Galapagos Islands Reserve Idea

[near idol]

Welcome to The Galapagos Islands! An archipelago in the Eastern Pacific, west of the South American mainland. Now you may say "but Viggio aren't the Galapagos Islands a protected UNESCO Heritage Site?", while you may be correct, I don't care!

Main Island: Baltra
Regions with access via boat travel: San Cristóbal, Santa Cruz, Floreana, North Seymour Island and Isabela

New Zone Type: Coastal Basking Spots for Turtles

Species List

Reptilia

• Galapagos Giant Tortoise - G1 Candidate
• Galapagos Land Iguana
• Santa Fe Land Iguana
• Marine Iguana
• Olive Ridley Turtle
• Leatherback Turtle
• Green Sea Turtle

Aves

• Blue-footed Booby
• Red-footed Booby
• Nazca Booby
• Galapagos Penguin
• Galapagos Shearwater
• Pied-Billed Grebe
• American Flamingo
• Paint-billed Crake

Mammal

Now there aren't many mammals on the Galapagos, no deer species. But there have been previous accounts of animals like Feral Hogs and Goats. Just pretend they aren't eradicated.

• Feral Hog
• Feral Goats
• Feral Horses (only on Floreana, Cristobal and Isabela)
• Feral Donkey (Areas see above)
• Galapagos Sea Lions
• Galapagos Fur Seals
• Galapagos Rice Rats
• Feral Cattle

[near idol]

thumbing it up myself so i feel less sad🥹

[halcyon coral]

It's a nice idea, and I feel sometimes people need reminded that proper forum etiquette means giving feedback and not just downvoting or disapproving of something with no elaboration

[near idol]

i can understand disliking it, its a UNESCO site! people aren't always going to agree on adding something like that. but at least posit your reasoning to me, it'd be nice to have a discussion on WHY you don't want to see something like this

[brisk ferry]

Can you even hunt here? like seriously?

[inland atlas]

I like the idea of iguana hunting with a .22, part of the reason why I'd love to see a Florida map in the game at some point. Equines like feral donkeys would be a pretty cool addition too

I suppose for me I just dont see much appeal in shooting turtles. I dont care too much about endangered species in the game but I just feel like hunting animals that slow-moving would be too easy

[brisk ferry]

I don’t wanna be rude but seriously none of these native animals sound fun to hunt and I’m pretty sure you can’t hunt any of them… who wants to hunt a Galapagos tortoise?

I would be down to have feral donkeys or horses backfilled elsewhere on the other hand.
The devs look around here for what I assume real candidates or ideas for reserves cause they care about this community, as much as a stretch this game is they aren’t going to use this in mind.

Every animal here is at a loss and us humans can give them a second chance, EW using this (endangered species) with no context like tigers being
problem animals is a bad look for EW on their end.

[near idol]

you cant hunt tigers or snow leopards legally, yet they're in the game, its just an idea and i don't think the game needs to rely on legal places to hunt only

[brisk ferry]

As said — there’s context to hunting them, they are “problematic animals” and that’s why you can hunt them.

On the other hand what’s the reason for hunting Galapagos tortoises and marine iguanas?

[near idol]

cool looking trophies, whats the point of hunting anything in this game? for me its the same conclusion, trophies. (we really need shorter cool downs on these posts)

solution, call them all problem animals in the story

[halcyon coral]

culling to prevent boom/bust crashes also works

[near idol]

it does, but what works for me is they're pixels and shooting pixels doesn't harm real wildlife, and the stories could easily still shed light on their real life plight while letting us still shoot galapagos tortoises with elephant guns

[dry vine]

IMO Galapagos tortoises would look neat in the lodge, they’d be an iconic creature to go with all the animals on the reserve sharing its namesake! I’d like to hunt one. Would be a cool centerpiece along with the iguanas, pigs, and all. Maybe even a good multimount opportunity? They’re pretty big critters.

Side note, I know you supposedly aren’t trying to be rude, but telling someone who worked hard on a post to share with the community, just as you’ve worked on yours, that devs are only looking for “real candidates or ideas”… is quite rude.

