Particle's Projects

[(Designer)Particle]

I played wow for about 10 years almost always on misha/rexxar, on horde side mostly (I loved the undead and the tauren).  I thought it would be hard to quit playing because I spent so much time on that game, but there are other hobbies that keep me busy now, like creating things for zoo tycoon.  By the time I had finished, I had really done everything I wanted to and was raiding at a high level for a long time, but eventually I realized I wasn't really getting anything out of it anymore, and my guild was starting to fight about stupid stuff, so I took a week off, and it turned into a month, and now it's been over a year and I can't imagine going back to it.  I'm hoping Ashes of Creation, or a game with that sort of scale and social interaction, could be my next addiction, but that game is like a year away still, so for now, I'm on vacation from anything too serious.

 

I really appreciate all the nice compliments from everyone, sometimes it is just what you need to keep going, when you need just a little bit of motivation.  Thanks tekkies!

[(Designer)VeganCannibalism]

I haven't played WoW since... 2010? Somewhere in there. Good times. VC the younger had a huuuuge crush on Arthas back in the day.

 

Thank you for all your work on these mods, Particle! They're super gorgeous, and it's clear to see that a ton of love went into your projects! <3

[(Designer)Particle]

Ok the green UI is available for download now.  I realize I said I wasn't going to make any other changes but I lied.  The final version includes some little fun updates, including this updated show panel:

 

And also this updated zoo info panel:

 

I spent the last 2 days really testing everything I could, I played a bunch of scenarios, and built a little zoo, and really I found no gameplay issues at all, just a few little things that were graphical issues.  Of course I fixed those.  I think this is pretty solid now, but I'll be updating and fixing bugs asap for the next couple weeks if any come up.

 

The purple version is done, I'm just going to wait a couple of days to make sure that this green one is not having any problems.  So my mind is already thinking about what I will do next, and believe me I have a lot of ideas.  My plate is full already, so I can't wait to tell you all about it... coming soon!

[(Designer)Particle]

It's story time with Particle.

 

Last spring I got a new computer (actually it was used, but it was new to me) and I went to load the thing up with all my software that I usually use.  Of course I installed zoo tycoon 1 complete collection, and photoshop, and 7zip, and then I downloaded ztstudio, and then I went to install zoot, and it wanted me to install java first... I was like, Java?  Really?  I don't want that old useless java on my computer!  So I decided to just see if I could use ztstudio, and not actually install zoot at all.

 

Now I have finished this UI mod, and I can say that I never used zoot once.  And this is because ztstudio does everything zoot does, and it does so much more, and yet, sometimes I think I'm the only one using it.  I really do love this community, everyone is so creative, and positive, yet... for some reason there is a huge resistance to anything new.  I feel bad sometimes for JBL, that he spent all that time making ztstudio, and still everyone seems to not want to try it, just because it has a learning curve.  I understand that zoot is a very simple and stable program, and I get also that at one point, it was the savior for everyone who needed proper rotations for their creations.  But now, I think that everyone should be using ztstudio, and so that is why I feel that it is very important for me to say a proper thanks to JBL for his awesome program, but also just to say to everyone, I didn't use zoot at all for this mod, and I probably won't ever use it again.  You should give ztstudio a try.  :)

 

Also, if anyone has any questions about how to use ztstudio, feel free to ask me about it right here in this thread.  I would be glad to tech support for JBL, if it means a few more people switch to using his program.  Just let me know what you're having problems with and I'll do my best to help you. 

[(Admin)Savannahjan]

Old lady, stuck in her old ways, checking in.    I love story time.  Thanks Particle for mastering ZTStudio and giving us such incredible new upgrades for ZT.

 

Yes, you are right.  It's way past time to move on from Zoot.  I keep using it because I'm running an old, decrepit laptop using Windows 7 that already has buggy, glitchy Java. It's so convenient to just keep using it and not have to learn something new.  

 

On one of your recent posts, you mentioned that Cricket is awesome.  Yes, yes she is.  Over the years she has taught me one thing and then another about doing more for myself with my ZT creations.  Just recently, she helped me to program my first working building.  I've forgotten it all now, but still..... we will do a refresher course at some point and then I will 'have it'.  

 

Thank you JBL for creating ZTStudio and for your encouragement to Particle.  Tek appreciates you.  This old computer won't hang in for too much longer and I'm going to get a seriously better one.  When that happens, I will install ZTStudio.  The best thing you can do for your brain is learn something new.  I pledge to give it a try.

[(Designer)Particle]

Well I promised you a tutorial Jan and I never gave you one, so I'll see what I can do about that.  And you don't really need to uninstall zoot, so much as just remember that with ztstudio you can do a lot more, like buildings that change colors and batch processing and palette swapping.

