I was a long time player of ZT. I bought each expansion for ZT when they came out and downloaded every piece of official content and a lot of user stuff. The only thing that drove me from playing was that the design issues and bugs that weren’t fixed outweighed the enjoyment after a while. When ZT2 came out I downloaded the demo but didn’t buy it. It had a lot of merit and great visuals but with the demo you couldn’t really see how a large zoo would operate and with limited content I decided to wait.
Recently I saw a second demo was out and played it. I was happy that my relatively new computer could run the game maxed out on settings with no issues. I researched what the game and 2 expansions offered and dying to get back to building zoos I made the leap. My first thought was to get ZT2 and ES to get a feel for the game before getting AA. But Best Buy had a combo pack with ZT2 and ES for 4 dollars more than they were selling ZT2 and ES each individually. Saving that much meant I couldn’t resist AA. So my review is based on starting with ZT2, both expansions which gave me the latest exe version and I downloaded all official content before I starting playing.
My first impression after playing the tutorials and a few campaign scenarios was this was a drastic leap forward from the previous version. I knew the 3D aspect was a great leap forward and being able to get down in your zoo was not even comparable to the first game. I’m talking about the other things, like exhibit design, zoo management and AI. I really liked some of the design changes especially the biomes and no more changing square by square of an exhibit to find that magic percentage breakdown of what an animal likes. Being able to do the work needed in a zoo was also a great bonus especially early on a scenario when money was tight and you only have 2 exhibits. While waiting to gain money for more exhibits doing things like cleaning poo, refilling water dishes, giving out some food, emptying garbage cans and sweeping up at least gives you something to do. When I did add zookeepers and maintenance guys they seemed to do a good job. I helped when I was waiting on money and in the small zoos that are developed in the early campaigns things were running nicely. I really enjoyed playing it and played as often as I could around work, home duties and a 1 year old. I basically stopped playing the few other games I still had on my HDD and just played ZT2. It’s very addicting and I enjoyed building exhibits and seeing the animals up close. The graphics are very good.
Then came this last weekend as I got a lot of time to play and continued through the campaigns. To complete them I got to start building larger zoos with more exhibits, more people and unfortunately started seeing the design flaws and bugs. I jumped over to this forum and read some threads and there they were, people seeing the same things. So I went back and started really looking at how things were working while waiting on my money to go up to try and complete the scenario.
Don’t get me wrong I really enjoy playing it and will still continue playing, but I see now it really needs another patch with fixes for bugs and some additions to the design. I know I’m late coming to the game and since they are working on other expansions I’m sure this is for my own benefit, but I’m hoping they aren’t abandoning things and can incorporate changes in future patches and expansions. From reading some of the posts around here I get the feeling information from this site makes it’s way to the developers in one form or another so I felt inclined to post what I think in hopes that a game I enjoy is made better. I don’t think for a second my thread will be ground breaking and I usually don’t post suggestions or bugs in forums as the people that need to read it usually don’t care. But if this series is going to continue then I’m hoping maybe some of these might be seen.
These are my observations. I know from the thread I found listing the bugs users have seen some of what I’ve seen and my post is not pointing out anything new, but I have limited time for the computer and didn’t want to read every thread on the forum to make sure something I’ve seen hasn’t already been stated. Not trying to steal anyone’s thunder, it’s just what I see. I’m sure there are more to be discovered the more I play.
Minor things:
- I expected a little more collision testing for a 3D game. I know we’re not dealing with a 1st person shooter and some edge clipping would be not even noteworthy, but animals walk directly through the center mass of other animals and objects. People walk right through one another and objects. This is minor as it’s a viewing preference thing. I want to view the zoo as it’s real as much as possible. When I’m in guest mode I pass through people and animals (which I like as an exception to what I just said above, as who wants to spend all their time in guest mode moving around things), but yet I get hung up just being beside trees and objects. I am trying to make my way through an exhibit and can’t walk close to a tree or a rock, but I can walk through an elephant.
