Planet Zoo - Franchise Mode Feedback

Paul_Crowther

Community Manager
Frontier
Hi all,

We often talk about how incredible our community are. Whether it’s designing the most amazing creations for the workshop or sharing your passion in one of the many hubs and communities around Planet Zoo, community breathes life into our games.

That’s why this Beta is so important. Being able to have thousands of people playing, testing and giving feedback ahead of launch is an incredibly powerful process and one that we as a team always listen to and consider.

We’ve seen some feedback and discussion regarding Franchise Mode and the fact that it is always online. As we mentioned in our previous post, Franchise Mode working online is an important requirement in order to utilise all of the community and online features. HOWEVER, we are also aware that many of you would like to have the option to play a Sandbox-style gameplay mode which includes many of the Franchise features that offer a greater managerial challenge, in an offline experience.

That’s why we are pleased to say that thanks to your feedback, we will be increasing the number of game modes at launch from 3 to 4 modes. We will still keep the Career, Sandbox (which will include a number of options such as no breeding, no ageing and no animal death etc) and Franchise Mode but we will be adding a fourth.

This all-new, currently unnamed, mode will allow you to enjoy much of the Franchise experience, without the online requirements.

This new mode will still include a full economy with both dollars and Conservation Credits, guest needs, Research, Education, animals and more all with the ability to create your zoo, with your vision from the ground up. Naturally, with this being an offline game mode, there are certain features that will only be available in Franchise Mode. These include: Trading between players, Leaderboards zoos and Community Challenges.

This addition to the game is directly thanks to your feedback. The Planet Zoo development team are always focused on making sure the experience for our community is as great as it can be and we’re excited to be able to bring this additional game mode to all players as part of the Planet Zoo launch on 5 November.

We hope you continue to enjoy the second week of our Beta. It’s been a fantastic experience from everyone on the Planet Zoo team to see so many incredible videos, creations and comments. Please do remember to continue submitting bugs and issues on our issue tracker to help us in the run-up to launch.

Many thanks!
 
Thank you so much for deciding to do this! It makes a huge difference to me that your team is willing to take these concerns seriously to the point that you’re willing to create an additional gameplay mode for us. I will certainly be making a lot of use of it as I love the challenge of franchise mode but would prefer to play offline!

Im looking forward to seeing more of what the game has to offer as we progress through the Beta and eventually to release. Even three days in I’ve been having a blast learning how to play and helping identify problems.
 
Thanks you I personally wish there was was a way to play that mod now and all the way up game release not be not able to play for 2 week and could end up having fun with out game and some may not come back
 
Well, I appreciate the new mode. But for me being always online is not a problem. I'd rather have franchise mode tweaked with max and minimum prices and conservation points in the sale, based on genetic. Currently it's capitalism only, but what I want is conservation together with other players. Franchise mode in itself is a great idea, but I feel like the feedback on the market we give is yet unheared. The inflation makes it almost impossible for players who have not a running franchise from day one to join the fun.

Edit: That came across unthankfull. of course I do appreciate that you are working so hard on the game and listen to feedback. I recognize you do. Thank you. I just like current franchise mode, but at the moment it's not what it was market for and that's actually a pitty.
 
Last edited:
This is really really great news, there is for sure pros and cons to both, but choice is really important and I appreciate that we now have more of them!

I think that one of the big things that could be added or implemented somehow to these modes is a friends-list priority on listing and trading animals? I obviously don't know the technical limitations behind that so it's just an idea. But being able to specifically trade with my friends without needing to go up and down the huge lists of filters is definitely something that would push me back onto really wanting to play the online mode. I'm sure many of us are in community groups and would LOVE to be able to easily send a lion to a mate who needs one without combing through the list!

And again, a big big thank you for this!
 
You guys are amazing!! Personally i like the online player trading part, but this just proves how awesome you are. Best devs ever!

I have a question though.. Will inbreeding be a "problem" in the finished release? It will probably be too much realism for some players, but i actually like the idea. It would make you think like in real life where you don't want the same genes mixed, you know..

Is this too much or would it be a possibility to turn it on or something? ;) .. Maybe make us able to breed with other players animals who wants to? If you have the "perfect male" someone could pay you to rent it and breed with it or something like that? Just an idea.. Would really make you work hard to breed succesfully, which is definitely a thing in real life! ;)

Best regards
Nicklas Selsmark
 
Last edited:
Great news!

That said I still personally like the concept of the online franchise mode if the Animal Market UI can be improved to better the experience including:

  • Mark favorite zoos, and filter list to only include favorited zoos
  • Filter the list to only certain selected zoos
  • Block zoos and filter them OUT of the list
  • Put up an animal for trade only to my favorited zoos
  • Directly offer an animal for free to a specific zoo
  • Allow filters to stick when closing the window
  • Add a button to refresh the list and keeping the filters
 
Top Bottom