Spring dlc Speculation 2023

Does being vocal and expressing a desire for flying birds on these forums, the subreddit, and YouTube comments encourage and incentivize Frontier to include them? YES.
It's all good in the right place and time, but when you start going into the "PLANET ZOO CONSOLE WHEN" territory where you start asking for birds in unrelated social media posts, streams, etc. you're going to become white noise to the people at Frontier who are actively looking out for you. (I'm using you in general here, not you specifically for the record).

In the end, it's not like Frontier doesn't know that we want birds. You'd have to be absolutely blind not to notice that the community wants it at this point. Whether or not Frontier will add birds, after 3 years of them being in high demand, is probably already decided. We're too far along where being vocal about it is really still a matter of encouraging and incentivizing them in my opinion.
 
It's all good in the right place and time, but when you start going into the "PLANET ZOO CONSOLE WHEN" territory where you start asking for birds in unrelated social media posts, streams, etc. you're going to become white noise to the people at Frontier who are actively looking out for you. (I'm using you in general here, not you specifically for the record).

In the end, it's not like Frontier doesn't know that we want birds. You'd have to be absolutely blind not to notice that the community wants it at this point. Whether or not Frontier will add birds, after 3 years of them being in high demand, is probably already decided. We're too far along where being vocal about it is really still a matter of encouraging and incentivizing them in my opinion.
I think we have a lot of common ground here.

I absolutely do not want to come off as a trollish lunatic like so many of the spamming console requesters - espeically considering Frontier has recently shared why they're having difficulty and hesistation with a console version in a recent press release. With that said I do feel a forum purposely dedicated to speculation to this year's upcoming DLCs is the right place and time to be firm in expressing a want for birds.

The reason why I want to continue being vocal in bird rallying, is because flying birds have a lot working against them, and I'm not referring to game mechanics here.

If Frontier's history has proven anything, it's that two of their main sources of which animals to include in new packs are the Meta-Wishlist and Nexus mods (I think the forum community undervalues the importance of mod popularity - almost every single animal in the Grasslands Pack was featured on the Top 25 most popular Nexus downloads, and more obscure picks from last year like the Speculated Caiman and Wild Water Buffalo were indeed featured on Nexus.)
In its current state, the Meta-Wishlist does not allow flying birds, I personally would have changed this with the introduction of bats, but that's just me. And there's hardly any avian related mods due to previous nonexistent of flying animals.

So because of this, I feel places like these forums is where birds need our voices the most. I understand it can get tiring to hear yet another user with a "ME WANT BIRDS NOW!!!1!!1" attitude, and I'm hoping to steer bird-based conversations away from that and into a more pragmatic, yet hopeful direction. For our camp, it can get be just as tiring to hear "Birds are never coming, so shut up about it and enjoy the hoofstock".

I think we can find a discourse tone somewhere in the middle of those extremes that is realistic, yet hopeful about birds.
 
A year ago, I was neutral towards birds. I didn't care for them, but I would've been happy for them. A year later, I know hope that we do get birds.

The bats and butterflies changed how I view flying animals, so I'd love for future packs to have birds, even hoping we get an all birds pack; unlike a primate pack or a canine pack, I feel like a birds pack would be a hit with the audience.
Everytime an update is announced/released, on Steam the users always ask for birds.

I don't want them free flying, to be honest. It's bad enough the issues we have/had with deep diving. If free flying is added, it'd be a huge mess as well. I fell like, if they were to come, WE bird enclosures would be the way to go.

And now that I'm on topic, let's play a little speculation game:

What would a potential Feathers of the World animal pack contain, and when would y'all think it came out?
 
Of course it’s completely appropriate to talk about birds in this thread.

My personal feeling is that we will see birds - I really can’t see them stopping at bats and butterflies- but not a bird pack. I think Frontier recognise that they are catering for a wide audience and for that reason I think any flying birds will be added gradually.
 
What would a potential Feathers of the World animal pack contain, and when would y'all think it came out?
Lets change up my usual bird list with some newcomers after i managed to get a new bird book. When would said pack come out? Probably summer i guess but not this year id reckon

  • Blue and yellow macaw (South America)
1672669889295.png

  • Roseate Spoonbill (North/South America)

1672669961101.png

  • Rainbow Lorikeet (Australia)
1672670027278.png

  • Golden Eagle (my personal favourite bird to see in the wild - Europe, Asia, Africa, North America)
1672671120974.png

  • Grey Crowned Crane (Africa)
1672670412790.png

  • Mute Swan (Europe, North America, Asia)
1672670529303.png

  • Inca Tern (south america)
1672671349938.png

  • Mandarin Duck (Europe, Asia)
1672671480774.png
 
Last edited:
The reason why I want to continue being vocal in bird rallying, is because flying birds have a lot working against them, and I'm not referring to game mechanics here.

