Spring 2024 DLC Speculation

[Iben]

Just trying to feel the room, because of the lack of the lqa, is it essentially confirmed the next DLC will not be released concurrently with the console, nor the usual week of Easter slot either, correct?

Not really. Again, it's the clouds analogy. If you walk out of your house in the morning and there are dark stormy clouds outside, you're pretty sure it's going to rain that day. But just because you walk outside towards a sunny sky in the morning, doesn't mean it's not going to rain at all that day.

There could be several reasons why the branches are not being updated, one of them being that what needed to be done for those branches was already done last year.

The steam branches can be used to see if there's something coming, but cannot be used the other way around.

 

[RightWhale]

Geez I missed a lot over one night

I’m still not 100% given up on a habitat birds animal pack for the finale. It can cover most of the continents, can have a lot of easy rigs and clones, and it can almost double our bird roster in game.

I would imagine a pack like:

• Secretary Bird; An obligatory inclusion seeing how it’s the #1 ask right now, it would need a new rig or at least a lot of work to change the walking and build in general.
• Australian Pelican; Would do great things for Australia rep, plus the pelican seems to very high on people’s bird wishes nowadays.
• Greater Rhea; South America rep, easy clone, pretty self explanatory.
• Canadian Goose; We need some sort of NA rep and the goose can easily be made off of the swan model, there already is a really good mod of it so I can’t imagine it takes that much work but what do I know about modelling.
• Macaws (WTE) JWE2 got birds in its finale expansion and that was just one species, I don’t see why we can’t have the same situation here, get one species as a preview of what’s to come in PZ2.
• Golden Pheasant; Another clone based off of the peafowl, but I could see how this one could be tricky with the feather textures. It would be a shame though if they never reused the peafowl rig.
• Victoria Crowned Pigeon; I know it’s a second Australian species, but these guys are so cool and would be such a cool species for Australian areas. This would be the other new rig of the pack.
• Scarlet Ibis; Feels cheap to give South America a new bird but it be something on the less attractive side, so I’ll add in this guy as well to balance the scales. Would probably use the kiwi or peafowl rig possibly, with new jumping animations.

It’s not a South America expansion but I personally enjoy this much more.

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BASED BASED BASED

I might replace the Canada goose with a wood duck, but apparently European Zoos keep them so maybe it’s good on its own. Happy to finally have a NA bird either way.

 

[TheDuckKnight]

Not really. Again, it's the clouds analogy. If you walk out of your house in the morning and there are dark stormy clouds outside, you're pretty sure it's going to rain that day. But just because you walk outside towards a sunny sky in the morning, doesn't mean it's not going to rain at all that day.

There could be several reasons why the branches are not being updated, one of them being that what needed to be done for those branches was already done last year.

The steam branches can be used to see if there's something coming, but cannot be used the other way around

To clarify, I have no doubt there is a DLC coming. But for a plethora of reasons, I don't think it'll be this month nor the usual Easter spot.
In regards to your last point, would that apply they knew what the contents of the spring DLC potentially 4 months in advance?

 

[SivatheriumGuy]

BASED BASED BASED

I might replace the Canada goose with a wood duck, but apparently European Zoos keep them so maybe it’s good on its own. Happy to finally have a NA bird either way.

As someone who shows bias towards European zoos Canada goose would be a banger pick

 

[NachoB]

Geez I missed a lot over one night

I’m still not 100% given up on a habitat birds animal pack for the finale. It can cover most of the continents, can have a lot of easy rigs and clones, and it can almost double our bird roster in game.

