Planet Zoo - Update 1.1.0 coming 17 December

Veranel · Dec 14, 2019

Bo Marit said:
On the Staff Room perk thing: we've now identified it as a bug and we'll be fixing it for a future update! Thanks so much for bringing it to our attention, and apologies for not spotting it sooner <3

Great! No worries. It's annoying but at the moment not game breaking. Im glad it's gonna be fixed in a future update.
Can't wait for Tuesday.

Arletario · Dec 14, 2019

marcnesiumHH said:
everytime someone is mentioning a bug in this forum, there is the reply: "put in the issue tracker".

Imagin · Dec 14, 2019

Issue trackers work well inhouse where you have staff who are trained to use them properly. There is no way to force customers not duplicate issues so, of course, we get a lot of duplicates which kinda makes it useless because you almost need someone working full time sorting them for the devs. There is no good system for a game company with a new game but, again, I think Frontier is making a valiant effort and is doing a decent job. This particular bug is not exactly game-breaking. We will survive this somehow, I'm sure

ChantalS · Dec 14, 2019

Bo Marit said:
On the Staff Room perk thing: we've now identified it as a bug and we'll be fixing it for a future update! Thanks so much for bringing it to our attention, and apologies for not spotting it sooner <3

Thank you for following up on this and making sure it'll be fixed soon!

I was wondering about another bug as well... The toy enrichment goes up very high when multiple animals are in an enclosure, I've made a ticket for it a while ago: https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/9873
Do you know if the dev team is aware of this issue and whether it'll be fixed in any of the upcoming patches?

marcsman said:
wow... this shows how seriously you look on your own forums... I mentioned it two weeks (!) before, enough time to fix it for the coming update. But no reaction of yours, I guess nobody was reading it. So, putting a totally bugged game on the market is one thing, but the time you take to fix the easiest bugs in an AAA+ game is just disrepectful to your customers. It took over a month to release a new update, while there're many smaller companies on the market that fix their bugs within days. And now you still leaving out bugs because you don't read your own forum.

=> https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...re-getting-out-of-control.531207/post-8165882

I really done with Frontier, selling a new DLC with reskins, ignoring players wishes (because the DLC was already made during game developement) before fixing all those bugs is greedy and will cause many disbanding customers. Following your companies marketing and pricing strategy (PC, Jurassic World Evolution), I assume you just want to earn a lot of money without caring about your product's quality and satisfied customers. And every greenhorn manager knows: A satisfied customer will buy again and again, a disappointed customer will leave forever.

Edit: This shows perfectly how senseless it is to take some freetime and report bugs what should be your job...

Are you actually blaming them for not reading the forums? From what I can see, the team is all over the forums and trying to keep an eye out for all potential bugs, improvements and features. I can imagine that they can't read every single topic and respond to every single person, but you can't actually say they are not reading their own forums, right? Moreover, from what I can see they are working very hard to fix bugs and have released multiple patches/updates since release. Sure, smaller companies can fix bugs within days, but that's also for smaller games. I don't think bringing out small patches every few days would be more efficient than larger patches every 1-2 weeks or so. It sounds a bit ironical how you're saying they are "disrespectful to their customers" when you're literally quoting Bo's apology for not noticing a specific bug earlier, and her saying that it will be fixed soon. Even when they're doing something right, you try to see the wrong in things?

marcsman · Dec 14, 2019

ChantalS said:
Are you actually blaming them for not reading the forums? From what I can see, the team is all over the forums and trying to keep an eye out for all potential bugs, improvements and features. I can imagine that they can't read every single topic and respond to every single person, but you can't actually say they are not reading their own forums, right? Moreover, from what I can see they are working very hard to fix bugs and have released multiple patches/updates since release. Sure, smaller companies can fix bugs within days, but that's also for smaller games. I don't think bringing out small patches every few days would be more efficient than larger patches every 1-2 weeks or so. It sounds a bit ironical how you're saying they are "disrespectful to their customers" when you're literally quoting Bo's apology for not noticing a specific bug earlier, and her saying that it will be fixed soon. Even when they're doing something right, you try to see the wrong in things?

Yes, it is indeed their job to read their own (!) forums. I'm not talking about Steam forums or others. They expect us to report bugs here but don't collect them. It seems that many gamers are more informed about game bugs than the developers.

