I might be wrong but I feel it could have been one of the best marketing strategy for them to tell players ahead what DLC theme are they going for (like half a year in advance?) and the comunity could help them to sort out the animal roster. Like being it something new, something popular, something cute or odd and something not hard to recreate from existing models. I have a pink hope this would connect the comunity with devs and in the end the DLC as comunity chosen and dev approved or altered would end up in DLCs that would be bought by most people. As I say, pink hope, because I see on forums we tend to agree even in limited rosters. We dissagree in some details but overal we are able to create the most well thought animal team for topics. However I don't know if that was the case when it was going to be REALLY listened to, if there wouldn't be much stronger fighting over it bcs it would be more serious and some people would try as hard they can to push there their own favourites over what's more popular for bigger group of people, or there would be trolls trying to push there some oddball noone asked for and such... idunno.
DLC20 Discussion (maybe, but why not?)
- Thread starter DarthQuell
- Start date
No worries.
We've had those discussions about how we would prefer Frontier communicate, but it is what it is
I'd honestly be surprised if the devs aren't aware that we want things like a gridded mesh set. Like, we've been vocal about those things since the very start; there's no way that after so many community feedback was implemented that they would have missed that one piece.
There's probably a reason, because it surely isn't that hard to make from a mesh/texture/coding standpoint. Maybe it's because they want to avoid people going "oh now we can have flying birds!!" or maybe it's because then there's the implied expectation that people want these pieces to be climbable and maybe that's not possible with grid pieces. There's a whole bunch of reasons we could imagine but I don't think they wouldn't do it without one.
It's like with the invisible paths. It took them a while to give it to us, even when doing so was super easy to do. But they told us in the livestream that they at first were adverse to it because they weren't sure how people would handle it and whether it would cause confusion. They then said that the player base was far enough along where they felt like they could do it.
So, do they probably have their reasons? Yeah, for sure. Do I think the community would consider all of those valid? No, probably not; but that's irrelevant, because we'd take a lot more shortcuts than they would. Do I think they should communicate more about those reasons like they did with invisible paths? Yeah, that would clear up a lot.
I don't necessarily think that feeling is entirely wrong. We used to have more CMs, and whilst they were very busy because they worked on multiple titles all at once; there were more so they had more time for that. So it's logical that they can't read as much as before.
On the other hand, just like I mentioned above, not every suggestion is going to work. Some are too complicated, some are too specific to a small part of the community, etc. Sometimes even phrasing is a killer when you make suggestions, because if you communicate it in a way where you offer a solution that won't work due to constraints you don't know; then it's easier to go "oh yeah that won't work".
I don't think a more dedicated way of giving suggestions is going to change that much really; sometimes we just have to accept that certain things just won't happen.
we should do a trade and put the Sri Lankan elephant in Mario Kart and the Cataquack in Planet Zoo
Oh snap, that would be awesome
Id rather buy a genuine "remodel" animal pack, where they update 7 base game animals to current dlc quality + some extra new animations and enritchments for them etc then get more actual clones of base game animals in packs. I dont want another lion, i want the normal lion to look better, i dont want a new tiger, i just want the bengal to get a touch up, i dont want an european brown bear, put the grizzly on a diet, etc.
I'd also love some reskinning DLC with different looking base feeders, waterpumps and enrichment designs, new bedding material like leaves, sand or sth. I'd like to put feeders or waterpump on walls, make them more hidden/naturally looking in the habitat, the metallic structures can't be even decorated/built around bcs then it stops to be accessible to the animals, can't be put underground as it always flattens the terrain around it to be functional for the game and so on. I am glad they started making those natural trees for scratching, but then they stopped there.
The Zookeeper pack was amazing with the lot of immersive little building pieces for zoo backstage, they could make more stuff like this, maybe put them in the same DLC with the reskin feeders and new enrichments, and I am sure people would love to buy it.
Quality fixes (and remoddeling existing animals is exactly that) should absolutely never be put behind a paywall. That would open the flood gates of hell, because technically it can be totally misused. Actually, EA does that in a subtile and not so subtile way all the time.
"Oh, we did sloppy work? Just spend money on this and this DLC and you get the quality you actually expected from a premium game title."
I know Frontier is struggling financially, but they are not an indie company that still needs to be supported for the smallest work just to keep the game alive. We are not talking Blue Meridian (Prehostoric Kingdom) here, who are still in their build up and therefore have a small team and need support via Patreon to create the game they invision.
