Malayan Tapir Redesign

[Mazoku]

Well, I have to be honest that Malayan Tapir would need to get a redesign. Why? Let's me to show you guys.

Malayan Tapir have thicker and curve snout than other tapirs, and their ears are bigger too. Planet zoo's Malayan Tapir doesn't looks kind right, it looked like they probably used their Baird's Tapir model to make a Malayan Tapir.

When I see them in the first place, I had some of feeling that they probably used the Baird's Tapir model to make them like I said earlier.
However, they added new feature where you can change your animals' colour by renaming them DaveyT, I used that feature on one of my Malayan Tapirs,
and I found out that they PROBABLY used the Baird's Tapir model to make them.

(This is Malayan Tapir in DaveyT feature)

How did I knew that they probably used the Baird's Tapir model to make Malayan Tapir? Planet zoo's Baird's Tapir has small dark coloured spot on its cheek,
Malayan Tapir have them in Planet zoo so it's obviously that they probably used Baird's Tapir model to make Malayan Tapir.

So that why I think they should get a redesign because what is the point of using Baird's Tapir model to make Malayan Tapir.

If you think that Malayan Tapir should get a redesign, lets grab Froniter's attention to redesign the Malayan Tapir!

 

[Bearcat9948]

This particular thread didn't get enough traction when it was first posted, probably because there have been like 5-6 threads in total discussing what is wrong with the Malayan tapir, but I think this is the best one that points out every issue with the model. The only thing that it doesn't mention is the weird purple seam the tapir also has.

I think of all the model issues in PZ, this one is actually the worst. It's been 5 months since the SEA pack was released and they still haven't fixed it yet, despite the fact that modders have proved it's easily doable, like, it would take 2 days maximum to fix if they actually cared enough to do. The hilarious thing is that the art department actually made an anatomically correct Malayan tapir for the animal artwork in the pack, which makes the animal model look even worse. I'm not really sure what conclusions I can draw a this point, other than that Frontier simply does not care. Jens has commented on it before, they know it's an issue. They've fixed two other models in the very same pack, one of which took place over a weekend. Maybe I'm missing something in my analysis, and someone can help me out, but at this point I just don't see how they actually care that it's wrong.

The reason I'm bringing this up was because I've decided that unless it's fixed in a 1.6 patch, or is fixed next month in the 1.7 update, I'm not buying any more dlc from Frontier, even if it is an animal pack or an aviary pack. It's really annoying that they have acknowledged something is wrong, yet have taken no steps to fix it, and continue to be fine charging people money for it. I don't really know what else I (or we) can do to get them to finally do something except stop giving them money until it's adressed.

/Rant

 

[SalamAnders]

I made a meme to attract further attention!

 

[Leaf Productions]

I made a meme to attract further attention!
View attachment 257736

It still hurts, bro.

Literally one of my favorite animals and it gets the shaft when it comes to it's model design, meanwhile the Dhole that was perfectly passable...

 

[Bearcat9948]

PZ team meeting be like....

CM: "Alright guys, people have pointed out numerous times on the forums, reddit, discord, twitter and YouTube the specific errors with the Malayan tapir model. What're we gonna do to address it?"

Manager: "A tapir is a tapir, who cares."

CM: "You don't think it looks bad that we rapidly fixed two other models from the same pack, and have acknowledged the tapir model is inaccurate?"

Manager: "Lol idk"

 

[Antmar97]

I think this should be a pinned thread if that's possible here, the first picture comparison says it all, even a kid who's starting to approach to the animal kingdom can spot the differences between a real Malayan Tapir and the one we have in the game.

There also a report in the issue tracker about the leg and the inaccurate purple tint, issue that's been confirmed since may, and we don't have any answer yet. (I'll link one more time again if some Cms see this thread)

https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/30711

Months and updates are passing and we don't have one definitive answer yet, i don't know what to do to resolve this aside from try to get an answer in the updates thread with no success.

 

[markun]

This is such an important issue for the game. It’s like being promised pizza, paying for pizza and being given cheese on toast.

The Malayan tapir is so far from the actual animal and what makes it worse is that there is a sign that is perfectly done.

One of my most anticipated animals is one I never use because it just isn’t up to standard.

Please, please frontier, fix this!

 

[Iben]

I'm not really sure what conclusions I can draw a this point, other than that Frontier simply does not care. Jens has commented on it before, they know it's an issue. They've fixed two other models in the very same pack, one of which took place over a weekend. Maybe I'm missing something in my analysis, and someone can help me out, but at this point I just don't see how they actually care that it's wrong.

Just because they haven't fixed it yet, doesn't mean they don't care.

