Posted by: nytowl Mar. 18 2003, 10:17 AM
I have a question or two for anyone who can answer them/it.
First question, when playing the scenarios that have objectives. How do you keep the guest happiness up? I've played Seasideville Zoo numerous times. Sometimes when I check the objectives, they're all checked. But then right before the time is up the guest happiness goes down and I lose. I've tried free admission and lowering the price on all the rides/food stands/etc, but it doesn't help. Any suggestions?
Second question, also when playing the scenarios, you have a suitability rating that you have to meet. Where do you find the suitability rating to know how close you are and if you're too low, how can you raise it? Does the suitability rating have to do with animal happiness?
Thanks for any help given,
nytowl
Posted by: Yeti Ironfist Mar. 18 2003, 10:27 AM
There is a lot that can be said about guest happiness and exhibit suitability, but most of it has already been said in the General and Strategy forums, so I won't go into a lot of detail here I'll give you a couple main points and recommend that you read through some threads on those boards. Also you may find that the admins move this post since it would fit in better there - so don't be surprised if it's gone - just go take a look up there. You're not being censored, just organized
Guest happiness - You're shooting yourself in the foot by lowering admission price. Guests that are in your zoo for a while will be seeing animals and their happiness will be high. Guests just walking into the zoo enter with a happiness in the 70s. Towards the end of a scenario where guest happiness matters, it actually helps to crank the admission price up to $80+ so that you get as few new guests as possible. Also read about the benefits of making sure guests are always within 2 squares of an exhibit, and using restaurants primarily instead of stands + tables + trash cans + bathrooms + more maintenance workers.
Suitability - When you click on any animal and view their bars (happiness, health, food, suitability), one of them is suitability (the last one if I remember correctly). That value will be the same for all animals of the same species in the same exhibit. That's what you should go by. If you're having trouble creating suitable exhibits (95+), read some of the topics on the forums here, or check out Wisco's (there's a link from ZA's front page).
Good luck!
Posted by: Loewenfrau Mar. 18 2003, 10:32 AM
if you reached your required guest happiness it's a good thing to raise the admission. Then fewer people will enter the zoo and your GH will remain high. Each new guest enters with a 74 happiness. The more the come in the more you GH dropps again.
You'll find the exhibit suitability when you put your mouse on the green bar at the bottom of the animal info panel. Click an animal and you'll get the panle with the 4 bars, happiness, hunger, health and suitability. When you put your cursor on the bar a tooltip with the number will appear.
Posted by: purple_stardust Mar. 18 2003, 12:59 PM
A trick that I found out recently - I started using resturants instead of food and drink stands and restrooms. Apparantly the guest don't like to see restrooms, and all their bodily needs can be met by the resturants. To give you an idea of how many, I would say 2-3 for a medium-sized map. Other good tips I picked up here - put a swim shack next to a resturant (guests love the swim shack but it makes them tired, so they go to the resturant), and make sure that they can see animals no mattter where they go. I used to space my zoos out a lot more, but the guests are happier if there are animals all around them.
As far as pricing, I start out with the admission at $29 (no different to guests than the default $22, so might as well go for the extra moolah). Then towards the end (if it's a scenario) or if they start complaining of crowding (if I'm playing freeform), I jack the admission price up to either $49 or $99 to control the flow.
For exhibit suitability, I use the formulas found on the web. I usually make my exhibits a bit bigger than required, but otherwise like the formulas, then add the animals, and then tweak a bit as needed.
Posted by: reginasunrae Mar. 19 2003, 12:17 AM
I played AK's Pyramid Zoo in the UXP over the past few days, and that was an experience! It's a huge map with a lot of space that needs blocked off at first, and quickly filled with guests. Because of this I turned admission down to 0 for three months, then turned it back up to normal.
I had to re-arrange pathways just a tad bit to make sure guests had animals in their faces all of the time, but by the end of the scenario (36 months) I had 1,180 guests with 6-10 of them needing to use a restaurant, and 97% guest happiness with 40 benefactors!
The key to guest happiness, as said, is making sure your guests can see animals almost everywhere they go and have their needs met with restaurants. A guest can see for a space of 30 tiles, and it usually seems to me that good placing for restaurants is roughly every 30 tiles or so. If you notice you have a lot of hungry/thirsty/whatever guests, pause the game and find out where they are. If there are a lot of them in one location, clear some space and add a restaurant.
Also, as suggested, if you have Marine Mania, the swimshack is a good money maker, but make sure there's a restaurant real close by as they will go straight from the restaurant and pay good money to rest their tired bones.
Posted by: ShibaNeko Mar. 19 2003, 07:46 AM
You can't use the swim shack in this scenario because you can only use the original Zoo Tycoon items/animals in original Zoo Tycoon scenarios.
Something I did with this scenario was try to exhibit animals that fit in well with the existing terrain (camel, gemsbok, bison, ostrich, warthog) to cut terrain altering costs, use stick-pole window fencing (or low stick pole in the case of warthogs), which is fairly strong without being ugly, and after 100 guests arrived, demolished the food court and replaced it with a restaurant.
If you're having trouble with suitability, you have two options. One is the lazier but easier option that most of use use--we go to a website like Wisco's to get a guide to help build the exhibit.
http://users.skynet.be/wisco/index2_zootycoon.html is that site, and it is a good thing to bookmark. The other option is to play with the animals in freeform, tweaking a 100 square exhibit until it is as perfect as you can get it. Write down your results in terms of % terrain, % trees, etc, and you'll have your own little guide. That way, if you have 5/100 squares fresh water for the bison, you know that any exhibit for a bison will need to have 5% fresh water.
This scenario has only a required guest happiness of 80, so brush up on those guest-pleasing skills--some later scenarios require 93!
