Most of my PZ friends preferred the other animals, some outright disliked the cassowary. But thats good to hear
Let's say proper aviaries don't happen. What then? What would it take for you to be satisfied, personally?
- Thread starter biggest_dreamer
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If u are such interested in birds, modders are planning to release functional flying toucan. Appereantly peacocks and their babies in game can fly in special conditions. Flight mechanic technically is already in the game. Cant wait to see what frontier will do with aves.
Where'd you hear that? The peafowl can jump, i think.
Well, between this forum, YouTube, and other discussions I've seen online, nobody seems to outright dislike the cassowary. The only real negative sentiment I've heard about it, which is one I myself have echoed, is that many people would have preferred the emu (by no means a majority, either), which is another bird anyway. Mammals aren't so much "more popular" as they are "more iconic" in terms of recognisable species. For example, the king penguin and greater flamingo are both extremely iconic zoo birds, but the southern ground hornbill isn't, so they probably wouldn't include the hornbill in an Africa Pack alongside more iconic species like the meerkat, white rhino, and so on.
I'm not saying your friends are wrong or anything, but it isn't an opinion I've come across in a broad range of mediums.
Check latest LionRider video from stream with dolphin on icon. Around 28 minute.
I think ultimately, they should've waited and had the cassowary, perhaps even the northern species over the southern, in the SEA pack and done the emu or something else in the Australia pack. It's not exactly an iconic "Australian" animal, which I think is the main gripe people have about it. I haven't seen anyone outright upset about it being added to the game though. And to be fair, though I'm not sure how much impact this would've had in their decision making, last summer I did a week long series of polls about which animal people would want to see to represent groups that had little representation in PZ, and the cassowary overwhelmingly won the ground birds contest.
Agreed, I think the cassowary was generally very well recieved, its just people were also mising the emu. However I think we could say that basically with every other dlc. Many people were missing musk ox and arctic fox, capybara and maned wolf, tasmanian devil and emu, california sea lion and smaller penguin, gibbon in SEA...and probably some others. Basically there still many animals from the visited regions that people are still missing.
So I dont think people really disliked many of the included animals (maybe the arctic wolf a bit?) but more likely were sad it got picked over something they felt is more iconic because there is no guarantee it will be included in the future.
So I dont think people really disliked many of the included animals (maybe the arctic wolf a bit?) but more likely were sad it got picked over something they felt is more iconic because there is no guarantee it will be included in the future.
If we don't get an aviary dlc, then the big finale dlc should just be a generic zoo pack that adds the most requested animals from the community (capybaras, gibbons, sea lions, secretary bird...etc)
In my mind it would be like:
- Zoo Rides? Like a carousel, playground equipment
In my mind it would be like:
- 12 Habitat Animals
- 4 Exhibit Animals
- Zoo Rides? Like a carousel, playground equipment
I would not miss anything. That doesn't mean I'm satisfied for good with the game yet, just that I'm not interested in flying birds.
If, however, there will be aviaries but they can not be used for small monkeys or climbing animals without a ridicolous climbing barrier, THAT would be a problem for me. And some other things, when they are missing.
I would, however, feel sorry for the community, because a huge majority feels the game is not completed without flying birds. For me, to make flying birds interesting, there must be so may things that I think will be never added, that I doubt I will ever feel passionate about them. Free flying shows is one of them. And I have a very few bird species I really like and I doubt they will be included.
Edit: Sorry, concentration is over, I should have replied differently. As for "what would be an alternative" - I'm pretty fine with just cranes and keas being added and make them not fly
All other birds I'd like to see (not much) should fly
If, however, there will be aviaries but they can not be used for small monkeys or climbing animals without a ridicolous climbing barrier, THAT would be a problem for me. And some other things, when they are missing.
I would, however, feel sorry for the community, because a huge majority feels the game is not completed without flying birds. For me, to make flying birds interesting, there must be so may things that I think will be never added, that I doubt I will ever feel passionate about them. Free flying shows is one of them. And I have a very few bird species I really like and I doubt they will be included.
I'm not such a bird hater as it seems I watch a 24/7 live stream with nesting bluetits and greattits during work for several days now and I love it. I think I'm just not into birds in captivity.
