Planet Zoo: Twilight Pack arriving 18 Oct 🦇

[DarthQuell]

I'm hoping for red fox as a whole. That way it could represent all the different subspecies

 

[paul78]

I really do indeed like the pack. Any new animals are always great to have. I can’t lie I know that raccoon and skunk are popular in zoos particularly Europe but it is odd still seeing them in game. Just today on the way to work we had a skunk foraging through are yard at about 5:00. He’s pretty much been all this week and raccoon are pretty easy to coax on your deck at night also. I can’t lie I still think a woodlands pack would have been a more interesting option animal wise but it’s still good. I really do like the raccoon tho and it’s great to have a animal that was totally unexpected at the start of planet zoo in game. The skunk has to be the most surprising animal to me. Not really sure how I’ll design exhibits for these little guys but I’ll figure something out. The red fox is a great choice but kinda take it or leave it for me with the addition of the Arctic fox awhile back. I’d pretty much take a coyote over the fox at this point but it’s still a great option in different builds. The wombat is definitely the star of the pack for me. Probably my most wanted Australian animal after the koala and red kangaroo. The fruit bat is a huge surprise and definitely opens the doors to do many options now. Both aviary and exhibit plus the larger size is hopefully a thing to come in regular exhibit animals as well. Will this be my favorite pack? Probably not but still great in its own way and one I’ll look forward to just the same.

 

[Sindy]

Well we were all totally wrong. As much as I'm not particularly into the themed scenery, I'm already thinking of ways to use it. And honestly, I'm here for that new path! Yes! It looks so good! And the bat! I cannot wait to see how it works in-game, I wonder if walkthrough exhibits have to be walkthrough or if it has windows alongside it too? Just to have the option of not having guests in there. I could be misinterpreting how it works though.

 

[Sahara]

So I'll ask it again, but is the only way to view the bats via walk-through, or could you have it fully enclosed and guests just watch it through glass?

 

[SpookDoc]

I think the fact they've added in a singular flying animal in this pack actually makes flying birds more likely, not less. Of course, it could be flying loops or static, we'll have to see, but I'm thinking they've got the plan in place, and are opting to see how the release of one "flying" animal goes in game play, and any problems that may arise. I'm fact, I'm pretty certain fly birds will be a December pack and an animal pack. They may not end up being full on habitats, but I do think we'll get them some way.

@jcp011c I totally agree with you that the inclusion of the flying exhibit bat makes flying birds more likely, just not in a way that allows for customization and unique animations/behaviors like habitat animals. That’s where the let-down occurs for me.

I think it's very important that we're all on the same page here.

In terms of customization, JWE2's aviaries are essentially habitats. The animals do not fly around in predefined loops, you can place enrichment items by hand which the animals will interact with and the animals can break out and fly wherever they want in the map. That is essentially what we would consider a habitat animal to be. This is opposite to how exhibit boxes work in Planet Zoo. Exhibits are a predefined set of looped animations which means that you have far less customization than you have with habitats.

Given that Frontier has called these are walkthrough exhibits, the assumption that these are indeed looped animations is the correct one unless specifically said not to be so by any of the Frontier devs in this topic.

The disappointment people feel atm based on what we seem to know so far when it comes to walkthrough exhibits, is that this is a step back compared to how flying animals were handled in JWE2. Given that both games are by the same developer and are on the same engine, it's not surprising that that disappointment is there. Planet Zoo is a game with a high level of customization, and to see it get less customization options than the other game is obviously disappointing for a group of players ( including myself).

This disappointment is obviously not going to be shared by everyone, but I don't think it's fair to counter the disappointment with "it would have been impossible"/"they never would have done flying habitat animals" when Frontier themselves have proven very much so that they are indeed capable of doing fully free flight mechanics like a habitat. It's completely fair not to feel this disappointment, and it's absolutely fine to be happy with what we got; but it's equally fair to feel the disappointment and fear that some of us are feeling right now.

I do hope we get some more information on the walkthrough exhibit boxes. I want to see what it entails, if we could possibly get a very limited boxless version and if we perhaps could get a smaller version than the big one we have now. I'll have to see it ingame first, but at this point in time I'm in the same camp as most other people who would have liked a JWE2 approach for flying animals.