Posted by: Makaveli Mar. 31 2003, 09:16 AM
i can't belive it
i lost the endadgered spices by only the guest happiness which was at 92
Posted by: Yeti Ironfist Mar. 31 2003, 09:45 AM
The easiest way to get a boost in your guest happiness towards the end of a scenario is to crank up your zoo admission price (to $80+) so that you have very few new guests come in. Hopefully you had a save not too far from the end of the scenario?
Posted by: Animal_Enthusiast Mar. 31 2003, 10:21 AM
Ok, I'm sorry if anyone here already said this, but to get a high happiness rating the moment they enter the zoo, put extremely suitable exhibits right by entrance gates, so that guests will be seeing animals right away. The animals have to be happy, obviously. All the animal's health, happiness, suitability, should be really high, but hunger doesn't matter, since that doesn't effect guest's happiness. Have about 3-4 restaurants for a small sized map, but you should have more for the medium or large. Carousels, elephant ride, animal houses, japanese gardens, etc. all increase guest happiness, and you should lower down their prices if you really need a high guest happiness.
Makaveli: I've recently beat Endangered Zoo Species scenario by having each exhibit right by entrance gates, and all the high happiness buildings, which brought up the guest happiness up to 96. It's very easy once you get the answer.
Tim
Posted by: amwbayonne Mar. 31 2003, 11:10 AM
I'm not sure if this helps with guest happiness, but I think it must.
I decorate with flowers everywhere and I get a lot of comments about how lovely an area is.
If you like downloads, the tulip pack and Devona's flower pack are wonderful for color coordinating areas with animals and themes.
Usually, I do the same sort of thing with most of my zoos and I never have a problem with guest happiness in the ones with lots of fountains and flowers.
Hope this helps.
Miche
Posted by: Animal_Enthusiast Mar. 31 2003, 03:54 PM
For many ZT players (not including you, amwbayonne), the one thing to have high guest happiness is to make the zoo less attractive. No wide paths, large areas of picnic tables, large amounts of statues or fountains, etc. Japanese gardens do a good job to raise the happiness, and so are animal houses. You can still add some sceneries though. Flowerbeds have positive effects.
Tim
Posted by: Lady Athanzia Apr. 1 2003, 05:41 AM
Greetings! I'm having some major frustration as far as bathrooms and such. I made a very small zoo with 2 fairly large exhibits. I had a polar bear exhibit with an underground viewing area to a tank on the left and lions on the right. Down a huge (about 5 tiles wide) path down the center leading to a large food court! Mind you it is a large square. I have at least one of each availble food/drink/ice cream building PLUS soda/snack machines through out the park. I also have at least 15 restrooms now All over the place and I keep getting the messages *a lot of guests are thirsty*, *a lot of guests are hungry* and * a lot of guests need to use the restroom* to eventually *guests don't seem to like your zoo very much*. It's very frustrating because whenever I come up with a pleasing zoo (...i.e. layout as far as animals, plants, flowers...) these messages start to crop up. I always play the free form game and build my zoo with the game paused if that makes a difference.
Thanks for reading and ANY advice would be helpful!
Posted by: ShibaNeko Apr. 1 2003, 07:25 AM
For one, delete those smaller buildings and put in a couple of restaurants. For another, are the guests actually using the facilities, or are they ignoring them? If it's the latter, it could be a technical issue instead of a design problem.
Also read
http://forums.ogresnet.com/zoo/index.php?act=ST&f=5&t=2343 for more advice on boosting guest happiness.
Posted by: Yeti Ironfist Apr. 1 2003, 08:49 AM
Do you have a lot of player made items? It sounds like you might have a conflict if the guests aren't using the buildings you put in. Try picking up a guest that needs the bathroom and drop them right in front of one and see what happens.
And as ShibaNeko pointed out, in general it's easier to use restaurants since they replace food stands, drink stands, picnic tables, trash cans, restrooms, and reduce your need for maintenance workers, all with one building.
Posted by: ourtime99 Apr. 1 2003, 12:23 PM
The key is that restaurants take care of many things at once, unlike other buildings which will only take care of one need at a time. For example, if guests are thirsty, they go get a drink. But this makes them have to go to the bathroom. So they b-line it for the restroom. While this is happening, they are getting hungrier and tired, so they find a bench to sit on, and by that time their thirst is back and they haven't had time to enjoy the animals. Using restaurants should curb this problem as it will top off your guests needs all at once so they can enjoy themselves for a few exhibits.
Posted by: Aussie Koala Apr. 1 2003, 01:00 PM
The use of some food/drink stands, restroms etc as well as Restaurants is fine in a well layed out zoo. The guests can be 100% happy at the same time as being hungry, thirsty, etc.
I would not attempt to use the food/drink stands as the sole source of supply.
Remember to keep those happy animals in your guests view as much as possible.
Posted by: purple_stardust Apr. 1 2003, 01:41 PM
I visually divide the map into 3-5 sections (depending on the map size) and make sure that there's a resturant in each section. Then, if there is a blank spot here and there, I add a burger stand/ drink stand/ restroom combo, or just a restroom if space is limited. Don't forget to add a trashcan where you have food/drink stands, and a maintenance worker to empty them!
Posted by: Lady Athanzia Apr. 1 2003, 02:54 PM
Wow, thanks so much for all the wonderful advice everyone! I hadn't realized that a single restaurant could tackle all those problems! I would originally start with a handful of smaller stands and a few restrooms... then as those annoying messages would appear, I'd add more drink stands and restrooms till they are all over the place along with benches! It was to the point where I was adding more of these other items instead of being able to focus on more animal exhibits. And I did test picking up a guest that needed to use the restroom and stuck him in front of one and he did not use it. So on to read that other thread now....
Thanks again so much!
Posted by: Aussie Koala Apr. 1 2003, 03:34 PM
As guest happiness is such a popular topic- lets try to keep all our questions and tips in one thread here.
Posted by: Lamberosaurus Apr. 5 2003, 09:00 PM
not to really do with geust happiness, but can you get more than 1000 guests in yr zoo, or am i just jinxed
?