Development works in sprints (usually of two weeks) where a bunch of work is planned in. As long as the sprint lasts, developers stick to the work they planned in, because otherwise you end up with constant changes in requirements and nothing ever gets done.

When a sprint gets planned, there's sometimes time planned in as well for bugs, but bugs are not as easy to estimate as new features. A new feature you know how to do, a bug can easily be a lot more complicated because it can basically turn into a rabbit hole that goes deeper and deeper.

Bugs are therefore prioritized because you can't do all the bugs in a single sprint, you still need the planned work that needs to be done. So each sprint they can take in some bugs, but not all. Just because something takes 10 minutes doesn't mean they have 10 minutes right now, because either planned work or other bugs have higher priority.

If they have indeed acknowledged it's an issue, than it is somewhere in the bug pile and it wasn't prioritized as a high enough to be fixed by now. That doesn't mean that they don't care, it means that they have other bugs they consider more important than this one, and given that this one is not game breaking I can understand that.

 

[markun]

Just because they haven't fixed it yet, doesn't mean they don't care.

Development works in sprints (usually of two weeks) where a bunch of work is planned in. As long as the sprint lasts, developers stick to the work they planned in, because otherwise you end up with constant changes in requirements and nothing ever gets done.

When a sprint gets planned, there's sometimes time planned in as well for bugs, but bugs are not as easy to estimate as new features. A new feature you know how to do, a bug can easily be a lot more complicated because it can basically turn into a rabbit hole that goes deeper and deeper.

Bugs are therefore prioritized because you can't do all the bugs in a single sprint, you still need the planned work that needs to be done. So each sprint they can take in some bugs, but not all. Just because something takes 10 minutes doesn't mean they have 10 minutes right now, because either planned work or other bugs have higher priority.

If they have indeed acknowledged it's an issue, than it is somewhere in the bug pile and it wasn't prioritized as a high enough to be fixed by now. That doesn't mean that they don't care, it means that they have other bugs they consider more important than this one, and given that this one is not game breaking I can understand that.

If they actually communicated that they acknowledge the issue and are addressing it, even if it will take time, people wouldn’t be annoyed. It’s the silence that leads people to assume they don’t care.

 

[Bearcat9948]

Just because they haven't fixed it yet, doesn't mean they don't care.

Development works in sprints (usually of two weeks) where a bunch of work is planned in. As long as the sprint lasts, developers stick to the work they planned in, because otherwise you end up with constant changes in requirements and nothing ever gets done.

When a sprint gets planned, there's sometimes time planned in as well for bugs, but bugs are not as easy to estimate as new features. A new feature you know how to do, a bug can easily be a lot more complicated because it can basically turn into a rabbit hole that goes deeper and deeper.

Bugs are therefore prioritized because you can't do all the bugs in a single sprint, you still need the planned work that needs to be done. So each sprint they can take in some bugs, but not all. Just because something takes 10 minutes doesn't mean they have 10 minutes right now, because either planned work or other bugs have higher priority.

If they have indeed acknowledged it's an issue, than it is somewhere in the bug pile and it wasn't prioritized as a high enough to be fixed by now. That doesn't mean that they don't care, it means that they have other bugs they consider more important than this one, and given that this one is not game breaking I can understand that.

I could buy this after 3, maybe even 4 months. But it really has been too long. When it would be such an easy, simple fix, and they know people want it yet refuse to act on it, that's frustrating.

 

[Iben]

I could buy this after 3, maybe even 4 months. But it really has been too long. When it would be such an easy, simple fix, and they know people want it yet refuse to act on it, that's frustrating.

But I reiterate. Just because something is an easy simple fix doesn't mean that it will be fixed right away. At my previous job we had an entire JIRA board full of bugs of which some where simple and easy to fix. Some of them were there for over 2 years. Some are still there to this day. But other work was more important. And introducing new features automatically means that you're going to end up with some more bugs some of which will again take more priority over the older bugs.

Development just doesn't exist in this perfect little vacuum where there's always "10 mins of time" to fix simple and easy bugs. New features take months and sometimes years of work to get done, and older features and bugs are almost always the victim of that. If there was a magical way to avoid that, we would all be doing it already because we as developers are painfully aware of that issue. I still know of bugs in my previous project of which I'm sad I never had the time to fix them. And I worked overtime there. Devs certainly care.

I know it's not easy to understand that perspective especially when you're frustrated, we had the same with our clients, but as long as something isn't breaking and there are other features people want more, sometimes these bugs get postponed with every new sprint. It's just how things are. If you had an infinite amount of developers you can tackle everything all at once. But no dev team ever has that, so things need to be prioritized. And although there are quite a few people vocal about it here on the forums, you aren't the only members in this community and other things are more important to other people. You cannot please everyone.

