This might be not directly what this thread is about but it feels appropriate here seeing all the rather underwhelmed responses.
Imo this year was planet zoos most underwhelming year of dlc but it was in no way shape or form bad, even if it wasnt very exciting for the most part.
If i had to describe this year in one word its polish and thats why its so underwhelmingly recieved.
If we take a step back, forget about the packs and just look at how the game changed on a macro level, the result is a very positive one.
Many areas that were kinda allright before with most of their most important animals allready added but not much else to support them, often making zoo areas for these animals feel samey or sometimes small.
Tropical africa was pretty much just apes, okapi and the bongo, madagascar 3 lemures, North africa and the middle east where present but really not much more, oceania internationally was fine but really just australia, oceania locally was missing many of its most important endemic life, europe was just enough to be considerd in an allright place, cold climate asia was kinda rough to build for with lots of carnivoras, 2 deer a horse, a camel, a crane and nothing else and india had its most important big animals since the base game, but nothing for in between.
But what about now?
Tropical africa now got a small ungulate to round it out, madagascar got its apex predator and finally isnt just lemures anymore, North africa and the middle east trippled in their animals and are now abundantly represented with only 3 common wants in the barbary sheep, spurred tortoise and obviously the hamadryas baboon, oceania is more then just australia with some of its most essential animals aswell as a very common filler animal, europe finally is more then 4 deer and an ibex regarding ungulates and got fleshed out to a point that most people even europeans are content with it never being updated again, cold climate asia got a bunch more varried and india recieved some great support with the flex pick of all flex pick with the wild boar and finally has a mid size ungulate and the sloth bear as another flashy endemic.
And that isnt all as we got both many incredibly popular, important and requested animals in a gibbon overhaul, a sloth (even if its the wrong one and a pain to use), a porcupine, tassie devil, kiwi, wolverine, takin and most important of all to me our first waterfowl in the mute swan.
This year did a great job of just fleshing out areas, adding animals to round them out that arnt that special themself but elevate the other animals around them and without them building a regional area is far less fun and varried, while also adding each pack some very requested and at times complicated animals to pull of which all where stunning.
This is all great and wonderfull and what the game needed, but was it exciting? No but thats the nature of the beast
Polish isnt exciting, polish is literally filling in the cracks between the larger pieces, rounding out the rough edges and choosing the usefull and practical over the flashy, but still it is nessecary.
Look at africa, why was and still is it the most fullfilling, varried and satisfying region to build for in the game, even when other continents and areas got more animals then it?
Because africa unlike most other regions before this year was allready polished. The basegame gave us a varried roster of both ungulates and carnivorans which build a back bone for the more interesting animals allready in the game and that came with the packs. Imagine we had just two antelopes in the base game, africa would have felt much much worse, pretty terrible even, even if the animals removed individually arnt that interesting, what really is interesting is having the choice between them.
As new content, the ungulate overload of this year was pretty boring and i agree.
Its not fun to wait 3 months for new content only for the content to be animals that all could fit the same basic display that you have allready build for another ungulate.
Is that interesting new content? No not really, but is it important? I say yes very much so
The Ungulates and overall packs this year really were not that interesting on release besides oceania, with neither tropical or arid exciting me to use their animals and eurasia only doing so as i am literally waiting for animals to build a cold climate eurasia area since we got the crane in wetlands, but what they will be is interesting in the future.
This abundance of them will make building for specific regions in the future so much more fun when your not hardpressed to use the new content.
Im sure a year from now people will be appreciating this years content much more once they used it in a more relaxed setting, building whatever they please and just so happen to use them. Imagine you want to build a north african area, nothing big like 4-5 habitats.
Before this year, that was pretty much a clear cut choice of scymitar horned oryx, fennec fox, striped hyena and caracal and you could say thats all the region needed for fine representation but now?
You got the choice of maybe building a desert nocturnal house with fennec fox and sandcat or just one of them, maybe one antelope pen? Maybe two or three? Maybe a mixed species desert habitat, that could be fun! How about an implied desert oasis town that keeps dromedarys? Maybe even an implied dromedary ride? I want a mid size carnivoran habitat, is it gonna be caracal or striped hyena? Maybe both? I feel like adding an exhibit to the night house, do i choose the base game snake, the arid dlc snake or the funky beetle? So much choice, so much fun and that with just more "boring" ungulates and the sandcat, not to mention of the actually wholly unique new porcupine.