Posted by: Aussie Koala Apr. 5 2003, 09:18 PM
Yes this is off topic- but I will tell you that the game is set for a maximum of 1000 guests. This is to keep the game at the specified PC requirements.
However, if your computer performance can handle it you can change it by editing your zoo.ini file.
add these lines just before the scenario section
[ai]
maxGuests= x
where x = maximum no. of guests you want in your zoo.
Posted by: Lamberosaurus Apr. 6 2003, 11:51 AM
thanx for awnsering i tried that and it worked.
Posted by: Lamberosaurus Apr. 6 2003, 12:02 PM
i found the guest thing once and changed it but now i cant find it again! where is it on that stupid sheet!?
please remind me
Posted by: Lamberosaurus Apr. 6 2003, 05:31 PM
i foound that guests also like to see the animals in cages with low fences. they are drawn to them. i found that by using water you can crate these kinds of exhibits for most animals without them escaping.heres some pics
Posted by: Kamakhya Apr. 9 2003, 12:24 PM
I almost never use food courts or restrooms, preferring to use restaurants whenever possible. Some scenarios are a tight sqeeze for space, so I raise the admission fee to $50 or so to keep the number of guests down. A restaurant can handle about 300 people, so in a small zoo, the trick is to keep your number of guests below that. Another thing I like to do is set the restaurant back from the path by one space. This helps keep the path from getting too crowded.
There is nothing like seeing a happy animal to keep guests content. So I always have an exhibit opposite my attractions and restaurants and stuff.
Posted by: allis154 Apr. 14 2003, 06:33 AM
I have only been playing ZT for ten days. I have both MM and DD. I have a few questions in regards to guest happiness.
The first one, I have several guests who are all satisfied in the restroom, energy, drink and hunger departments, but are not happy at all. What can I do about this?
The next question also pertains to benches. I have several instances where my guest won't leave the benches. For months they sit there, with their hunger thirst and energy levels are full, they have to use the restroom..desperately. I pick them up and move them to a restroom, but they walk right by and head for another bench!
Also, is there a known problem witht he benches? I have found guest number 19 and a guest number 3102 on the same bench for months and months. Or do some guest just sit forever?
Thanks for any help..
Allis154
Posted by: casey Apr. 14 2003, 07:04 AM
To answer your questions:
1.Yes, guests get mad, when they do not their food/drink/washroom needs looked after. However, once these needs are taken care of, they are still mad.
2. Guests are not supposed to sit on benches for a long time. Do you have any user-made objects, such as buildings, or theme packs in your updates folders? If so, which ones?.
It is well known, that those downloads that include buildings or benches can cause this problem. There are several threads on this topic that you can review.
Posted by: allis154 Apr. 14 2003, 07:35 AM
Thanks Casey, for responding so quickly
How do you get your guests happy again, after their needs have been full-filled?
The benches thay the guest are stuck on are the plain wooden ones. As for user-made objects, I have a few. All of the microsoft ones, plus the rainforest cafe, tavern, log fume, space nedle, gold elephant, rainbow bears (those things breed like crazy!), caribean giraffe, coral reef fish pack, baskin robins, applebees, and a couple of others that I can't remember right now. I have read some of the threads that mentioned Mcdonalds and Pizza Hut, among others. I made sure that I didn't get these that caused issues in the threads that I read.
Posted by: Dad/Gramps Apr. 14 2003, 07:54 AM
Allis,
The guests getting stuck on the benches is being caused by the Applebees. There is a thread somewhere in this forum about that. Not sure what it is about the Applebees that causes that, but if you use that building don't put in any benches and that will solve the problem.
Posted by: Yeti Ironfist Apr. 14 2003, 08:01 AM
I haven't used it personally, but I seem to remember reading a thread similar to this one in the past, and it got tracked down to the Applebee's restaurant. Try removing that from your Updates folder and see what happens.
The number one thing that raises guest happiness is seeing happy animals. Guests can see (recognize that it exists) an exhibit within 2 squares of where they are. If you turn on the grid (ctrl G), look at the square where the guest currently is, and the second square away from them in some direction, would need to be inside of an exhibit for them to see that exhibit. Once they can recognize that the exhibit exists, they will see animals that are up to 10 squares away (away from the guest, not into the exhibit, so if the exhibit is one square away, then animals up to 9 squares into the exhibit). Keep that in mind and try to arrange your zoo so that guests are capable of seeing animals as often as possible. Need to put in a restaurant? Have an exhibit across the path. Want to put in thicker paths (more than 1 square wide) to reduce crowding? Then have exhibits on both sides. Planning on putting in a food court type area with benches and rest rooms and picnic tables and all that? Try building it either with exhibits all around it, as an area inside of a single exhibit (have an exhibit wrap around it), or have it built around a central exhibit, or even some combination of the two. Another popular trick, because it simplifies everything greatly and works really well, is to use only restaurants. Restaurants replace food stands, drink stands, restrooms, picnic tables, and benches - all in one, and without creating trash, so you don't need trash cans, which also means you need fewer maintenance workers.
Edit:
Ahh, Joeyc slipped in there while I was writing up this post and confirmed it It definitely sounds like it's the Applebees causing your problem!
Posted by: allis154 Apr. 14 2003, 08:46 AM
Thanks everyone, for answer my posts..I'll try removing Applebees from the updates directory and hope it works!
Allis
Posted by: thatonekid975 May. 26 2003, 09:34 AM
Hey everyone! again!
Well the grandstand thingy was taken care of...it turns out that they dont want to be in them if they are more than 2 squares from the tank...so that is doing good now. But now i have more difficulties! Ok, in the first zoo tycoon i was pretty good at making my guests happy, I beat the scanerrios with happiness of 93 and I thought I pretty much had it figured out. But with marine mania, my guests hate my zoo! I put 2 animals on either side of my path wen you enter, they are ALWAYS seeing an animal from my path...I don't get it! Could someone give me some pointers on how to make them happy? seriously...they hate it, their rating is between 40 and 60 like 5 minutes after my zoo opens! And i look and not that many are mad or hungery or whatever, so i don't know wjhhat their problems are! Thanks for your help, it is appreciated!
