The big problem of Planet Zoo signs

[Aramar]

As much as I love Planet Zoo, there's something that gets me on my nerves, and I know many people think the same way, since this has been mentioned quite often on the forums and on YouTube, even by some of the most popular youtubers. I'm talking about the beautiful but completely inconsistent signs for the animals in the game (and lack of them for many animals too).

For your reptiles, you can choose among these signs:

As you can see, the larger your croc is, the smaller the sign it gets (to the point that for the largest crocodile, the salty, the sign is so small that it doesn't even exist). Are you using giant tortoises? Sorry, no signs for you! Do you have a small terrapin? Here you have two enormous signs! Nile monitors and Komodo dragons? Nope.

Are you going for an Australian area? Let's see:

You can only use the same design for 3 animals. If you have more, then you must mix different styles.


If you are building a South America or a North America area, once again you will find trouble finding a coherent style for your zoo:

Special mention to the tiny polar bear sign. It looks fantastic on those huge habitats (if you have a magnifying glass to find it, that's it).

The good old Europe suffers too:

What about Asia? There are many animals there, so it should be easier to have a larger number of signs in the same style, right? Wrong!
View attachment 308963

I didn't even dare to try Africa.


Please, don't get me wrong, all the signs look fantastic, but we lack one common design that we can use no matter what we are building. Billboards don't substitute these signs. Please, Frontier, consider this for a future update before it is too late.

Edit: updated the last picture to include new DLCs

 

[XT]

I think if I had to chose, I'd want Frontier to do a whole animal pack in the base white plastic silhouettes and the same in the whole roster in the aquatic style - the plastic ones are super boring but at least they are also super generic and the aquatic style I think is fairly attractive while also being pretty universal.

The north american style can die in a fire, tho.

 

[Cocolori]

I second this, it would be nice to have a full roster in the same style and with a similar scale. I would also love it if a little time and attention went into the text signs - they are pretty difficult to use well because the scale and / or placement is off on so many of them with the fonts available. So text looks unnaturally squashed or you can't include enough of it.

 

[shirandhak]

You are sooo right! For example: try using the classic standing sign 2 (the one which looks like a doublesided chalk board you can put up in front of a shop) with more than 4 letters. So it's use is quite limited. Anything else than "o p e n" just looks horrible, because the letters are distorted in height so much that even 4 letters look like the "blob" if you don't do 3 spaces inbetween. In RL you normally see such signs containing a list of menues for a restaurant - in PZ you needn't waste a thought on that.

Not to mention that the selection of fonts for the signs is just a shame, because there is hardly any font you can use, which doesn't look ridiculous.

 

[jcp011c]

I have had the same thought roaming around in the back of my mind, but never really put it to the forefront. I completely agree. We need at least one set of signs that are cohesive in style. For all animals, or at very least all habitat animals. Not just base game, but DLC. Ideally I'd like several sets, but the need for one, to have a cohesively designed zoo, is necessary.

This is also why I probably not use the animal signs that often. I use them to decorate buildings, but I don't use them as actual signs throughout the zoo. Nothing matches and everything just looks off.

Also would love to have a silhouette of all of the animals, but that takes a backseat to needing cohesive set of signs.

 

[Karen F]

To be honest, I just find most of the signs ugly and hardly ever use them. Though I like the style of the ones since South-East Asia pack. But as said, it would be nice if they were consistent in style and every animal has at least one.

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

Personally, if i had to choose i want more of the head signs. They are really great all purpose ones with a bunch allready + i love that they come in 2 sizes. I found them to be generally the most usefull ones, especally for flags and custom signs.

 

[Roxxsmom]

So many animals, even some in the base game, still have missing animal silhouette signs. I wish they could fill in the gaps there at least.

The themed "animal shaped" signs are attempts, I think, to create a feel within a smaller area of the zoo. I am fine with this and have seen this done in real zoos, but of course the expansion packs typically have just four habitat and one exhibit animal, so it makes it hard to create an entire "Australia zone" or "North American" zone (or whatever) with the same theme, especially when some regional species are included across different packs. And "reptile house" type areas for exhibits are going to be a hodgepodge, since there is a different sign style for each animal (and many exhibit animals have no animal sign at all).

I don't like all the regional themes equally, but I accept that folks have different aesthetic senses. I agree that the style used with the aquatic pack is cute and I'd like to see it expanded to include more animals.