I would imagine a pack like:

• Secretary Bird; An obligatory inclusion seeing how it’s the #1 ask right now, it would need a new rig or at least a lot of work to change the walking and build in general.
• Australian Pelican; Would do great things for Australia rep, plus the pelican seems to very high on people’s bird wishes nowadays.
• Greater Rhea; South America rep, easy clone, pretty self explanatory.
• Canadian Goose; We need some sort of NA rep and the goose can easily be made off of the swan model, there already is a really good mod of it so I can’t imagine it takes that much work but what do I know about modelling.
• Macaws (WTE) JWE2 got birds in its finale expansion and that was just one species, I don’t see why we can’t have the same situation here, get one species as a preview of what’s to come in PZ2.
• Golden Pheasant; Another clone based off of the peafowl, but I could see how this one could be tricky with the feather textures. It would be a shame though if they never reused the peafowl rig.
• Victoria Crowned Pigeon; I know it’s a second Australian species, but these guys are so cool and would be such a cool species for Australian areas. This would be the other new rig of the pack.
• Scarlet Ibis; Feels cheap to give South America a new bird but it be something on the less attractive side, so I’ll add in this guy as well to balance the scales. Would probably use the kiwi or peafowl rig possibly, with new jumping animations.

It’s not a South America expansion but I personally enjoy this much more.

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This is an awesome pack. Only missing the grey crowned crane to be perfect but honestly i wouldn't replaced any of the birds.

 

[RightWhale]

As someone who shows bias towards European zoos Canada goose would be a banger pick

Oh yeah I wouldn’t be angry, I love Canada geese. They are so aggressive and for no good reason. I love watching the V formations they make in the fall too.

 

[Antimony96]

I think there’s still quite a lot that could come from an island pack:

• Tree Kangaroo
• Aye-Aye
• Echidna/Tenrec
• Banteng or Anoa
• Visayan Warty Pig or Bornean Bearded Pig
• Sulawesi Black Crested Macaque
• Bokiboky

Did you make up a new mammal just to avoid putting a bird in an island pack?

 

[RightWhale]

Did you make up a new mammal just to avoid putting a bird in an island pack?

Well I looked it up, it’s the narrow stripped mongoose native to Madagascar! It’s not often I hear of a new animal! I think Bronx Zoo may have them in the Madagascar exhibit! Cool guy

 

[RightWhale]

But yes I agree, we are all entitled to our opinions and what animals we want. However with birds being so important to Island ecosystems, it would be such a Frontier move to make an islands pack 7 mammals and one exhibit animal.

Not to say any of the animals on that list wouldn’t be welcomed in the game, I personally find the aye aye and visayan warty pig to be cool. But yeah if we got our fourth lemur and 5th pig in an island pack before we even got something like a Caribbean flamingo I might actually lose my mind.

 

[NachoB]

I'm at a point where if a very good quality mods exists for it then is goes down in my priority list for future rosters. There are some mods that are top tier quality. The mandarín duck, blackbuck and visayan warty pig are right up there in mod quality and don't need new animations or anything like that (the duck would benefit from a modified rig but it looks good with the swan rig regardless).

That doesn't mean i wouldn't be over the moon if we get an official blackbuck for instance. It is my most wanted antelope, but most ungulates have really good mods so they are not something i would prioritize at the moment with some exceptions.

For instance musk ox and markhor would be great as official animals because of all the fur work they need that Frontier just does better than what can be achieved by mods right now, including animation of said fur.

 

[RightWhale]

I'm at a point where if a very good quality mods exists for it then is goes down in my priority list for future rosters. There are some mods that are top tier quality. The mandarín duck, blackbuck and visayan warty pig are right up there in mod quality and don't need new animations or anything like that (the duck would benefit from a modified rig but it looks good with the swan rig regardless).

That doesn't mean i wouldn't be over the moon if we get an official blackbuck for instance. It is my most wanted antelope, but most ungulates have really good mods so they are not something i would prioritize at the moment with some exceptions.

For instance musk ox and markhor would be great as official animals because of all the fur work they need that Frontier just does better than what can be achieved by mods right now, including animation of said fur.

For me it’s the noises, if my duck doesn’t quack I find it so weird.