I watch a 24/7 live stream with nesting bluetits and greattits during work for several days now and I love it. I think I'm just not into birds in captivity.Edit: Sorry, concentration is over, I should have replied differently. As for "what would be an alternative" - I'm pretty fine with just cranes and keas being added and make them not fly
All other birds I'd like to see (not much) should fly
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I think at this point, after such a long time and so much effort placed by frontier in such a feature, it would be fair to give them as much additional time as they need. No company works on something for well over a year to simply just compromise on a lesser alternative at the end. This is usually the case unless that compromise is a must as the original idea is just not viable. The issue with that alternative reality is that in this case, the work would have been stopped a while back and birds would have simply being added to the game with an alternative plan.
For the sake of this thread I will discuss what an acceptable compromise would be for me, (not that it has any bearing on what will end up happening in real life) Birds are as everyone probably know by now, even if they had never visited a real life zoo before this game, a central and very basic element of zoos. When you first enter the game map, what do you hear? Birds, yet you do not see any, besides a compromise in game performance what that should tell you is how important it is to have birds in a zoo. This along, hundreds of other reasons that I will not list in this thread should make a case for birds being added in any manner possible.
Ideally we would be able to have walkthrough aviaries, habitat birds, etc etc, but if this was no longer possible, then an acceptable compromise for me would be the birds added alongside enrichment items, that include a variation of looping animations. An example would be a Toucan on a standing tree trunk with branches, that will hop alongside the branches, an African grey parrot that will walk on rope and hang upside down every now and then, an Indian hornbill resting on a banyan tree trunk that will spread its wings and fly to the very top of it. Of course that there will be need to be a variety of animations, not just a single one, still, far easier than having the birds as habitat animals.
Having the birds tied to enrichment items when adopting them would open up the possibility of designing their habitats as the player sees fit. If you are building a temperate zoo in North America or Europe you can create glass winter enclosures inside a birdhouse building and even summer outdoor ones if you like. You can also recreate the majestic walkthrough aviaries of the warmer U.S regions and lush Southeast Asian Zoos. The possibilities here would be endless, as the barriers alongside the animations would be tied to an enrichment radius that the player would be able to control to suit his/her needs.
The one thing that would be totally unacceptable to me when it comes to birds, particularly since we have waited this long, is having them go the route of the reptiles/amphibians, where they come in a standard one size fits all mesh/glass box and call it a day. This would not only cripple creativity beyond believe but it would remove all sense of realism from the game, as the player's zoos would look even less and less like their real life counterparts.
PS: I did not mention in the original post, that we would of course need all the aviary mesh sections required to create elaborate aviaries with the above reference option. Thought it was too obvious, but still, worth mentioning it. The current construction glass panels would have to be adjusted as well since they have very poor visibility, we either get construction glass panel that are comparable to the current ones in the barrier system or a flex color option for them, so players can adjust them to their specific needs.
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I'm really hoping for true aviaries, of course. But I have wondered if there's not some way to use the existing climbing (for perching), swimming (for 3d space), and enrichment mechanics (as pre-set animations), to give us a sufficient bird work-around, even if they can't master the full options of flight.
But I'm really hoping that december will be a aviation pack -- with birds (and bats), and building pieces that match. Much like last december introduced semi-aquatic mechanics. I'm not part of the crowd that says that if something is missing, that we should continue giving those players nothing so that every pack has a fictional balance while continuing to completely disregard the parts of the community that want that new thing. Rather, I think that if something is missing, it makes complete sense to dedicate a pack to fixing that imbalance -- and including as many other parts of the community as possible within that theme.
Personally, I'm hoping that a bird pack might include even more species than our most recent animal pack, because I think that in some cases, multiple species of birds can get added using a single rig, animation, etc., but just with different colors. For example, if they make a macaw, I'd love to see a scarlet, a military, and a blue and-yellow, and maybe 1 or 2 others. Or several different types of owls that all act alike, but have different coats, etc. For me, they would basically be color variations, but these various species could fill up one "spot", similar to how albinos or black jaguars do, still leaving us with spaces for eagles, hawks, owls, cranes, sparrows, etc.
So my dream is maybe a pack that has 7-8 rigs (like the south east asia pack), but uses those to create maybe 20-25 species, many of which would work the same as each other, but just be color variations or reskins (re-feathers?) of each other. And the building pieces like netting, etc. that would be necesary are among the most requested building pieces, so it seems like such a pack would be very popular. They could even include bats, which would be mammals, and maybe a gliding reptile if they really feel like that they need to have an artificial "balance" for every single dlc. (Though I think I'd prefer if the exhibit were a smaller species of bird that they for some reason really can't make habitat sized).