Why the changes to Community Challenges??

[Horser01]

Planet zoo is/has so much more than just community challenges.

I agree. I'm not saying it is. To be clear, I still really enjoy building a lot. But when a challenge isn't running, I find myself pausing the game just to build and therefore not really playing the animals as much. Or I have so many ideas I lose motivation because I'm not sure which one to pick. Having the challenges gives me something to channel my energy to. It rounds out the rest of my playing style so I don't get myself into a rut. I'm not saying the game is boring, just that I enjoy having something else to look forward to. When I can't do that challenge or don't want to, I ignore it and do my own thing. I have sandbox games for my building zoos. Franchise is for when I want to play with other players (So to speak) and have outside influences.

I was mainly saying it's hard to get excited (like I was before) and rush home to play it, because now, I have all the time in the world. There's less motivation when there's no icing, even if you still get the cake.

There are alternatives of course, like The Round Table website has a community challenge operation for ZT2. Or they could add in more difficult objectives for the zoo objectives. Or I can do like I am and just make single goals, like breed X number of this species and release X females. I just liked the feeling of community where I wasn't actually playing alone (even though I still was)

 

[Arrakai]

I can understand the feeling of having too many ideas and not getting anywhere, I was like that a few months ago too But then I got the idea of breeding 10-50 perfect babys of every animal (for later use in my "real" zoo's I had in mind). After a slow start (didn't know much about breeding at first) I got it going. My original plan was to put all the babys in one zoo for safekeeping, but since that zoo was already big and became huge! after putting in all the baby pens (it covered all the map), it turned into a slideshow with huge lag. So Then I started building so called "baby pen" zoo's (working on my third right now), where I can house around 5 species after getting some cash (around 20mill or so in each zoo). So right now I'm building baby pens + working on breeding Japanese makaks (only done with breeding 5 species, and I've been working on it for quite a while already) + doing the orangutang challenge, so I'm really glad that there is only one challenge every other week, or I woudn't have any time for my huge project

 

[Horser01]

My current thing right now is that my zoo has to be as self sustaining as possible. So each exhibit has to have a garden nearby or edible fruit trees worked into the decoration or something. Then I do a little 'educational' bulletin next to it saying like: "This field produces 1,100 lbs (15 bales) of hay per year. There are 5 harvests per year. That's enough to feed Rodney the Giraffe for 440 days!" Or a Cricket Castle next to the reptile house, or a crop box next to the food shops, that kind of thing.

I also track all the bloodlines of the animals in my zoos. Each bloodline must be preserved in my own zoo (keep at least one offspring from each combination of parents) and don't allow it to die out. Each species that's vulnerable or higher on the conservation status has a 'quota'. I have to breed 10% of the current worldwide population (usually within 10 years), and I have to release twice as many females as males to the wild, but the release number is based on how many babies they have each time and how often.

And my zoos also have to have areas set aside for native wildlife and / or wildlife corridors.