- First off, the animations for the animals are excellent in most cases. Watching certain animals in the game is like watching something on Animal Planet or The Discovery Channel they are so dead on. Most animals even line up properly when drinking or eating from the various dishes. But then animals like the Meerkat seem to have their dimensions based on larger animals as they eat and drink far away from the source.
- Building paths over basic grassland terrain looks good from above but down in guest mode the grass bleeds through on the edges.
- Animal names if more than 1 word. This is minor, but all words of an animal name should be capitalized if more than 1 word. It’s that way in the Zoopedia but in game its for example Grizzly bear.
Major issues:
- How animals interact around fences needs some work especially how the game sees the animal. It’s getting really old fast seeing constant messages that certain animals have escaped to see they are just moving along the fence. Any of the wooden rail fences seem to be an issue for the computer as it recognizes the animal is on the other side of it when it’s not.
- Shelters, park walls and fences need to be looked at. This black hole of a door that opens up in the back of animal shelters when placed against a wall needs to be sealed up. I could not figure out how certain animals kept escaping and how others disappeared completely until an American Bison was outside the park after I watched it go in its shelter. I realized then that putting shelters against walls and fences is a bad idea.
- I don’t have a screenshot of this since by the time I switched to camera mode the Bongo got up. But I was in the exhibit to clean up and I looked and saw something funny in the shelter. I realized it was the Bongo’s head moving around in the hay. The animal itself was “in the ground” resting with just the top of its head exposed above ground. I switched to camera mode but it stood up. Not much help as I’m not providing reproducible data, but there is a ground bug out there.
- Guest need to stay out of exhibits. The manual says they will not go through a staff gate and that should be true whether it’s open or closed. And passing through a fence should never be allowed. It’s annoying to get message an animal is being crated because a guest is in their exhibit.
- I thought they had licked the stupid guests from ZT and in small zoos they aren’t annoying. But the bigger the zoo the stupidity works its way back in. Restaurants, multiple food and drink stands with adjoining areas with picnic tables does nothing to stop the messages of guests want something to eat and a place to sit. Do the guests only search 5 to 10 tiles away for food and drink when they are hungry and thirsty? It is not unreasonable for the game to do a broader search and let them travel some to get to where what they desire is located. I’ve been in enough zoos to know there aren’t food stands outside every exhibit. You will find carts here and there, but food is usually located in defined sections throughout a zoo.
- Animals in guest mode occasionally go transparent. It’s not my video card and it seems random. I can be in an exhibit with 10 animals and everything is fine, so if it can handle that I don’t see why sometimes 1 animal is affected and the 1 next to it is solid.
- I’m not sure how reproduction is broken down in game as far as gestation periods go and how often they mate, but the smaller animals seem to reproduce too much. The Koala and Ring Tailed Lemur for example seems very high as they are non stop cranking out babies. In the real world, the Koala for example has a short gestation period, but usually only reproduces once a year. In ZT2 if you have a large, busy zoo good luck keeping up with putting them up for adoption or releasing them.
- After watching maintenance workers and zookeepers I’ve decided they do what they’ve been set up to do well with a few exceptions. The problem with them is how they’ve been set up to work. In a small zoo, like in the early scenarios they appear to be a great help. In large zoos they are an annoying menace and the only way to get help from them is to hire so many of them their wage cost is absurd considering you still have to do a majority of the work they are suppose to be doing. Suggestions for fixing the design and logic of them I’ll detail below. Some bugs that I’ve seen are they don’t empty recycling trash cans that I’ve seen. I usually have to do it, but it’s not as noticeable since only water bottles go in them and they fill up slower. They don’t fill up all food and water items. It’s like they don’t even recognize they are there. They shouldn’t drop new items unless the user doesn’t put anything or the wrong type in there. From the zookeeper suggestion screen I put in water troughs for animals and then they walk in and drop water dishes all over the place and never fill the trough. Are they even supposed to groom animals or is that just for the user? I’ve never seen them do it if they are supposed to. Since they can slide down a cliff into valley make it so they can climb out again. I’ve had to pull a few out of valleys where they were walking around saying they couldn’t get to poo or dishes because they were knee deep in water in a valley surrounded by cliffs.
