I'm assuming you mean statues and signs unlocked in that mode, the same way research unlocks content.
Planet Zoo 2 Speculation and ideas
- Thread starter yoav_r
- Start date
Oh yeah, for creative builders they should have it in Sandbox. But for folks who play Franchise or Challenge it would be a cool way to show how involved your zoo is with conservation. Maybe with captive births, releases, research, and protection of wild spaces you can unlock more for your zoo.
I've not posted on the PZ2 threads all that much as I'm still working out what I'd like to see beyond flying avians, marine animals, a scaling tool for building and more modular/customizable exhibits. I have a list I'm working on of animals I'd like to see but it's a work in progress and has about 350 animals I'm trying to separate into categories.
I really do like the idea of slowing down the passage of time. Something like 5 speeds total instead of 3 - with the middle one being what we have now. Imagine having time slowed down to a fourth of what it is now, but all the animations and actions are still the same speed, you just get to know your animals better that way because they live longer. I agree with what's been said, as cool as it is to get new animals there's a disconnect from the animals themselves. Maybe not when you first start a zoo out, but because breeding in general is so easy, that this part of the game mostly just plays itself in the background. I cannot tell you how many inbreeding and birth impending notifications I get because they pop up constantly. Death impending I may or may not spend time on, depends on the species.
The other thing I've really wanted is more personality to our animals. It kind of goes with the above, there's a disconnection from the animals themselves aside from the excitement about having the species in the game period. I'd love to see different personality factors of the animals, much like we have with genetics. Are the individual animals high or low energy (do they play a lot or sleep a lot?) do they interact with others of the species (or humans at the barriers) or are they loners? Are they more passive or assertive (or for a challenge even some that are aggressive) when it comes to those interactions? If they interact with others, would the animals be able to form unique bonds with certain members of their family? I think trying to have a species hierarchy is sort of the beginning of this, but they could do a lot more with it.
Another big thing for me is having interactions between species, not just a bonus for having them share habitats. Aside from the predator/prey system, the animals don't really interact with other species, which I realize is pretty common in real life as well. But there's definitely something to explore here as interspecies interactions do happen, it's just not the norm. Again talking outside of a predator/prey system, that's definitely the normal part of the circle of life.
All of these things would work to make our animals even more unique, not just on a species level but on an individual one.
I really do like the idea of slowing down the passage of time. Something like 5 speeds total instead of 3 - with the middle one being what we have now. Imagine having time slowed down to a fourth of what it is now, but all the animations and actions are still the same speed, you just get to know your animals better that way because they live longer. I agree with what's been said, as cool as it is to get new animals there's a disconnect from the animals themselves. Maybe not when you first start a zoo out, but because breeding in general is so easy, that this part of the game mostly just plays itself in the background. I cannot tell you how many inbreeding and birth impending notifications I get because they pop up constantly. Death impending I may or may not spend time on, depends on the species.
The other thing I've really wanted is more personality to our animals. It kind of goes with the above, there's a disconnection from the animals themselves aside from the excitement about having the species in the game period. I'd love to see different personality factors of the animals, much like we have with genetics. Are the individual animals high or low energy (do they play a lot or sleep a lot?) do they interact with others of the species (or humans at the barriers) or are they loners? Are they more passive or assertive (or for a challenge even some that are aggressive) when it comes to those interactions? If they interact with others, would the animals be able to form unique bonds with certain members of their family? I think trying to have a species hierarchy is sort of the beginning of this, but they could do a lot more with it.
Another big thing for me is having interactions between species, not just a bonus for having them share habitats. Aside from the predator/prey system, the animals don't really interact with other species, which I realize is pretty common in real life as well. But there's definitely something to explore here as interspecies interactions do happen, it's just not the norm. Again talking outside of a predator/prey system, that's definitely the normal part of the circle of life.
All of these things would work to make our animals even more unique, not just on a species level but on an individual one.
Yes, so much yes to this. I suggested similar at the beginning of the game. I really wish Frontier has similar in mind and can pull it of.
Yea I love my ungulates but man it’s so disheartening to create a huge space for herds to roam and there’s no herding or realistic ungulate social interaction so they just all run around randomly like chickens with their heads cut off. It would go a long way if every species behaved how they did irl and you see the different dynamics between the species and individual animals in my large sprawling ungulate habitats
I also sometimes use nul barriers and sunken elephant grass (which is a pain to do) to make them group together in one area. I do this with flamingos too.
Honestly this above all else is why I get bored with all the ungulates we have gotten. It’s one thing when habitats become similar to one another, for almost every species in the game this will be the case. Many of the big cat habitats are gonna be similar, which is gonna be the same for the crocodilians, great apes, etc.