It's all about communication. They offered a deluxe version without any real advantages beside taking part during beta and report bugs. The things I was writing about were already reported during beta phase which was over 2 months ago. A lot of time for bugfixing, especially when it comes to those little things which could easily solved (or those other things which are missed out what you also can see in this thread). But this is just the one side. The other side is that they release a game which was even more bugged than the beta and now they taking their time to fix things then and then. I suggest next time when they release a game they offer a new payment method: Pay 10 % and the rest with every update... ;-)

I don't try to see wrong in right things, but I refuse to be fooled and cash milked by a company which doesn't care about the quality of their products when they release it. Would you be satisfied if you'd buy a new car but then you see that you can't drive faster than 50 mph, the third gear is broken and the backseats are just visual decoration but not for use? And then the dealer tells you that he'll take a look during the next inspection but that special backseat thing he will do the inspection after... I don't know why it should be ok when it's a software developer.

Sure, bugs happen and I'm not complaining about any crashes at all. I'm gamer for 30 years now, I'm used to that. I'm talking about quality which is missing because they don't care or don't take the necessary time for developing. Everything is just made for marketing purposes. Produce promising videos but leave out a lot of things you promising (every animal is an individual...lol) and the rest is heavily bugged.

I mentioned everything before: This is an industry which is clearly out of its childs shoes and Frontier is an experienced developer. But their games are made just for presentation and marketing proposes. Big bright and shiny surface but don't look under that. I don't want to start about game optimisation (play our game, but no cpu will be able to handle it because of our poor programming...). And taking so much time for bugfixing while you (pretend to) already have worked on a reskin DLC to milk your customers again... don't know if this is the right stratey. Many long time customers like me are very upset with that policy. After that disaster with Jurassic World Evolution I thought I could give them a new chance but now I'm starting to regret it. I was a big fan of Planet Coaster and bought every DLC no matter if I was interested or not just to support them. I expected the same for Planet Zoo but with that beginning it's hard to stay positive.

ChantalS · Dec 15, 2019

@marcsman I'm not going to continue the discussion here because obviously it's just a matter of difference in opinion here. All I'll say is just that I perceive everything completely different - I just see a very dedicated and enthousiastic team, who has been trying very hard to make an amazing game that people can enjoy. I'm personally thoroughly enjoying the game (over 100 hours in now) and have only come across small bugs that weren't problematic, nothing more than a bit annoying only. From what I've seen, the team does really care about their product and customers, and I don't think buying a game like this is remotely comparable to buying a car. But that's just my opinion on it.

PeppyPepp · Dec 15, 2019

marcsman said:
Yes, it is indeed their job to read their own (!) forums. I'm not talking about Steam forums or others. They expect us to report bugs here but don't collect them. It seems that many gamers are more informed about game bugs than the developers.

It's all about communication. They offered a deluxe version without any real advantages beside taking part during beta and report bugs. The things I was writing about were already reported during beta phase which was over 2 months ago. A lot of time for bugfixing, especially when it comes to those little things which could easily solved (or those other things which are missed out what you also can see in this thread). But this is just the one side. The other side is that they release a game which was even more bugged than the beta and now they taking their time to fix things then and then. I suggest next time when they release a game they offer a new payment method: Pay 10 % and the rest with every update... ;-)

I don't try to see wrong in right things, but I refuse to be fooled and cash milked by a company which doesn't care about the quality of their products when they release it. Would you be satisfied if you'd buy a new car but then you see that you can't drive faster than 50 mph, the third gear is broken and the backseats are just visual decoration but not for use? And then the dealer tells you that he'll take a look during the next inspection but that special backseat thing he will do the inspection after... I don't know why it should be ok when it's a software developer.

Sure, bugs happen and I'm not complaining about any crashes at all. I'm gamer for 30 years now, I'm used to that. I'm talking about quality which is missing because they don't care or don't take the necessary time for developing. Everything is just made for marketing purposes. Produce promising videos but leave out a lot of things you promising (every animal is an individual...lol) and the rest is heavily bugged.

I mentioned everything before: This is an industry which is clearly out of its childs shoes and Frontier is an experienced developer. But their games are made just for presentation and marketing proposes. Big bright and shiny surface but don't look under that. I don't want to start about game optimisation (play our game, but no cpu will be able to handle it because of our poor programming...). And taking so much time for bugfixing while you (pretend to) already have worked on a reskin DLC to milk your customers again... don't know if this is the right stratey. Many long time customers like me are very upset with that policy. After that disaster with Jurassic World Evolution I thought I could give them a new chance but now I'm starting to regret it. I was a big fan of Planet Coaster and bought every DLC no matter if I was interested or not just to support them. I expected the same for Planet Zoo but with that beginning it's hard to stay positive.

I'm not going to address everything you said (because it would be too much) but to say they "don't care" is simply not true.

