Spring 2024 DLC Speculation

Yeah seems like that, I think some of us are getting far too ahead of what could realistically happen.
Is it most likely, yeah unfortunately.

Is it what I think the game could use? No.

I really feel like the final pack should go all the way. All things considered everyone wants more animals, most scenery can be replicated in game. If we have one final dlc left I think we should pull all the stops and add as much animals as possible.

Is that what will happen? Probably not. It will probably be 8 animals and scenery.
 
For me personally it's hard to engage in this thread. 😁 I kinda woke up incredibly excited about the "last pack", as I just see the positive in it.
  • Potentially larger
  • No "will the next pack be good or a let down after 3 months of waiting" after that anymore
  • No bumps in the road when planning a zoo
  • Full animal palette to play with, without oddballs thrown, making for a loooot of cool, well planned projects on my end
  • Looking forward to the evolution of Planco 2, as this will give us a good indication on what we might get with PZ2
  • Using mods (mainly replacements, some new animals and object mods) without the hazzle to change them out with each update, so noooo more ugly lion, in case Frontier does never fix it.
I wouldn't have been at this point after 5 packs, but I am now and most others here aren't (which is okay, everyone has different needs), so I might be chased with pitch forks after this. 😅

Plus: My few left animal wishes do not fit in one DLC theme.
The only actual pro i see with these is the mod part, as using modded scenery really makes updates a bummer, but even with animals it just means taking them out of the habitats and disabling the mod.

Everything else is just wishfull thinking or just non issues?

Like whats the drawback about waiting 3 months for a new pack? How is never getting a new one any better?

What bumps when planning a zoo? Plan around what you have, you dont need to include new stuff once its drops or just make habitats anyways and be cool to use subs/leave them empty

I dont even understand the third one, we allways have a full animal palette of whats in the game currently, how does that change with new content besides expanding it? Its not like the game ever restricts the usage of old animals

And Planet zoo 2 has to jump quite the height to be worth a new 60 bucks
New content is new content, wheter someone likes the particular content or not and its really not like every no brainer addition is in the game yet.
Petting zoos and south ameircan areas are very underwhelming if not near non existant, same for birds and reptiles.
Europe and Oceania got the curve to pretty fine at the last second, but even they still got quite alot to give, with europe easily filling an animal pack just with hightier bird additions.
Great White/Dalmatian Pelican, White Stork, Western Cappercallie, Mallard Duck, Demoiselle Crane and Common Pheasent are quite the power package.
And still worst of all, nothing desireable thats not in the game is something that couldnt be brought into it.

New animals, plants and scenery? Duh
Remodells? Malayan Tapir
Completly new modular building? Gift Shops
A Management rework? We get a little bit every time
New Animal movement and behaviours? Diving, brachiachion, sociality
Engine update? Planet zoo got updated to the newest frontier engine about a year ago

Planet zoo has shown its cards and the cards are that pretty much anything is possible in an update, so why would we want to rebuy the same content again?
 
The only actual pro i see with these is the mod part, as using modded scenery really makes updates a bummer, but even with animals it just means taking them out of the habitats and disabling the mod.

Everything else is just wishfull thinking or just non issues?
You know that personal opinions and different playstyles, needs and preferences exist, right? I don't know what's going on with you lately, but it seems like you think everyone has to share your view. No one has to, just like no one has to share mine, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I just voiced mine. If those are no pros for you, well, okay? I didn't even expect anyone to feel like they are suddenly enlightened because I came to speak the truth :ROFLMAO: I'm not a guru, I was just sharing a personal opinion. In a forum. Crazy concept, I know. But my opinion is as valid as yours.
 
I have the impression that Planet Zoo 2 has been discussed and designed for at least 2 years.

Explaining the inertia of the numerous requests for 100% marine animals and the addition of land and flying birds.

the few added birds and semi-aquatic animals are perhaps something very experimental.

I base this on the history of City Skayline and Jurassic World itself.
 
Engine update? Planet zoo got updated to the newest frontier engine about a year ago
The update to the engine was 3 years ago, not last year. (Yes, I did not like the feeling I felt after confirming that either). And in all fairness, "newest Frontier engine" is a big stretch of what really happened. What really happened is closer to updating your Windows to the latest version instead of something more major like going from Windows 8 to Windows 11.