Megg
Posted by: Loewenfrau May. 26 2003, 09:56 AM
you might want to check out Knowledgebase
http://zoo.ogresnet.com/knowledgebase/index.shtml.
There's different articles about guest happyness and zoo aesthetic etc..
Posted by: Aussie Koala May. 26 2003, 10:07 AM
There is also pinned topic here of course.
Are you running shows in Marine Mania? I have found they are the only thing that make a big difference with guest happiness vs the earlier versions.
There is a Show Hack that lengthens the time frequency between shows that helps with this in the utilities section here at ZA.
Posted by: smjjameszooz May. 26 2003, 11:47 AM
I always fill my zoo entrance (on both sides of that arch) with objects as that will give it a boost, plus it looks nice. Also, try putting scenery objects all over the place to bost it as high as possible, if you have to, go overboard with the scenery placement. Plus, make sure you take care of the guests needs and add attractions while watching the prices at the same time.
Posted by: Kamakhya May. 28 2003, 01:31 AM
I've found that my guest happiness is worse with MM too. I now get 82 - 90% happiness instead of 92-98% happiness. I have no idea why this is. With shows, without shows, with tanks or without tanks, the guests just seem pickier with MM installed.
Kamakhya
Posted by: stormcub May. 28 2003, 02:40 AM
I didn't used to believe in the power of beautiful objects in a zoo. I'd tried the suggestions about statues and flowers near the zoo gate, and they still dropped to 72 as soon as they entered (they enter, in my game at least, at 75. Somebody might want to check on that and make sure that that's in the available information, as I've always read 72 but gotten 75) and then lower after they'd been in the zoo for a bit. There didn't seem to be any point. I tried *everything* to prevent this guest happiness drop.
Finally, what I wound up doing is making sure that there was always two squares between a path and an exhibit. This made sense in two ways. The first is that in this way I was able to hide tank filters and the like with foliage, and additionally, it prevented upset animals. One problem though: the guests couldn't see into the exhibit. Oh, what is a girl to do?!
That's where observation areas come in. Use them, and use them well. They help to add to the aesthetics boost, for one, and for another, you can put about five tiles of observation area per side of each exhibit (or more, it doesn't matter, use the entire thing if you want, as long as there is at least one tile between the observation area and the main path). Then put flowers along the rest of the area, or anything else that gives guest happiness a boost. The wishing fountains seem to do quite well, although most statues are too big for this purpose. Snack machines fit well in here and also mean that guests can eat and drink, but don't forget the trash cans! (which bring down your aesthetic bonus).
When I use this method, I'm also very careful about making sure to use decorative fencing, as I've occasionally had guests wander off the path and into the area where I'm doing my gardening But they also give that tiny bit of a boost and add to the guest aesthetic bonus. Want a bit more, and you can get the climbing vines from my site, which you can use against those walls *they are walkable, so you won't be able to use them *as* a wall), and you get the bonus of the flowers as well, without taking up an unwalkable square!
Also make sure that guests can move around freely. If they can't get to, and see, exhibits, and if they can't get to guest amenities, then they are going to be in a bit of trouble if they get hungry or need something to drink or need to use the restroom. The Insider has some layouts, and I've adapted one of them at my site and posted it to the forums for everybody to have a look at and try out. It has worked wonderfully for me, and guest happiness always shoots up to the nineties within three minutes using it. It's so good, in fact, that I have a workbench saved with the pathways and exhibits all created and ready for animals to be added! I apologize for the size of my ego
I'm going to be adding another one soon, but I'd rather not use up downloading space here to put it here, as they are several images long in order to get the full effect across. I will try to post some screenshots in the screenshots thread though, to give you an idea.
One way to tell if you are on the money with your zoo aesthetics is to click on a guest walking through what you consider to be a 'beautiful' section of your zoo, and check their thoughts. See if they believe that 'this area is quite lovely'. If they do, then they have noticed your efforts, and you are on your way to creating more happy guests
Also, if it's dipping too quickly, why not jack up the price of the zoo admission so that you aren't getting as many lower-happiness guests coming in? This works quite well if you already have quite a few money-spending guests in your zoo at the time, or if you don't need to worry about money because you start off with 20 million, like I do
I hope that helps you and others with your problem, and that you are able to find a resolution that works all 'round. Good luck!
Edit: I've deleted my post referencing this one, as there is no longer a point in having it there since the thread has been merged
Posted by: Jathina Jun. 9 2003, 01:58 PM
Ok, I think I have my answer after researching some but I would like some confirmation. On my zoos I have been raising the price to $50.00 when I start the zoo to keep people out. I still wind up getting about 300 guests and an award for the Best Zoo before it starts to go downhill. People start complaining and I try building more food courts/restaurants for them but they stay huddled near the one I built near the entrance when all I had was the starter shops. No one wants to eat at my other locations and the shops/restaurants actually start losing money and adjusting concession prices does not help. I think maybe I have too many and I need to bulldoze the early ones and put in restaurants (one for every 300 guests?).
As for admission when should I lower the price? When customer rating hits about 80? I hadn't been paying attention in the past until the rating has dropped a lot. It gets so bad that my zoos start losing money and I have none to do anything with. Is the zoo salvagable once it reaches this point? When it drops lower then 60 in customer rating?
Also is it necessary to have more than one compost heap in the larger zoos, or will one suffice?
