Play, Pause and... LIVE PAUSE.

[MrHappy]

I was just reading this great thread (below) about animals being star of the show, or not. Ultimately on this point, there really is no way to see the animals moving and have time to enjoy them without having an exhibit creature give birth (leading to disharmony in that exhibit) or some other overcrowding, inbreeding, fighting, welfare to deal with.

Time to enjoy the animals playing and being a visitor in my own zoo would be really nice, got to admit it.

Can we have a pause mode where the zoo is running and the guests are interacting and the animals are playing, everything is moving and working but no shops, finances, maintenance, babies, illness, litter, crime, feeding, welfare etc are affected in any way?

I know there are options to turn some of these things off but I am talking about a different play mode, added to the Play and Pause options. Where the zoo can be viewed and enjoyed at no consequence to anything else?

Cinema mode if that makes any sense?

Idea born here.....

Why the animals aren't the stars of the game - and what needs to be done about it

Why on earth is a wall of text incoming and why do I care so much? First of all, let me get straight the basics, as this is very important to me: I am (almost) a one game player. I have one game as a hobby and just play other games from time to time. After EA took the Sims away as my hobby...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[Dinocanid]

Sorry if this isn't what you mean, but isn't that exactly what contraceptives do? Then you can watch your animals all you want without breeding, overcrowding, or fighting.

For no crimes, shops, etc. that can be done in sandbox. I have plenty of sandbox zoos with no shops at all (besides an info shop for umbrellas), just bathrooms. You can already do everything you listed

 

[Swjosdotschka]

I understand the idea. But I guess, time doesn't need to be an issue. At the end it comes all down to good management. With bigger zoos I'd also advice you to slow down the time speed in general. I ran a bigger zoo on 5 times slower and it was okay. Still, neat idea and I support it.

 

[MrHappy]

Sorry if this isn't what you mean, but isn't that exactly what contraceptives do? Then you can watch your animals all you want without breeding, overcrowding, or fighting.

For no crimes, shops, etc. that can be done in sandbox. I have plenty of sandbox zoos with no shops at all (besides an info shop for umbrellas), just bathrooms. You can already do everything you listed

It isn't exactly what I meant if I am honest.
I am just talking about a way to leave the game running and the entire management and notifications is suspended. If it's easier, think of it as... Exactly like clicking pause but the game itself keeps moving, only the functions get paused.

 

[MrHappy]

I understand the idea. But I guess, time doesn't need to be an issue. At the end it comes all down to good management. With bigger zoos I'd also advice you to slow down the time speed in general. I ran a bigger zoo on 5 times slower and it was okay. Still, neat idea and I support it.

I don't even mean good management. I am not talking about game play or strategy in any way.
I just mean the ability to sit back and watch your zoo like a TV show.

I don't know if I can be any clearer - To leave the zoo running, with all animation and animals playing but with the functions of the zoo suspended as if you have clicked the pause button.

This allows players to enjoy their zoo but not have to manage it all the time.

 

[Dinocanid]

It isn't exactly what I meant if I am honest.

I am just talking about a way to leave the game running (not paused) with endless time to enjoy the animals and not worry about any management whatsoever.If it's easier, think of it as clicking pause but the game itself keeps moving, only the functions pause.

If animals never breed or fight, what is there to manage? There's also settings where they don't get hungry/thirsty and where aging can be slowed down, which can be turned on or off at any time (in sandbox at least)

 

[MrHappy]

Has my keyboard swapped languages?

If animals never breed or fight, what is there to manage? There's also settings where they don't get hungry/thirsty and where aging can be slowed down, which can be turned on or off at any time (in sandbox at least)

They will breed and fight, but not at times when I choose to pause all that and simply enjoy my zoo. How often do you click play and pause in one sitting? You pause the game to make buildings right? Well my idea is only the same thing but to enjoy the animals instead of putting walls together. I am only talking about a play button with the pause button. A pause button which leaves the animals in animation so they can be looked at with nothing else going on. The same way you pause the game to make buildings so that nothing else is going on.

Not entirely sure why people think this is all about zoo and animal management.