Frontier was at this stage with Planet Coaster 1. They grew past that, made mistakes of their own fault, made even more mistakes so the game they wanted to heal with (Planet Coaster 2) did not save them, now other games have to step in. Or another customer base. Planet Zoo players, for example. With new DLCs. And it is argueable enough if the current DLCs are worth the same price as the DLCs years ago, but lets not enable Frontier to put the bar even lower by paying for fixes.
Fair enough, im just very irritated by the with each pack more scummy choices
No surprise here, but I am absolutely with you on that. Though, to be fair, from the upcomming pack we only know the honey badger, and that is fine. Whether their is an elephant or not is not yet confirmed.
Personally I am not buying into the Arctic Pack theory, as I feel that was back in the day when they just used the bison to align things. Or maybe the artwork was old and the bison was meant to be a DLC animal, I always say it: One is not a pattern.
But that does not mean I am right. Could very well be that they chose the elephant in the background to emphasise india. At the end of the day, the indian elephant is probably the most iconic zoo animal for that region, eh?
They already started with the Arctic pack funny enough (Arctic wolf) and then the Américas (rhea being basically an ostrich since feather and body look nothing like a rhea's and with the flamingo off).
I know they have a few packs prior to the current ones where they slacked in quality, but I'd say it was far less than it is now since Barnyard / Zookeeper. Cut corners over cut corners.
I remember learning about local wildlife in elementary school, but I think that was the only place it was a part of grade school. Most people likely just remember which animals were in the Lion King vs. Jungle Book. Everyone knows what a kangaroo, koala, and maybe platypus (Perry) is. I don't remember ever learning about European fauna. Much of what I know about South America came from visiting IRL zoos and the Amazon Trail game.
Despite the fact that the arctic wolf is a subspecies essentially included in Timber wolf, it does look pretty different from the Timber wolf and even has some new animations to it. I know it is far from a favourite choice, but how is it more "sloppy" than for example the Polar Bear, which is also a new model with new animations? It on par with all the other clones like American Flamingo or Malayan Tapir, or Ocelot or any other animal that shares a rig with other existing animal.
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Yes, what i mean is that is just a remodel of the Timber wolf places behind a paywall. Just like the american flamingo is a remaster of the base game flamingo, also behind a paywall. And now this elephant (which wasn't even that necessary of a remaster, indian elephant looks good enough already).
Okay, I beg to differ here.
New species (even if similar to the ones we have) = new content = justifyable to ask money for.
Updating existing species we already paid for and charging for it again = putting fixes behind a paywall. Inaccceptable.
Now, of course everyone can decide for themself how much a "clone" is worth. I was happily paying for the Flamingo, but one more caprine put behind a paywall and I am losing it. In general I have not really a problem with paying for similar species. But less than for species with more effort. Lately, however, it is more similar species than anything. And I don't agree with the opinion that similar is all we have left.
That is infuriatingly stupid.
Edit: But seriously, imagine holding back such a good feature because you're worried your player base is too dumb.
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I'm super excited for this DLC and can't wait for it to arrive next Tuesday. I think it will eventually become a South Asian or general Asian DLC and not just dedicated to India (although that would be my favorite option given the possibilities it would open up for the game's future).
I feel very differently about this. The lion and many of the other base game animals looked great upon release. But with the passage of time, and Frontier's own improvements and stylistic changes? They look a little dated. Which honestly makes sense considering the game was released 5+ years ago. I don't think it's a matter of poor quality so much as improved quality over time.
Work is work. If Frontier were to put the time and energy into remastering the base game roster and some of the early DLC animals to give them a more "modern" shine? They are justified in getting paid for it. And I'd definitely be willing to pay for it if the price-to-content ratio felt fair.
Maybe it's because I consume a lot of other media but this is a very normal thing. Video games get "remastered" all the time. Artists re-release albums with tracks that didn't originally make the cut, remixed/remastered versions, or even just new artwork. People regularly pay $$$ for vinyl records just because the color of the record is different. Movies get released with new bonus features, scenes that got cut, etc. The second edition for two of my favorite non-fiction books from the last few years, when it came time to put out a second edition the authors put in some new chapters - and some typos were fixed. But because the content is quality? I'll happily pay for it. I don't sit there thinking "Y'know, that interview with Person X really should have just been included in the book to begin with." Because the original worked just fine without it... But having it is a nice bonus.
The notion that things should just be upgraded for free on a regular basis is pretty unhealthy, TBH, and its insulting to the creators of the work. I don't say this in a "defend Frontier at all costs" kinda way but rather that people should be respected and compensated for what they do. Frontier has provided a whole mess of free content between 2019 and today... So if they were to release a DLC that was just 7 remasters for the cost of a standard DLC? Yeah, that's scummy. But if they remastered the full base game animal roster for, say, $15? That would be perfectly reasonable to me.