Posted by: stormcub Jun. 9 2003, 02:08 PM
I've recently been having some problems, while experimenting with different layouts, where the guests either *will not* eat or just won't walk far enough to get to the restaurants. My own experience tells me that the guests won't go to a restaurant if there aren't any animals around (i.e. if you put it at the back of the zoo, when all the animals are at the front, no amount of hunger or thirst is going to get them back there). I think that this is because they must be within a certain distance of the restraunt for it to 'advertise' to their needs, although I'm not certain about that.
You are probably getting a lot of hungry and thirsty guests because your stands are too crowded. Click on a guest who is close to that stand, and see what their thoughts are. Are they saying that it's too crowded? If so, then you need the restaurants, and I prefer as many as I can fit in without disrupting my animals, as normally, by the time I put them in, two are needed to accomodate the guests.
If you look in current projects at my new layout/super zoo, there is a link in there to the album where I'm uploading the pics, and you'll see how I had to use the restaurants -- there are two in very close proximity, but both are being used (lobby's mostly by men, I noticed, and the regular restaurant mostly by women! Interesting.... hmmm...).
Restaurants are, I've found, usually better than food stands, unless there is a long gap between restaurants and you have hungry guests in between. In that case, you would want to put in a few random stands with benches nearby to take care of them. I believe somebody mentioned that the sub shop doesn't produce trash, and also serves drinks. This is a good option if you have MM.
As for the compost heap, I believe that two would cancel one another out, but I'm not sure. I tried it once and got nothing, but if I only had one, I was raking it in with all the dinosaur poo I had in my zoo!
Posted by: Jathina Jun. 9 2003, 02:30 PM
I've been clicking on the guests to see what they say and most of them seem to be talking about throwing away trash. Most of them look like they have already satisfied what made them mad, and those that are roaming are commenting on how happy my animals looks. I have plenty of trashcans around so I usually get the "great now I can throw away this trash" comments. It may just be a thing with crowding since most of them are at the stands near the entrance of the zoo. It is just frustrating when I have restaurants that are losing money because I can't get my guests to go to them and I have 50 or more guests that are complaining that they are hungry. Maybe I need tourguides to tour the animals near them. All my food courts/restaurants are bordered by animal exhibits, attractions or animal houses.
As for the compost heap, I experimented with 2 in a zoo where I was having trouble with my zookeepers raking poo to slow. Hoping that it would clear quicker, which it didn't. Anyway, both compost heaps were averaging about $1,000 a month in a large zoo that was only a third completed or so. That was about what the single compost heap was doing alone so it didn't drop it's productivity but I didn't know if it would have increased on its own if I hadn't added an additional heap.
Posted by: Loewenfrau Jun. 9 2003, 08:50 PM
QUOTE (Jathina @ Jun 9 2003, 01:58 PM)
As for admission when should I lower the price? When customer rating hits about 80? I hadn't been paying attention in the past until the rating has dropped a lot. It gets so bad that my zoos start losing money and I have none to do anything with. Is the zoo salvagable once it reaches this point? When it drops lower then 60 in customer rating?
I would recommend to try it just the other way around.
When starting your zoo have a low admission price and /or even go high on marketing to bring guests in.
Have a few exhibits and 1 restaurant and the animal theater.
Make sure your animal are all happy and the zoo is clean. Guesthappiness will raise and since yoyur zoo is still small they will leave happy and become benefactors, which gives you additional monthly income.
Continue building slow and the higher the GH gets the more you increase your admission.
Each guest entering the zoo has a happiness of 75 ( was ist 70 ? ) , anyway, the more guests coming with that rating the lower gets your happiness.
Posted by: Aussie Koala Jun. 10 2003, 02:58 AM
I use the method Loewenfrau has described. I start my zoos at default price with some marketing, after I have about 4 exhibits I put the price up to about $28.00 where it stays until I have the number of guests I want in my zoo. Then I will hike the price up to maybe $50-$70 and turn off marketing to maintain around that number.
With regard to the compost heap- you only to need to have 1 in your zoo. It does not matter if you have 1, 2 or 20- they will bring in exactly the same amount of money.
If you have restaurants losing money because guests are not using them- you either have too many or there is something wrong with your zoo layout. Remember to have exhibits and other attractions like the animal houses, carousel etc spread out evenly throughout, and a path system that makes it easy for guests to reach them.
If you want people to flock to a section of your zoo- I have had success with putting in a Petting Zoo- they seem to be very attractive to the guests.
Posted by: Jathina Jun. 10 2003, 08:47 AM
Basically, I don't use any of the cheats while playing, and don't start out with a lot of cash, so I tend to hike the price up to start with because I am waiting for additional items to be added before I have to start dealing with a lot of guests. Also, the restaurant is one of the last items that gets added so I have to make a food court to start with. My problem seems to have been trying to make new food courts when guests start getting hungry instead of bulldozing the first food court and putting in a restaurant. With admission at $50+ I get about 300 guests so I think one restaurant is probably enough at that time. Also, because I restrict my cash to an intermediate level when I start my zoo, it is still under construction when the guests start complaining.
I think I have figured out what I was doing wrong, and I should be able to finish a larger zoo now (the only zoo I have completed was a small one where this issue didn't arise). I have bulldozed the 2 food courts and replaced them with restaurants, in my med zoo and dropped the admission to $19.00 and customer happiness corrected itself within a couple months so that I have admissions at $29.00 now and the zoo now has enough funds for me to start building again. I think that once I finish the area around my third restaurant that it will do fine so I am going to leave it in there for the time being.
I will try leaving the admissions low on my next zoo and see how that works. With the admissions set high, I usually get the Best Zoo award fairly quickly, not sure how that will work with more people in the zoo.
Thanks for all the advice and the great guides on your site. They have really helped.
Posted by: Pegasus Aug. 24 2003, 07:50 PM
I have been having a major problem with making my guest happy. My animals are all up at 98 or higher. I have lots of resturants, bathrooms, exhibits, decorations but the guest are still unhappy. Can anyone help? I've been trying to finish the Marie Park (Very Advanced) but can't get the guest happiness above 70.
