Icon, What's This

uncleulric · Post by **uncleulric** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 3:02 am

Firstly greeting to the cold tiger.
Next, in the process of downloading a number of objects from the directory I have come up with an icon I don't understand. It appears as a red face with various tags that are not always the same. What is it? Wally perhaps?

Post by **Jay** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 3:12 am

Can you be more specific? Is it this?

(which means love, those are hearts around the face) Or are you referring to something else? Which post did you see it?

uncleulric · Post by **uncleulric** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 2:03 pm

The red face in question is not a smilie of the type you sent. It is now in my list of creatures, in with the nothern climite if that helps. It appears as a human face with mouth open as if screeming, red skin, white or glowing eyes. The last message that appeared when you place the cruser over it was " purchase ZA brown rock fence". And, no I have'nt clicked on it to see what it does.

Post by **superlion** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 2:07 pm

I would assume this is a downloaded animal with no name displayed when you hover your mouse over it... I don't think I have that one, but I generally stick to 'real' animals.

Capt.Rutlinger · Post by **Capt.Rutlinger** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 4:20 pm

Is what your talking about an animal you've downloaded off a site. If the answer is yes, wich site?

uncleulric · Post by **uncleulric** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 10:27 pm

The red face icon came from the ZT directory and I do stick to real animals.

Post by **Jay** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 11:29 pm

So much to talk about.

First, inside Zoo Tycoon, the icon for the Wally "animal" is a red face like you described. (We consider the Wally "animal" to be a fantasy animal.) If you click on it, it will say Wally. It is safe to put into the game. If you move the mouse cursor over it and wait a second or so, it should say "I SHALL DESTROY!", if you did not have corruption in your game.

Which leads to the more serious problem. It sounds like your game is corrupted, but I do not think it is too serious. You said that you get different tags that are not always the same. I assume that they do stay the same until you add something new to your Updates. Then a tag changes somewhere. I have seen this with the Pink Fence from here.

You mention "ZA Brown Rock Fence". That is a name used in the Invisible Fence pack from Zoo Admin. I highly recommend that you remove that pack from your game, as well as any other user fences you have (including any you got from here). There may be some that work. But I have not done enough experimentation where I am comfortable with how they should be made. Here is a technical sentence: I think there are only problems when fences use the same "19000" number that is used by user animals and user scenery, which is used by the ZA Invisible Fence pack and the Pink Fence here. However, as I said, it is probably safer not to have any user fences until they are understood better.

uncleulric · Post by **uncleulric** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 11:36 pm

I opened the red face icon up and it produces a standard humun figure which forms black bat wings and hovers around the encloser. It then changes into what appears to be a small flock of what I assume to be bats. Also when the creature is "unhappy" as stated in the keepers info pop up, a larger cartoonish image of a demon/devil with a large ax flashs on for a few seconds at a time.
Now I don't mind a designer making a vampire creature, but it should be labled as such. I have had my share of bad downloads before so I don't see the humor in this.

Post by **Jay** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 11:56 pm

Yes, those are bats. Unfortunately, new members here will not know about Wally's sense of humor. At that time, people knew Wally and expected such things from him. Most of his creations (like the evil parakeet) did something "unusual and shocking". He also created the vampire bats. I think the Wally download was basically a combination of many of his other creations.

Labelling is very subjective. Some people like surprises; others don't. So it is not possible to create a label for a surprise that everyone will like. I personally like to give a small hint without saying what the surprise is. Others feel that even a small hint will ruin a surprise. Even without surprises, I personally would like the animal downloads to say what the animals like (best foliage, best rocks, exhibit size, etc.). But there are others that feel this information spoils the game. So, unfortunately, there will always be labels that are liked by some and not others.

Post by **jwa1107** » Mon Aug 30, 2004 8:36 am

if you downloaded the Wally animal, you can see in the preview pic that it looks just like a human animal. All of the more recent ZKL downloads include some type of screenshot you can see before you download.

and if you have questions about what a download is/contains feel free to ask before you download and then you will not have any surprises.

Post by **Jay** » Mon Aug 30, 2004 9:15 pm

There are a number of "animals" that morph into other images, the Wally "animal" being one of them. The human that is seen in the preview is the default animation that occurs before any morphing starts. And, yes, we are always willing to answer questions whenever we can. But, of course, it is difficult for everyone to ask for each and every animal, "Does this contain a surprise?" I don't have any recommendation that guarantees avoiding surprises while getting things without surprises. However, if you want to only download real animals, one possibility might be to look in the Zoo Tycoon Download Directory to see if it is classified as fantasy or not. All downloads at this site are listed in that download directory.