My thoughts on the Australia Pack...

[Aidan635]

I just want to say that I’m super excited for this pack especially the new scenery pieces and new biome! Those scenery pieces look absolutely incredible! And the new biome I’m super excited to build an Aussie Zoo in too. I know a lot of people are kinda mixed on their choices, so here’s my opinion...

1. Kangaroo - Nothing really to hate/love about this one, obviously knew it was gonna be in, can’t wait to see the color variations with this one.
2. Koala - This one honestly surprised me the most because of the arboreal niche of the animal, so hopefully Frontier can make them do just that.
3. Cassowary - Love this pick! I prefer cassowaries over emus any day bc they’re just more unique and I knew this would be something Frontier would knock out of the park!
4. Blue-Tounged Skink - At first, i was like, huh? But now after looking it up, I’m really excited for this one! Before the announcement, I wanted either the Frilled-Neck Lizard or Thorny Devil or both, but I couldn’t be happier now with this pick.
5. Dingo - This one obviously was the biggest surprise for me and I think a lot of people. I would of preferred the Tasmanian Devil as a sort of predator pick. I love Dingos a lot, don’t get me wrong but I think they could’ve replaced it with something else or just added more animals and leave it in there. I should’ve known Frontier would do this as a sort of odd-ball pick like with the Arctic Wolf, Dall Sheep, and Capuchin Monkey which are lowkey my favorite animals of those respective packs. Now ive warmed up to it a little, and appreciate it more.

Nonetheless, I am super excited for this pack, and Tuesday can’t come sooner! Great job Frontier

 

[ElectricMonk]

My thoughts:

Overall, I like the pack, but am quite disappointed by one thing: The inclusion of the Dingo. To break it down:

Habitat animals:
1) Red Kangaroo: This was a pretty obvious inclusion. Either the Red or Grey Kangaroo was virtually guaranteed, with the Red being the more likely choice. I was a little concerned that the animations might not be quite right (specifically, the bouncing motion rather than individual jumps) but it looks like they've managed to get this just right. Well done!
2) Koala: Personally, I would have preferred another species because Koala's are so inactive, but I'm OK with this as an inclusion, given how highly requested it was. I'm still concerned that they won't spend enough time in trees, and will be much to active, but its impossible to say until we see them in action.
3) Cassowary: A good pick. Either this or the Emu would have been equally fine with me, though I probably would have preferred another marsupial instead, but this is a nice way of adding another tropical species - I have no issue with this one.
4) Dingo: TBH I'm quite disappointed with this. Australian fauna (especially mammalian fauna) is characterised by being unique in comparison to the other continents, so its a pity that the least unique of all Australia's large mammals was chosen to fill this slot - as a result, we have more subspecies of the Grey Wolf (Canis lupus) than we have all marsupials combined - almost any alternative would have been a better pick in my opinion. Specifically, I would have preferred any wallaby species, a wombat, or the Tassie Devil.

Exhibit:
1) Blue-Tounged Skink: I'm quite surprised by this one.... I would've guessed the Frill-necked lizard, but I have no problem with the blue-tongue.

Build items:
Obviously we haven't seen them all, but the ones in the trailer look fantastic! - Especially the fabric awning which should be super useful.

Foliage:
Again, we haven't necessarily seen everything, but from what we have seen, the foliage looks AMAZING - Frontier have done a great job with this!

Overall, I would be happy to pay the price of the pack for just the foliage and build pieces (especially since my main zoo is set in Australia), so I'll definitely be purchasing it, but I'm disappointed by the choice of the Dingo over more uniquely Australian species. Hopefully some more will be added in a future DLC.

