Shoot a firework rocket ~ Winners!Make a forum zoo! |
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| New Zoo game speculation and ideas | |
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| Topic Started: Sep 13 2016, 03:16 PM (5,490 Views) | |
| kepperbob | Sep 13 2016, 03:16 PM Post #1 |
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- Pure Shardana -
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From animals, to attractions, to game mechanics, here is the place to speculate how a new zoo game could and should be! |
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| tigris115 | Sep 13 2016, 04:21 PM Post #2 |
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Personally, I think we should go with the metric system for in-game measurements with every thing of fence being 1m. Most zoo plans seem to be by the meter. |
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| Whalebite | Sep 13 2016, 07:29 PM Post #3 |
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I personally think there should be a more realistic acquisition process for some of the really rare animals, like leasing giant pandas from china, once the zoo reaches a higher level, and rescuing cetaceans and other marine mammals |
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| TheToastinator | Sep 13 2016, 07:39 PM Post #4 |
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A piece of toast and a terminator.
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I like an idea of starting off with animals relatively common in zoos and unlocking rarer ones such as endangered animals as your zoo becomes more popular and you get more money. Attractions seem like a good idea, such as carousels, face painting, feeding animals, or even a small roller coaster or two. Edited by TheToastinator, Sep 13 2016, 07:40 PM.
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| Chase | Sep 13 2016, 07:57 PM Post #5 |
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As I mentioned in the other topic (not entirely sure why this one was made) we should distinguish between a Zoo Design simulator and a Zoo Management simulator. While the easy answer would be, "have two modes one freeform and one campaign," we need to keep in mind that this would be an indie game, and that may grow too complicated. Things like "realistic methods of obtaining animals" would fall under a management simulator. Those can be implemented in a RPG method; look at the RTZI. Including those sorts of features is probably a lot of extra work in coding, scenario play, etc. If I had to choose, I'd prefer a design simulator. It's more inline with freeform mode. Access to a wide variety of animals off the bat, plenty of options in scenery, foliage, fencing. A budget feature could be toggled if you want to challenge yourself. Having realistic guest and animal behaviors is great for this because it challenges you to improve the design. I think having a rating system (like stars) is a good way to measure how the zoo, and your design skills are improving. Unlockable items like special scenery items that mark milestones would be fun. A problem I can easily see occurring is that our community wants too much from the game, and as a result the project becomes overwhelming. I think simplicity is key. Focus on the behaviors and the models. You have to remember that Zoo Tycoon had a full paid team behind it. We don't have that kind of power. I'll probably transfer my other ideas post over at another time (if this topic takes off). Edited by Chase, Sep 13 2016, 07:59 PM.
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| ~Skulleh~ | Sep 13 2016, 08:14 PM Post #6 |
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~Skulleh~
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Yo, just sayin, I'm open to helping out if this actually becomes an official thing. I do meshing, animating, concept art, and other graphics stuff.~ NOW ONTO IDEAS... - I definitely think animals should have much longer default lifespans than in Zt2. Most animals in captivity live to be about 14 years old, so for the sake of realism(and the ability to keep your animals longer...), animals should keep their natural lifespans instead of dying within a year. - More accurate behavior. For example, wolves living in packs with a dominance system(can be the alpha/beta/etc theory considering that came from zoo wolves, or can go by "parents are the alphas"), Lions forming legitimate prides in which they recognize their pridemates and challenge non-pride members, making it possible for two or more male lions to coexist if introduced at the same time/born into the pride, while still challenging trespassing males. -Accurate injuries system, maybe? Less fatal fights between same-species? - Better hunting AI. Yes, yes, I know- it's a zoo game- but some people do prefer the whole "Safari" thing or "wilderness" in their games, instead of confined animals fed by zookeepers. I am one of those people, I make my animals hunt. x'D By this I mean animals will actually go to hunt when hungry and won't just sit around doing nothing until they starve to death, as well as pack/pride hunting happening more often and with better system/organization. - An option to not have zoo walls, but instead an invisible or natural boundary.(Such as mountains, cliffs, tall rocks, etc.) - Much larger zoos. Like, CC's XL size or larger?? - Better buildings that are actually able to be entered. - Better graphics in the vanilla game. Instead of cartoony like base Zt2, the models could be realistic, as well as the terrain and etc. - Go the Zt2 route of releasing one 'expansion' at a time. First a base game, with base animals such as lions, tigers, wolves, a few prey animals, and etc, then a more 'exotic' expansion, marine expansion, extinct expansion, and so on. One general 'group' of animals at a time. - The ability to go into zookeeper mode with an actual avatar/character like in the xbox version of zt2, or even the ability to play as one of the animals? Like just for the aesthetic and etc of being able to walk around as the animals, maybe do some of their animations and stuff like howling/roaring/etc?? - Freeform, please, at least as an option. Some people prefer freedom and dislike all the challenge stuff... they just wanna play.
