Can't recall, haven't played it for ages.
Planet Zoo is not Zoo Tycoon 2, or 3
- Thread starter Garyd73
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Can't recall, haven't played it for ages.
Zoo Tycoon 1 was a management game while Zoo Tycoon 2 felt like a kids game. The animals looked very cartoony and where happy with almost everything. The graphics were terrible for it's time in my opinion and every two minutes I get a message that said, a keeper can not reach a pile of poo, just because the silly tiger decided to poo into the water again. It was frustrating.
The whole "clean and feed your animals yourself" thing made it feel even more liike a kids game and as an adult or almost an adult back then, it was just too much picture book harmony for me. Funny enough: I played REAL kids games on the highest dificult setting and they even were more challenging.
There was by the way a looooot user made content forZT 1 and the animals where that good, that you could not see a difference between them and the ones that came with the game.
I haven't played it, but I saw some on youtube. The AI guests look a 100 times better. I only care for the animals though. PZ's animals look so very lifelike, it's almost uncanny.
Do you remember the sounds that sometimes came along (I know Planet Zoo has some weird sounds as well), but Zoo Tycoon had weird sounds in it.
Honestly, look at it.
I think it’s important to note that hardly anyone’s ZT2 looked anything like that in recent years. We had so much user created content including terrain reskins, incredible building sets and amazing animals including remakes. So it really became a different game entirely.
Which one? ZT2? I don't remember. But Ioved the sounds from ZT1.
With the custom once I really was lucky. All I had in my game had the correct sounds, fortunately.
Maybe, but that is probably ages beyond it's release date while I stopped playing it long before that.
I recall ZT2 had some stranger oohs and aahs compared to Planet Zoo. Might be wrong though, it's a long time ago.
I think we can only compare vanilla game with vanilla game. If it comes to user content,it sure can change a game.
It did. The guests did a very noticeable excited "whoooaaah" when they watched the animals.
We are comparing our experiences. My experience of ZT2 is very different. But nonetheless my critiques of Planet Zoo in relation to ZT2 remain valid as they are all present in the vanilla versions.
The thing that gets me the most is the DLC vs. expansion pack comparisons. Particularly when it comes to cost and amount of content. ZT2 was literally 10+ years ago. The entire industry and the method of distribution has shifted. To get somebody to leave their home, go to the store, and purchase a CD's worth of content you had to load it up with that many animals... Plus, you had to plan ahead with marketing, shipping dates, etc.
It's just a different world now. There's no reason for a company to hold back on content for months and months and months when it's ready to go at the current moment, a steady stream of new content ensures that people keep talking about the game (which generates more sales overall). And releasing relatively smaller DLC packs over a longer period of time seems to be the standard.
But somehow, people are still expecting 35+ new animals plus new building pieces, features, etc. for $30 or whatever? I just don't understand it. Especially when Frontier as a company already has two benchmark games (PlanCo and JWE).
Thankfully, the DLC we're getting for Planet Zoo seems to be more like what we got for our money with PlanCo in terms of content compared to JWE. Anyway...
How have I never thought to do this? Such a good tip! Thank you!
Yeah, anybody saying that ZT2 is "great" or "stunning" is playing a heavily modded version of the game at this point, which definitely looks amazing compared to the original ZT2 and has a seemingly limitless amount of animals that you can add. But that's a brutally unfair comparison given the number of years people have been working on those things, the relatively simplistic animals, etc.
The pathing, barrier-making, and landscaping is definitely easier than Planet Zoo, but I'll trade lifelike animals and near-total freedom in creation for that any day of the week. And the more practice I get, the easier it all becomes...
I still don't really like the water system, but even that is something I'm learning to work with and getting better at.
It's just a different world now. There's no reason for a company to hold back on content for months and months and months when it's ready to go at the current moment, a steady stream of new content ensures that people keep talking about the game (which generates more sales overall). And releasing relatively smaller DLC packs over a longer period of time seems to be the standard.
But somehow, people are still expecting 35+ new animals plus new building pieces, features, etc. for $30 or whatever? I just don't understand it. Especially when Frontier as a company already has two benchmark games (PlanCo and JWE).
Thankfully, the DLC we're getting for Planet Zoo seems to be more like what we got for our money with PlanCo in terms of content compared to JWE. Anyway...
How have I never thought to do this? Such a good tip! Thank you!
Yeah, anybody saying that ZT2 is "great" or "stunning" is playing a heavily modded version of the game at this point, which definitely looks amazing compared to the original ZT2 and has a seemingly limitless amount of animals that you can add. But that's a brutally unfair comparison given the number of years people have been working on those things, the relatively simplistic animals, etc.