Things I’d like to see added:
- Building paths over placed flowers should automatically remove them like the user used the recycling tool on them as flowers don’t belong on a path and having to delete them before or after is just an unnecessary step.
- Huge map size for freeform games. The large maps as of now seem the right size for building a large zoo if you cram everything in close. Designing a large zoo with lots of exhibits, a few large open exhibits containing for example agreeable savannah animals, Jeep tours to span your large exhibits and open space between exhibits just isn’t possible. I know why maps are limited in size and I’m not suggesting creating maps with scenarios that some users can’t use. But why not put a disclaimer on some huge maps in freeform that they may suffer performance issues on older machines, but allow those with machines that can handle it some huge areas to work with. It just seems that ES and AA have made it where the user should be able to build large open animal parks with Jeep tours but the maps are so limiting.
- The manual suggests that paths should be at least two tiles wide. I’ve found two wide works a lot better and from screenshots I’ve seen most people use two or more tile wide paths also. So why does all the content that comes with the game that goes over a path, like arches, come in a 1 tile wide size only? I’d like to see all the arches and path covering content be expanded to a 2 tile wide version to give the user more options. Using some content means reducing your path which creates choke points.
- More themed buildings for the different biome types not covered. And have it so items are geared towards that theme. For example a desert themed gift shop that would only carry gift shop items for animals of the desert while the main gift shop would carry the whole selection.
- An underwater viewing wall that would be used as part of the exhibit fence, but would allow the lowered viewing area to border the polar bear or penguin swimming area and see them while underwater. (I know that’s a big order, but it would be useful for ZT2 Marine Mania)
- Prey dummy on a moving track. I’ve seen these on TV in modern cheetah exhibits. Have a prey dummy on a small hidden track that’s a couple of tiles long (or even let the user lay out sections like the Jeep tour path) that would periodically move to stimulate the cheetah to run.
- Bird exhibits similar to the insect and reptile kiosks in the game but bigger and caged. They could be standard exhibits you place but themed and sized by the region and the bird types they could contain. For example a bald eagle exhibit would be high with a rock wall in the back or an owl exhibit just might have a large fake tree.
- Under transportation there could be boat tours where a small powered boat carrying 4 to 6 guests could travel in a buoyed path back to the dock. Would be nice for maps where the user has a large lake or a river with exhibits up the edge. (I think the water in the game looks great and looks realistic when waves are moving so the boats would look really cool – at least on max settings it does)
- Tunnels through hills for underground paths. Not a big deal as most times you want to be above ground to see the exhibits, but small two tile wide light paths that could be stretched through hills could be useful on some maps. I’m not talking going down as much as going through raised sections of the map
- I love the various ways to play the game as they are now. But I think some simple option changes could expand the replay value using what’s already in the game. Scenarios are limited in money, animals and content as things are unlocked and researched. A freeform game is unlimited money and all content available. I think freeform should be opened up to have options for the type of experience the user wants. First they should be able to pick the start money (default unlimited) they want to use. That would allow them to pick any freeform map and have some challenge to their game like a scenario without having to worry about meeting goals but just building on a budget. Also have an option of limited or unlimited amounts of animals in a freeform game. Unlimited would be like the freeform is now. Limited would mean all animal species are in the list at the start as they are now, but like in scenarios the amount available varies per species and should be random within a range based on realistic availability. There would be a lot less Pandas than Zebras for example. Adopting animals would reduce the amount available and each month the numbers could change slightly to represent changing availability either up or down. Scenarios are challenging and freeform in its current state is good for trying things but just too easy once the scenarios are completed. Providing a few options to limit money and animals would allow a customizable scenario in a way without providing a scenario editor. Releasing freeform maps in the future without scenarios would still provide the user with challenges they could create for themselves.
- Once you reach 4 stars in fame you should get to build a research facility that would lower the cost of researching items in game.