Edited by ~Skulleh~, Sep 13 2016, 08:15 PM.
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| tigris115 | Sep 13 2016, 09:10 PM Post #7 |
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My idea for map sizes Small (10-100 acres): These are for very small zoos in city parks like the zoos of London, Vienna, Berlin, Central Park, and Antwerp. Medium (100-500 acres): This is for slightly bigger zoos in cities such as those of the Bronx, San Diego, Washington D.C., Beijing, and Nashville. Large (500-1000 acres): This is for larger zoos with fairly large behind the scenes facilities such as Whipsnade and Columbus. Extra Large (1000-2000 acres): This is for massive safari parks for large breeding groups of animals such as the San Diego Zoo Safari Park or The Wilds. |
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| HENDRIX | Sep 14 2016, 01:54 AM Post #8 |
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-retired-
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Yes, remember that this all remains entirely speculative for now. And nost of you are too fixed on ZT2, eg regarding map size. What about a generator as in jpog? I absolutely agree that biomes are stupid for a zoo sim |
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| Michael | Sep 14 2016, 07:54 AM Post #9 |
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Your benevolent ruler
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A map generator would be very cool to give us a lot more variety, perhaps you could also start out with a decent sized plot on that map with the option of expanding (or not) from that starting plot. I could see some interesting options/challenges depending on the setting of your zoo like having to expand across a highway or an existing river just like real life zoos. Another interesting aspect as far as just running the zoo might be making sure all your buildings/amenities that need it have power, water, heating and cooling etc... Like making sure it's connected to the city gird/water main. That could be fun and would just be a cool little add in. (Though I'm sure a ton of coding, depends on how important it is to the creator) I think it's funny how some of you guys are still stuck on ZT2 and not considering that it can be different. |
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| Paleop | Sep 14 2016, 09:18 AM Post #10 |
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Paleopterix
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so that biome system I mentioned in the "New Zoo Game" topic. the system would be like a combination of both games. The animal would (in it's zoopedia) have a preferred biome ie temperate forest, but it will have preferences as to what terrain it likes. speaking of which the terain types from the original would return with new ones. For example a Kodiak bear's biome recommendations would consist of from most prominent to least: tundra grass, coniferous forest terrain, snow, dirt, water, grassland grass. While it's biome is tundra/boreal forest. basically make the biomes tailor-able to the animals specific location. two more things of note:
the list of terrain as currently thought out: grass: grass, tundra grass, savana grass, arid grass(think semi desert/scrub), montane/alpine grass forest terain: coniferous forest, deciduous forest, tropical rainforest, moss/ temperate rainforest dirt & sand: dirt, mud, red dirt, beach sand, desert sand stone: grey stone, brown stone ---------------------- as for the animal list it's not done, I took some cues from the x box game in having multiple animals that can re-use the same animation set with tweaks, and even added animations. just a sample:
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| Zoo Tycooner FR | Sep 14 2016, 09:35 AM Post #11 |
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#Lithopédion
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I think we should all not forget the ''obscure'' species that are still common in zoos Ex : Grey-winged trumpeter , Various curassow species , Six-banded armadillo , Long-nosed potoroo , Various small cat species etc ... (there are a lot of examples) |
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Sep 14 2016, 11:19 AM Post #12 |
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ᴀ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ᴏʙsᴇssᴇᴅ
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I think instead of making them enterable pre-built structures, providing walls and interactive "shop" objects similar to Rollercoaster Tycoon/Planet Coaster and the current building sets for ZT2 would be much more preferable. I never liked using the default buildings in ZT2 because there wasn't enough creativity involved.