If they didn't care they would've released the game and pump out DLCs. Instead they continue to fix the bugs AND they are adding mechanisms the community asked for (more heat maps, more in-depth finances, the aging slider - which was hugely requested). They are active on forums and they do communicate with us. These are not the actions of a company that doesn't care. Sorry, I just don't agree with that point.

Has the gaming industry changed? Absolutely, but with Planet Zoo I do not believe I've purchased an unfinished product. Is it buggy? Certainly, but the developers have showed they care about fixing those bugs.

Imagin · Dec 15, 2019

You guys are both right, Frontier is indeed a team of dedicated developers who do want to make a great game. But Frontier is also a publicly-traded company with shareholders to please. One side wants to take their time and get things right and the other wants to get the money coming in asap. Guess which side makes the decisions? Well, put it this way, the shareholders must be pleased because revenue has almost tripled in 2019 over 2018 and profits attributed to shareholders are through the roof. https://frontier-drupal.s3-eu-west-...orp/s3fs-public/Financial-Statements-2019.pdf But we also need to keep in mind that games like this cost a lot of money to make and may not get made at all if it wasn't for shareholder money.

That doesn't mean that the devs don't care, but I'll bet it's frustrating at times. Devs don't read forums, or at least they shouldn't, that is what the community managers are for. I'm sure being a community manager is a very busy job these days, some things are going to slip by. Identifying bugs from (obviously) untrained customers filling out Issue Reports is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack. This is an evolving industry, better systems will be developed but considering no one who is developing on this scale is doing it any better, it's kinda hard to fault them for being one of the best.

LN · Dec 16, 2019

Customer Service of Frontier is nothing different from other (non-software) companies.

You report a bug, error or broken product.
You receive a number
You wait for your turn untill a solution presents itself from the company involved.

Not sure what the big deal is here.....

giu94 · Dec 16, 2019

No changes in Zookeeper's behaviour? My animals are still starving in big exhibits

marcnesiumHH · Dec 16, 2019

Luuknoord said:
Customer Service of Frontier is nothing different from other (non-software) companies.
Not sure what the big deal is here.....

There are companies, from which you get a reply or even a solution. Here you get nothing in many cases, only "expired" without any fix or reply at all.

LN · Dec 16, 2019

marcnesiumHH said:
There are companies, from which you get a reply or even a solution. Here you get nothing in many cases, only "expired" without any fix or reply at all.

View attachment 155689

Each their own methods.
I'm no part of the Customer Service of Frontier, so I have no say in how they do it.

I can only accept the way they do it, how frustrating this might sometimes be.

I've learned to not get frustrated, saves me a lot of troubles and problems.

ChantalS · Dec 16, 2019

giu94 said:
No changes in Zookeeper's behaviour? My animals are still starving in big exhibits

They have mentioned a few times that from all the save files they received with supported 'zookeeper bugs', there were no actual bugs at all, read this post: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...coming-17-december.532566/page-7#post-8192516

Averalorax · Dec 16, 2019

One thing I have noticed with "starving" and "dehydrated" animals is that it often occurs with my senior animals just before they die.
Probably just a way of the animal saving the resource for the younger generation.

LN · Dec 16, 2019

Hmm what would be nice if we didnt get messages all the time while I turned animal wellfare to optimal in sandbox mode. Its starving yes. But not dying.

I dont have enough keepers I know. But I rarely/dont need them.

CatsandMagic · Dec 17, 2019

If I set animals' aging to be 2x slower, does that mean they'll consume twice the number of meals as they would've? They'll end up doing everything twice as much, right?

meimento · Dec 17, 2019

CatsandMagic said:
If I set animals' aging to be 2x slower, does that mean they'll consume twice the number of meals as they would've? They'll end up doing everything twice as much, right?

More like their metabolism slowed down as well.

Whats0There · Dec 17, 2019

CatsandMagic said:
If I set animals' aging to be 2x slower, does that mean they'll consume twice the number of meals as they would've? They'll end up doing everything twice as much, right?

If

Chante Goodman said:
However, we'd like to highlight that animals will still display all of their other behaviours at the same rate as they do now; this will not be affected by the age setting.

then yes, over the entirety of their lifespan they should end up eating twice the amount of food. So

meimento said:
More like their metabolism slowed down as well.

should be incorrect.

FunGaming · Dec 17, 2019

I hope this light issue https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/10448 gets fixed today, seen that many others responded with the same issue I can only hope. PLease make night time fun and beautifull again.

FridaShines · Dec 17, 2019

Luuknoord said:
Hmm what would be nice if we didnt get messages all the time while I turned animal wellfare to optimal in sandbox mode. Its starving yes. But not dying.

Hi Luuk!
If I'm not mistaken I believe in this new update that comes out today we can turn off notifications for this even in sandbox!