Zoo Tycoon Zoo limit

[Waffles]

Think I'll be trading the game in soon. Sick and tired of waiting to hear something and hanging on to false hope. From Frontiers actions, ZT doesn't even exist anymore.

To be fair, the game has only been out for about a month. Couple that with the fact that it also included the Christmas holidays, I can understand if not much work was done to address our feedback.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy what I can and await their response. Their response(s) in the next month or two will be a good indicator as to whether it's time to bail.

 

[Enuebis]

Yeah, it's not the fact that the game hasn't been updated. It's the fact that nothing has been said. That coupled with the fact that they continue to be hard at work on their bread and butter (Elite) shows me that ZT is not on their minds at all.

 

[Starcat]

Just found this place and created an account just to chime in on this.

I do hope that the developers don't let the game die. I understand the need for a limit but I was surprised at how fast I hit that limit. Along with others, my request is to increase the zoo limit because it just seems really low. I'm getting by with the limit but it's still a bit disheartening seeing as how there's so much animals and objects available to build but not being able to because of the restriction.

More future content like animals and decorations via DLC (paid or otherwise) is welcome but dramatically increasing the limit ASAP would be ideal. And even if new content is released, it's gonna suck having to replace all current animals and things just to play with the new stuff.

Does anyone know if this has been acknowledged by the developers?

I'm happy to see people still posting about this. I agree about the whole DLC issue. I really hope for DLC, but at the same time, it will be upsetting to have to pretty much dismantle your entire zoo just to be able to use the new stuff. Don't get me wrong, it isn't a game breaker for me, but it takes away some of the fun of it. I really hope we'll get an answer about possibly increasing the limit. Even if it is a no, at least we will know where they stand.

 

[Willze0]

I've got to say, this is a deal breaker for me.

The game just doesn't have much play-ability to it. 30 minutes you've maxed out your limit and a further 30 mins and your sick of deleting attractions just to meet requirements to try and up the zoo fame that just starts to feel unachievable. If it wasn't for the lack of new titles for a couple of months I'd have probably trades Zoo Tycoon in rather than wait for patch or DLC to change this.

I really don't get why they have done this and very surprised there has been no answer from Frontier.

 

[iOlrickx]

Am I the only one who thinks implementing a limit was a good/smart move?
It allows them to monitor how the game runs on both consoles while avoiding any major issues which could potentially leave the game unplayable similar to Sim City and GTA: Online.

I'd be willing to wager they'll increase/remove this limit once they're certain nothing major will go wrong and that both consoles can easily manage it. They'll certainly need to do this if they have any plans on releasing DLC which it won't be Zoo Tycoon if they don't add marine life and dinosaurs at some point.

 

[Dominus]

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the zoo limit was an intended feature. I mean, it's the only thing keeping this game challenging. If they increased the limit, or even hypothetically removed the limit altogether, the game would be a cakewalk. Well, it's already a cakewalk. But you get my point. Once you get a successful zoo, you can make the zoo free and set all of the prices to "low" and still make a sizable income. I have several million dollars on my zoo.

I just don't get why they gave us such large spaces to build our zoos in.

Would I still like the limit removed? Of course. But if they remove it, the difficulty on this game goes from a 1 to a .5 which is not going to be a good thing for most people. There's not a whole lot of tycooning going on in this tycoon game. The business aspects are mosty irrelevant. The limit is the only thing putting up a challenge.

 

[Tarahiro]

I think the limit should be kept for campaign but removed (or increased) for free mode. I mean, free mode already has unlimited money so letting us build more in that mode would be brilliant.

 

[Starcat]

I think the limit should be kept for campaign but removed (or increased) for free mode. I mean, free mode already has unlimited money so letting us build more in that mode would be brilliant.

I completely agree. The limit does have a purpose in the campaign, but in the other modes such as challenge I feel it should be increased, and free mode it should be removed entirely.

 

[Waffles]

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the zoo limit was an intended feature.

Because this game is published by Microsoft, I feel like the most likely reason is to set things up to sell some DLC in the future.

There's a decent amount of animals in the game but there are even more out there that isn't. When it comes to micro-transaction games, it's a gold mine because you could possibly release a lot of individual species for a dollar each or whatever. Once more content is out, the limit is increased to allow players to add the new stuff. The "nice" part of that is that players don't need to tear down their exhibits to add the new stuff. Instead, they just add to their existing zoo.