This element of choice is highly underrated and even with arid being my least favorite pack of the year and maybe even the game, i really cant say im upset about it.
Would i have liked baboon and tortoise? Hell yeah!
Do i really like that my choice for north african desert ungulate isnt scimitar horned oryx automatically but between 3 different and distinct looking antelopes, the dromedary and the somali wild ass? Also hell yeah!
Sure it would have been more dope in the short term to get these two more unique animals, but longterm this abundance of choice is imo very important as it helps to keep the game fresh and less stale even without new content. Before arid you would have never build a north african area more then once cause why would you? You most likly allready have tried the one and only animal combination availabe and doing that again isnt that exciting, but now?
Now building another north african section in another zoo is totally viable and fun and thats honestly awesome.
This year really hammerd home the benefit of these bonus regional packs, as they allow to not just sprinkle in a little bit of extra to a region but to take one and slam dunk it from okay to fantastic and i honestly hope we see some more of them.
Imo a 2 2 split would be great, having one scenery pack and animal each for regional packs and more global ones to get both that slow and steady growth everywhere while also making single regions much more worthwhile instantly.
Without the arid pack, north africa would have never been even half as interesting to rebuild for and if we should get the hamadryas baboon in the future it will be even better then if we would have got it in the arid pack in expanse of one of these "boring" ungulates.
Have the packs this year been kinda lackluster as an exclusive package? Yes
Do i still think they did the job of actually making the game better just as good as any before them? Yes
And i think with all the critic these packs got including from me, its really important to say that.
Now for my own rankings?
1. Eurasia
2. Arid
3. Oceania
4. Tropical
What happend here? Arid number 2?
Simple, it finally happend, the disappointment is gone and it clicked for me.
Looking not at the pack itself but what it actually did for the game it really has risen in my appreciation and i finally can say i think that arid is a good pack for all the reasons listed above.
Oceania and Tropical are rather low, i havent got that much use of the pieces yet and oceania just simply isnt a region i have much use for, yet i greatly appreciate what it did for the region.
Tropical is the lowest for the cardinal sin of being the most boring while also the least game changing. Its the only pack with an animal with which inclusion i flat out 300% disagree (wrong sloth) and that frustates me as i really wanna use the sloth but the box is just not fun and the climbing frame flat out ugly. The other 4 animals did bring great things, even the monitor, but they also had the least impact on the game as a whole imo. RHH is great, but while it helps alot tropical africa didnt suddenly become awesome, it just became fine. Fossa does heavy lifting for madagascar as its first non lemure and apex predator, but it also doesnt satisfy my need for more from madagascar alone. The lar gibbon and Monitor are fine and fun additions to SEA, but they also really did not feel needed and id vastly would have prefered for this focus to go to south america, but its how it is and the brachiation update is chefs kiss.
Eurasia is my favorite, mostly due to it having imo the most ballanced roster while also activly playing into my biases. Ive been defending european representation for literal years by now, ive been there defending the idear of a europe pack against the haters, being so so happy that the north america pack finally gave us 3 new european animals and now having a second pack dedicated to fleshing out europe just warms my heart and makes me happy. And then it also does such a great job at that, brings other animals aswell in the saiga and takin that i wanted for a while for my asia section, gave me the boar that ive been begging for for ages and finally the first ever waterfowl. Who cares about that silly fuzzy bear, im just happy and glad that i got such an amazing pack catering to my taste and current projects after 3 packs i didnt appreciate on release.
So yeah thats my retrospective of the year, was it allways exciting and did it never underwhelm me? Nope, infact i was very underwhelmed by 2 packs on release and one in actual use.
Is it how i would have done it? No not at all
But was it good for the game? Absolutly
Hopefully this trend of fixated polish continues next year with south americas, also taking it from a train wreck to decently represented and maybe even a second one to take it to great. Maybe we even will get multiple monkeys in a pack to make up for the 1000 day curse, who knows? Defenetly would be my first priority regarding South americas weak backbone
. This pack, originally an 8/10, lowered down to a 5/10