If Frontier's history has proven anything, it's that two of their main sources of which animals to include in new packs are the Meta-Wishlist and Nexus mods (I think the forum community undervalues the importance of mod popularity - almost every single animal in the Grasslands Pack was featured on the Top 25 most popular Nexus downloads, and more obscure picks from last year like the Speculated Caiman and Wild Water Buffalo were indeed featured on Nexus.)
You mix up coorelation and causation. Animals which are popular on the nexus or wishlist are popular for a reason. Frontier picls both popular and unpopular picks based on many different things, and you are just looking for patterns with the very limited info you have.

Keeping on shouting "birdsbirdsbirds" as if it's going to make any change in Fronyier's decision making is not helping anyone and just spamming the forum and social media.

Aviaries and aquariums have been the top requests since the game's release. Frontier is aware. We have several dedicated threads to discussing birds and aviaries. I don't see the point in dragging it into every single post.
 
With that said I do feel a forum purposely dedicated to speculation to this year's upcoming DLCs is the right place and time to be firm in expressing a want for birds.
Oh yeah for sure, I don't see an issue with that either tbh. I was more replying to the thing about posting it everywhere, I know some people can take that too far, and the CM's are humans as well, we would find it equally annoying if people were spamming things so I felt like it was justified to point that out 😅

The reason why I want to continue being vocal in bird rallying, is because flying birds have a lot working against them, and I'm not referring to game mechanics here.

If Frontier's history has proven anything, it's that two of their main sources of which animals to include in new packs are the Meta-Wishlist and Nexus mods (I think the forum community undervalues the importance of mod popularity - almost every single animal in the Grasslands Pack was featured on the Top 25 most popular Nexus downloads, and more obscure picks from last year like the Speculated Caiman and Wild Water Buffalo were indeed featured on Nexus.)
I'm with @yoav_r here. Whether birds are included on the metawishlist or not has literally no impact on the decision of Frontier to add birds. I can say with a 1000% confidence that Frontier is very well aware of the fact that there's a high demand for birds. Them not being on the list or not existing as mods has no influence on that, nor is it working against the addition.

I know this gets said a lot, but the CM's do read through this forum as much as they can. They pass along as much as they can and if Frontier starts looking into adding birds (if), they'll be the first to pass along our lists of most requested birds. There's not a doubt in my mind about that.

So really, if that's your concern, I'd say to not worry about it. Because Frontier knows. They are well aware.

So because of this, I feel places like these forums is where birds need our voices the most. I understand it can get tiring to hear yet another user with a "ME WANT BIRDS NOW!!!1!!1" attitude, and I'm hoping to steer bird-based conversations away from that and into a more pragmatic, yet hopeful direction. For our camp, it can get be just as tiring to hear "Birds are never coming, so shut up about it and enjoy the hoofstock".
I think speculation about it is fine tbh. Everyone is allowed to speculate as wildly as they want, but the more wildly you speculate, the more you are responsible for your own expectations. As long as you're cool with that, I personally feel like anyone can speculate as wild as they want. (And even if I thought you couldn't, I wouldn't stop you because who the hell am I to decide that lol)

I think in the past some people sometimes just took it too far and wouldn't even consider anything but birds, only to then be very disappointed and even angry about it towards Frontier, whilst they were never promised anything. That was something I found annoying myself tbh, but I've already said it here so I won't be repeating myself.

It's bad enough the issues we have/had with deep diving. If free flying is added, it'd be a huge mess as well.
Maybe I'm speaking too much from my own experience here; but has diving and climbing ever been so incredibly bad that it would have been better to not have that in the game at all?

I think the biggest issue with both systems is mostly that when it bugs, the bugs tend to be very noticable. Animals moonwalking, animals floating etc, that's just so noticeable that whilst not game breaking, they break the immersion. So I fully understand that a lot of people have been turned off by both systems because of these bugs.

But lately, I've been experiencing these issues less and less. I can't even remember the last time I saw an animal moonwalk on my climbing structures. I remember that Rudi pointed out that the raccoons climb incredibly well and I must admit, they do climb splendidly. From what I've noticed and from what CM's have said in the past about the climbing system, I feel like both the diving and the climbing systems have been improved upon steadily in the past years; to such an extent that I think the heavy criticism both systems get isn't always as justified any more.

For the record, I'm really trying to phrase this in the best way possible because I don't want this to sound as if I'm disregarding anyone's experience with both systems. I know that the bugs that are there are really immersion breaking so it is perfectly okay that it turns people off completely. It's just that I think both systems have really improved massively since launch and that if they wouldn't have been as gradually implemented as they were, those improvements would have been much more noticeable and people would have felt different about both systems.
 