TIA
Posted by: ShyGuy Aug. 24 2003, 07:53 PM
Can the guest get to the buildings you put? Also, if you don't have any trash bins they get less happy.
Posted by: Pegasus Aug. 24 2003, 08:13 PM
I don't have trash bins cause I have no food stalls, just resturants. Should I have trash cans anyway?
TIA again.
PS: Yes they can get to all the buildings and they are all doing a booming buisness.
Posted by: ShyGuy Aug. 24 2003, 08:18 PM
I think that is the problem. Put some food stands,tables, and trash cans. This might help.
Posted by: Loewenfrau Aug. 24 2003, 08:25 PM
If you don't mind cheating there's the "Happy Guest Hack" available in the hacks downloads.
The articles archive also has some information about guesthappiness.
In general make sure your guests are able to view happy animals everywhere they go
I'll move this to the strategy forum now
Posted by: ShyGuy Aug. 24 2003, 08:28 PM
Oh yeah I forgot about the Happy Guest Hack. I used it, it really helps!
Posted by: Penguino Aug. 25 2003, 03:08 AM
I think that is the problem. Put some food stands,tables, and trash cans. This might help.
Actually, restaurants are easier to manage.
Posted by: Aussie Koala Aug. 25 2003, 03:25 AM
I will merge this with the pinned thread here - "Guest Happiness"
Posted by: Pegasus Aug. 25 2003, 08:58 AM
Thanks for the input... and the moving of my post. I was a little lost on the boards at first. I will try the trash cans and food stalls ect.
Posted by: Iriri Aug. 25 2003, 07:57 PM
If you are having some problems, you may want to stick with restaurants. You do not need trash cans for them.
Once you build your skills, you will do better with placement of food stands and courts.
Posted by: Crookshankz227 Sep. 16 2003, 08:50 AM
Here are the following addmision prices for guests:
0$=free
0.25$-14.75$=very cheap
15$-21.75$=cheap
22$-35.75$=moderate
36$-49.75=expensive
50$-100$=very expensive
It does not make a differance to guests whether the cost is 49.75 or 100, so if you keep it at 70 or 80 you are cheating yourself!
Each guest pays the admission cost of 1 man,woman and child.
Louwenfrau,when you use the guest happiness h ack, the guests get happy seeing unhappy animals.
Why?
Should'nt we care for animals, not be cruel to them?
Posted by: danshow111 Sep. 25 2003, 10:41 AM
I try to base zoos on the fact guests can only see up to 10 squares away, I find this helps to prevent most problems
Posted by: Aussie Koala Sep. 25 2003, 05:29 PM
QUOTE (danshow111 @ Sep 26 2003, 01:41 AM)
I try to base zoos on the fact guests can only see up to 10 squares away, I find this helps to prevent most problems
Keep in mind that to see into an exhibit, guests must first be within 2 squares of the exhibit, then from there they can see 10 squares in.
Posted by: Xtreme Oct. 6 2003, 12:39 PM
My guest happiness tip is that you make a beautiful entrance. Then the guests are very happy at the beggining, and they get happier when they see the animals.
Posted by: bear necessities Oct. 24 2003, 03:30 PM
This is probably not news to most people, but I've found that adding a food stand without a picnic table doesn't help anything.
I prefer restaurants, and usually depend on them to meet the bulk of guests' food and drink needs. However, as the zoo starts to get crowded, I invariably have hungry or thirsty guests and realize I built the restaurants too far apart. I'll usually respond by putting in a pizza or burger stand, a drink stand, and a bathroom midway between the two restaurants. Once I did this, and average guest happiness fell almost immediately from the low 90s to the low 80s. So I cut down some trees and built a small courtyard with three picnic tables. Then happiness rose back up to the earlier level. This all happened over the course of about four weeks, with no other substantive changes to the zoo.
So, if you're going to add a food stand, make sure you provide somewhere for people to sit. Benches don't always cut it, so I go with picnic tables.
On a related topic, I've read comments in this thread stating that a restaurant can serve perhaps 300 people. I don't think that's entirely accurate.
If you have a very small, tightly packed zoo, like animal exhibits built around a small courtyard, one restaurant can handle 300 guests and possibly more, bringing in several thousand dollars a month. But if your zoo is spaced out, even if you only have 100 guests in the zoo, they'll stay hungry without a restaurant nearby.
I'm fairly new to ZT, and I have very little time to play. Thus, I'm still working out the details of zoo design. But I'm starting to think that the most effective guest pleaser would be a series of grid sections. Picture a tic-tac-toe board. In the corners and two of the middle outside squares, I'll put animals. In the other two outside squares, I'll put animal houses or other happiness-enhancing buildings. In the center square, I'll put four restaurants, one at each corner of the square, facing four different directions. In there I'll also have revenue generators like an animal theater and a carousel. That way, nobody will ever be more than perhaps 20 squares away from a restaurant.
Has anybody else tried this? If so, how does it work?
Posted by: pixigger Oct. 24 2003, 06:44 PM
Capacity for a Restaurant is just 12
I did try a similar layout quite a while ago using a Hub system. From memory:
A single 3-wide path ran between 2 sets of 2 exhibits (i.e. 2 on each side) until it reached the Hub in which were the buildings that were placed back to back in a large square formation so the paths ran around the outside of the square or Hub. From this Hub ran additional 3-wide paths from the centre of each side with, again, 2 sets of 2 exhibits. The idea being that no matter where the guests were, they could always see animals!
If my memory is correct the stats on this were very good indeed (but that could just be wishful thinking ). May have to try it again sometime .
Posted by: polcat060 Mar. 8 2004, 08:29 PM
Resturants are the way to go. Even if I don't have a lot of money starting out, I always make sure to get a resturant going early. I'll also try to start out with animals that reproduce quickly because everyone always loves to see baby animals in exhibits.
