Lifestages

[Wistala]

Greetings!

So since the devs have said that they won't do gradual growth due to to many animations having to be made. I was wondering that perhaps a compromise would tempt the devs a bit?

So the idea is that instead of gradual growth they could introduce life-stages as following. Newborn, baby and Juvenile.

• Newborns in case of tigers for example would be small kittens that can't move they would need their mother to feed them milk (in case the mother is gone a zookeeper could feed them) or with chimpanzee the newborn would cling to the mother and not move from her, as well as needing milk. (if the mother is gone, unsure how to handle that one) In case of egglayers, newborn would be the egg.

• Babies: Here the tiger cups have open their eyes and are exploring the world albeit a bit wobbly to the delight of guests. They still need milk from their mother. With chimpanzee they have started to explore as well spending less time on the mother. Egglayers, eggs have hatched and are exploring the world, depending on the animal perhaps have parents feed them food.

• Juvenile: As they are now in the game. Playful, all over the place and don't need milk.

I am aware it would still include lots of animation having to be made, but I figured it might be considerable less. Of course I am no programmer so I wouldn't have a clue.
I just feel that in their current stage they seem a bit boring? There is nothing special really happening with them, no sense of time/progression. Where's with life-stage you at least get the feeling of progressing, that times has passed and they were once small now they are adults.
As it is now, its like the animals give birth to almost young adults and then pops from small form to an adult form in less then a second. And with egglayers that feels even worse since you never see eggs. Its like every egglayer suddenly became mammals.
So far they have gotten everything else right with the animals (in my opinion) but the offspring part was a huge disappointment, especially with the egglayers and I just hope the devs would be willing to do something.
But yeah, just an idea. Would love to hear people thoughts, perhaps build upon this further etc.

 

[NZFanatic]

There's already been a topic on this where we were told it wasn't possible. In essence, it would require the devs to create from scratch a series of new models for every species in the game, plus new skins, new animations, new sounds, and new ways for these models to interact with their environments. It would probably take longer than the life of the game to achieve it.

Maybe if we get Planet Zoo 2 in the future this is something they will look at including, as it has been a popular request.

 

[NZFanatic]

For context, here's the post in question:

Thanks for your feedback all. RabidOkapi does a great job touching on why this won't be happening, but I'll explain further. Adding in more stages of growth means the team will need to create more skeletons/rigs, meaning more animations, animal models, audio and more. It's simply not viable for us to do this post-launch, not just because of the cost and time it would take, but also for technical reasons and the effect it would have on players' games.

 

[Wistala]

For context, here's the post in question:

Yeah that's the post I was referring to. I thought it was about gradual grows and not lifestages as I described. Essential its 2 lifestages at a fixed size, I am aware they still have to make new rig skeleton and animations for every current animal and future but I figured it would be considerable less than if they had to do gradual growth.

The time issues I can understand since time goes way to fast on normal speed (mine is slowed down) it could be archived if the game was slowed down by default tho.

Essentially if they meant all kinds of grows then that sucks because that would sound like they can't/won't add any additional gameplay to the animals themselves, so that probably means no eggs or nests as you would have the same issue. Maybe if we are lucky a new enrichment toy that is different than what we already got, but that would be about it.

Granted I am not a programmer, I know nothing. I am just sharing what I have understood from it.

 

[NZFanatic]

Yeah that's the post I was referring to. I thought it was about gradual grows and not lifestages as I described. Essential its 2 lifestages at a fixed size, I am aware they still have to make new rig skeleton and animations for every current animal and future but I figured it would be considerable less than if they had to do gradual growth.

The time issues I can understand since time goes way to fast on normal speed (mine is slowed down) it could be archived if the game was slowed down by default tho.

Essentially if they meant all kinds of grows then that sucks because that would sound like they can't/won't add any additional gameplay to the animals themselves, so that probably means no eggs or nests as you would have the same issue. Maybe if we are lucky a new enrichment toy that is different than what we already got, but that would be about it.

Granted I am not a programmer, I know nothing. I am just sharing what I have understood from it.

Sorry to say, Chante's post was pretty cut-and-dry. This idea is dead-on-arrival. As I said, we might one day get Planet Zoo 2 which could include some of the more impossible features we want in the current game. Honestly, I like the idea (especially since the range of babies currently in the game are all in different life stages; some appear as newborns, others as a few months old, others still as close to adulthood), but I'm 100% sure we'll never see it in the current iteration of the game.

 

[NL_Mutso]

I think this is one of the requests that's a bit unrealistic to add in the game.
Would've been a really good suggestion/request if this was the development stage.

Can't even imagine how much work this will take and how many bugs this will unleash upon the game.

Doesn't help the request was already addressed , tbh didn't know that comment was made.

 

[felinora99]

I hope we get the newborn stage in an eventual PZ 2 ! Baby stage would be lovely, but a looot of work, so I would rather have the newborn stage, with babies moving less so less animations (I think ?).

 

[Wistala]

Guess you guys are right. Sucks tho. Always wondered why every Zoo simulator won't do gradual growth, Wirldlife Park 2 is the only one that ever has and I love it for it. Guess its just too costly/time consuming to implement, guess we can hope Planet Zoo 2 will have it, although double sucks having to look forward to a game that are years away just to get a feature you would like. Oh well can't be helped, I don't blame them for have taken this direction, if its that much work, but you can always hope I suppose.

Thanks for the reply guys!