Planet Zoo: Arid Animal Pack Releasing 20 June 🐪

Not going to lie the more and more I sit with the black rhinoceros the more and more I get disappointed, because I was really looking forward to this animal for a long time, and the reason for that was the fact that it carries itself more aggressive than the other rhino species. I was really excited to see that reflected in game with new animations and a new posture. For it to be the way it is now is really disheartening for me personally and I hope frontier takes another look at it. The babies model already kind of reflects the disposition of the black rhinos that the adults should have.
 
I saw @Leaf Productions and @Iben and lionrider all mention this so I'll throw in my support too. The Black Rhinoceros does need some changes. The Models texturing is actually gorgeous but there are some slight anatomical errors and also it needs more color variation since the one in game is extremely dark. For the model I honestly think if they were too reduce the belly a bit and also slim down the rhino around the neck it would do wonders to it. The thing about the hump is that, yes black rhinos do have an exaggerated hump but you don't see it often because they carry themselves quite differently than the southern whites.

I know leaf tagged the planet zoo team on twitter so I'm respectfully asking if the team could take another look at this animal as well. The detail on animals such as the porcupine, camel, addax, somali wild ass and many more in this pack is truly jaw dropping. We would just like to see this animal get a second look. Thank you. @Lydiah Moon
The rhino does look fantastic head/texture wise, but I absolutely agree with these three in regards to the black rhino needing a few model tweaks for it to be perfect, being the ones mentioned above (being making the belly slightly smaller, neck slightly thinner, and the head positioned a little higher up, especially when standing neutrally, on top of a couple brownish color palettes for the skin). They’re different from white rhinos in body form for the most part due to their divergent diets and lifestyles, despite being one another’s closest relatives (what 4 million years will do)

Other than that small critique all the animals look absolutely fantastic and I can’t wait to see them in game! Y’all do an excellent job!
 
Animals that doesn't live the same places in the wild would be able to enrich each other in captivity. It is not like they would just ignore each for that reason.
Exactly. For Example Llama, Dromedary and Bactrian Camel should all enrich each other

I dont really get the interspecies enrichment talk. I mean nothing is stopping us from putting porcupines and meerkats together.
I only play sandbox so i dnot actually know how relevant the actual bonus is but i cant imagine it being anything really gamebreaking, so are we even missing out that much?
Maybe if you play on hard Difficulty where the Enjoyment from Enrichment Items degrades over Time while it stays the same with Enrichment from other Animals

Super excited for the different colors of both camels! I understand the want for new species but its nice they revisited the Bactrian Camel.
They did a really great Job with the Camels. Only Thing I'm missing is a light grey Variation of the Dromedary Camel and the Bactrian Camel can also have a lot more Colors in Real Life. But besides that, I'm really excited 😃
 
I absolutely agree. This is a animal I’ve looked forward to for a long time also. Tremendously done and definitely deserving of a roster spot but yes the animations and posture take away everything that’s great about this animal. I wasn’t trying to come off as rude in my earlier post and I know shared animations weren’t that big of a deal in the zt days. But with PZ and frontier as great as they are and with advanced technology I really do feel it is a big deal and we all know frontier can do so much better. I mentioned the Indian rhino is more similar animation wise in a lot of ways but it truly does deserve its own animations. The animals a 10/10 but as stated animations and postures killing this guy.
 
Ha, yeah, I know. Force of habit, but also I just never liked that word.

For example, instead of saying beaver dam, I saw beaver dang😅
The word ass was used for donkeys long before it was made offensive. I'm pretty sure it was first used as an offensive term because they were attempting to call the other person a Donkey lol.
 
It makes no sense for a north african animal to be enriched by a south african animal. You can house them together anyway, you don't actually need the extra 0.5% for the welfare bar.
We have a Capybara enriching a Tortoise and Llama in game so clearly Frontier does not think only about location of the animals. It also does not make sense, animals in real life do not care if the animal sharing enclosure with them does not live in the same place in real life. They would interact anyway. I have seen Indian Crested combined with Meerkats/Mongoose, so it is not like it is out of place. It is a common mix in real life and game should reflect that.
I dont really get the interspecies enrichment talk. I mean nothing is stopping us from putting porcupines and meerkats together.
I only play sandbox so i dnot actually know how relevant the actual bonus is but i cant imagine it being anything really gamebreaking, so are we even missing out that much?
Well some of us play different modes than sandbox…no it is not a big deal, but it is a game feature provided by the game, so I want to expand on it. it is a bit weird to tell me to not want additions to that feature just because you wont get use of it. I never tell people that want more sandbox options that they would be useless just because I do not play sandbox. I know you did mean it well, but still. 🙂
 
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Seriously, the gaming industry has to be a bad place to work. Crunch, exponential increase of workload due to project bloating, and all for a client base that utterly nitpicks about everything.

I can 100% assure you that Frontier and their devs are open for constructive criticism. And the reason why I'm so sure about it, is because I've been told that directly by several members of the dev team. If you're constructive about it and don't act like a jerk, they'll take it to heart and see what they can do. They'll never be able to guarantee things, but I know from experience that they'll always at least look into it.

It's one of the things I appreciate about Frontier so much, because they are willing to listen to what their community has to say. Heck, our BroNation community had an entire list of things we'd love to see improved/added to the game which we passed along right after the Aquatics pack and about 90% of that was implemented. And this isn't the first time either, I've heard very similar things about how they approached development behind Planet Coaster.

I'll be the first to agree with you here if criticism is presented in a demanding, condescending or even a downright rude fashion. It has happened on multiple occasions and that's absolutely not okay. But so far the vast majority of people have been constructive about it, praising the absolutely gorgeous model and texture and pointing out a flaw that does have an impact on how the overal animal looks and feels in the game. As long as that is done in that fashion and most importantly as long as people can accept that there isn't a guarantee that this will get changed and are able to move on when it doesn't; there's no need to assume Frontier will be annoyed by the feedback.
 
