Zoo Tycoon Gameplay Questions and Bug Report

[BajaBob]

Hello everyone,

I purchased ZT for Xbox 360 mainly for my wife as she really enjoys the tycoon series. As long as she loves the game I'm happy. Though I'm sure I'll pick it up and play here in the near future. I finally found this forum after much intense searching online. I wish there was a more formal way to get in touch with the developers! Or something in the DLC that says where I can find help and ask questions.

Not a plug, but more of a reference... I own a small video game company based in Texas, we develop games for iPhone and Android and having a place in the credits or about page about where users can get help is free marketing for us. We get users on our forums and facebook pages by the thousands every month asking questions and helping each other out. Surprised to see such a large organization do it differently. Advertising on those forums... anyways, it is a good model for us at least. It took me forever to get here.

Anyways back to my questions and inputs,

1. The lighting never changes. The wife played through all the tutorials and got onto one of the US based campaigns and the afternoon sunset never changes! It has gotten to the point where she is building around the shadows because it is just so straining on the eyes. Is there a setting I am missing here? Or do the map lighting conditions never change?

2. Lack of music. In comparison to other tycoon-esk simulators like Sim City for instance, there is not nearly enough in-game music. Keep the player enriched in content, stimulate all the senses! Music is a great way to keep content fresh and appealing. Especially in the "global view" of the game where local ambient noises are not heard.

3. How do you add a picture to your "website" in-game? As I was working last night that seemed to be a major complaint of my wife's. She was taking pictures of her animals for one of her challenges and could not figure out how to add them to her game website.


Thanks and I look forward to hearing from anyone at this point!

 

[Waffles]

Hello everyone,

I purchased ZT for Xbox 360 mainly for my wife as she really enjoys the tycoon series. As long as she loves the game I'm happy. Though I'm sure I'll pick it up and play here in the near future. I finally found this forum after much intense searching online. I wish there was a more formal way to get in touch with the developers! Or something in the DLC that says where I can find help and ask questions.

Not a plug, but more of a reference... I own a small video game company based in Texas, we develop games for iPhone and Android and having a place in the credits or about page about where users can get help is free marketing for us. We get users on our forums and facebook pages by the thousands every month asking questions and helping each other out. Surprised to see such a large organization do it differently. Advertising on those forums... anyways, it is a good model for us at least. It took me forever to get here.

Anyways back to my questions and inputs,

1. The lighting never changes. The wife played through all the tutorials and got onto one of the US based campaigns and the afternoon sunset never changes! It has gotten to the point where she is building around the shadows because it is just so straining on the eyes. Is there a setting I am missing here? Or do the map lighting conditions never change?

2. Lack of music. In comparison to other tycoon-esk simulators like Sim City for instance, there is not nearly enough in-game music. Keep the player enriched in content, stimulate all the senses! Music is a great way to keep content fresh and appealing. Especially in the "global view" of the game where local ambient noises are not heard.

3. How do you add a picture to your "website" in-game? As I was working last night that seemed to be a major complaint of my wife's. She was taking pictures of her animals for one of her challenges and could not figure out how to add them to her game website.


Thanks and I look forward to hearing from anyone at this point!

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like they respond to anything related to Zoo Tycoon. There are two posts on their Support forum related to Zoo Tycoon but no responses for either. It's not a dead forum either as you can find moderator posts in the other threads.

There's only been one post from a moderator in this entire sub-forum in the past month or so. There's also another bug that prevents the user from getting one of the achievements in the game. Seems pretty serious but no responses so far.

It just all looks like the company and community managers are ignoring everything related to Zoo Tycoon. So, unfortunately I doubt you'll see any changes to lighting or music.

The album sharing would be nice. I kinda want some feature like that too. Maybe post to Skydrive or something but that seems like something Microsoft needs to build in for developers to use.

 

[Enuebis]

3. How do you add a picture to your "website" in-game? As I was working last night that seemed to be a major complaint of my wife's. She was taking pictures of her animals for one of her challenges and could not figure out how to add them to her game website.

There is no actual website that you have to manually add the photo to. As long as she takes the photo of the animal that the challenge asks for, she should complete the challenge. This is how it works on Xbox One at least. I am assuming its the same for the 360.

 

[mark0ne]

There is no actual website that you have to manually add the photo to. As long as she takes the photo of the animal that the challenge asks for, she should complete the challenge. This is how it works on Xbox One at least. I am assuming its the same for the 360.

Also I think you need a 'good' photo of the animal in question. Zoom in close but still keeping it within frame. not sure if it helps but I take mine when they are doing something interesting too. I have taken the required photo's before and not always completed the challenge without bearing this in mind.