I'm not saying you cannot be frustrated about it, but saying things like "they don't care" and "they refuse to act" is just not in line with reality. Things are a hell of a lot more nuanced than just black and white. You said that Jens addressed it already and says that the team knows it's an issue, so I don't see the point of @markun here as clearly they have communicated about it already no?

At the end of the day, your frustration is your own and I cannot change it, but the only thing I can do is give some insight on how all of these processes work and why even if it might seem that they don't care, there are other reasons than a lack of interest.

 

[random goat]

Iben, your whole argument seems pretty reasonable to me but it doesn't hold up in this specific case given that they tweaked the dhole model, which I doubt was a super high priority for most players.
I'm not saying they dont' care, but that they have a weird way of prioritizing things sometimes. Like, I can understand why they wouldn't prioritise reducing the deep water requirements for some animals because that would involve a lot more work and most players wouldn't care anyway. But the bad tapir model has been pointed out countless times in several platforms already; I'd say it's a reasonably extended opinion among the PZ community (leaving aside casual players who don't voice their opinions).

I can live with the bad tapir model as long as that means that they'll fix more pressing issues and that they'll work hard on new features (which they surely do). But if anything, this situation shows, again, how small the PZ team is right now. So I can perfectly understand that hardcore PZ players are frustrated that their game is getting less and less attention.

 

[Bearcat9948]

But I reiterate. Just because something is an easy simple fix doesn't mean that it will be fixed right away. At my previous job we had an entire JIRA board full of bugs of which some where simple and easy to fix. Some of them were there for over 2 years. Some are still there to this day. But other work was more important. And introducing new features automatically means that you're going to end up with some more bugs some of which will again take more priority over the older bugs.

Development just doesn't exist in this perfect little vacuum where there's always "10 mins of time" to fix simple and easy bugs. New features take months and sometimes years of work to get done, and older features and bugs are almost always the victim of that. If there was a magical way to avoid that, we would all be doing it already because we as developers are painfully aware of that issue. I still know of bugs in my previous project of which I'm sad I never had the time to fix them. And I worked overtime there. Devs certainly care.

I know it's not easy to understand that perspective especially when you're frustrated, we had the same with our clients, but as long as something isn't breaking and there are other features people want more, sometimes these bugs get postponed with every new sprint. It's just how things are. If you had an infinite amount of developers you can tackle everything all at once. But no dev team ever has that, so things need to be prioritized. And although there are quite a few people vocal about it here on the forums, you aren't the only members in this community and other things are more important to other people. You cannot please everyone.

I'm not saying you cannot be frustrated about it, but saying things like "they don't care" and "they refuse to act" is just not in line with reality. Things are a hell of a lot more nuanced than just black and white. You said that Jens addressed it already and says that the team knows it's an issue, so I don't see the point of @markun here as clearly they have communicated about it already no?

At the end of the day, your frustration is your own and I cannot change it, but the only thing I can do is give some insight on how all of these processes work and why even if it might seem that they don't care, there are other reasons than a lack of interest.

The communication is the purple color issue on the issue tracker being confirmed 3 months ago, and Jens commenting on the forums like 4(?) months ago saying something like "I know it isn't what you're hoping to hear, but I have no news on the Malayan tapir at this time". I wouldn't call that clear communication as to when it's going to get fixed.

Obviously, I appreciate your perspective, that's why I asked for other people's opinions. But I'm still not satisfied that it hasn't been fixed.

 

[Utahraptor Arcanus]

I know it's not easy to understand that perspective especially when you're frustrated, we had the same with our clients, but as long as something isn't breaking and there are other features people want more, sometimes these bugs get postponed with every new sprint. It's just how things are. If you had an infinite amount of developers you can tackle everything all at once. But no dev team ever has that, so things need to be prioritized. And although there are quite a few people vocal about it here on the forums, you aren't the only members in this community and other things are more important to other people. You cannot please everyone.

as well as this discussion is very common since sea launch,so much here and in Reddit, YouTube and others, and the bear cat and dhole(the dhole have less requests from redesign than the tapir) receive a remodel much more harder and in the launch epoch, the tapir should have receive a remodel together with them, what isn't the case. also if this aren't a a priorities, so whats is?

 

[Doran]

But if anything, this situation shows, again, how small the PZ team is right now. So I can perfectly understand that hardcore PZ players are frustrated that their game is getting less and less attention.

Frontier have 600 employes and around 70 of them are work on Planet Zoo. (100 are ONLY dedicated for ED for comparison). I dont get that part, why people think this team is small. Most their games have small teams. They are doing more important things perhaps. Malayan tapir isnt game breaking or something like that, so it isnt priority. He just look like .
They definitely have something important (they were doing diving for over year).

