in the context of a game its literally just a fun or rather not so fun fact
- first, if you want a rainforest elephant habitat you can literally allready do that. Second, the traversable area alone will prevent you from doing that in game. So even if it was unique to them (which it isnt) it will still not be possible to actually make functional
- fair take on Borneo rep, eventhough id be personally fine myself to just use the asian elephant for that role
- we havent had a new elephant because we got the right ones in the base game and dont need no more. Why give us more if we allready have all we need?
- the people that want more Zebras and stuff are not me. I strongly disagree with them. If anyone wants another zebra, they should do themself a favour and use the mod. I thought a leopard is boring, but nessecary and i called the african leopard the worst addition to the game post base game and i stand by that.
Look, im glad you like the elephant, but please explain to me how we have a zoo game with over 200 animals, but not a duck? A pheasent? A pelican? I know calling Feathers is generic but like i can ask literally any person on the planet and they could most likly tell me what a duck is, have seen a duck, have seen them defenetly in a zoo as the vast majority of zoo has ducks, they are infact among the most common Single family of anything regarding zoo representation. So why the duck do we get literally not wanted animals by anyone, we literally have a big long list for that thanks to our favorite Goat, but not what the people actually want?
I can admit, people wanted that african leopard, i groaned, i thought its dumb, but they still wanted it. The Coyote was on that list and honestly compareable as its a Stunning conclusion next to the elephant. The himalayan brown bear should have been the European brown bear or non existant, but we all burried that Grudge and just forgot it, it was a bad descision in the base game, frontier is better then that now.
But theres literally not a single reason i can think of why anyone at frontier would look at this community, our Discussions, our lists, the game, zoos, literally anything and come to the conclusion that the Borneo dwarf elefant should not just be in the game but as part of what is most likly one of the last, if not the last dlc of the game.
Wait there is one. Limit testing how low they can Set the Bar and people will still buy it, defend it even. And this isnt the first time i came to that conclusion, i said the exact same about americas "interesting" conclusions, even those i liked, and what did we get?
They lowerd the Bar and took an animal no one knows, no one needs, no one wished for, from a group that was well documentedly considerd complete, something literally no one asked for.
Sure i might be reading to much into a silly little choice for a silly dlc for my silly favorite game, but i really really cant stand that thought. One bad pick on the roster whatever, but this? This feels like we are intentionally getting played, the americas pack lack of an update didnt help that feeling. I love the game, i like the community but i really dont like the direction this game, that frontier is going and thats why the elephant is so offensive to me.