If we’re feeling iffy about turtles, how about a compromise like with snow leopards, beavers, and such- they’re assigned to dedicated zones (basking, as I see in post) with slower respawn times, and a smaller population size overall? Suggestions welcome. Let’s taco bout it

[near idol]

sorry i just seen this! as much as i like to hate on Florida, a Florida map or something similar is always an idea i'd love to see. yeah the slow moving part is a gripe i can understand, at least with turtles it would be more challenging by using "basking spots", as turtles dont emerge from water unless to bask, they could make it so they have little time outside the water to make it more challenging, plus turtles can move fast enough when basking close to the waters edge. i could see tortoises being an issue with speed, but also they could present a bigger challenge than you think! if they add different hitboxes they could actually make it so that only small portions of their shell are penetrable, just like real life, some portions of their shell are 2 inches thick, and the rounded shape would make it even more difficult to pentrate

[worldly plover]

Large rats would be cool. And would make for a good story line. Maybe a Baden accidentally brought some🤔

[near idol]

its always a baden..

[gusty sparrow]

The last time I have heard of any “hunting” on the Galapagos it was focused on culling goats between 1999 and 2006 utilizing the Judas Goat method

It was a successful extermination that not only eliminated goats from multiple islands but also feral pigs and feral donkeys

[near idol]

i still see it as a cool idea that could be in this game. landscapes of the entire archipelago look great and the animals are unique, i dont think "they dont hunt there" or "those are protected species" is much of an argument anymore when we can hunt tigers and snow leopards

anyway i hope they add more endangereds because its pixels

[brisk ferry]

Again they made it make sense in the lore as those two predators are called problem animals, and it’s okay cause that’s actually a thing with problem animals.

Us realism hunters just don’t like “pixels are pixels” cause we enjoy immersive realistic hunting and you can play in the Galapagos and shoot turtles, you do you but it isn’t a good look for the company either way in my opinion.

[worldly plover]

.

[near idol]

problem animals or not, still endangered and definitely reflects the exact same as if they were to add the Galapagos, if you enjoy immersive realistic hunting you can go and hunt in real life or go to Classic, its an arcade hunter, not a sim

[brisk ferry]

Can’t play classic cause I’m tied to a oldgen console.
Another reason why some of us advocate for realistic hunting the best we can cause some of us can’t afford a pc to play games that prioritize realism.

[near idol]

you could play Way of the Hunter..

[halcyon coral]

Well how they made sense of it on Sundarpatan fundamentally could work here as well. Hunting is borderline illegal in Nepal and almost all the species on the reserve are heavily protected to the point theyre usually only killed in culls. The gameplay loop itself is entirely divorced from the story canon, as we can shoot dozens of tigers and snow leopards but in the game's story only one tiger is killed for being a maneater and no snow leopards are killed. Killing the tigers for the one mission to keep the trails safe isn't even canonically killing them, because in the story loop you're just pushing them off trail by scaring them.

[brisk ferry]

Nope, it’s on ps5.

[near idol]

i still don't think theres any reason to say this shouldn't happen because you personally want "realism" out of a non-sim, yes you're limited in your game variety but why should that restrict what can and can't happen with the rest of the game? man i'd say add North Sentinel Island if it meant cool new animals.

big game hunter had white rhinos, hunting sim 2 had lions and elephants, cabela's had several illegal animals, far cry franchise has em, RDR2 has em, yet the games and the companies outlived the so called controversy.

[gusty sparrow]

If you think having a degree of realism is limiting then thats on you. White Rhinoceros, African Lions and African Elephants can all be legally hunted in a number of African countries, the Far Cry Games are not a good example considering what else you can do in those games and Red Dead Redemption 2 takes place in a time where wildlife conservation laws barely existed and market hunting was a thing, heck you can hunt the Carolina Parakeet to extinction in that game.

[near idol]

endangered animals being in this game doesn't strip it of its realism other than you can't shoot them IRL, White Rhinos, lions and elephants are still controversial to add, RDR2 is based on a different time- still doesnt really matter, a games a game and adding them shouldn't really bother anyone. and if they do add it and you don't like it, paying for DLC does happen to be optional. this game has already ignored conservation laws, it simply does not matter at this point

quite a few ways you could shoehorn them into the story just like Nepal, realism kinda went out the window with trophies when people discovered grinding anyway.