Currently, it seems like they've provided a lot of existing content, too much land, and too low of a limit at the start. You don't want to cut down on content too much because you have to justify the $60 price tag but you also don't want to mess around too much with land and limits to make it easier for you to release content later.

If this is the case, then it's the tricky issue of finding the right balance. Personally, I think a mistake was made here in that the amount of visible land is too high and the limit too low. If they decreased the amount of available land by by giving you only half to a third and also increase the limit by 50% or more, there'd be less people complaining. Once more content is out, further increase the amount of land and limit.

In the meantime, I do hope that they (both developer and publisher) just increase the limit some more via small update even if there's no new content coming out anytime soon. The current balance is driving people away because most players feel like there's nothing to do once they hit the already low limit. It might not be a trivial change to make but if there's one thing I learned from this game, it's that you gotta do what it takes to get more customers and also to keep your current players, even if it means emptying all the trash cans yourself. If they ping customer happiness, they'll see what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I could be wrong but that's my current interpretation of things right now.

 

[Enuebis]

Am I the only one who thinks implementing a limit was a good/smart move?

Very close, yes.

...major issues which could potentially leave the game unplayable similar to Sim City and GTA: Online.

This game is no where near the size of either of those games. Plus those games require a connection to the server, ZT does not.

I'd be willing to wager they'll increase/remove this limit once they're certain nothing major will go wrong and that both consoles can easily manage it.

Xbox One should be able to manage it with ease. But from some of the issues that have come up in the X1 version, you can tell its optimized the same way on both. The Zoo Limit should be double what it is on 360. But it was built one way and pushed out like so, removing a few animals from the 360 version (which wouldn't affect performance anyway).

 

[Enuebis]

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the zoo limit was an intended feature. I mean, it's the only thing keeping this game challenging. If they increased the limit, or even hypothetically removed the limit altogether, the game would be a cakewalk. Well, it's already a cakewalk. But you get my point. Once you get a successful zoo, you can make the zoo free and set all of the prices to "low" and still make a sizable income. I have several million dollars on my zoo.

I just don't get why they gave us such large spaces to build our zoos in.

Would I still like the limit removed? Of course. But if they remove it, the difficulty on this game goes from a 1 to a .5 which is not going to be a good thing for most people. There's not a whole lot of tycooning going on in this tycoon game. The business aspects are mosty irrelevant. The limit is the only thing putting up a challenge.

Actually, I think it would be even more of a challenge. More area to control, more to manage. Its a cakewalk now because there isn't enough to do. You build it up, take care of the animals and then just wait... til one reaches level 15 then release them and do it again. If you had a larger limit, you'd have more to manage. More area to make sure the coverages are in place, more things to repair, etc. So it would definitely make it more of a challenge (maybe not the campaign but the can adjust the challenges for that).

 

[iOlrickx]

This game is no where near the size of either of those games. Plus those games require a connection to the server, ZT does not.

What does size have to do with anything? It doesn't need to be a huge game to develop problems and they certainly don't have to connect to servers in order to break either.. it is completely possible for a single player game to be unplayable simply because there's too much going on and the console can't handle it. Plus if I remember correctly the Xbone has up to 4 player MP which means there's servers involved.

The Zoo Limit should be double what it is on 360. But it was built one way and pushed out like so, removing a few animals from the 360 version (which wouldn't affect performance anyway).

If both versions were the exact same then yeah it should be double/unlimited but the Xbone version has a lot more stuff not to mention higher detailed graphics so it isn't that simple.

 

[Enuebis]

What does size have to do with anything? It doesn't need to be a huge game to develop problems and they certainly don't have to connect to servers in order to break either.. it is completely possible for a single player game to be unplayable simply because there's too much going on and the console can't handle it. Plus if I remember correctly the Xbone has up to 4 player MP which means there's servers involved.

Umm... has a lot to do with it actually. Sure, smaller games can have problems but that's not what I was hinting towards. You used those two games as an example of being unplayable. The reason they were unplayable were do to two things. One, the size of the game (meaning so big and complex that issues are sure to go unnoticed) and two, their need for a server. ZT does not require a server. The MP can use one yes, but not required for single player.