 

[random goat]

Where did you get those figures from? I'd be extremely surprised if ~70 people worked in PZ as of now.
I (or we) assume that the PZ team is small simply because, at least with regards to artists, they externalize much of their work when it comes to new DLCs. Even having that in mind, they are only capable of bringing us 4+1 animals every 3-4 months, some of which with rigs and animations heavily based on previous ones. Not saying creating animals is easy or quick, but we now have proof (mods) that the models themselves can be made in a few days by a single person (leaving aside the supposedly strict Frontier quality control).
If the PZ team is as big as you claim, then it's clear: the reason for not tackling the tapir model is because it would not entail enough added value (money or players' opinions) for them.

 

[Iben]

Iben, your whole argument seems pretty reasonable to me but it doesn't hold up in this specific case given that they tweaked the dhole model, which I doubt was a super high priority for most players.

Looking back at the update logs there were both model and animation tweaks for the Dhole at two different occasions. The latter is important, because the animations made the model distort slightly when walking, something some of the content creators ( me included ) flagged during EA as well. I can understand that they consider distortion because of animations a higher priority than the tapir remodel.

The fact that the model was tweaked at that point isn't surprising either, it was probably either tweaked to fit the animations or it's a case of what we call "boyscouting". Boyscouting is basically looking at the time window you got for the issue you have to change at hand, and see if you can do further tweaks within that window of time. This is always limited to the component you're working on, in this case for instance the dhole model, and not something unrelated. It happens in coding a lot ( I do it all the time), so I wouldn't be surprised if such practices also exist within animation and modeling.

With this I just want to point out that sometimes we don't understand or know the reason why something is higher priority, but that doesn't automatically mean that there's weird prioritizing of that it shouldn't have been high priority. Sometimes before judging processes, you need to take a step back and wonder if you really have all the variables to judge it.

The communication is the purple color issue on the issue tracker being confirmed 3 months ago, and Jens commenting on the forums like 4(?) months ago saying something like "I know it isn't what you're hoping to hear, but I have no news on the Malayan tapir at this time". I wouldn't call that clear communication as to when it's going to get fixed.

Obviously, I appreciate your perspective, that's why I asked for other people's opinions. But I'm still not satisfied that it hasn't been fixed.

That's another story of course. I hadn't seen the comment so I assumed they had addressed it as "it's something we're working on" from what your comment said. I don't really agree with the communication of Frontier either, but I don't see it changing.

But I fully understand that you're not happy it's not fixed; I really do. It's just a pet peeve of mine if I see people automatically assuming the worst ( they don't care) from companies/devs whilst in reality it's often a lot more nuanced.

 

[Doran]

I (or we) assume that the PZ team is small simply because, at least with regards to artists, they externalize much of their work when it comes to new DLCs. Even having that in mind, they are only capable of bringing us 4+1 animals every 3-4 months, some of which with rigs and animations heavily based on previous ones. Not saying creating animals is easy or quick, but we now have proof (mods) that the models themselves can be made in a few days by a single person (leaving aside the supposedly strict Frontier quality control).

As i mentioned, they not only working on animals. There are also free updates, new mechanics, pieces, plants. I dont know how many employess are working on new models, but it isnt big number. This game is more than only spamming animals. Many people work on different things. They were working on diving entire year, and now perhaps they are preparing flying.
Also btw 70 is relatively small number.

 

[markun]

That's another story of course. I hadn't seen the comment so I assumed they had addressed it as "it's something we're working on" from what your comment said. I don't really agree with the communication of Frontier either, but I don't see it changing.

But I fully understand that you're not happy it's not fixed; I really do. It's just a pet peeve of mine if I see people automatically assuming the worst ( they don't care) from companies/devs whilst in reality it's often a lot more nuanced.

It’s all about communication and managing expectations. I know they don’t communicate road maps and development plans but by not being transparent and telling us what is happening with this specific issue it is inevitable that some people will assume the worst.

 

[paul78]

Huh now for curiosity’s sake I spent a bit of time studying the two tapir species and to be honest besides size and color I honestly don’t see much difference between the two species. Malayan tapirs have a wider snout then other species? This seems very debatable and really does seem to vary from individual to individual. Some I’ve looked up had wide short snouts and others not. I mean I really looked at both species and tbh I don’t see it as absolutely necessary. I even noticed individual Baird’s tapir having very much variation in snout in different individuals.

To me to say every Malayan tapir has a wide snout is simply like saying every male lion has a big stereotypical mane.