One thing that's always kind of bugged me in the game is the way the guests seem more motivated by the food and beverages than anything else. Case in point, I've created a number of nice underground viewing grottoes for aquatic animals, but the guests tend to ignore them unless I put vending machines down there as well. Then they buy food and leave and don't stay to watch the sea lions or whatever, even if the animals are putting on a great underwater show in front of the viewing area. Likewise, guests will go to areas of the zoo without any habitats or exhibits if I put food courts there. I am guessing the extreme food motivation of the guests, paired with the lack of drinking fountains (not something allowed in real zoos) is to generate more cash? Obviously, real zoos make a lot of money off concessions, but not everyone comes to a zoo just to eat their way from one snack bar to the next. People seem to need to eat and drink more than they even need to use the restrooms.
Guest behavior
- Thread starter Roxxsmom
- Start date
I agree, I have never been to a zoo with as much food and concessions as the guests in Planet Zoo need.
Still I recommend adding viewing points, educational signs, donation binds, basically anything to draw the AI over to the habitats.
Still I recommend adding viewing points, educational signs, donation binds, basically anything to draw the AI over to the habitats.
Yes, and I especially do this with habitats that are away from the entrance and ride terminals and so on. And also I place signs, viewing areas and so on. Ride terminals do help. Sometimes, though, there's a habitat that seems invisible to most of the guests, even if it's got animals that should have high appeal. A mystery, it seems. And of course, balancing the needs of sensitive animals and the desire of the guests to see them is always a challenge. I know someone who works at a RL zoo, and she says that they do take sensitive animals "off exhibit" about 50% of the time, but the way time works in the game, it's not plausible to do this, aside from my sometimes picking up animals and plopping them in the back of the exhibit, behind the landscaling (something they can't seem to do for themselves sometimes when "stressed and "trying to hide."
The guests generally do go to them, but the numbers are much better when there is food nearby. The main thing that irritates me is that the people seem to go to the zoo mostly to dine and are always hungry and thirsty, while the animals are secondary. Maybe it's not really resolvable, given the disconnect between the time frame for guests and animals moving around in a realistic way when the meta time scale is moving very fast. Hours, even days, of meta time pass during the time frame it takes for a hungry guest, or animal, to move to the food. Same reason a blizzard or heat wave arrives and creates a welfare issue during the time it takes an animal to finish its meal.
So guest is on the way to my cool hippo habitat with the underwater viewing area, but by the time they get near it, they are STARVING because hours of meta time have passed. Hence the tumbleweeds rolling around in said cool underwater viewing area, unless I install vending machines.
Ah yes another thread with another management issue that can atleast partly be boiled down to "the ingame time is way to fast".
Hard to have meaningfull shortterm management when "short term" relates to under 10 mins of real time
Hard to have meaningfull shortterm management when "short term" relates to under 10 mins of real time
There is a vista point item that you can place down which causes guest to go where you placed it and look at it, i think. So take what i siad with a grain of salt, i always play with guests turned off
I've never used vista points. I usually have no problems having guests swarm the animals. Especially when there are babies.
Yeah i think their intended purpose is to have a way to make guest look at stuff other than animals, like a botanical display or something like that