If both versions were the exact same then yeah it should be double/unlimited but the Xbone version has a lot more stuff not to mention higher detailed graphics so it isn't that simple.

I do program for a living so I know it's definitely not 'simple' (altho if you know your stuff it can be) but its far from being difficult. Especially from even a half-decent programmer. Besides the X1 version does not have 'a lot more stuff', in fact I'd consider it as a little more stuff. And the graphics aren't that much more detailed. I'm sitting here flipping an HDMI switch between the X1 version and 360 version running the same campaign from the start. There is a slight difference but nothing that would restrict the X1 (which is 8x-10x more powerful than the 360) from opening up to double the size.

 

[Summers]

Thanks for the limit.....

Thanks for the not needed limit... i only have 3 exhibits and i hit the limit what??? It feels like im playing a demo and my zoo is bare and ugly and limited thanks for ruining this game for me.... thank for stopping me using my imagination to make a masterpiece...

There is no reason to put a limit on xbox one not asingle reason so dont give me any b.s about xbox one has limit specs mylaptop dont even have half this xbox one specs and plays next gen games flawlessly....

Make apatch to remove limit its not hard ididnt pay 60 for a demo

 

[BajaBob]

Just started reading about this issue...

Seems to me that the issue isn't what the max zoo capacity should be (it can be near infinite!), it is the game engine. Game assets are not being managed properly. Every proper engine does this, most of the time without the user even noticing. As you zoom out, 3D models need to "degrade" in polygon count. Seems to me that the max number of polygons are loaded at any given time, so once we hit that build limit the engine has no more free resources on the GPU to allow for any further building. If the engine just ensured a set number of polygons were allocated at any given time the game could keep building out to fill an entire space. Essentially, endlessly. This may effect some game performance but this is the very issue that makes game engines so powerful. Seems to me that we have a gorgeous game engine that was not implemented properly.

 

[tiagocarleial]

Lets keep pressing Frontier!

Hi guys i am new in this forum, and yes i bought Zoo tycoon yesterday but on ebay I got 39$ . I know all the problem of the game (zoo limit and etc.) . The reason i got this game was because i was playing the demo a lot of times and i want to continue playing more.

But we need to keep pressing Frontier and Microsoft to give as an answer about this zoo limit which is the important problem by now..

I remember seeing the zoo tycoon promo video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNnCPDDGHpY of the Frontier devs talking about the game surrounded by teddy animals in the studio and how they were so focused on this game.

But i think the reason they are now focused on Elite game is because they raised until now £2,297,481 Raised!

So now let our fingers crossed and wait developers say something to us...

 

[PrincessPeach]

Limitless

I got ZT for xbox one about 3 days ago and have just been smashing out all the campaign zoos.... Until now! What is the point having unlimited funds but a real small zoo limit?? Its a complete deal beaker for me, i didnt pay £50 for what feels like half a game! This needs fixing asap!!

 

[Vga2000]

Why isn't Frontier responding on the complaints about the zoo limit?

It really wrecks the game. I bought it for my wife, because she is crazy about Zoo Tycoon. Since she came to the zoo limit she sTopped playing the game.

 

[RaptorVerhoeven]

It is not just that Frontier is not responding to complaints about the zoo limit. In fact Frontier is not responding at all. So maybe they are just so busy with Elite: Dangerous they don't have time for Zoo Tycoon? However with the free animals this week that might not be true. Second option is they wish to ignore us, that is never a good plan because we are their 'fanbase'. The third option is they are working on DLC and fixing the limit but they do this in secret?

 

[paul78]

Well hopefully they can raise the zoo limit but if they cant I guess will have to deal with it. I am happy with the game as is but more is always better. As far as a deal breaker if I was part of frontier and didn't want to or couldn't raise the zoo limit I would cram out the dlc. Animals, exhibits, fence options, and many other things. Im always shocked when I come on here and see elite as the big game. I use to play zt2 all the time and have been a member of several community sites so I know the huge demand for this game. I dont know if frontier realizes the potential of this game but this is a money maker. People on zt2 sites had mixed impressions of this game but if they added dlc and expanded the game a little you make much more money and convince many more critics to buy it.