Well, if not, we can just use this thread to talk about the game in general, and maybe eventually hype other people up about the gam enough to get it and join us.
I’ve been playing a bit of the campaign (I loved JWE1’s island hopping campaign and this feels like a straight upgrade of that so far, although I haven’t gotten very deep into it yet).
Mostly I’ve been in sandbox, working on an LA Zoo inspired build. My idea is to go for a very high budget feel (It is a dinosaur zoo after all), but more in the Jurassic Park “concrete and light theming with thatch” sense than the Jurassic World “ultra-modern and sleek glass everything” sense. I’m picturing Jurassic Park style buildings with maybe splashes of color based on the area of the zoo thrown in. But I haven’t really started any of that yet - I don’t have any custom buildings quite yet.
And it’s definitely a zoo, not a resort or safari. I do want to try a build that’s a bit more resort-y, but I will save that for a future park.
I did finally get inspired for the general layout And theming of the first zone.
The entrance is themed around the wildlife of the southwestern US during the end of the Mesozoic. The real LA Zoo has California native animals at the entrance in their master plan, but California was mostly underwater so I’m doing southwest Laramidia in general.
When you come in, you’re at the bottom of a hill. There’s a path up, and on either side are two large habitats. On the left (where the real LA zoo has seals and sea lions) there’s a big lagoon for plesiosaurs and elasmosaurs (ingame we have Plesiosaurus and Attenboroughsaurus but I’m having them stand in for Californian discovered species - maybe Morenosaurus and Hydrotherosaurus).
On the right is an enclosure for an Albertosaurus who will stand in for Lythronax or some other medium tyrannosaurid from the area.
There will be viewing areas at the top and bottom of the hill as well as a gift shop (IRL there are two gift shops on the left and right side of the path with an overhang in between, I’ll do something like that).
Then as you crest the hill you’ll have a view of a wide valley below you with a mixed herd habitat containing Patagotitan (stand in for Alamosaurus), Triceratops, some hadrosaurs (maybe Olorotitan as a stand in for Lambeosaurus), Ankylosaurus, Ornithomimus, etc.
There isn’t a view like that at the LA Zoo, but a view of sauropods from afar being one of the first things you see is just too iconic to miss. And the herd enclosure will be loosely based on the elephant habitat at the LA Zoo, with multiple yards surrounding a central shelter building (which should be fun to design for something as big as a Patagotitan) each of which is viewable from a different part of the zoo.
I kinda like the idea of putting smaller yards in front of the big yards connected by gaps where some of the smaller dinos can fit while the sauropods can’t, but we will see how involved I want to get with it.
However there’s no direct route down from that initial view to down to the mixed herd habitat. You only get a glimpse. Instead, you take a winding path past more enclosures (Utahraptors, a Quetzalcoatalus aviary, maybe even Acrocanthosaurus standing in for Siats, and any dinos I don’t feel like putting in the big habitat - maybe the pachycephalosaurids, extra hadrosaurs and ceratopsids, etc).
Pepper in some guest amenities throughout, with maybe one big guest center with all the amenities down at the bottom with a good view of the herd exhibit, and I think the first area is all set.
From there, the zoo will have a few other themed areas, which I have a vague idea of - Jurassic North America (maybe just Morrison Formation), Cretaceous Europe, Cretaceous North Africa, Triassic (praying the first DLC has Plateosaurus), and that will probably fill things out.
I’m also hoping that we get new species mods cracked very soon, and that some of brilliant JWE2 mods can be ported over, like this one:
)