I think the main reason for the sudden change is the hopeful decision to encourage us to at least talk about something than GAME IS DYING!!!! PLANET ZOO 2 SAVE US!!!!
Spring 2024 DLC Speculation
- Thread starter The Carcharodontogenius
- Start date
I think we are setting our selves to dissapointment thinking we'll get a finale pack with 15 species.
If next pack is regular scenery pack with 5 animals i expect a final pack with at least 8-12 (maybe 12 if it is just aniamls and no scenery) plus an anniversary animal.
That would be the worst case scenerio for me though, because it will mean that once agian LATAM biodiversity is restricted to a scnery pack and just 5 animals
But speculating that might be the case is see two possible DLC themes there:
1. Central America:
- White nosed coati
- Ocelot
- Mexican Spidermonkey
- Caribbean flamingo / Scarlet ibis / Roseate spoonbill / Brown pelican
- Two toed sloth
2. Latam Scenery Pack
- Southamerican coati
- Ocelot
- Greater rhea / Caribean flamingo / Scarlet ibis
- Mexican spider monkey
- Two toed sloth
And about the birds issue i think that if there is going to be a final pack with 12 species, at least half of them should be birds and the important ones at that.
- Grey crowned crane (essential)
- A duck (essential)
- A pelican (essential)
- A SA bird: rhea, ibis, spoonbill (what ever doesn't make it to the previous pack)(essential)
And would be a nice addition
- A galliform: helmeted guineafowl or pheasant or wild turkey/cappercaillie i guess
- A stork: marabou, saddle billed, white
- Secreatary bird
Then it shoud have at least 1 to 2 primates, another new world monkey and the infamous highly requested baboon.
The rest could be anything from the top 30. I hope for patagonian mara, and i guess the andean bear has a high chance as well if not featured in the latam pack.
I’m gonna guess that birds aren’t hard to make, it’s just some of the staff at planet zoo are better at making other animals. Maybe they have tried to make a bunch of birds but they didn’t look right? I don’t know
Part of the issue could be the wings and animations due to them. I think I saw it in the taxidermy mod, but the swans wings are actually a separate animated thing if that makes sense? I saw it briefly in a @Leaf Productions video when he used the taxidermy mod on the mute swan. The body stayed still but the wings kept moving.
I don’t mod, make rigs, or even know anything about coding or computers. I know some members of our community are great with birds though, @Narwhaler has made some beautiful bird mods. I’m not gonna 100% vouch unless some of the more technical members of our community know something I don’t. But I am starting to think the Planet Zoo bird issue can come down to one of these:
- Flying birds are too difficult, so they won’t be implemented in the game. The main draw of birds is they can fly, so it could be a weird trickle down effect. No flying birds = less habitat birds if that makes sense?
- There is something about the animal making process we don’t know, so either by textures, animations, rigs, or experience the team don’t find making birds as worth it as making other animals.
- The team simply decides birds aren’t that important unless they fly. Or they just don’t think a lot of birds are needed in planet zoo.
- Or there aren’t as many members on the team as good at making birds as ungulates (and other animals)
- The team has been following the meta wishlist for awhile, so while birds barely cross the top 20 of the wishlist the community has gotten more into them. Sometimes it feels like the community shifts under them and catches them off guard. The meta wishlist is old and established. I joined maybe two years ago and outside of a select few it feels like the bird thing has really skyrocketed in the past year. Maybe the three birds at the end of the year are gonna show how the final pack will be different?
- Simply put, someone on the team just doesn’t like birds. Doesn’t care to add them in game. They obviously love hoof stock though.
All of these could go a long way, also if we are lucky we will get two final packs. It’s unlikely though, and hopefully the final pack is more than 8 animals.
Honestly I have a feeling the last pack is gonna be a Central America/ South America pack with 8 animals and Caribbean/ Central/ South American scenery. If that’s the case I would be happy if even two of those 8 animals are birds.
Or being hopeful they said we are gonna like it in the livestream, so maybe they have something amazing coming.
I say we get all 3 birds, I will call it!
The Pretty in Pink Pack - American flamingo
- Roseate spoonbill
- Scarlet ibis
- Naked mole rat (exhibit)
- Orchid mantis (exhibit)
I mean every single bird weve gotten looks perfekt, so idk why frontier should not be good at making them.
Yeah it makes the mystery even weirder.
As the Godfather of the Bird Mafia, I feel the lack of birds has plagued zoo simulators since day 1.
Zoo Tycoon 1 had 3.