Planet zoo has shown its cards and the cards are that pretty much anything is possible in an update
In theory everything is always possible, in practice a lot things are just very resource intensive to change or add.

Like as an example, technically they could refactor the entire terrain part of the engine and allow it to have more texture slots. There's no magical technical barrier that stops them. Is it going to be a lot of work to do so? Yes. Is it going to potentially break a lot of stuff? For sure. Will there be people happy with it? Sure. Will it be worth the risk and resources you put into it? Of course not. Another one, multiple habitat gates. Should it be technically possible? Absolutely. Will that mean that you have to migrate every single habitat to the new system? Yes. Do you risk missing a bunch of edge cases and in the end corrupt zoos of people, frustrating them? After 4 years of the game on the market, absolutely yes.

In larger projects like these, decisions you make are like domino's, especially the ones you make early on. Each decision will have an impact later down the line and sometimes the smallest decision can make something that seems incredibly simple to add one of the hardest things to do. And there's no real way of planning ahead that far down the line, even had Frontier anticipated the success that Planet Zoo would be (of which I think they didn't), even then they would have made choices that would work against them at some point. We know it has happened in the past, because of the leaks we know that JWE2 is a direct result of something like that.

Now, absolutely no-one in the community is at fault for thinking anything is possible. That is in part, the fault of the mandated secrecy of Frontier as a company. They do not easily communicate about the limitations of what they make, which is sometimes really frustrating and will harm them in the long term. The lack of flying birds is for instance one of the best examples. Had they early on told us something amongst the lines "Hey fam, we have a vision for flying birds and we are simply not able to bring that vision to life within the current game", then it would taken a lot of frustrations away from a lot of people and would let people be more open about a potential sequel where they could achieve that vision. But alas, they never have and if we end up getting no flying birds then we'll never know why because of that. Because all we'll be able to do is guess.

All of this is to say, there's absolutely no doubt at all that a potential sequel to Planet Zoo is going to allow them to do things they currently cannot do in the game. That's just an absolute given in any technical project. And that sequel again will have limitations based on the decisions they make, but at least this time around they have a better understanding of how successful the game can be. They'll have a better idea of what we as a community want. Regardless of what you feel about a sequel, that is just a simple fact we cannot ignore.

Whether you feel like a sequel is a scam or a cash grab is up to each and everyone, that's subjective. Had the sequel come a year after the first game, I would have agreed. But we're 4 years in, with lots of content being added to the game and a hell of a lot of free content as well. Content a lot of other game developers would make you pay for (let's not forget how literally all the cool stuff in games like ZT2 was behind a paywall). So at this point, if we're getting a sequel, I personally wouldn't call it a scam.
 
You know that personal opinions and different playstyles, needs and preferences exist, right? I don't know what's going on with you lately, but it seems like you think everyone has to share your view. No one has to, just like no one has to share mine, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I just voiced mine. If those are no pros for you, well, okay? I didn't even expect anyone to feel like they are suddenly enlightened because I came to speak the truth :ROFLMAO: I'm not a guru, I was just sharing a personal opinion. In a forum. Crazy concept, I know. But my opinion is as valid as yours.
Ofcourse its also valid, but i genuinly do not understand it.
Currently everything points towards the game being finished in a state full of missed opportunitys, an extremly underwhelming last year which had no reason to be this underwhelming and the only way for new support if this truly will be the last dlc is through a borderline scam sequel, which would need to jump through alot of hoops to even justify its existance, while still being a scam as it nullifies all the money we spend on planet zoo 1.

Its a loose loose, either it has everything and we have to buy it again for fullprice or it doesnt and i doubt i need to explain why thats literally a downgrade from planet zoo 1.
And not being perfectly happy with the last year of dlc really doesnt count to me as a reason for why support should end, cause the dlc wernt underwhelming because they were bad but because they left out key inclusions left to come like baboons, south america and petting zoos.
But thats just my opinion even if it feels less like an opinion and more like a rationalisation of the games support model.

I guess im just way less cool about being what feels like scammed for being a loyal customer
 
I have the impression that Planet Zoo 2 has been discussed and designed for at least 2 years.