How did you expect anything else? It was clearly chosen because it was easy to make. Making an entire new rig and amimation set for it defeats that purpose.
Besides the porcupine everything in this pack is easy to make though. That's why I was hoping the rhino and wild ass would have new animations and such to make up for the very simple animals like the dama gazelle.
 
The way I see it, people who wanted the third rhino wanted it, because it is so different from the other ones, due to movement and behaviour.
With making it not more than a reskin the purpose of s third rhino just isn't met, which - for some people who wanted it - might make it a wasted slot now.

I never wanted the third rhino because it doesn't surprise me at all. And while I understand reusing rigs, the Rhino just feels incredibly lazy and there would have been other chances to reuse other rigs and give us a more distinguished animal.

I'm afraid the team for PZ is incredibly small by now and they did the best they could given their resources.
But from a pure customer point of view, leaving compassion for the team out, this is just a very very weak pack and update.

I was hoping they at least would make the sandstone from the base game finally recolorable, as often requested... but just like the reasons as to why people wanted a third rhino, it kind of felt on deaf ears.
All in all, this pack feels like "halfly delivered".

Personally for me the pack is even weaker because I don't needed 2 more african antilopes, another camel and a third rhino, but in the end, it is what the community wanted.


Love me my porcupine and wild ass.
 
Only few more hours guys!! I am so excited! 🥳

I think some people here dramazite the situation with Planet Zoo too much. Sometimes Frontier make mistakes regarding animals but it is ok, they are developers not zoologists...Yes maybe Rhino has issues but some people go oh no Planet Zoo team is so small now, the end is near... listen Malayan Tapir had issues too and it did not mean the zoo team was small...Just looking at Dev Diar, how many peole wrked just on sounds...their team can work on multiple games you know. One time he might have a project to create a dino for JWE and one time an animal for Planet Zoo, is not uncommon.

This constant doom talking is so tireing to me you have no idea....and some people say planet Zoo team made no effort or whatever just because they do not like the animal picks..how rude. Not every pack has to have 5 unique animal rigs...this theme was made to add animals that survive in typical desert dunes environment and surprise surprise it is mostly ungulate so yes, not all of them will have new rig....does not mean PZ team is small...
 
I watch videos on new pack now, wow Bactrian Camel now has variants!! And Pangolin and Fox can use burrow!

Oh many hidden things :)

I hope we could see fixed clouded leopard too and walkable emu habitat finally. :eek:
 
I think the community is being a bit too harsh on the pack, I initially was harsh on the animations as well but after looking at them more they are not that different compared to other packs, so I don't think it's that big of a deal. Still I will give my feedback on each animal.

Somali wild ass: I am not sure if they used the Przies or the zebras as base (probably the Przies) but it stretches the forelegs forwards in a bit weird manner when walking, so I think they should tweak that a bit if possible. The new trot animation is really cool, I guess they focused more on that than on the walking cycle. Regarding the babies I think their forelegs move a bit more stiffy than the Przie's baby when walking so I guess that could be tweaked a bit as well. Overall a fab animal still.

Black rhino: For the black rhino I wasn't really expecting different animations but I do agree that at least the posture should be a bit more different, with a more upwards head, I don't think that'd be too hard to change honestly. In terms of the walking cycle I doubt they will change it but as observation the shoulders move very little when they should move along the motion of the leg, I think the indian rhino shows this better than the white rhino. The biggest offender here is definitely the baby, while the model is good the legs feel wobbly and bend really weirdly at times, this is specially noticeable when it runs. Overall not bad but some black rhino fans will feel a bit disappointed.

Sand cat: Unironically I like how it looks. Maybe the head is a bit on the large end but the face doesn't look bad. The new animations seem nice altho it feels a bit weird how it walks waddling its legs a bit at the sides. In some footage the whiskers seem to have a bit of an odd white glow tho lol

Dromedary, dama gazelle, addax, porcupine: all good. I feel the addax somehow moves better than the scimitar oryx? Kinda weird considering it almost certainly is based on the oryx for the anims lol Also porcupine is so pretty!

I'm still sad we got no African spurred tortoise for this pack tho :'( You better add it in a Shrublands pack or something! :D
 
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I guess I'm still one of the ones who couldn't care less if the black rhino didn't get new animations or whatever, I loved the white rhino and ill love the black rhino just as much.
I'm pretty ambivalent towards it, but that's mostly because 1) the Indian rhino is still my favourite, 2) the white rhino is the one I use most often anyway because it's such a common zoo animal, and 3) the black rhino is not the third rhino I wanted, and now I find myself wishing for a fourth.

I'm not sure if I'll ever use the black rhino in the game. Maybe if I feel like having all three in one zoo or something.
 
🤔 there's one Thing I was wondering about regarding the Somali Wild Ass. I've seen that they sleep standing up in the Game. Equids have different Sleep Positions though. It depends on how safe they feel in their Environment. When they don't feel completely safe, they sleep standing up like they do in the Game, so they can escape faster. If they feel really safe, they lay down though. I doubt they do both in the Game but it would be really nice
 
🤔 there's one Thing I was wondering about regarding the Somali Wild Ass. I've seen that they sleep standing up in the Game. Equids have different Sleep Positions though. It depends on how safe they feel in their Environment. When they don't feel completely safe, they sleep standing up like they do in the Game, so they can escape faster. If they feel really safe, they lay down though. I doubt they do both in the Game but it would be really nice
I have seen them also sleeping on ground, laying down. Same as Przewalski Horse, they do both in game.
 
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