JWE2 Aviaries are basically habitats with a roof (like Iben said). The animals have anims like any other dino in the game and act as such. It's not the same as JWE where the Pteros really were nothing more but the current looped exhibit animals. You have comple reign over what you put in those aviaries as well and the animals act and use stuff according to that just like regular habitat ones would. And isn't that exactly what real aviaries are? Just a habitat with a mesh roof to keep the animals in and that's pretty much exactly what we have in JWE2 and hope to get for PZ.

And this is where my issue really lies with this exhibit-based bat. It’s what it likely means for other future flying species. It’s clear now that Frontier is willing to go the easier route with flying species, even though free-flying is totally possible and has actually already been achieved in PZ’s version of the Cobra Engine. JWE2 is a testament to this. As @Iben and @Nioell already mentioned, JWE2’s flying reptiles have the same needs/interactions as terrestrial habitat species and function the same in-game. They can freely fly and interact with objects and other animals both inside of aviaries and outside of them.

Honestly, I’m struggling to understand Frontier’s logic on this likely decision. Planet Zoo as a game has a far greater emphasis on customization and free-building than JWE2, but likely won’t receive flying species that are of the same level of complexity as JWE2’s. The logic seems backwards to me on this. Planet Zoo allows the user to literally custom design every inch of a habitat/building and has an incredibly complex climbing and diving system for many of its habitat animals, but they won’t give the same level of attention to birds and aviaries? I’m even more confused why they would wait three years for exhibit-based flying species too, when there was no major obstacle in implementing them in such a simple method. JWE1 had an exhibit-style aviary with looped animations and it was on an earlier, less-advanced version of the Cobra Engine than PZ is.

Exhibit-style aviaries could have easily been in PZ from the beginning of the game. There was no major design hurdle Frontier had to “jump over” in order to achieve these exhibit-based bats, and we know this solely off of what was already achieved in other Frontier titles on earlier and current versions of the Cobra Engine.

 

[Veah]

And last, but certainly not least, take flight with the Egyptian Fruit Bat as we bring you an all-new exclusive feature, Walkthrough Exhibits.
Walkthrough Exhibits are a new special feature coming in the Twilight Pack, featuring an exhibit with a bigger footprint (20m L x 12m W x 8m H) that will allow you to house the new Egyptian Fruit Bats. While these will be exclusive to the Egyptian Fruit Bat in the Twilight Pack, the exhibit itself will be available to all players as part of Free Update 1.11 to allow all builders to have fun with the exhibit itself if they so wish.

[...]

We have one more special surprise still in store... introducing a brand new Career Scenario!
Give Them Pumpkin to Talk About as we head to a Transylvania-based zoo that's been left abandoned by our old "friend", Dominic Myers. Joined by Nancy, you'll arrive and learn you have a new famous Bear to look after! Having been kept by an in-world celebrity and not looked after properly, this Himalayan Bear has made quite a name for itself in the news, and now guests are flocking to come and see it themselves. Work together to give the Bear the best life possible, and to create a spooktacular experience your guests are sure to love!
This will be the first Career Scenario since the Arctic Pack, so we're sure you're just as excited as us to get your hands on it! This Scenario will feature a new letter system to pass you all the information you need to complete the task at hand - and it'll even feature some cute selfies from Nancy!

Okey ladies and gentlemen, get on the HYPE TRAIN, we all are about to leave to Aviary and Extended Support stations!!

Also, this crazy pack confirms we can't predict anything! No Animal and Scenery packs alternating releases, and with that title no geographic or ecological or anything zoo-based inspiration. So next DLC could be everything you can imagine.

On a more serious note, as delighted I am with the fruit bat and the walkthrough exhibits, I can't help but miss a truly small exhibit animals. We were having just one each DLC no matter 4 or 7 habitat animals, and now we get none... And we still lack very important reptiles (chamaleon, gecko, cobra, tuatara...) and hundreds of interesting invertebrates.