 

In fact, buildings that change colors is the next thing on my list to try (after I fix my concrete fence set), I'll let you know how that goes.  :)

[(Admin)Savannahjan]

This is sounding better and better.  Thanks!

[VNDragonV2]

I really can't wait to try out the Emerald UI. Haven't played ZT for weeks but I will make sure to spare some time next week to play with it.

[(Designer)Particle]

Well I really hope you like it vndragon.  :)

 

So the purple one should be out soon, hopefully tomorrow.  So far no one is reporting any issues, but I'm just still testing everything like a boss, because I'm super paranoid that something will go wrong with this giant mod... but I can't find any problems yet.  Fingers crossed.  Just remember everyone if something does come up I will fix it.

[(Designer)Particle]

Finally done with that thing.  For now.  lol.  So what is next for me?

 

I'm excited to just play around again.  What makes me very happy is just to mess around with the game to see what is possible.  It has been about a year since I really just did that.  So let's go back about a year and talk about what I was doing then.  One thing I was experimenting with was the Research and Conservation part of the game.  For some silly reason I refer to this as "R&D", even though technically it is "R&C".

 

When you pay the max amount of money for R&D, you will finish all your research for conservation in September of the 2nd year.  And for the research branch, you will be done in April of year 3.  That is just not long enough for me!  I would like to make these last for 100 years.  That may seem like a long time to play a zoo, but the thing is I actually have reasons for this, which I'll get to later.

 

So I played around with this idea of making the R&D last for 100 years.  Before deciding how to implement anything, I needed to know if I could even do anything at all.  What I found was it was pretty easy to add new categories and new programs, and also, that you can set this up for freeform mode, or for just a scenario or multiple scenarios, or both, depending on how you choose to do it.

 

Here are screenshots of what I was able to do, (just remember what you're seeing is just an experiment, not a preview):

You can see that we are researching a new program, called zookeeper training 5, and it is in a new category, called zookeeper training.  Normally zookeeper training is part of staff education, but I moved all the zookeeper training upgrades to a new category.

 

Here is what that looks like in your zoo info panel:

You can also see some other new programs that have been researched. 

 

So what are these new programs?  First let me show you what zookeeper training normally does:

 

1:  Zookeeper Training 1:     target: All animals cKeeperArrivesChange        -- add 5
2:  Zookeeper Training 2:     target: zookeepers cSlowRate        -- override to 40

 

What that means is that after you research the first one, all animals get a +5 bonus to their cKeeperArrivesChange value, which is how much happiness they get from a zookeeper visiting them.  After you research training 2, you get a bonus to the speed of the zookeeper.  The default speed of a zookeeper is:

 

cSlowRate = 33
cMediumRate = 44
cFastRate = 66

 

CSlowRate is the speed that the zookeeper uses most often (for just traveling between exhibits for example).  Upgrading this to 40 is actually huge, you could basically think of this as a cheat in a way?  The zookeeper is normally super slow, this increases his speed by about 20%.

 

So what would we do for zookeeper training 3 and up?  Something like this:

 

3:  Zookeeper Training 3:     target: All animals cKeeperArrivesChange       -- add 5
4:  Zookeeper Training 4:     target: zookeepers cSlowRate        -- override to 45
5:  Zookeeper Training 5:     target: All animals cKeeperArrivesChange       -- add 5

6:  Zookeeper Training 6:     target: zookeepers cSlowRate        -- override to 50

 

Of course, the way I set it up is that each program takes a little longer to finish than the last one, because if we're going to give everyone these upgrades, we want them to have to make choices about it, should I spend a long time to upgrade all my zookeepers completely?  Or should I just focus on getting the first couple upgrades for all my staff?  The whole focus of making the R&D last longer, is not to make the game super long and boring, it is to provide actual gameplay choices that have meaning for your zoo, instead of just hitting full speed on all research and knowing that in about 2 years it will all be done.

 

Conclusion:  It is totally possible to do an R&D mod that replaces the current R&D of the game, but, even with all the programs I added for upgrading the staff, and some other fun things like panda upgrades and nutritional programs for other animals, the longest I could get research to last was about 10 years.   This is why I need new categories.  Especially for Conservation.  And what that means is I need content to unlock.  Like new buildings, animals, etc.  So that is what I'm going to be working towards, is an overall R&D replacement made up of several smaller packs that I will release as separate downloads.

 

The game unlocks content in a few different ways, for example by expansion, or by time, etc.  But one of the most interesting ways to unlock things is through R&D.  This leaves the choice of what to unlock up to the player, in other words, this makes for interesting gameplay choices.  So this will be a super fun project with lots of parts, that will take a lot of time, but I'm positive it will be worth it.  It is at the top of my list, but it is not the only thing on my list...