PK aviaries

[TeaBear]

I'm not expecting much difference in the end.
Maybe a few more species in the long run and a few more animations.
My main concern with PK is that it will take years to "finish" the game.
It took them years to get to this stage.
Btw, it's funny to see how PK's community reacts to people already talking about DLC.

As i see it, Shadow Raven Studios/Blue Meridian had no masterplan and experience to move forward in development for the longest time of PK. At least to me, the first 4 or so years don`t really count because the development had no direction to work towards to. But as soon as Crytivo acquired SRS/BM (or at least just jumped in as publisher) we saw massive changes in terms of development speed and quality.

If you like, one could say PK is in development for just around 2 years, and if we see a full release within a year, it wouldn't have taken them longer than Frontier with PZ.

(Sorry if my english is total gibberish, everything more complicated than simple present and past tense still gives me massive headaches.)

 

[NL_Mutso]

If you like, one could say PK is in development for just around 2 years, and if we see a full release within a year, it wouldn't have taken them longer than Frontier with PZ.

For me, counting from the moment they announced they kickstarter/pre-alpha footage. So that would be 4 years.
If you start a kickstarter and show footage, you might expect they actually have a (master)plan.
I think the expected beta release date: november/december 2018, was a bit too optimistic.

 

[TeaBear]

For me, counting from the moment they announced they kickstarter/pre-alpha footage. So that would be 4 years.
If you start a kickstarter and show footage, you might expect they actually have a (master)plan.
I think the expected beta release date: november/december 2018, was a bit too optimistic.

I guess i'm way more forgiving to these kind of things because i was always fascinated by all the processes behind the scenes of game developers. And i even partially fullfilled one of my childhood dreams by joining a bunch of people for a game project. And what i can tell you is that game development isn't quite paint-by-numbers.

Many people just see the final product in the shelves and imagine the process behind it to be similar to a mass producing furniture manufacturer. Sure, you can go crazy with the design, but there are only so many ways to conceptualize the functionality of a chair. In the meanwhile, creating games is more like building a house from the ground up, from deciding on wich ground to begin with, wich materials to use, to laying down the electrics and water pipes and then furnish it all in once.

Big corps like Nintendo, Ubisoft and EA work more like the first example and can smash out their completely calculated products in high frequency, but only because they do what they do for many years, have the financial strength to hire people that do "nothing else" than to evaluate what exactly should be in their products and what not and have an army of employees that work in 40h+ shifts to make it possible.

Indie devs don't have that luxury, and in most cases no experience to begin with. Even today you can't just walk down the street to a local developer around the corner and sign up for an apprenticeship like you could do in a bakery. But if we expect for all game creators and especially those who want to become one to exactly know what to do from the get go, while they simultaneosly have to work for a living and sort those out that don't match the criteria... There would be just more or less neat little minigames on the internet and the big companies with nothing in between.

 

[NL_Mutso]

Big corps like Nintendo, Ubisoft and EA work more like the first example and can smash out their completely calculated products in high frequency, but only because they do what they do for many years, have the financial strength to hire people that do "nothing else" than to evaluate what exactly should be in their products and what not and have an army of employees that work in 40h+ shifts to make it possible.

Even big corps mess up, even with all resources
Recently Cyberpunk 2077 with a massive backlash and some AAA titles just get postponed by 6 months.

I just think that Kickstarter projects (also non-games) should be honest.
Imo there's a big difference in delivering in 1 year or 4 years. If you don't know if you can't meet the (self-announced) deadline, just don't give a deadline.
Or announce the deadlines when you are at a certain stage.
A lot of people are more understanding that way, dealing with deadlines is something everyone deals with.

It's still no Star Citizen situation but I'm glad I didn't donate/bought a package back in 2017.
Most likely will buy PK when it hits a certain development stage but atm a bit hesitant about the game.

But back on-topic :

I hope PZ does a more detailed version, but if the same as PK would happen - that would be fine as well.

 

[TeaBear]

I hope PZ does a more detailed version, but if the same as PK would happen - that would be fine as well.

Maybe it's just my weird way of thinking, but my assumptions (and wish) for proper dynamic flight is based on the following idea:

The different ways of locomotion (already in the game)

We have:

Walking on land (navigating in realtime on a 2-dimensional surface)
Swimming/ doing the anti-jesus and walking UNDER water for hippos (navigating in realtime on/in a 2-dimensional surface)
Diving (navigating in realtime in fully 3-dimensional space, way harder to pull off in a convincing way but luckily already in the game, which would logically lead to...)


Flying (navigating in realtime in fully 3-dimensional space)

It would be an odd move to represent all those ways of locomotion in form of fully functional habitat animals that can do all that stuff dynamically in environments WE create, but then restrict actual flying birds (and maaaybe bats) to animated loops in what would be basically the equivalent of classic exhibits.

 

[premierfong]

I think they should sell a full expansion (not DLC) for aviary animals and mechanics only. Of cux need to integrate with PZ. I would pay $35 to $40 USD for it. Of cux we like about as much as 30 to 40 different birds. I wanna make a parrot house, they are soo colorful.

 

[solacefruit]

I'm mostly neutral on the topic of aviaries. It's not something I'm craving for the game, or something I'm expecting. I would definitely be happy with exhibit-style aviaries, although obviously quite a bit larger to encompass a variety of smaller birds. I like how the exhibits work in the game (although I wouldn't say no to more sizes and shapes!) and I think they add a nice touch to a zoo. I definitely would think it'd be cool to have bats--that would be very exciting for me.

I'm not opposed to the piece-build aviary concept that it seems a lot of people are really desiring, but... I think it's asking a lot of Frontier. Swimming is one thing, because its boundaries are decided by the water volume. But flying is something else and I wonder how doable that will be + how worth Frontier's time as compared to making easier habitat animals + a series of set-down-and-customise aviaries with bird animations on loop, you know? I'm interested in seeing what eventually happens, but I definitely I'd take more ordinary animal pack DLCs over a piece-build aviary system.