The pathing, barrier-making, and landscaping is definitely easier than Planet Zoo, but I'll trade lifelike animals and near-total freedom in creation for that any day of the week. And the more practice I get, the easier it all becomes...
I still don't really like the water system, but even that is something I'm learning to work with and getting better at.
I spent years playing ZT1 and ZT2 as well and was a part of the ZT2 community for a long time, though, not so much anymore (if anyone remembers my username was Unicorn back then) and while I loved building Zoos in ZT2 I still can't see myself going back anytime soon.
Sure the simple click and drag placement of paths and fences is amazing and I wish it was that easy in PZ, but even that's something you can get used to and practice. Same for the sometimes admittedly frustrating water placement and terrain issues, though I gotta say I had plenty of those in ZT2 as well...placing elevated paths near cliffs or water, anyone?
Other than that PZ is simply amazing with all the creative freedom it gives us, especially with the new sandbox options now added. There's just so much that I could never even dream of to build in ZT2 that's now possible in PZ. So yeah, all in all I'm very happy with PZ...the only thing I'm really missing ATM are aquatic creatures/themes but I got my fingers crossed for a dlc along those lines some day, the game's still kind of a baby panda after all with lots of potential to grow and I can't wait to see what else they got in store for us!
Sure the simple click and drag placement of paths and fences is amazing and I wish it was that easy in PZ, but even that's something you can get used to and practice. Same for the sometimes admittedly frustrating water placement and terrain issues, though I gotta say I had plenty of those in ZT2 as well...placing elevated paths near cliffs or water, anyone?
Other than that PZ is simply amazing with all the creative freedom it gives us, especially with the new sandbox options now added. There's just so much that I could never even dream of to build in ZT2 that's now possible in PZ. So yeah, all in all I'm very happy with PZ...the only thing I'm really missing ATM are aquatic creatures/themes but I got my fingers crossed for a dlc along those lines some day, the game's still kind of a baby panda after all with lots of potential to grow and I can't wait to see what else they got in store for us!
While of course Planet Zoo and Zoo Tycoon 2 are separete games, that doesn't mean Planet Zoo couldn't or shouldn't get some benchmarking from Zoo Tycoon 2.
I spent years playing ZT1 and ZT2 as well and was a part of the ZT2 community for a long time, though, not so much anymore (if anyone remembers my username was Unicorn back then) and while I loved building Zoos in ZT2 I still can't see myself going back anytime soon.
Sure the simple click and drag placement of paths and fences is amazing and I wish it was that easy in PZ, but even that's something you can get used to and practice. Same for the sometimes admittedly frustrating water placement and terrain issues, though I gotta say I had plenty of those in ZT2 as well...placing elevated paths near cliffs or water, anyone?
Other than that PZ is simply amazing with all the creative freedom it gives us, especially with the new sandbox options now added. There's just so much that I could never even dream of to build in ZT2 that's now possible in PZ. So yeah, all in all I'm very happy with PZ...the only thing I'm really missing ATM are aquatic creatures/themes but I got my fingers crossed for a dlc along those lines some day, the game's still kind of a baby panda after all with lots of potential to grow and I can't wait to see what else they got in store for us!
I tried going back recently and it just... Didn't happen, haha. I found myself getting frustrated by the limitations when it came to designing. And the foliage in ZT2 was always pretty weak. It always took me a while to find foliage that felt right. And I'm in love with vritually every plant Ive placed in Planet Zoo thus far. They are gorgeous!
And as you said too, while Planet Zoo is a little tricky with placement of pathing and fencing? You are allowed so much more freedom, and it's easier to do a lot of the terraforming for individual habitats.
Losing the "simple click and drag" placement for paths and fencing is a worthy trade-off for the epic amounts of creative freedom that you get elsewhere in the game!
I'm just not sure what people think should be "benchmarked," though?
It's a different game built using a different engine that has certain limitations (much like ZT2 had its own limitations). I think pathing and barrier placement is the biggest limitation compared to ZT2, and I personally wish I didn't have to place any staff facilities (though I understand why they're in the game)... But I'm hard-pressed to think of anything else that it doesn't do better based on the game that was released by the developers.
The most common ones (size of expansion content packs, number of animals) really don't matter because that was a very different time (literally a decade ago) so you really can't even compare the two. What Frontier is doing is essentially the industry standard (smaller packs released more frequently).
I think it's fair to bring up related games but you do have a point in that keeping that to a reasonable amount and discussing this game's features apart from other games is important.
