Vanishing Mountain Lions

[mohicanlily]

I noticed a while back that I just wasn't seeing the mountain lion in my animal list in any of the scenarios I was playing.  I wondered if it had been overwritten by a user-created download I had installed (I don't know which one) and maybe that was why I wasn't seeing it anymore.  I was playing the Animal Recovery Center scenario today and got the message that mountain lions had been donated to my zoo, and sure enough, they were no where to be found.  Does anybody have any idea what could have happened?  I checked and the mountain lion file is still in my game directory, right where it always was.  Thanks!

[fern]

I am not sure but wasn't the Mt lion added in the later packs in which case it might not have been coded into the scenarios which dictate what ingame animals are available for each one.

[LadyZookeeperNY]

Hi mohicanlily, and welcome to ZA! It is very possble that the coding on one of the downloads is conflicting with your mountain lions. I can't begin to tell you how many times I have had to go back and uninstall my game, then reinstall it, and then reinstall my downloads one at a time to see which one was giving me the problem I was trying to solve at the time  It's so frustating!  I'm hoping one of our more talented and knowledgeble designers will be along to shed some light on your problems soon. Since this seems to be question regarding download conflicts, I'm going to move this to Download Support.

Thanks for being a part of ZA!

[Jay]

There were a couple of problems several years ago that caused the mountain lion to be missing. The original reindeer that was on the official download site was not configured properly. But the reindeer from Dec. 27, 2001 and later worked. Also, there was an old, user created Mountain Gorilla that caused problems. The Mt.Gorillabeta.ztd from February 8, 2002 with size of 7889341 incorrectly had a reindeer cfg file in it, which also caused the mountain lion to be missing. However the Mt.Gorillabeta.ztd with size of 6519211 did not have the problem. There could be others causing problems as well, but those are the only two that I know about.

[wildmutt]

somthing  like that happens to my walras(i cant spell)on MM but it wasnt  like that,i bout it and the next month(it didnt die)it was gone

[Zirconia Wolf]

Yes, my 1st guess would be that a User Made Item has over written the Cougar (Mountain Lion) in your game. Unfortuantally, the "best" way to deal with it is to uninstall all your User Items (unless you can remember which ones were there when you still had a Cougar available in your game) and reinstall them a few at a time, untill you find the guilty download. (There really shouldn't be any reason to have to re-install you game, unless you think it's easier or can't seem to find the "bad" download.)

This is why it's always best (although not always easy for us download-addicts!) to install only a few User Things at a time, and check for errors, as it avoids these problems from the get-go. Well, for the most part anyway! I just did a clean re-install of ZTCC in preparation for my jumping onto the "Designing Things For ZT1 Bandwagon", and my Llama will not show it's name. He's available for adoption and works just spiffy in the game, but just not named anything in the adoption panel. I checked out his AI file, and found that his "code number" was listed as 5301 instead of 5502 as Pixigger's List says he should be. (If memory serves, 5301 is actually a research/conservation code.) Changing his number made him not show up at all in game, so I switched it back and just left him nameless. It's not a problem for me, since I never use the "default" names anyway in game play (I'm one of those nuts who actually names each and every animal in my game), it's just just kind odd.

Just out of curiosity, does your Cougar show up on Freeform Maps at all?

Regarding the "Vanishing Walrus" that wildmutt had, I had a similaur thing happen (just once) out of the blue with Kong, my male Gorilla. I was getting messages about how Koko (his mate) was upset about her lack of a friend, and sure enough Kong was nowhere to be seen. Just to add to the mystery, I still had an old message (when Kong and Koko were first purchased) about how Kong was upset with his (unfinished) exhibit. I clicked on this old message, and *POOF* there was Kong! I have no idea where he went, but he seemed none the worst for wear. Very strange indeed!

-ZW

[mohicanlily]

My mountain lion does not show up anywhere, on freeform or scenario.  After I really thought about it, I realized that the sable antelope and the llama were missing too.  I hadn't noticed them because I don't use them very often.  I have ZT1 installed on two computers and the animals are missing on one of them (I have different downloads on them).  I uninstalled the program, so I'm going to watch for the guilty download.  I'll be sure to report my findings!