 

[VetGirl330]

The two things that really disappoint me about the Australia pack are the dingo (seems like a common response) and the single exhibit animal.
Charging for the dingo which is essentially just yet another clone of the grey wolf is lazy. In fact by most taxonomic classifications it is either Canis lupus dingo or Canis familiaris dingo, not a unique species. Including the dingo which is largely considered a feral, non-indigenous animal at the expense of all the other unique true indigenous Australian species is just disappointing. If they were looking to fill the carnivore slot the Tasmanian devil would have been a much better choice. Other good choices for a large marsupial would have been a wombat, tree kangaroo, or rock wallaby. I would even have been happy with the perentie (larger than the nile monitor).
Australia has lots of interesting small animals (platypus, echidna, numbat, quokka, bilby, etc.) that have been requested, but Frontier really doesn't have any precedent for including terrestrial animals that small. Maybe someday they will be added to the roster along with meerkats and friends...

I understand that unfortunately there are limitations to how quickly Frontier can produce new habitat animals. They require much more work modeling, animating, coding, etc. By comparison exhibit animals should be quick and easy to produce: a single model, no variants, and a few several second looped animations. They are placed into existing tropical or desert terrariums.
Australia was an obvious choice for more exhibits. The frilled lizard, shingleback skink, thorny devil, Ackie monitor, are obvious choices for lizards, and maybe the ubiquitous bearded dragon. So far Frontier has only included venomous snakes from Australia. There are many gorgeous non-venomous snakes in Australia: green tree python, carpet python, woma python, white-lipped python. The dumpy tree frog is a very large tree frog that would be a good choice for an exhibit. Alternatively, the cane toad with an accompanying billboard on its invasiveness and toxicity would make an interesting education animal. We shouldn't forget invertebrates either. I would love to see the Giant prickly stick insect, and/or one of Australia's many spiders, such as the Sydney funnel-web spider (google pictures at your own risk!). Frontier should have included at least one slot each for lizards (preferably two), serpents, amphibian, and invertebrate. If Frontier can include four habitat animals, they should be able to include at least four exhibit animals.

 

[paul78]

I feel this is a good pack overall. As I admitted in a earlier post I was hoping for a different region tbh. Only because this dlc was so expected but now that I know it’s Australia for sure I’m actually really excited about it. I know many have expressed their discontent for the animal pack size. Tbh the pack size doesn’t really bother and I expect this will be the main release model for frontier but I still believe much like Planco did ride packs we could eventually see all animal packs someday. I’m still very hopeful frontier will find a way to implement aquatic and aviary type dlc eventually. So to breakdown the pack.
1) Red Kangaroo: Much expected and very happy to have it. After all what would a zoo game be without one?
2) Cassowary: A bit of a surprise as I expected the Emu tbh. Very happy with this choice and adds another unique animal to the game.
3) Koala: Very much a surprise as well as I read on Reddit maybe many people thought frontier would choose something else over this because of animation difficulties. But I’m very happy as the game would feel incomplete without one.
4) Dingo: Perhaps one of the most controversial selections yet. This one doesn’t really bother me and I really don’t mind getting it. Sure a Wombat would also be great pick but to me it doesn’t really matter. There’s honestly plenty of animals from other regions I’d rather fill a roster space then the Tasmanian Devil or Wombat. Nothing against these two just other animals I’d rather see.
5) Blue Tounged Skink: Big surprise as well. I also expected the frilled lizard. As a bearded dragon owner I would have loved one in game. A lot of tough choices for exhibit animals in Australia but I’m ok with this selection as it’s another surprise animal I didn’t see coming.
Foilage and Scenery: Amazing as usual. Not much else to say really as frontier does a great job on these.
So in conclusion a great job to frontier and a very big thank you to all involved in these packs and to community managers as well as a ton of work goes into these for sure. I really can’t wait till Tuesday to try it out

 

[jcp011c]

