These are almost all prime examples of what Frontier could do to further expand on and diversify pre-existing functions and items already in the game (making them perfect “polishing” options for major Updates). Other already in-game assets that’d make for great/useful individually placeable pieces would be the plants and items within the exhibit boxes. I’d love to have some more small rocks and plants, and there’s already a number of these within the different exhibit box setups. Similarly, there’s also some other useful pieces that could be pulled from the various staff buildings.
Like you mentioned though, I think finally having a proper scaling feature in PZ would be absolutely massive. It’d revolutionize how we as players build in the game and bring new life and creative opportunities to basically every piece in PZ. Need a specifically shaped rock or tree? A scaling mechanic would solve this for you. Want to make the animal rewards statues true-to-size or even figurines for gift shops? A scaling mechanic would allow you to do this. Honestly if Frontier brought in this feature and also finally made all the pre-existing pieces flexi-color we wouldn’t even need them to make anymore pieces. We could shrink, grow, or stretch just about any “new” item we can think of from the models that already exist in-game.
Other piece-by-piece building games like Prehistoric Kingdom already have a scaling feature for their building pieces and Frontier at some point is gonna at some point have to bring in a similar feature/mechanic if they wish to compete with their competitors in a gaming market that all about customization and creativity. The things I’ve seen players do with a scaling feature have truly been amazing. PZ desires one too at some point, it’s revolutionized piece-by-piece building in almost all other aspects.
Another huge feature I think would be pretty game-changing for a Major Update is making all existing plants flexi-color too. Want to make a nice seasonally red-orange hued autumn, brown tinted winter, or freshly light green spring zoo? Flexi-color plants would allow you to pick your seasons. Want to have a physically similar relative of an already in-game plant species? Just adjust the color of the plant, and there you go, it’s a different species.
As for features/mechanics that possibly require new pieces/items, animal feeding stations/guest interactions would be amazing for certain species. And some rides that actually look like ones found in real zoos would be great too. The only “realistic” one we have right now is the train.
Very much agree with the addition of the exhibit pieces into the game - including the mulch, rocks, lamps, etc. I kinda doubt they'd do that but it would be nice to have them officially in-game.
But really, scaling would solve that issue without even adding those items. For me, I first realized how much I would love this when trying to create an animal mural and realizing that my giant otters were too big for the angle I was trying to place them at! And being able to shrink them just a tiny bit would have helped
a lot. But of course, there's all sorts of other examples. I just can't help but imagine how much more useful the primitive shapes would be with scaling, for example. They are such useful pieces! But being able to make them thinner, wider, shorter, etc. would make them infinitely more powerful as building items.
And yes to flexicolor plants! I had made an entire thread dedicated to this at one point and fully agree! I kinda forgot about it when posting this, though. LOL
it’s tricky because there’s often no unifying theme and there’s LOTS that could be done but no real way to guess what will come next…. Consequently, I have no idea what’s coming, but I’d like:
- User definded climatic parameters (temperature range and weather event probability) -at least in sandbox
- More triangles - especially mesh but really to match all the other panels too.
- Mix-and match terrain paints (choose palette from any biome)
- 2d art shapes
- 2d animal silhouettes
- Individual animal personalities (hasn’t been mentioned for a while but would be great)
- Smaller exhibits
- Barriers or gates that only stop animals (not staff) within habitats
- More eucalypts
- Plushies (shop)
- More current pieces made flexi-colour
Terrain paints and general control over the environment would all be phenomenal adds! Especially being able to move the sun around. That would be incredibly helpful. I ache whenever I realize I have to build in the shadows simply because of where the sun is in relation to that particular section of my zoo...
This is not a drill. Outsource_lqa has been updated. Repeat, this is not a drill!
I know this is good news from other people telling me it's good news. Haha. But what precisely does this mean?