Posted by: Choco Apr. 10 2004, 02:06 PM
resturant is good and pretty lucrative, but i found out that stalls with picnic tables in a place boost better visitor's happiness lvl...
Posted by: Betzy May. 4 2004, 06:43 AM
Please Help
I got problems with guest happiness, it's between70 and 75. When reeding the thoughts of the guest, they either don't like the zoo, or there are nothing written. It's a large free-form.
My animal happiness is between 97 and 99 all the time, i have all the attrations, petting zoo, animal theather, and all the other thing which should make guest happy. Also 2 wide path-way.
I have 1 zookeeper to 2 animals, and make sure that there isn't any poo and if there are broken fences, i make them myself, if the maintanceworkers doesn't.
I got a lots of picnic-tables, restrooms, food courts, and trachcans are beeing emtying be the maintanceworkers.
I also got compost heaps, and lots of flowers and trees.
I do get a lots of animal-babies.
I have lots of large benches, and restaurants, but the restaurant-building in the ZT get no money, but the rainforest one have all the money??
I hurry to heal seek animals.
I got exhibits all over, i have used all the animals.
That on earth am i doing wrong?????????????
Posted by: pixel May. 4 2004, 06:55 AM
Hi Betzy
Are your exhibits close together or far apart? Normally when a guest has no thoughts it means they can't see any animals. This can be because the paths are too far away, or the exhibits are too large. Guests can only see a maximum of 10 squares into an exhibit. Also, if they have to walk a long way between exhibits they will become unhappy.
Posted by: Aussie Koala May. 4 2004, 06:56 AM
Hi Betzy,
Do you have long stretched that your guests have to walk before they can view animals.
Also remember guests have to be within 2 grid squares to be able to see the animals, and from there they can view 10 squared deep into exhibit, so try not to make your exhibits longer than that- unless you have a way to keep animals up the front where guests can see them.
If the guests can see happy animals just about everywhre they walk you should have no trouble getting the guest happiness over 95.
Posted by: Betzy May. 4 2004, 12:16 PM
Hi again
I only have 2 grid squares to the exhibit, and they are alle 10 x 10 (following the Wisco's)
I got exhibits right to the entrance, and the guest schoud see animal all over from the path-way (2 squares wide)
and my guesthappiness is right now below 70!!!!!!!
Posted by: casey May. 4 2004, 01:56 PM
I only have one square between the path and the exhibit.
Some other possible problems that I have found:
Which fences do you use? The guests cannot look through some of the fences.
Do you have a lot of objects between the paths and the exhibits? Guests cannot see through a lot of the objects
Do you have exhibits on both sides of the paths? Guests can only look in exhibits that are one square away from the path.
Posted by: Betzy May. 5 2004, 01:10 AM
Hi
I been told, that at least two squares from path-way to fences, because the animal feel crowded by to many people, the same time, there is not 2 squares to paths, the animals are saying that they feeling crowded.
I only got some flowers between path-way and fences, which is look-throug at the side facing the path-way. and yes, i have exhibits on both side of the path-way.
Posted by: Betzy May. 5 2004, 03:45 AM
Hi
Another question:
If I have to change the path-way, so that there's only one square to the exhibit, then I get at path-way 4 squre wide, is that a problem, i meen, then the guest also have problems to see into the exhibits, if they are working in the middel of the path-way??
I don't understand, that the one place they say, that you schould have 2 square to the exhibit, to avoid animals to feeling crowded, and now i been told, to only have 1??
Right now, i've 547 guest, (and guesthappiness is 68) of them:
11 thirsty (of which 2 not thirsty and 3 have no thoughts)
8 needed restroom (of which 2 doesn't needed a restroom, and 3 have no thoughts)
22 angry (of which 9 have no thoughts, and the rest complaining about beeing tired, hungry and want to go home)
45 hungry (of which 16 isn't hungry, and 9 have no thoughts, the rest complaining about beeing thirsty or tired or need restroom)
6 tired ( of which 1 really is tired, the rest i complaining about everything)
I don't understand, I have been giving 10 awards:
Diverse Species - Gold and Silver Plaque
Best Zoo - Gold and Silver Trophy
Highest Quality Exhibits - Gold and Silver Certificate
Excellence in Exhibits Design - Gold and Silber Plaque
Most Popular Zoo - Silver Certificate
Quality Animal Care - Blue Ribbon
Right now the situation is this:
the zoo rating is 90, animal happiness 98
I got 139 animals
46 exhibits
40 attractions
37 staffmembers: 23 zookeepers, 10 maintenance workers, and 4 tourguides (which just monitoring the zoo!!)
65 Benefactors
I can't find out, what I do wrong
Posted by: Aussie Koala May. 5 2004, 10:18 AM
Betzy, the rule is the guests must be within 2 squares of the exhibit (and as Casey pointed out- the fence used must be able to be seen into by the guests- the solid concrete wall as an example stops guests lookiing in).
Therefore you cannot have more than one grid square between path and exhibit if you wish your guests to view from there.
If you had a four wide path, with an exhibit on each side one grid square away from the paths edge- then the guests walkiing in the middle 3 tiles will not be able to see into the exhibits.
Posted by: Betzy May. 5 2004, 10:47 AM
Hi
Thanks for the adwises until now, but then i got the problems? What to do, will it help, if i make some path-ways in a half-cirkel from the path-way to the fences?
And schoud i put look-trough fences all the way around the exhibits?
Or shall i just delete my zoo and start all over again (and remember just 1 squart to the exhibits)!!
Hope for some good adwises for this also!
Thanks again for your help, it's nice there is some people, that wish to help a foolish Dane (which explain my poor english).
Posted by: casey May. 5 2004, 12:08 PM
Betzy,
You can continue your zoo.
I think that you can increase your Guest happiness if you change your paths (you can replace the middle tiles on the very wide paths with objects or flower beds. Leave some tiles open, so the guests can move back and forth between the two sides).