I LOVED ZT1 as a kid. Wasn't super fond of ZT2. As an adult I tried ZT2 with mods and I just couldn't handle the horrible graphics. I'm a graphics snob
The keeper AI in ZT2 could also be pretty darn clunky when navigating the habitats.
I think the big issue with PZ is they hyped everything up so hard and then release brought us crashing down to reality. It's easy for people to look at ZT2 with a lot of nostalgia and not think about it's flaws.
I LOVED ZT1 as a kid. Wasn't super fond of ZT2. As an adult I tried ZT2 with mods and I just couldn't handle the horrible graphics. I'm a graphics snob
The keeper AI in ZT2 could also be pretty darn clunky when navigating the habitats. I think the big issue with PZ is they hyped everything up so hard and then release brought us crashing down to reality. It's easy for people to look at ZT2 with a lot of nostalgia and not think about it's flaws.
The comparison is just natural, I think. You see, zoo tycoon laid the foundation on which planet zoo is building right now. Zoo tycoon had competitors at that time, and was the most successful zoo game of the batch, and then years of nothing or garbage kid-oriented games with zookeepers brushing elephants and playing mini games with bears, and now planet zoo stand up to collect all this neglected niche of gamers and they must have known it would not come without its price: comparisons and requested features. Of course people recognize the complexity of planet zoo, the technical refinement and etc, and as said before people realize the potential of the game and want it to reach that, so of course they want planet zoo to improve on things that zoo tycoon had plus the things that planet zoo already excels on. Or that is how I perceive that, it comes from love and good will for the game, not exactly frustation and demandings
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Anyone going back to try out ZT2, really needs to install Radical Remake - it fixes the ugly ui, adds a bunch of amazing model edits/retextures/variants and fixed a lot of issue with the game in general. You'd probably also want a hack to allow you to place scenery items off the grid, so the placement limitations don't drive you insane. I wouldn't dream of touching vanilla ZT2, as it's just way past its sell by date at this stage. I would imagine when most people think back fondly of ZT2 they're thinking of RR - I've played it recently and it still holds up incredibly well for such an old game. Sadly, it's reached the limits of how much you can mod such an old game engine before it just breaks, which is why a lot of people moved on.
On the topic of PZ plants? I hate the entire system with a passion. Firstly, the continent matching system is dumb and unrealistic - just limits enclosure design for no good reason. ZT2 foliage was amazing. You know why? Because they let people mod and the community produced an amazing variety of plants to fill in the gaps. Almost anything you could want was available, and if it wasn't you could add them yourself, or request for someone to make them for you. Sure, the plants in PZ look great but there's just so little choice; I'm not sure they'll ever add enough plants in DLC to satisfy me (especially if they don't remove the daft continental restrictions).
Yes, there were a lot of terrible mods but there were (and still are a few) amazing modders out there; look at the Aurora team with Radical Remake or Zeta Designs for example. PZ will never have the same community or variety that ZT2 had, simply because they won't allow modding (presumably because it would hurt their DLC sales). It's a real shame because the modding community does so much good for games: ZT2, Skyrim, Ark, etc. I was so disappointed (though not at all surprised) to see it would be missing from PZ. I assume we're going to be nickle and dimed for every new addition, and they'll probably be very few and far between - sadly that's just how Frontier works looking at Planet Coaster or JW:E.
...And all PZ had to do to keep me happy with their terrible paths/barrier system was to allow me to clip fences to the side of a path, and yet somehow they failed. I'm not sure how something so incredibly simple and basic is missing. Their pathing system would still be the worst I've ever seen, but at least it would cut down on a tiny amount of frustration. I also prefer the terraforming systems in ZT2 (especially for water), but that's just a personal preference.
TLDR: PZ will be a good game when they iron out the bugs/QoL issues, but I don't know if it will ever be a truly great game without the help of the modding community.
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Bro . I agree with you . there are many modder in zoo tycoon 2 games . and radical remake totally change the past zoo tycoon 2 vanilla experience with it new UI and interface,
terrain tools and it biome . there are many biome and the water in the biome are different. all the water are not the same in zoo tycoon 2. I mean different biome different water colour ...
The objects/fences and animals in zt2 are amazing . and its free too . we can have different fencings , avaries , tank wall by sophie design and etc...
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I hope planet zoo can take a look at the animal in all this usermade expansion packs from zoo tycoon 2. there are tons of animal in there. and also fences/barrier and object. foliage and plants …..
and do the same thing for planet zoo .
actually I don't mind paying dlc pack planet zoo but as long you can release lot of animal , fencings, foliage and objects
and do the same thing for planet zoo .
actually I don't mind paying dlc pack planet zoo but as long you can release lot of animal , fencings, foliage and objects