 

[Dinocanid]

Animals won't breed with contraceptives, and they'll never fight unless the group size is wrong (I think there's also a sandbox setting that disables fighting altogether, but I'm in franchise rn and can't check). These settings can be turned on or off at will, so yeah you can do this already. It would be interesting to do all of this with the click of 1 button instead of multiple, but it's not impossible at the moment

 

[Adarra]

I think that'd be an awesome option to be honest. There is sort of a way to do this already, but it involves - as Dinocanid said - placing all your animals on contraceptives (or have same-sex groups), making sure the group sizes are exactly right, having a way to make sure that every habitat is cleaned and maintained exactly right (so you don't get notifications about hungry, thirsty, born or dying animals), effectively removing all shops and other maintenance stuff (can you turn off the maintenance of power and water in sandbox?) and probably a few other things I'm not thinking about.

I would absolutely LOVE an option to take the time to see (baby) animals frolicking in their habitats, see the older ones relax, see herds moving and interacting, etc. Even with all the things I described toggled off and playing in sandbox it's not the same as OP is describing.

 

[Whats0There]

Not a bad idea, you're basically asking for a visitor/cinematic mode. The best way to currently achieve this 'mode' is to
1. save the game
2. turn off the hud (hotkey G)
3. go into cinematic cam (hotkey T I believe) or visitor cam (tegidcam cheat) and enjoy the zoo
4. reload the save and resume building/management

Your zoo will still develop and change but you won't be bothered by notifications and popups. In cinematic mode you won't even notice. Any undesirable consequences of this will be negated by simply reloading the save.
Needless to say this doesn't work in Franchise mode.

 

[felinora99]

I don't get why everyone wants to make this great idea a management issue ?!

If I understood correctly, the idea is to have NOTHING happening, just like when you put pause. If I give my animals contraceptive, they would still age, guests would still give money and buy stuff, animals still would have to be fed ? (Except in Sandbox apparently, but not everyone wants to play in this Mode).

The idea is that guests won't buy anything, animals won't need to eat / poop, or it would do nothing (poop magically disappears, food don't leave the feeder and don't nourish them), just like when you pause the game and suddenly nothing is happening anymore. Except that hère, everything would still move. Which means we could enjoy and watch the social interactions between our animals, bond with them, without worrying that one game year already passed and that X is gonna fight with his father because he grew up, or that Y is already dying. Just beeing able to WATCH the game for a moment, and then hop we go back to normal mode.

I totally support this idea, it would be so much more enjoyable !

 

[MrHappy]

As an after thought to my original idea above. I still think this is a good idea but it would also be necessary to prevent habitats and constructions and decorations from being built in LIVE PAUSE mode. It can only be for viewing only. No staff or zoo options should be available at all. Otherwise it's an exploit in the game play which can be abused.

 

[MrHappy]

I think that'd be an awesome option to be honest. There is sort of a way to do this already, but it involves - as Dinocanid said - placing all your animals on contraceptives (or have same-sex groups), making sure the group sizes are exactly right, having a way to make sure that every habitat is cleaned and maintained exactly right (so you don't get notifications about hungry, thirsty, born or dying animals), effectively removing all shops and other maintenance stuff (can you turn off the maintenance of power and water in sandbox?) and probably a few other things I'm not thinking about.

I would absolutely LOVE an option to take the time to see (baby) animals frolicking in their habitats, see the older ones relax, see herds moving and interacting, etc. Even with all the things I described toggled off and playing in sandbox it's not the same as OP is describing.

In my mind maybe not. The entire point being that life itself is suspended in the zoo, it's simply running for the sake of animation. Animals that are pregnant or juvenile for example, they would simply stay that way until the play button is clicked again. Everything to do with management of the in the zoo gets paused but we get movements and animations as if the play button had been clicked.

Not a bad idea, you're basically asking for a visitor/cinematic mode. The best way to currently achieve this 'mode' is to
1. save the game
2. turn off the hud (hotkey G)
3. go into cinematic cam (hotkey T I believe) or visitor cam (tegidcam cheat) and enjoy the zoo
4. reload the save and resume building/management

Your zoo will still develop and change but you won't be bothered by notifications and popups. In cinematic mode you won't even notice. Any undesirable consequences of this will be negated by simply reloading the save.
Needless to say this doesn't work in Franchise mode.

Really great ideas, I will try these. But do they all keep the zoo management active in the background? Will your viewing enjoyment continue to be interrupted by notifications etc?

That's the thing I am interested in, being able to see the zoo and the animals in full motion with no game play affected in any way.

TV Mode.