I usually start with see-through fences only in my exhibits. I only replace the see-through fences, when the animals become unhappy.
A lot of animals will complain about too many guests, but will be perfectly happy. In that case, I do not replace the see-through fences.
Posted by: pixel May. 5 2004, 12:09 PM
Yes, adding in paths that form a special viewing area for the exhibits will help ... many people do that. You can see some examples in the Show and Tell forum. Look through fences are not needed all the way around, only where the guests can see into the exhibits. Sometimes a mixture of both helps to stop animals feeling overcrowded, and yet still allows the guests to get a good view.
If you're more comfortable with german than english you could also visit our German Forum ... they'd be very willing to help you also.
Hope you have some success with your zoo
Posted by: Betzy May. 6 2004, 06:23 AM
Hi
Thanks to the people that had help here, but I have decided to delete my zoo, because, when i tryed to get the path-way one square from the exhibits, i had a 4 square wide path-way, and then i began filling in flowers in the middle, and then the zoo looked more like at flowergarden, than a zoo.
So, i rather start all over again, and think it look nice, instead a solution that looked very bad.
But i am very greatfull for all the help and good adwises, i am been given here.
And, Pixel, i hope you can tolerate my english, you wouldn't hear/see my german
Betzy
Posted by: _catlover May. 8 2004, 10:06 PM
If your animals are happy then your guests will be happy. That's how I work it out
Posted by: Betzy May. 9 2004, 02:51 AM
Hi
Maybe your guests are happy, if the animals are, but i got a animal happiness on 97-99 and an exhibit suitability where the most are between 90-100.
I have 46 exhibits and only 4 is under 90. 26 exhibits is between 96 and 100.
Betzy
Posted by: Gossamer May. 23 2004, 10:05 AM
I can't believe it, that's it!!! It was so simple!
For months and months and months I've tried everything to keep my ****** guests happy - I've built animal houses, made whole zoos full of endangered animals, almost buried them in fountains and flowers, and still struggled to get to 83% happiness, let alone 93%.
Then I read a reply to Betzy suggesting keeping the exhibits as close as possible to the paths (only one grid square between them). All the time I've been trying to make them happy I've been offering them the choice of whether to look at an exhibit by adding a secondary path that ran along the front of the exhibit, which was 3 squares away from the main path. That's all! Well, that and mixed exhibits...
I've got it!!!
Posted by: pixel May. 23 2004, 10:12 AM
That's excellent gossamer so pleased you've found something useful here
Posted by: ZooKeeperMark May. 24 2004, 04:10 AM
Has anyone acturally gotten a Guest Happiness of 100 yet.
Posted by: casey May. 24 2004, 12:17 PM
Yes, that is possible. Unfortunately, it is tricky to get, and maintain. You will need a zoo with fewer than 10 guests.
Posted by: Evilredlady May. 30 2004, 05:16 PM
I see people talking about how they set up food courts at the beginning to save money? Add it all up, Food stand, Drink stand, restroom, benches, trash cans, maintenance workers = cheaper than a single restaurant near the zoo entrance? With a restaurant, you dont need ANY of those things. I've NEVER had a restaurant go into the red and I dont have my guest happiness sabatoged because there are overflowing trashcans around or restrooms, which they dont even like. PLUS, a food court takes up a lot more space than a restaurant, which is space AWAY from the animals (the thing that brings your guest happiness up the most. I place my restaurants inside cutouts on my exhibits. I build an exhibit AROUND the restaurant.
____________________
{................................}
{................................} 10 sq
{................................}(ignore the dots, just to keep the form)
{______}rest{_______}
.x...5sq................5sq...x
Most animals require 100 sqs. This layout gives them 100+ the extra behind the restaurant (or animal theater, etc etc) I put all my amenities inside the exhibits like this. I make sure to place the restaurants as often as needed, depending on park size. I also do this on BOTH sides of a path, so no matter WHERE the guests are, they are surrounded by animals on both sides. Prettys? X marks the spot. I put my exhibits one space from the path, put statues at both corners (marked X) and line the front with flowers, guests can see over flowers. I also make a playground close to the entrance by using the same technique as the restaurant, I leave an area for the DD swings and riding toys, works great for bringing up kiddie happiness. I place exhibits on both sides of the entrance with restaurants build into them and straight in from the entrance goes another exhibit with a gift shop, guests can go 1 of 3 ways, no matter WHERE they go, they will be within sight of animals from the moment they enter my zoos as well as find places to spend their money. I dont start putting in the Animal Houses until I have all the money makers in place. Well, thats how I do it anyway. Guest happiness isnt a problem for me ever. Once I have about 10 exhibits up its usually up to about 95% with around 300 guests. NOW MM shows is a different story.
Just want to add that making observation areas all the way around an exhibit that takes a guest 5 mintues to walk around isnt what they want. They NEED to see different animals, not the same animals for 5 minutes.
Posted by: goats really like to nibble Aug. 31 2004, 10:25 PM
I once read sumwere that ur NOT suposed to lower the prices but wut do i know
Posted by: Penguino Sep. 1 2004, 12:04 AM
Yes, you should not lower the admission price during scenarios, as it only changes the rate that guests enter, not their initial happiness. Which brings us to this; each guest enters with a happiness level of 75, which will lower your average; making lowering the admission price not such a hot idea.
Posted by: abc Dec. 30 2004, 09:11 PM
This probably wont help much, but I just stick in a few food/drink/familybathroom buildings, and a carosel/other animal buildings, then mostly ignore the people. They seem to do fine...I also start out at about $8 for kids, $16 for adults addmission, then raise it after a while. Hope this helps!
Posted by: Firehawke Dec. 30 2004, 09:53 PM
Guests do like it if there are a few buildings around to take care of their needs. Just remember though, they don't like trash And they do seem to like the carousel a lot.
Low prices is always a good thing!!!
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