Explaining the inertia of the numerous requests for 100% marine animals and the addition of land and flying birds.

the few added birds and semi-aquatic animals are perhaps something very experimental.

I base this on the history of City Skayline and Jurassic World itself.
I could substitute certain words for planet coaster 2 and post that 3 years ago and it would still work 😂 Jurassic world is tied to a contract so it is different than Frontiers own cms games, patterns like these I'm sure will be discussed to death in the coming years like in the planet coaster forum.
 
The update to the engine was 3 years ago, not last year. (Yes, I did not like the feeling I felt after confirming that either). And in all fairness, "newest Frontier engine" is a big stretch of what really happened. What really happened is closer to updating your Windows to the latest version instead of something more major like going from Windows 8 to Windows 11.
Aww man i could have sworn it wasnt that far away, should have checked first.

In theory everything is always possible, in practice a lot things are just very resource intensive to change or add.

Like as an example, technically they could refactor the entire terrain part of the engine and allow it to have more texture slots. There's no magical technical barrier that stops them. Is it going to be a lot of work to do so? Yes. Is it going to potentially break a lot of stuff? For sure. Will there be people happy with it? Sure. Will it be worth the risk and resources you put into it? Of course not. Another one, multiple habitat gates. Should it be technically possible? Absolutely. Will that mean that you have to migrate every single habitat to the new system? Yes. Do you risk missing a bunch of edge cases and in the end corrupt zoos of people, frustrating them? After 4 years of the game on the market, absolutely yes.

In larger projects like these, decisions you make are like domino's, especially the ones you make early on. Each decision will have an impact later down the line and sometimes the smallest decision can make something that seems incredibly simple to add one of the hardest things to do. And there's no real way of planning ahead that far down the line, even had Frontier anticipated the success that Planet Zoo would be (of which I think they didn't), even then they would have made choices that would work against them at some point. We know it has happened in the past, because of the leaks we know that JWE2 is a direct result of something like that.

Now, absolutely no-one in the community is at fault for thinking anything is possible. That is in part, the fault of the mandated secrecy of Frontier as a company. They do not easily communicate about the limitations of what they make, which is sometimes really frustrating and will harm them in the long term. The lack of flying birds is for instance one of the best examples. Had they early on told us something amongst the lines "Hey fam, we have a vision for flying birds and we are simply not able to bring that vision to life within the current game", then it would taken a lot of frustrations away from a lot of people and would let people be more open about a potential sequel where they could achieve that vision. But alas, they never have and if we end up getting no flying birds then we'll never know why because of that. Because all we'll be able to do is guess.

All of this is to say, there's absolutely no doubt at all that a potential sequel to Planet Zoo is going to allow them to do things they currently cannot do in the game. That's just an absolute given in any technical project. And that sequel again will have limitations based on the decisions they make, but at least this time around they have a better understanding of how successful the game can be. They'll have a better idea of what we as a community want. Regardless of what you feel about a sequel, that is just a simple fact we cannot ignore.

Whether you feel like a sequel is a scam or a cash grab is up to each and everyone, that's subjective. Had the sequel come a year after the first game, I would have agreed. But we're 4 years in, with lots of content being added to the game and a hell of a lot of free content as well. Content a lot of other game developers would make you pay for (let's not forget how literally all the cool stuff in games like ZT2 was behind a paywall). So at this point, if we're getting a sequel, I personally wouldn't call it a scam.
All good takes and especally the breaking part is something i havent thought about, but man does it feel not good.
My main problem with the idear of a sequel is that it feels most of it would just be quality of life, which is fine, but i dont wanna reset to a blank slate just for that.
Sure there will most likly be some more animals aswell, but its not like its something we wouldnt have gotten in the gab between.
Currently we get 23 Habitat animals a year. If its 2 years till planet zoo 2 releases we would be having 46 new animals, which sounds like quite the high mark for the new game.
I dont see how getting lets say 50 more animals + quality of life and maybe aviarys and fully aquatics as part of those would be any better then just continued support where we can keep our zoos, keep our stuff and dont have to start new.
Its not the worst ever, i did overact a bit there, but it defenetly something im happy about, especally as i wouldnt expect planet zoo 2 without atleast 2 more years of support
 
Aww man i could have sworn it wasnt that far away,
Me about turning thirty soon 🥲

I dont see how getting lets say 50 more animals + quality of life and maybe aviarys and fully aquatics as part of those would be any better then just continued support where we can keep our zoos, keep our stuff and dont have to start new.
By all means, totally understand that sentiment. It will depend for me on what we get, hopefully a Planet Coaster 2 is announced soon and we get a glimpse of what a sequel to PZ could potentially be.
 