 

[Dukemon]

I am wondering, if this new animals behaivor will depend on time of day. Would interesting.
And I wish the campanula will be flexicolor like the plants from the SA Pack.

 

[tigris115]

In my opinion, the bats being confined to what's essentially a giant exhibit is nothing short of awful. If I want a smaller bar exhibit or one that isn't walkthrough, I'm basically being told to get bent.

As well, this means that aviaries and birds will just be static boxes. So yeah, I'm skipping this one.

 

[Antimony96]

I have really mixed feelings on this pack. I generally dislike the overly themed pieces (too theme-parky and generally don't lend themselves to custom builds) and most of the Halloween stuff seems pretty useless for me in that regard, but there are some really helpful things in here like leaf litter and some new branches/rocks. The animal picks are on the blander side--some representation for my own region (eastern North America) is nice but these aren't really the kind of animals you'd see here even in smaller zoos, as opposed to things like otters, porcupines, or black bears. The wombat is nice for Australian representation.

What really piques my interest is the Egyptian fruit bat. The execution of the "walkthrough exhibit" matters--how much they move, how customizable the exhibit is--but it clearly opens the door for flying birds, which is the single biggest thing that PZ lacks. Maybe December will give us a walkthrough budgie aviary.

 

[TheHippoGirl]

You‘ll be pleasantly surprised to hear that most scenery pieces in this pack will have a rather Romanian/ European Castle/ Cottge Core vibe, I really think the heavy theming will only apply to a small number of pieces

That's why I said I'm waiting to see everything before judging too much. But even a European Castle theme is not that appealing to me. But let's see... I'm pretty sure there will be some pieces I will like.

 

[stonegarden]

The creators of the DLC claim that the building elements are inspired by Romania/Eastern Europe. In fact, the source of inspiration seems to be rather the region of Transylvania in Romania with its few castles that seem to create a setting for the Irish writer Bram Stoker's story, Dracula. Bran Castle is often associated with Dracula's residence, but the Romanian voivode Vlad Tepes, who inspired the character of Dracula, never lived there. Stocker turned the character of Vlad Tepes into a vampire, probably due to the violence with which he punished especially the Turks, but in the Middle Ages all the kings applied violent punishments to their enemies. The gothic and spooky aspect associated with Transylvania is only a modern cultural construction, Transylvania being a very peaceful place without supernatural superstitions. Halloween is not celebrated in Romania, as it is not considered a traditional holiday. Beyond these clarifying information, that I considered necessary about the source of inspiration for the buiding pieces, the animals in the DLC have nothing to do with Transylvania, only the red fox fits.

 

[markun]

I don’t get why everyone is leaping to conclusions about what the bats mean in terms of “we will now never get” and “this rules out”.

It seems to happen every time we get a new release but I’ll never understand it.

 

[HiddenMoon79]

Wonderful! I like everything in the DLC. I am very happy about it

 

[paul78]

I’m sure they had their reasons doing the bat this way as it is basically a nocturnal pack.

This is one example of a fruit bat exhibit as their were aviary style exhibits also. It’s still all speculation as far as aviaries go in planet zoo. Even though the bat turned out differently then some wanted and expected I still think aviaries will carry the jwe2 format. I can’t guarantee escape’s although it will probably happen as well it’s just easier to believe a prehistoric animal breaking out over modern birds but I still believe our system will be identical both in behavior and setup. I do believe with the bat frontier had the option of exhibit animal with some decent options or full fledged aves and chose exhibit in this case. Still a step in the right direction for future exhibit animals as well. I’m pretty sure when the time comes to show off their aviary system it will be carbon copy of the jwe2 format. I could possibly be wrong but aves is honestly something I never got my spirits up for in case of let down as I was never sure how frontier would implement them or if they even would? Anyway my opinion is it’s jwe2 system all over again and the bat proves nothing.

 

[TheYeti]

So I finally got through the images and video on my laptop, and had a better look at the theme. It seems one of the more diverse ones object-wise, with a lot of things expected from a nocturnal pack (yes, I consider this basically a nocturnal pack).