 

[Cooper_yang]

Regarding flying birds, please remember a wise saying from the East: without hope, there will be no disappointment. (LOL)

 

[Thylaco]

So anyone has a guess for why they chose the NA+Europe bundle as the first one?

Didn't realise they'd posted the bundle on Twitter last week (literally available at launch too, I wasn't expecting to hear anything before then).

Two of the NA species (Arctic Fox & Moose) exist in Europe, so maybe that's it. There's decent climate overlap, though I think that's probably the case for most pack combinations.

Across the 4 launch DLC packs there is a habitat animal from every continent, so that might be part of it (though there would've been other combinations that did that)

 

[NachoB]

For me it’s the noises, if my duck doesn’t quack I find it so weird.

Yeah noises are also a factor for me. Like howler don't work for me as mods for that reason. I agre with ducks but we need one official duck i think and then mods would do the rest. I know i know different ducks have different calls but honestly how distinctive are they for most of us that are not expert ornithologists or bird watchers?

 

[Iben]

In regards to your last point, would that apply they knew what the contents of the spring DLC potentially 4 months in advance?

They most certainly would have, and they most certainly always have for the past few years. They work on DLCs ahead of time, not just in the 3/4 months between releases, so the planning stages would have been done much earlier than that.

 

[jcp011c]

I don’t see an island pack happening, but if it did:
Caribbean Scenery Pack, with global island animals
Aye Aye
Tree Kangaroo species
Sulawesi Bear Cuscus
American Flamingo
Panther Chameleon (E)

Animal pack add in
Cuban Crocodile
Cuban Hutia
Raccoon Dog

On second thought those are my preferences. More realistically, switch the Cuscus and Raccoon Dog

 

[RightWhale]

I don’t see an island pack happening, but if it did:
Caribbean Scenery Pack, with global island animals
Aye Aye
Tree Kangaroo species
Sulawesi Bear Cuscus
American Flamingo
Panther Chameleon (E)

Animal pack add in
Cuban Crocodile
Cuban Hutia
Raccoon Dog

On second thought those are my preferences. More realistically, switch the Cuscus and Raccoon Dog

Now there is an animal that would be cool! Cuban crocodile is important as a conservation piece! The only thing is the Americas have a lot of crocodiles already. Nile crocodiles are found in Madagascar maybe they could work?

 

[AndyZoos]

Interestingly, Planet Zoo posted a link to a survey to "help shape future games" via FaceBook. Here's a link to the survey itself. It mostly asks about how many DLC you've purchased, what's most important to you about various aspects of the Frontier Games that you play/have played, etc.

Nothing new or major but definitely interesting to see that they're asking folks broadly what drives their enjoyment of their games... Curious to see if this spurs another round of "sequel" or "this is the end" chatter (though I hope not on both counts). It definitely means they want to explore what's made PZ and PlanCo as successful as they have been.

 

[Captain Callum]

Interestingly, Planet Zoo posted a link to a survey to "help shape future games" via FaceBook. Here's a link to the survey itself. It mostly asks about how many DLC you've purchased, what's most important to you about various aspects of the Frontier Games that you play/have played, etc.

Nothing new or major but definitely interesting to see that they're asking folks broadly what drives their enjoyment of their games... Curious to see if this spurs another round of "sequel" or "this is the end" chatter (though I hope not on both counts). It definitely means they want to explore what's made PZ and PlanCo as successful as they have been.

Ah one of those very generic game surveys that only the end asks about the actual important stuff. I guess it's good frontier is asking for feedback regardless.

 

[AndyZoos]

Ah one of those very generic game surveys that only the end asks about the actual important stuff. I guess it's good frontier is asking for feedback regardless.

A lot of the up-front data is actually pretty important to characterize the results. I'd imagine they'll look at the results by age group, game, etc. to see if there's differences between them.

I'm just glad there were no open-ended questions. That way people can't just right "BRING THE GAME TO SWITCH AND GIVE US MACAWS! MARINE MANIA DLC PACK WHEN?!!"