Spring 2024 DLC Speculation

Is pretty much the only ratite missing, so is weird is not in the game.
I mean is it? The group only has the kiwi, emu and ostrich, the group isn’t that popular to the public, it’s not like we’re missing a large cat for example. I get that it’s an icon for South America but as for what it adds to the game as an animal itself, it’s not the best when compared to other birds like spoonbill or what I would prefer, the scarlet ibis.
 
I think the differences with the american flamingo is that it completes with two more unique pink birds (ibis, spoonbill) for basically the same niche. But yeah is equally iconic of the Caribbean and tropical coasts of central américa as the rhea is for southamerican Grasslands.
 
I mean is it? The group only has the kiwi, emu and ostrich, the group isn’t that popular to the public, it’s not like we’re missing a large cat for example. I get that it’s an icon for South America but as for what it adds to the game as an animal itself, it’s not the best when compared to other birds like spoonbill or what I would prefer, the scarlet ibis.
And the Cassowary.

Kiwi
Emu
Cassowary
Ostrich

Only the rhea is missing. And the rhea is to SA what the emu was to Australia. So yeah is weird is missing just like it was weird that they left the emu out of the Australia pack.
 
And the rhea is to SA what the emu was to Australia
I don’t think they’re comparable. The emu is a well known animal not just to Australia but in general, whereas the Rhea isn’t that known, most people don’t know what it is when hearing its name. When people think of South America they immediately think of bright birds and monkeys.
 
Would be people be interested in getting a goose? And if so, which one?
Considering where it was on my list. The Nene is at the top of it.

Look at this Hawaiian cutie:
1711729278395.jpeg
 
Heres a question, if you had to keep the themes from 2023 packs, how would you lay them out? You can reverse them if you want as long as you have 2 scenery 2 animal.
I'll go first, I tried to keep it realistic as possible:

Tropical Animal Pack
Lar Gibbon
Red River Hog
Fossa
Asian Water Monitor
Sloth Bear
Goodfellow's Tree Kangaroo
Greater Rhea
Three Toed Sloth (E)

Arid Pack
African Crested Porcupine
Hamadryas Baboon
Dromedary Camel
Sand Cat
Desert Horned Viper (E)
Africa / Wild West theme scenery & foliage

Islands Animal Pack
Tasmanian Devil
Quokka
North Island Brown Kiwi
Little Penguin
Aye Aye
Banteng
Lowland Anoa
Panther Chameleon (E)

Eurasia Pack
Wisent
Mute Swan
Takin
Sloth Bear
Hermanns Tortoise (E)
Indonesian scenery we would've gotten in the tropical pack.
Well, this is a fun little exercise! Hah. I ordered the animals based on the order I feel like they might appear in the write-up...

Tropical Animal Pack
Lar Gibbon
Red River Hog
Basilisk
Fossa
Ocelot
Goodfellow's Tree Kangaroo
Black howler monkey
Toucans (WTE)

Arid Pack
Dromedary Camel
Burrowing owl
Ringtail cat
African Crested Porcupine
Desert horned viper (E)
African Desert / NA mining town theme scenery & foliage

Eurasian Animal Pack
Takin
Wolverine
Wisent
Mute Swan
Sloth Bear
Markhor
Another mustelid; literally any otehr mustelid
Hermanns Tortoise (E)
Indonesian scenery we would've gotten in the tropical pack.

Islands Pack
Tasmanian Devil
North Island Brown Kiwi
Aye-Aye
Cloud rat
Panther Chameleon (E)
Islands-themed scenery (combo of the Indonesian and Oceanian themed scenery set)

Look At Planet Coaster Console Edition's DLCs. Ghostbusters Despite Being A Larger DLC It Was Still Paired With Another Pack. DLC Size Has Nothing To Do With It Gets Paired Or Not. So 2 More DLCs Is More Likely Than 1.
There's a key difference, though. Console for PlanCo didn't release until well after development was over. And PlanCo console was a few years ago now. Very different sitaution.

The fact that they had an even number of packs was probably just "luck" as far as PlanCo goes. They could definitely take a different approach with a new Planet Zoo DLC.

Ok, so I went through RandomGoat’s meta wishlist to tally the continents and animal groups represented in the top 20, then I went to SuzieSky’s wishlist to look at the animal by groups in the top 20. I’m trying to predict what the final dlc could be, short answer is I still have no idea. This was a little fun though.

So going off the Goat’s wishlist here are the continents represented in the top 20:
  • Africa: 7
  • South America: 5
  • Europe: 2 (this being the muskox and walrus, which could also be NA animals)
  • Oceania: 2
  • North America: 1 (lonely manatee goes here)
  • Asia: 3
Now here are the groups tallied up in the top 20:
  • I’m only gonna do birds as one group: 4
  • Carnivora: 7
  • Ungulate: 4
  • Primate: 3
  • Marsupial: 1
  • Monotreme: 1

So this is kind of cool, to be honest going off that meta wishlist alone, I think Africa could be the next pack. If we just go based on the amount of animals. South America is the close second, but despite everything it is still only in second.

So instead of tallying up SuzieSky’s top 20, I looked at the total animal groups tallied up. It might show a more accurate look at what the community wants, at least because “group” animals now get their due. So here are the top 20 animals sorted by a group (also let me add Suzie graciously did the tallying up and data herself, so this part is just me relaying information):
  1. New world monkey
  2. African bird
  3. Wild caprid
  4. Old world monkey
  5. South American bird
  6. Waterfowl
  7. South American small mammal
  8. Small cat
  9. Baboon
  10. Bear
  11. Pinniped
  12. African antelope
  13. Pheasant
  14. Tree kangaroo
  15. Coati
  16. Asian antelope
  17. Pelican
  18. Large deer
  19. Echidna
  20. Small deer
This might be closer to what the community has been talking about more recently, and even then that may be generous. Do I think Frontier 100% follows the meta wishlist? Not necessarily, but it’s interesting as we get closer to the finish line to see what the community wants and what could be the final dlc.
Interesting data! And I think it definitely jives with what the community wants overall. But I do think certain things are under-represented in that list just by the sheer advantage certain animal "types" have. New world monkeys, for example, are obviously going to overrun everything right now because there's a wide range of species.

I also wonder if waterfowl would be higher up if the list was re-done after the swan. I'd imagine some people probably held back a bit on that because they felt like it wasn't feasible/was unlikely to be "gettable."

Definitely would be a cool addition but I feel like this would take up most of the work of the pack.
I'm not sure how the work is divided up. Like, would one animal that requires a lot of effort really mean they can't do other, simpler animals just as well? We all assume that to be the case but nobody really knows.

That said, I'm surprised we don't hear the porcupine come up more often when people talk about what happened with the Arid pack. That would explain why they went with "simpler" animals for the rest of the pack. Though what we call "simple" is subjective. Frontier goes above and beyond with some of those "simple" animals almost every time! So it almost feels unfair to say.
 
Would be people be interested in getting a goose? And if so, which one?
I would be thrilled to get the Nene!

I think the Egyptian Goose and Snow Goose (with their color morphs) would also be cool choices. But if we want more SA species the Andean Goose or Orinoco Goose would be pretty solid picks too.

Edit: Apparently the Orinoco Goose is actually a duck lol my bad...still cool though
 
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