I actually really do enjoy the idea of having a player character being visible to some extent, whether it's just hands or the full body. Maybe something like ARK where you can easily switch from 1st to 3rd person views? And yes, a map generator would be much more preferable over a static-sized map in my opinion. |
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| Imperator Furiosa | Sep 14 2016, 01:03 PM Post #13 |
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Chaos Theory
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I agree that there should be building sets instead of premade buildings, it'd allow for a lot more customization and personality in the parks. Same for animal shelters to an extent, like being able to build and customize stables and such. As for the animals I agree it'd be good to start off with zoo staples and have more realistic features like lifespan or social behavior. Maybe more variation as well in personality and appearance, so some animals would be more assertive and outgoing while others would be quieter. Realistic and diverse food is a must in my opinion. Another thing I'd be interested in seeing is hybridization as a feature, because accidents do happen in zoos and in the wild. So animals capable of producing hybrids IRL could maybe produce hybrids in the game, sort of like the ducks and geese Ulquiorra has made or the giraffe species included in ZT2. Finally, animals should use their official IUCN conservation statuses instead of the simplified ones seen in ZT2. Edited by Imperator Furiosa, Sep 14 2016, 01:09 PM.
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| Michael | Sep 14 2016, 02:23 PM Post #14 |
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Your benevolent ruler
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All of this is entire speculative of course. On the topic of buildings I think a system where you have a specific set of objects that is needed for each type of building. A little bit similar to the Sims in that Community lots require certain objects based on the type of building it is. For example to build a gift shop you would build the outer wall of the structure and then be able to select it and decide what building it was, add doors,maybe even set hours etc... Then you'd be able to add walls to the interior floor plan with bathrooms, a staff room, whatever you wanted and then you'd have to be sure and put in a counter, register, shelves, posters, etc... But there would be a required base amount that it wouldn't function without. Perhaps also the ability to just label a closed room as a gift shop, tolilet, staff room, animal care, classroom, etc... might work better than labeling a whole building. A nice idea from the Sims and other building games might also be pre-built versions and the ability to at least save and maybe even share your buildings with others (if nothing else uploading/downloading and putting it in your game). Unlockables could be different levels of gifts/food that cost different prices and are more desirable to guests so that the values of the shop increases as your zoo gains more prestige and money. If you wanted to do a nocturnal house or a herpetarium, or aviary etc... it'd also be useful to label buildings and rooms. On that note, I don't have time to completely expand this idea but I have an idea regarding the smaller animals found in zoos in aquariums, aviaries, tanks, etc... to kind of modulate them rather than having to custom build (so pre-built but custom builds might work like the above idea) a bunch of very small enclosures then having to hand place small animals like snakes, frogs, small mammals, small birds, etc... |
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| ~Skulleh~ | Sep 14 2016, 02:36 PM Post #15 |
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~Skulleh~
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So, I see some of you guys mentioning 'generated' zoos, and... welll... Not entirely sure of my opinion of that. I think that, if that is an option, there should also be a pre-selected option to choose a base zoo from a few already started or 'blank' maps, like zt2 already has, so that you know for sure and can choose what map size you get- maybe this could be limited to a freeform mode or something? And you guys are also talking about things to make it challenging- such as having to earn fame before you can get things and etc, but also take into account the playstyles of others. While some enjoy the challenge stuff, and I'm certainly not against the option, some prefer to freely build and place what they want without restrictions, so that should definitely be an option. I for one dislike being restricted in what I can do with games like this and prefer the freedom that Zt2's freeform mode has. Edited by ~Skulleh~, Sep 14 2016, 02:37 PM.
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