But the main thing many of these animals do? They don’t do it! The whole draw of making massive hoofstock habitats is for herding animals, and it looks incredibly silly how little they actually stick together.
I’m curious to see what will be in the sequel, especially because I’m a bit worried about the roster for potential DLCs. I got to be honest, if I can expect to see DLCs still be majority mammals (4/5, 6/7, 7/8, etc) I think I might explode. Having to wait a full year or more for two habitat reptiles or birds would kill me. Say we do get aviary birds, would that mean we could expect less habitat birds? I don’t want to wait for a duck, even if it means I could get parrots. Likewise say we get aquatic animals and aviary animals, would that replace exhibit animals? I don’t think I want to wait for a king cobra again, Frontier even put cobras in props before ever adding it as an actual animal. So I also don’t think it would be a surprise of the exhibit box system gets upgraded.
I would hope that Frontier would return to Wetlands/ Grasslands levels of pack diversity, or maybe something greater. Or, with the new animal additions, maybe we do end up seeing DLCs/ Packs focused on a more specific group of animals. Perhaps Frontier kind of ditches the DLC cycle we expected and start to do more “expansion” styles of DLC. Like you can choose to buy a whole bunch of birds, exhibit animals, aquatics, etc.
I would hope that Frontier would return to Wetlands/ Grasslands levels of pack diversity, or maybe something greater. Or, with the new animal additions, maybe we do end up seeing DLCs/ Packs focused on a more specific group of animals. Perhaps Frontier kind of ditches the DLC cycle we expected and start to do more “expansion” styles of DLC. Like you can choose to buy a whole bunch of birds, exhibit animals, aquatics, etc.
I've been thinking how the DLC for the sequel could be, and I would like something like:
- New mammal not in PZ1
- Returning mammal from PZ1
- New bird
- New bird or reptile
- Exhibit 1
- Exhibit 2
- New mammal not in PZ1
- New mammal not in PZ1
- New bird
- New bird
- Returning mammal from PZ1
- Returning mammal from PZ1
- New bird or reptile
- Exhibit 1
- Exhibit 2
I have thought about it too i think the format i would like would be:
For building packs: 6 animals, 1 exhibit + 5 habitat. We need to consider that aquatics and flying birds might be a thing in sequel so maybe building packs could bring aquarium species and animal packs aviary species. I would like for these new type of animals to come in numbers of five like the butterflies. For instances: five cichlids, five tetras, five coral reef fish, etc. Same for the aviary species, maybe like 3-5 "clones" at once: 3 macaws, 3 toucans, 5 hummingbirds, etc.
So i would do something like...
1. New mammal species
2. New bird species
3. Returning animal from pz1 in improved version
4. New reptile or second type of any of the previoua ones
5. Habitat aquatic animal
6. Aquarium set of 5 or aviary set of 3-5
And for animal packs i would like more animals than current animal packs, with at least 8 habitat animals...
1. New mammal
2. New mammal
3. New bird
4. New non avian reptile or second bird (i don't think there are that many options for habitat non avian reptiles)
5. Returning animal of any type
6. Aquatic habitat animal
7. Avairy species
8. Reptile/amphibian/invertebrate (non aquatic) species.
There is also the possibility that new DLCs in the sequel could follow the current model of DLCs we have with 7-8 animals + a bunch of building species. If that's the case i would hope for.more variety in animal types.
You're right. That's why I made very little changes to the format in my idea. I only increased the number of exhibit animals because I put one returning habitat animal in the DLC, which I think should require less work than creating a whole new animal from scratch. I hope the sequel gives more love to the exhibits (with an improved system for them).
It sort of depends on what PZ2 is offering in the first place, and in terms of animals the most immediate logical additions (beyond the current wishlist) are aviary birds, aquariums, and to a lesser extent a rework of the current exhibit box system. In PZ we only have terrestrial and semiaquatic habitat animals along with the afterthought exhibit and walkthrough exhibit systems. I could see an alternation between scenery packs and animal packs, but the animals might be divided in some way between the "regular" habitat animals and those of other formats, with a set number of slots for each per pack.
If PZ2 is just PZ1 but upgraded on the other hand, and we don't get flying birds...it honestly might not be worth the purchase for me.
It will wholly depend on what aviary birds and "aquatics" even look like.
JWE style modular aviaries and "lagoons"? The animals will be packaged like regular habitat animals, no doubt. I'm being conservative, but I'm assuming we'll get something like, say, the Australia Pack, but instead of a koala we get a cockatoo, rather than getting the cockatoo tacked on as well as the koala (not an actual prediction, just using it to illustrate my point).
This was my thought as well. The current DLC pattern works, no reason to deviate too much from it.