What would a potential Feathers of the World animal pack contain, and when would y'all think it came out?
I cannot make a single idea that can aproach to the possible pack, but i can do a small aproach. I only hope that they do not only introduce 8 bird species, that would be pretty dissapointing for me.
I just have 10 species that i want to see 100%:

1: Scarlet Macaw: A zoo is not full without macaws, and this is the most typical one and very incredible species
2: Toco Tucan: Another zoo must, mery stunning species
3: Hornbill: Rhinoceros or Great Indian, i find both so unique
4: Golden/Iberian Eagle: Very majestic eagles, i want at least one of them
5: Atlantic Puffin: This animal is the last one that we really need for arctic zones. A themed aviary with underwater viewing zone would be perfect
6: Bengal/Great Horned Owl: Both incredible and majestic species
7: Mallard: I need this guys. EVERY zoo that i have been has mallards in every pond, very typical species, not very special but very needed
8: Roseate spoonbill: The keystone species for swampy zones
9: Turacos: Very colourful birds that would add some color to our zoos
10: Kiwi and Greater Rhea: The last Palaeognathae important representants that we really need

I want so much birds, but this 10 are essential for me
 
If Frontier's history has proven anything, it's that two of their main sources of which animals to include in new packs are the Meta-Wishlist and Nexus mods (I think the forum community undervalues the importance of mod popularity - almost every single animal in the Grasslands Pack was featured on the Top 25 most popular Nexus downloads, and more obscure picks from last year like the Speculated Caiman and Wild Water Buffalo were indeed featured on Nexus.)
If this pattern is true I wonder how the community will take the addition of the North American river otter...
 
Maybe I'm speaking too much from my own experience here; but has diving and climbing ever been so incredibly bad that it would have been better to not have that in the game at all?
In the case of the diving, animals phasing through walls was a big problem. Sometimes they'd phase on land, but it was worse and more often when diving. But as you stated, it's gotten better. Free flying would start all that over again for a different locomotion.

Plus, at least there was an entity that the program could use to allow animals to deep dive, as well.

With free flying, what "entity" would there be?
 
Free flying would start all that over again for a different locomotion.
Not entirely, free flying isn't even new to the Cobra engine, it goes back all the way to Planet Coaster where pigeons were free flying and were capable of landing on custom buildings. Free flying is more in line with diving, it's navigation in a confined 3d space. It's diving with extra steps though, because letting people completely define that 3d space is a hell of a lot more difficult and the interactions within that 3d space are more complicated.

So it's not completely different or starting from scratch, and the issues they've had with the other forms most certainly would have been learning opportunities, so it doesn't have to mean that it will be a mess. It will have bugs of course, the first programmer that doesn't write any bugs hasn't been born yet, but it doesn't have to be a total mess.

All of it is a big if of course, we don't even know if they're doing birds at all, let alone free flying.

Plus, at least there was an entity that the program could use to allow animals to deep dive, as well.

With free flying, what "entity" would there be?
I have no idea what you mean by this though 😅
 
Most populars mods are simply oldest and additionaly came from peroid where mods were most popular, so around SEA pack and before NA animal pack. In retroperspective first ,,new species,, mod was uploaded (thylacine) around that time and community got hyped.
After that i assume most people got bored of downloading mods again² and changing them every update, so many people are just waiting for end of support to use them.
I mean do any of you believe in domestic pig being more popular than tasmanian devil (maybe devil is just overrated, idk)?

But if we are going to shout out some species released after that peroid, so 2022 and later: (in order)
  • shoebill (most popular new species)
  • north american porcupine
  • three-toed sloth
  • ocelot
 
Last edited:
I have no idea what you mean by this though 😅
I'm no programmer, so this is my understanding, but basically, what's preventing deep divers to dive on dry land? When an animal hits a body of water (the entity), then the ability to dive is given to it.


Honestly, I'm getting lost myself with myself. I'm not feeling too well today, ha ha😅
 
I'm no programmer, so this is my understanding, but basically, what's preventing deep divers to dive on dry land? When an animal hits a body of water (the entity), then the ability to dive is given to it.


Honestly, I'm getting lost myself with myself. I'm not feeling too well today, ha ha😅
There are lots of ways to do such a thing, but like with fully aquatic animals, it would require a overhaul to some basic mechanics in the game in a way that we haven't yet seen in the game.

Biggest new mechanic introduced since launch was the diving, and that was clearly set up and planned ahead by the volumetric water.

I'd be glad if we ever got free format aquariums and aviaries, but until they come there is no reason to assume they will or hope for them.
 
Back
Top Bottom