I'm very happy about the choices, over all , and while I do hope that they revisit the region again this will set me fine until then.
1. Red Kangaroo - it was almost a certainty that a kangaroo was coming. i can't even imagine if they had released an Australian pack without one. The feedback would be (justifiably) harsh. And I think the Red Kangaroo is a bit more iconic and well known than the Grey Kangaroo - and hey, from the trailer, we know they hop, I think that was intention to get that question out of the way and right away.
2. Koala - to be honest I wanted a koala even more than a kangaroo but was worried about them being in as well. I'm thrilled even if we haven't seen them yet. I'm sure they'll be great.
3. Dingo - for me, the dingo is a great choice, but by and large I love wild canines. They were one of my four picks as well.
4. Cassowary - I'm glad we got the cassowary, even though it wasn't in the four animals I was hoping for, it was a very close 5th. And the game needs more birds, and it's no coincidence that it's another flightless birds. Flying animations are likely not in the game yet. I've seen one screen shot and I don't mean to offend whoever posted it, and I have no doubt they posted what they saw, but I'm thinking what they saw wasn't what they thought they saw (that is, the flamingo wasn't actually flying but doing something else)
5. Blue Tongued Skink - I expected an exhibit animal, but I honestly was expecting it would hands down be the frilled lizard. But then again half the fun with that one is the running animations and the neck flaps fanning out as it runs, and exhibit animals don't do that right now. So I'm a little disappointed by the choice, but not by the fact it's an exhibit animal, and i also understand likely why it was chosen over what would have been a more requested animal. And by and large, I don't pay that much attention to the exhibit animals, so it's not a huge deal.

So yeah, it's a great line up and I'm so excited for it. I do hope we'll get more in the future, even if it's a few years from now. I do still want my wombats. But this will be extremely enjoyable even without them.

 

[NZFanatic]

The only animal I'm specifically happy about in this pack is the koala. I'm fine with the red kangaroo and cassowary, but not thrilled, and I feel let-down about the dingo. The blue-tongued skink is disappointing as well, only because Australia has such a huge wealth of reptiles and invertebrates and picking only one seems...well, lackluster.

The red kangaroo was an expected choice. I'm only disappointed by it for personal reasons - I'm more familiar with the eastern grey, and the eastern grey, as a more naturally docile species, is a common walkthrough species. The Australian Walkthrough has become a staple of zoos in New Zealand (and Australia, of course) so I really hoped to recreate something like that.

Which also brings me to the cassowary. Again, I'm not surprised. They're flashy, colourful, and more reminiscient of extinct dinosaurs than are other birds. They excite people. The emu by comparison seems dull and drab, but to me that should never factor into the decision. Emus, more than cassowaries, are representative of Australian fauna. Australia fought a literal war against emus and lost (this is fact - Google the Great Emu War). Most people think of the emu when they think of Australian birds (well, besides the cockatoo, kookaburra, and other flying birds). Emus are common in captivity, both in zoos as ambassador species (and walkthrough animals, often mixed with kangaroos!), and on farms. No zoo game has ever added the emu in either. The cassowary, while a great bird, just doesn't have the same impact to me. Additionally, although the cassowary does exist on the Australian mainland, they tend to be more representative of Papua New Guinea. A lot of people just don't realise that Papua New Guinea isn't part of Australia and so it gets lumped in.

I'm thrilled with the koala. Great and obvious choice. People have complained that koalas don't "do much" and aren't "exciting to watch". In real life, the same can be said for lions, but you wouldn't omit their inclusion on those grounds. The koalas were my favourite animals in Edinburgh Zoo and they were certainly active. They were kept in a temperature-managed habitat and climbed all over the place.

The dingo...I've made my thoughts clear on the actual thread for the topic. Suffice to say I view it as a wasted slot, similar to the Arctic wolf and the llama.

 

[SavannaSiara]

I feel like this pack is both a hit and a miss.

Australia has so many great animals to add variety. Glad the kangaroo, koala, and cassowary made it but they could have made it something worthwhile by adding a wombat, platypus, or Tasmanian devil to it too. The addition of the animals could have made for some really cool animation and especially the wombat underground exhibit structures.

I think they have the general look of the outback right, especially the scrap metal art. The foliage as said above looks amazing.

I do worry about the use of Aboriginal artwork. While I am not of Aboriginal heritage myself, I really hope they actually consulted with an Aboriginal community before using the artwork as it can be seen as disrespectful and tokenistic.