Zoo Tycoon 2 had 6.
Zoo Tycoon Xbox, ironically, had a very large bird roster - with flighted birds no less. But the glaring omissions (no penguins like what lol), bizarre choices (the four owls for example - a lesser sooty owl AND a sooty owl, but no great horned, snowy, or Eurasian eagle?), and repetitive picks amongst a limited roster (I love parrots but FIVE cockatoos and SIX macaws?), just add to that game's infamous reputation.
It's been an uphill build for bird fans from the beginning.
And I do believe if you exclude flying birds - I can't have that conversation again - Planet Zoo does have the best roster for birds.
The three big ratites, the penguins, peacock, flamingo, crane, kiwi, and swan is pretty decent.
I have my wants - many of them critically essential - but I'll hold off a final deliberation until it's birdver.
Zoo Tycoon 1 had 3.
Zoo Tycoon 2 had 6.
Zoo Tycoon Xbox, ironically, had a very large bird roster - with flighted birds no less. But the glaring omissions (no penguins like what lol), bizarre choices (the four owls for example - a lesser sooty owl AND a sooty owl, but no great horned, snowy, or Eurasian eagle?), and repetitive picks amongst a limited roster (I love parrots but FIVE cockatoos and SIX macaws?), just add to that game's infamous reputation.
It's been an uphill build for bird fans from the beginning.
And I do believe if you exclude flying birds - I can't have that conversation again - Planet Zoo does have the best roster for birds.
The three big ratites, the penguins, peacock, flamingo, crane, kiwi, and swan is pretty decent.
I have my wants - many of them critically essential - but I'll hold off a final deliberation until it's birdver.
Yup, PZ’s ground bird roster could still be better but they’ve done better with it than any other game.
I guess this is my feeling on the PZ and birds situation. To me, PZ is now by far the best zoo simulation game ever. They surpassed ZT/ZT2 two years ago and have only gotten better since.
But i see more birds could have made this even better. Is it weird to want even more from the best? To get closer to perfection (which isn’t achievable) and sad in a way that never went the distance? Because to me, add in some more LA animals and more habitat birds and a couple dozen flying exhibit birds, the roster would be everything I could realistically ask for. And to know that won’t happen, that my zoos will lack that spot of realism, is sad even though I’ve accepted it a few packs ago.
Be the best. Then be better.
Yeah the small animal roster is easily the best (and only
) thing about that game. Somehow managed to include animals that never appeared anywhere else like agoutis
I believe Zoo Tycoon 2 had 95ish animals if we don't include the extinct species
Planet Zoo got 180ish
So the total amount of birds out of the total amount of animals hasn't really gotten any better since then, sadly
And yet no Zebras or Giant Pandas, but it was far more important to have over a half dozen jaguar....sub-sub...subspecies. Game lost me when they didn't put in the Giant Panda.Yeah the small animal roster is easily the best (and only
Planet Zoo's done very well on the smaller animal front as well, even if it took a while to get there. I mean, really we have good roster overall, mammal wise anyways. Aside from specific species and general Latin American representation, the biggest missing thing is the near-lack of South American Monkeys and...okay, I'll say it...finally....African Monkeys.
Me personally, when it comes to birds I want, I'd just really like to get a pelican, a duck, and one more ground bird (the Wild Turkey would be awesome, but I'll settle for a Pheasant, Capercaillie/other grouse, or even a Guineafowl at this point). Stuff like another Flamingo, the Secretary Bird, and the Rhea would be great too but I really can't see us getting more than three more birds at this point (unless Frontier finally decides to make flying birds in the walkthrough exhibits into a thing).
This might be an unpopular prediction but I really see the Pelican and duck as a “one or the other” situation. I don’t think we’ll get both if there’s one pack left.
Pelican then.
Agreed, I mean both have really good mods so whatever we don’t get isn’t a total loss, but I still prefer the pelican in general.
Duck might be too small as habitat species, Pelican would be better and represents the order that different than Swan (duck and swan belong to same order). In fact many bird choices don't require the flying mechanism, like Secretary Bird, Shoebill, Bustard, Curassow, Ground Hornbill, Spoonbill, Ibis, Takahe, Stork even Kakapo, but we don't have a variety of birds in the game. Probably the Frontier staff don't like working on birds.
Do you guys want any more Amphibians? Currently we don't have any Asian and Oceanian amphibians in the game yet, the Asian gap can be best filled by the Chinese Giant Salamander, what might be the best one to represent the Oceanian amphibian, the White's Tree Frog?