They really should've kept the Orangutan out of the base roster and put it as a star in a SEA pack with brachiation.
Reason SE Asia pack did sell as well: less “iconic” animals?
Dont know how i think about that.
Honestly, the gibbon would have been an equally good headliner, but they didnt take it and went for quantity instead, marking this as not a bad move but one out of neccessity, cause they props couldnt make brachiation work.
If i could rebuild the pack freely, it would only keep the binturong, babirusa and tapir + a gibbon, while an animal pack would have the dhole, cause honestly hands down the best and most versatile animal in that pack besides the binturong, a pheasent, preferably the extinct in the wild edwards or the just very common golden pheasent and the fishingcat or small clawed otter.
Reasoning is more or less, that aslong as we dont have all bears i dont really value the sunbear that high and the clouded leopard is not only unusable, but quite the boring cat. Would have preferd an actual leopard or an actual small cat, but the clouded leopard tiptoes in both without truly fullfilling any of the demands to round out panthera or adding small cats.
The pheasent is a bird + hyper common with a striking apperance and the asian small clawed or the fishing cat are both small aquatic animals, something this pack, aswell as the game in general are missing
It's funny, but I always assumed the SEA pack was a big hit because it had 8 animals. There were certainly a lot of people expressing approval of this in the forums, and it appears that it was enough of a success that the developers did another 8-animal pack for the most recent DLC.
I don't think any pack is going to bat 100% with the animals for most users. The thing is, aside from certain iconic species, people won't all agree about which ones were pleasant surprises versus disappointments. Someone said they didn't like dholes, but I was excited to see them. They're endangered canines that are present in some real life zoos. I'm not so thrilled about the model (they look too foxy to me), but then I love canines. I didn't expect the binturong, but it's cool to see them. I like the way the game sort of balances the go-to zoo animals one sees at most zoos with lesser known species that are more likely to be present at zoos that specialize in breeding rare and endangered animals.
I'd be interested in seeing the relative popularity of the DLCs to see if a pattern emerges, aside from a gradual drop off maybe (or is it possible that enough new players will discover the game to offset player attrition).
I don't think any pack is going to bat 100% with the animals for most users. The thing is, aside from certain iconic species, people won't all agree about which ones were pleasant surprises versus disappointments. Someone said they didn't like dholes, but I was excited to see them. They're endangered canines that are present in some real life zoos. I'm not so thrilled about the model (they look too foxy to me), but then I love canines. I didn't expect the binturong, but it's cool to see them. I like the way the game sort of balances the go-to zoo animals one sees at most zoos with lesser known species that are more likely to be present at zoos that specialize in breeding rare and endangered animals.
I'd be interested in seeing the relative popularity of the DLCs to see if a pattern emerges, aside from a gradual drop off maybe (or is it possible that enough new players will discover the game to offset player attrition).
A lot of you guys seem to think brachiation would be easy to do... I'm no designer or programmer, but thinking of how it would work leaves me confused, and that's not even taking into account making it look good or realistic.
So as a programmer, there are quite a few ideas I can think of, but it won't be easy.
Oh for sure, animal packs can definitely be a way to go, but I do have to point out that most of the animals in the NA pack were fairly highly requested (5 of the 7 habitat animals), and Frontier leaned heavily into the more obvious and less obscure choices, even for the "surprises" like the Arctic Fox and Prairie Dog.
Meanwhile the SEA pack, while still a good pack, had a leaked animal that most of us assumed was coming, so it wasn't a surprise but I'm not sure how highly requested it was, 3 or possibly 4 fairly requested animals (though none that were as prevelant in requests as the five NA animals) , and the other 2 habitat animals (the Proboscis Monkey, and Dhole) that were surprise picks not many of us saw coming.
In short, the NA pack was likely a good selection to see how an animal pack of very popular animals could sell, to really get an idea of how these types of packs could sell; as opposed to the SEA pack that had comparatively not as highly requested animals. If Frontier had given us a Cougar (bc there was no way they weren't making it in), Prairie Dog, Arctic Fox, Black Bear, Coyote, North American River Otter and Big Horn Sheep, to pull up mostly moderately to not very requested animals, the pack probably wouldn't have gone over as well. To use a sports analogy, they hit a home run with the NA pack - it's probably the most "fan favorite" geared pack they've done yet.
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