[crude valley]

I find this whole thing about hunting booby strangr. I'm only basing this on what I've heard, seen, or read. But I've never heard of hunting booby, and anyway, I've never been very interested in birds in general. I find turtles absolutely neither realistic nor interesting, both for reasons of realism and because they're so slow, making them incredibly easy to hunt. As for iguanas, well, I don't know two of them, so I can't say anything about them, but including the marine iguana... I don't know, it's strange. The only animals that make sense on this list are feral hogs, feral goats, feral horses, and feral cattle. The rest doesn't make sense; it's very strange. That's why I have a negative opinion, but I still wanted to say it instead of just putting a ❌ or a 👎 without writing anything else.
Afterwards I admit that it could make for good landscape with pretty biomes, okay, but despite that, it's a no for me, sorry.

[near idol]

understandable, i did have ideas that would make tortoises and turtles more challenging due to their slow nature up above somewhere, and it wasn't so much about birds you hear about being hunted and more on the basis of unique animals that would be cool to have as trophies, biomes and landscape are another big reason i decided on this idea too

[simple vector]

I forgor :D
Also slowmode makes me annoyed. But yes, PERSONALLY dont agree with adding animals that arent actually hunted IRL (endangered or not) and just frankly have no interest in the location whatsoever.

Not to take a dig at other games and so on, but I kind of liked COTW as the "not-Cabelas" of hunting sims. Taking a somewhat more serious route and whatnot

[crude valley]

Ok

[gusty sparrow]

By the logic you used we should be allowed to hunt Panada Bears, Gorillas and Giant Tortoises on North Sentinel Island with a Machine Gun mounted to the back of a pickup truck since its "just a game and realism dosen't matter anyways". Extreme example I know but still

[near idol]

wouldn't be opposed to this idea either, sans the mounted machine gun

[halcyon coral]

Just a friendly reminder that whataboutism is somewhat passive aggressive and uncivil per our feedback thread conduct rules.

[gusty sparrow]

Well I am officially checking out of this thread

[simple vector]

I do think it's a creative idea, just not an idea I agree with on a personal basis

[crude valley]

What does a "whataboutism" technique look like?

[halcyon coral]

Its most broadly extending a given idea in a manner that is different from the actual intent to further disagree with it. It can be either intentional or unintentional and is generally a sign that disagreement has become uncivil.

[crude valley]

Okay, thank you very much 🙂

[near idol]

i understand not agreeing with it and expressing those thoughts, but the original dismissal from others telling me "this is not a real candidate" bothered me lol. also its completely understandable to have personal feelings on it and i respect yours. i just wanted to have a discussion about how it could be cool to see these animals and possible landscapes, not have myself put under a microscope for "endangered species"

i mean i did start this idea with:

"Welcome to The Galapagos Islands! An archipelago in the Eastern Pacific, west of the South American mainland. Now you may say "but Viggio aren't the Galapagos Islands a protected UNESCO Heritage Site?", and while you may be correct, I don't care!"

I don't mind people telling me why they disagree and that they personally don't want to see endangereds in the game.

What i don't want and why i said "i don't care" is that i really don't care if they add endangereds or UNESCO sites, and telling me over and over that adding them shouldn't happen isn't going to change my mind on that front

engage with the idea constructively, consider other places some of these animals may roam and suggest those to me (red foot and blue foot booby can be found stretching across the americas coastline and my heart is not deadset on it being in the Galapagos), hell, link your own reserve ideas! just wanted a discussion not a haranguing

hell, even if you hate me (and i know theres 1 or 2 of you that do) reply, send me the ideas you like, send me your reserves too

[vague cairn]

Maybe it’s because I have a personal soft spot for Island based map idea (hell, 2 of my own map ideas are based on Tahiti and Californias Channel Islands) but I personally wouldn’t mind this as a map. Sure, it’s not the most realistic idea, but neither are a lot of things in COTW. I might not be the biggest fan of the idea of hunting Tortoises, but that doesn’t mean the map would be bad.

Hell, maybe it’s just because I’m a big fan of exotic places for maps, but either way, I don’t see a major issue with someone creating a rather detailed and fleshed out map idea, no matter the legality of it. At the end of the day, it’s just a suggestion, and if someone is willing to go through the process of researching for an idea and fleshing it out, I think that’s great.

[near idol]

theres also plenty of compromises if they didnt feel like adding tortoises to the game, plenty other reptilian friends we can blast with .375!

[summer leaf]

If you add Easter Island for a 2-island map, I'm in! 🗿

[near idol]

deal! not many species left after the first settlers landed on Easter though🤣

[near idol]

hunting endangered animals 🤝 pixels on a screen

[brisk ferry]

Silly dreams 🤝 not really hunting

[near idol]

stagg 🤝 needlessly commenting to be rude