 

[GRAMPERS62]

One can always find an image of their favorite animal and use the screens to act as a sign with a bonus of tagging the habitat as an advertised place.

 

[Moonfox]

It would be amazing to have the theme makers toolkit for Planet Zoo. I never used it in Planet Coaster (my old computer couldn't keep up) but it sounds incredible. If we could make our own signs and pieces, we could create coherent styled pieces and share them. We do need them.

 

[Aramar]

Little update with the Coservation Pack signs. It's good to see that they sort of match the wetlands signs, so hopefully Frontier starts making signs more similar to each other and we end up with a global coherent style.

 

[LindaBroer]

Same actually holds for the statues. I would love more and consistent statues.

 

[ralphthestick]

Strongly agree - my completely unrealistic wish would be to have the entire roster in all sign styles, but I also understand that will certainly never happen - how good a selling point for each DLC would that be though, if you could make an entire zoo feel different with a new complete set of signs by buying the pack? Some of them wouldn't make sense, sure, but we've already got Egyptian meerkats - why not Egyptian polar bears and Nordic kangaroos?

However, I do think that having the entire roster in one or two styles (base game silhouette/aquatic/wetlands/conservation would be the preference) would be a massive bonus.

I do like some of the more heavily-themed designs, but I do wish some of the base game animals were included per DLC as well - the Australia road signs are perfect, and you see them in loads of zoos, but the saltie and snakes (and now the platypus) are always going to look like the odd ones out if you aim for as complete an Australia section as you can. I understand that this one is difficult to gauge - my example works if you set out the zoo geographically, but isn't useful if you have the salties in a reptile house, but most of the themed signs are very much designed around a geographical set up anyway, so maybe that's not a problem?

 

[GRAMPERS62]

I don't know.... I'm of the opinion that having a variety of styles can add to zoo.

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

I don't know.... I'm of the opinion that having a variety of styles can add to zoo.

Yes but for that to work well more animal need to be included in those styles.
Simple example.
Everybody loves the australian road signs. They are small, great for decorations and signs alike.
BUT the saltie, snakes and platypus aswell as propaply future australian inclusions
dont have them, making it hard to actually use these signs in a larger or even just different australua section without just australia dlc animals.
An update/literal sign dlc that gives us just 1 extra sign/statue for each animal would be heavenly, peeferably in the conservation/wetlands style, the silouettes or the head signs, BUT adding them to existing themes that would fit them would still be nice like the before mentioned australian road signs, but also things like they grey seal, moose and arctic fox for the arctic packs flags or literally any statue in the classic style .

 

[Jeminyne]

I never understood why they didn't just make the new signs from DLC pack match certain styles already in the game. Like making the North America DLC signs match the style of the signs we already had for the bison, wolf, grizzly, and pronghorn.

 

[Atiggerx33]

I think if I had to chose, I'd want Frontier to do a whole animal pack in the base white plastic silhouettes and the same in the whole roster in the aquatic style - the plastic ones are super boring but at least they are also super generic and the aquatic style I think is fairly attractive while also being pretty universal.

The north american style can die in a fire, tho.

I like the glass things for North America, I wish we had one for every animal. My favorite styles are the semi-detailed silhouettes (the dark gray ones, although I wish they were a bit bigger and recolorable if they aren't; I don't use them because there are only 6, and it seems stupid to only put them up for 6 animals). I also like the king penguin in particular, the other animals in the aquatic pack are too cartoony IMO. And the conservation pack (smaller but king penguin is similar design style).

 

[Atiggerx33]

Oh and I actually like the North American animal head cutouts, they're themed enough that they fit perfectly with the rest of the new world pack, but the theming isn't super heavy so they're useful in less theme-y zoos as well. They're just animal heads with a geometric art design, provided your zoo is going with an even somewhat modern theme they won't look out of place.

Also, I found a use for all the super theme-y statues, I put them in gift shops. I won't put them in my zoo because the theming is so extreme (unless I'm actually doing a heavily themed zoo where it works), but it looks great as gift shop decor!

 

[random goat]

This is something that would be most welcome in an anniversary update, even more than a brand-new animal like the dromedary camel.
The lack of consistency with the animal signs has been an issue from the beginning, even though some progress has been done in later packs.

 

[DarthQuell]

A stretch but my piece of the pie, not simply having consistent signs with animals from that region, but full sets. Like, having an African-style beaver statue/sign or an Indian-style kangaroo sign/statue