As a child, Roller Coaster Tycoon and Zoo Tycoon were two of my favorite games, yet I've always preferred ZT due to my love of animals.
While the amusement park sims market is alive and well, there hasn't really been a worthy successor to the ZT franchise, and I've been yearning for one for years.
That's why the announcement of PZ made me incredibly excited, and everything I've read so far about the game looks super promising.
Yet when I've gone and read some people's comments on the news, I was very surprised to see that many people wish PZ was released as part of Planet Coaster, instead of a separate game. I can only disagree with the sentiment. While I get that many people are huge fans of PC (I admire the game myself, even though I haven't gotten the chance to play it myself yet, it seems like a great game from what I've seen), I think combining PC and PZ would've been a big mistake, and I'm very glad that Frontier aren't doing that, for various reasons.
Sending all my good wishes for the devs and the team. I'm really looking forward to what you guys have got to offer for us!
While the amusement park sims market is alive and well, there hasn't really been a worthy successor to the ZT franchise, and I've been yearning for one for years.
That's why the announcement of PZ made me incredibly excited, and everything I've read so far about the game looks super promising.
Yet when I've gone and read some people's comments on the news, I was very surprised to see that many people wish PZ was released as part of Planet Coaster, instead of a separate game. I can only disagree with the sentiment. While I get that many people are huge fans of PC (I admire the game myself, even though I haven't gotten the chance to play it myself yet, it seems like a great game from what I've seen), I think combining PC and PZ would've been a big mistake, and I'm very glad that Frontier aren't doing that, for various reasons.
- First of all: zoos and amusement parks are decidedly separate entities in my eyes. While the main goal of an amusement park is, well, the amusement of its visitors, via thrill rides and whatnot, a good zoo's core agenda is (or should be, at least... there are crappy zoos out there) the wellbeing of the animals that inhabit it. Conservation and education should be at the front, with the visitors coming at second place (they are the ones generating money and ensuring the zoo's continued existence after all).
- Maintaining the smooth operation of thrill rides in an amusement park require completely different mechanics and techniques than maintaining the wellbeing of living (virtual) animals, and integrating these new things into an existing game would've been very difficult. Making it a new, separate game is only logical, and the right thing to do to ensure the success of both games.
- I'm not at all a big fan of DLC "culture" and the habit of releasing incomplete games at full price and then adding additional content for an additional price (especially when it's minor modifiers and not something that actually expends the gameplay). From a glance at Steam, PC has already got an abundance of DLCs (and plenty of people who're complaining about it and about the prices).
- There is so much potential to a good zoo sim game. There are so many unique aspects to managing a zoo (especially from a realistic viewpoint), and those deserve their own team giving their full attention and talent to developing those aspects and bringing them to their full potential.
- And hey, us Zoo Tycoon fans deserve our own spiritual successor game! Fans of amusement park sims already got plenty in recent years, let us have our nostalgic fun too!
Sending all my good wishes for the devs and the team. I'm really looking forward to what you guys have got to offer for us!