• First there's the castle styled items: they're pretty cool and it's nice to have Eastern European/Romanian representation. There also seem to be some very useful and even versatile items in the new roof shapes, the wooden poles etc. and the stone walls. My problem is that it is so similar to the European theme. Once again we have castle walls, medieval items (which zoo even has this?) and bridges and while the items are cool I'm a bit bugged that we get such similar items instead of something more novel.
• The cave items are nothing short of amazing. They allow creating habitats in a totally new biome and I'm sure people will find many uses for the stalagmites/stalagtites and other new rocks (it seems like we have quite some) for other species than the bat. We also definitely needed new rocks so I think this is a pretty amazing inclusion. Having new foliage is always welcome, so I'm sure the new trees will be pretty cool.
• Then there's the themed items (hereby I mean the overly styled things like glowing mushrooms and gargoyles). While I don't really see a use for the mushrooms - unless you wanna do a Singapore Night Safari kinda thing - the other lanterns are kinda cool and the gargoyles may be somehow versatyle when used creatively. I'm currently thinking of adding them to the pieces used for my collection of statues based on the Ubud Monkey Forest.

All in all, I think there are some nice items, but it may not be as novel as some as the earlier ones. Still I think it's not as bad as some people seem to suggest, especially if we consider that earlier DLCs also did not come with that much novel.

 

[DarthQuell]

I've been thinking: the focus of the career is the HBB, so what if we're getting a remodel for them?

 

[DarthQuell]

The cave items are nothing short of amazing. They allow creating habitats in a totally new biome and I'm sure people will find many uses for the stalagmites/stalagtites and other new rocks (it seems like we have quite some) for other species than the bat. We also definitely needed new rocks so I think this is a pretty amazing inclusion. Having new foliage is always welcome, so I'm sure the new trees will be pretty cool.

The best scenery in the DLC, in my opinion

 

[FoxyDee]

Here, new animal pups for everyone - to celebrate and to ease the minds of those who are not happy this time.

 

[PenguinPal]

I've wishlisted and am looking forward to the pack's release. I'm in the camp of wanting scenery pieces as well as animals because DLC with both just feels like a more well-rounded pack, imho. I'm not one who gets deeply into a spooky theme but I've seen them wished for in the Steam discussion forum and have also learned that there are generally more uses for a scenery piece than first meets the eye, by thinking outside of a box.

I was so surprised by the addition of the bats and am most happy to have them. I'm not going to speculate as to what this means for aviaries, which I would like to have, but feel like the devs present us with what they feel can be done well. I appreciate that over a buggy system of some sort. Looped animations now may be a steppingstone for later possibilities but only time will tell.

The bottom line for me is that when I couple what is coming with this DLC and what we'll get with the free update as well, this is an outstanding offering. I'm also really looking forward to the updates for exhibits, as well as Piebaldism and biome skirts. I'm sure Frontier devs have a difficult time with decisions made for a diverse community with different wants and needs, lol. They can't possibly please 100% of the people 100% of the time but I feel like they really try to make compromises to please as many players as they can. Again, an opinion, but I feel like they do a really good job. Those that want DLC packs get them but base game only players don't get forgotten by offering the free updates to one and all. Continuing to improve/upgrade features in the base game is so appreciated. I feel like Frontier shines in this respect.

 

[NZFanatic]

Well that's...something.

I'm looking at the bat screenshot and I'm wondering - what's stopping those bats from just flying right out of that door? As far as aviaries are concerned, I'm still not expecting birds - adding the exhibit in the free update just means we'll probably get another bat in December. Which is fine, I guess.

I dunno, it's kind of hard to get excited about this one for me. The wombat is great, the skunk is okay, but the fox is just yet another fox and the raccoon has never done anything for me, and the scenery is giving me 2020 vibes as far as how theme-parkish it is. For a theme like 'Twilight' the community has offered up a dozen more interesting animals over the years. And yeah, some scenery pieces will likely have more uses beyond the aesthetic, but if it's anything like the Arctic or South America Pack then that's going to be maybe a handful compared to the full 200.

I'm sort of juggling whether the wombat alone to add something to my Australia sections is worth buying the whole thing.