Things I’d like to see changed:
- All biomes are available at the start of a scenario, and while I see the merit in animal choices being limited and having to research items I don’t get why plants, trees and rocks for a biome are unknown and have to be unlocked with zoo fame. I think you should be able to build the environment from the start based on money and what you put in it like animals, shelters and toys can stay the same as it is now for game purposes. Having an animal and not being able to put one rock or plant in an exhibit is silly.
- This isn’t all that important and would be more intensive game wise, but would be cool. Instead of individual guests only, especially kids, guest would arrive as part of families (think of the animal family tree applied to guests) and they’d travel around the zoo in a group. The kids already run ahead to exhibits, but would be neat if the family stuck together. You could still have the individual adult guests, but families moving about and spending would be more realistic.
Maintenance Workers:
The problem with maintenance workers (applies to zookeepers too but got to start somewhere) is the way they are assigned and work jobs. I see some people claim they see them walk right by a trash can and don’t empty it. They are doing what they are told. Watch them and click the tab that shows what they are doing. They are either on their way to another job or if one doesn’t have a job and is sitting next to a trash can needing emptying then a worker elsewhere has been assigned the job even though the worker sitting next to it is closer.
Situation: A single path from the gate goes by two exhibits with a trash can before the exhibits and one on the far side. Drink and food stalls are located in the middle. You open the zoo and the maintenance worker has nothing to do so he sits down near the entrance. After a while the trash can at the other end of the exhibits fills up and that triggers a job for the worker and he gets up and will saying going to empty trash can. As he’s walking a bunch of guest are leaving and throw away their food and drink in the trash can closest to the worker and it fills up. He walks right by it. Why? He has orders already. He goes and empties the first can and when done will receive an order to do the second. While walking someone drops trash on the ground and he’ll walk right by it. He’s doing what’s he’s been designed to do.
So the main thing the maintenance worker (and zookeeper) needs is a job queue. How that queue is managed would actually be determined by how the game assigns jobs. Either each worker looks for a job or the game itself checks for jobs and assigns them to unoccupied workers. I’m going to go off the assumption the game assigns jobs, but it would work also if the worker looked for work.
The queue doesn’t need to be large, 3 to 5 jobs. And jobs need to be inserted into the queue not at the end but based on distance from the worker. Using the example above the first trash can job would go into queue, but when the second trash can filled up the game would assign it to the closest worker and since that trash can is closer in distance than the job already in queue then it would be inserted at the top of the queue. That would change the order of the worker and he’d stop at the closest trash can before proceeding to the other trash can.
If workers look for work on their own in the game then they would just have to look around them as they travel and if they spotted trash cans that were full or something needing sweeping they would just give themselves that job first and bump the farther away job down and keep doing that until they reached the original order.
Working the queue based on distance would keep them from passing up jobs and would cut down on back and forth travel. Zookeepers would benefit greatly from this as they usually go back and forth crisscrossing an exhibit passing stuff they are going to come back to sooner or later after much walking around.
The second thing a worker needs is a defined area to work. Zookeepers can be assigned an exhibit to work and the code is good at taking the marker and finding the confines of the exhibit and assigning it. The workers on the other hand deal with all areas of the zoo not an exhibit, so the tool would need to be different. I think a good way would be to have a Job Area tool either under an existing tab or under its own tab. The user could use a tool similar to the path building tool (since paths and what are around them is the focus of workers) to highlight a continuous area and assign it a name. Then where you go to assign a worker duties instead of just whether or not they sweep and empty trash have another tab there to assign them a job area. Then they would perform the jobs selected in only the area assigned. If no area is assigned they’d roam the map. That way the user could assign a worker to certain areas and keep them from walking across the map to empty a trash can.
A zookeeper needs a job queue too, but also a check needs to be made to keep them from constantly saying they can’t reach poo or a dish because they are on the other side of the fence. The code for zookeeper assignments does a good job at looking around a marker and defining the confines of the exhibit. Why can’t the zookeeper use a similar check to make sure it’s within an exhibit before attempting to complete a job? It would stop those annoying messages because they are outside the fence.
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