Ofcourse its also valid, but i genuinly do not understand it.
Currently everything points towards the game being finished in a state full of missed opportunitys, an extremly underwhelming last year which had no reason to be this underwhelming and the only way for new support if this truly will be the last dlc is through a borderline scam sequel, which would need to jump through alot of hoops to even justify its existance, while still being a scam as it nullifies all the money we spend on planet zoo 1.

Its a loose loose, either it has everything and we have to buy it again for fullprice or it doesnt and i doubt i need to explain why thats literally a downgrade from planet zoo 1.
And not being perfectly happy with the last year of dlc really doesnt count to me as a reason for why support should end, cause the dlc wernt underwhelming because they were bad but because they left out key inclusions left to come like baboons, south america and petting zoos.
But thats just my opinion even if it feels less like an opinion and more like a rationalisation of the games support model.

I guess im just way less cool about being what feels like scammed for being a loyal customer
I don't see sequels as scam. At least not often.
@Iben explained in several posts very well how a game reaches it's limits after several years of coding. Due to the base, due to spaghetti coding, due to them being not able to , say, improve the whole climbing system because it's just not cost effective. A free update that size doesn't pay itself. Sometimes you need a clear slate to accomplish things, even in coding.
And I have every DLC + the Deluxe edition.
That's 230 Euros. As of today I have 2030 hours in the game and that number will still grow. A lot, I expect, before Planet Zoo 2 comes out.

As of today that makes 0,11 Euro per hour of enjoyment. No, I don't feel scammed. It actually makes second place for cheapest hobby for me.

As of how I see the end now: You don't have to understand how I'm wired. That's okay. If you want to try,,I usually make myself very clear in my post, including self-irony. But calling how I see things non-issues and wishful thinking is just jusgemental and disrespectful.

I'm sorry you feel less positive about the end of support and a potential sequel. I'm not trying to convince you otherwise. As I said, I would have been on the "missed porential" track after 5 DLCs.

Now I'm just happy and proudly looking at the best zoo game that ever existed so far - at least in my book
 
They've done it with JWE and JWE2. The new shiny toy in JWE2 was the lagoon and aviary systems. Although in the last JWE dlc they gave us looped animation Pteranodon.

If we extrapolate to PZ, its not unreasonable to think we get a few looped animation walthrough exhibit birds in the next PZ DLC, with proper flying birds and marine species reserved for the sequel.
 
I don't see sequels as scam. At least not often.
@Iben explained in several posts very well how a game reaches it's limits after several years of coding. Due to the base, due to spaghetti coding, due to them being not able to , say, improve the whole climbing system because it's just not cost effective. A free update that size doesn't pay itself. Sometimes you need a clear slate to accomplish things, even in coding.
And I have every DLC + the Deluxe edition.
That's 230 Euros. As of today I have 2030 hours in the game and that number will still grow. A lot, I expect, before Planet Zoo 2 comes out.

As of today that makes 0,11 Euro per hour of enjoyment. No, I don't feel scammed. It actually makes second place for cheapest hobby for me.

As of how I see the end now: You don't have to understand how I'm wired. That's okay. If you want to try,,I usually make myself very clear in my post, including self-irony. But calling how I see things non-issues and wishful thinking is just jusgemental and disrespectful.

I'm sorry you feel less positive about the end of support and a potential sequel. I'm not trying to convince you otherwise. As I said, I would have been on the "missed porential" track after 5 DLCs.

Now I'm just happy and proudly looking at the best zoo game that ever existed so far - at least in my book
Im sorry i really shot over the line. After thinking about it more i think i can understand and also dont feel as bitter about the whole situation, even if it leaves a bad taste in my mouth
 
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