I'm a bit of a biology enthusiast so I understand that most of what bothers me or sticks out like a sore thumb wouldn't bother most people.
Something that immediately struck me is that tapirs are depicted as shy and flighty (accurate) but even when pressed remain completely passive in trying to flee. Tapirs command considerable respect from people who live around them, and many cultures see them as archetypes for "bravery" or "steadfastness" due to their willingness to fight, even to the death, if such a scenario confronts them... While any tapir will run or hide if the option presents itself, a cornered or surprised one will charge defensively, using their low center of gravity and quick acceleration to bowl you over, analogous to a behavior in boars. They lack the visible tusks of boars, perhaps affecting how people visually assess their threat. What you can't see however is they possess a remarkably strong jaw and surprisingly sharp teeth for their specific fibrous marshy herbivorous diet (IIRC).
To see the very detailed, accurately modeled creatures in-game, it's clear that quite a bit of attention was paid to get certain aspects "right" but to miss what I see as a major and fairly well-known aspect of their behavior is kind of absurd. It's depriving the player of a more nuanced dynamic of learning tolerance levels. They probably wanted a big game target that could be readily attempted by new players with early game gear, but they already had several which fit the bill...
On the other end of the spectrum, cassowaries are hitbirds or something, and want nothing more than to gang up, coordinated almost. Why?. I don't need to kill any more of you, just eat yoru grass and I'll mind my own business too. II've had bull sharks not react in any way to me swimming 5 feet behind them, letting me swim a long distance safely to shore. I've walked into a field 500 feet from 4 cassowaries and immediately had them all charge me like a wolf pack or some shit. Make no mistake, they are formidable land creatures--to such an extent that they have few natural predators. Their kick is capable of killing a human quite readily by brute force alone, and they have knife like talons to make it that much easier. It's not uncommon to find predatory animals disemboweled by those very claws. But his is a defensive strike strictly... A wolf chasing or biting the bird would trigger such a response, or perhaps catching one very off guard where they feel cornered. They are like shock troopers in-game though, it's kind of awesome. The first time I encountered them there were like dozens in a fairly small space, and they tore me apart before I could even really try to defend. I'm telling you, it almost seemed like an organized hit...
Leopards are said to be the most dangerous predators to humans here, despite komodo dens galore, and, TIGERS which are a prime candidate for most dangerous predator to humans the world over. in certain sparsely populated rural spaces in India and elsewhere in SE Asia, up to HUNDREDS of humans are killed and often eaten by tigers. They're one of the few animals that will in general opportunistically stalk and hunt humans in a deliberate, learned manner, developing unique strategies so as to avoid firearms for instance, with some individuals developing such adaptive behaviors that they in in fact preferentially target, and in still more rare, but well-documented individual cases EXCLUSIVELY EAT HUMANS :-O Locally they become woven into folklore and become viewed as or demonic. Not that hard to imagine when everyone in town knows the 20 people who disappeared this season, and every night like clockwork you see a large male with bloodstained muzzle just sit on the outskirts, waiting for his chance. Shark researchers are always on about how "sharks only attack humans by accident, and in fact most sharks actively reject human prey once they realize it is not prefferred prey. Tiger researchers have nothing similar to argue. In fact it's perhaps one of the tantalizing and terrifying aspects of the animal. And so, again, to sap tigers of a well=known trait, and have them outmatched by fairly lethargic, mouse-eating predators all things considered... who writes this shit?
Leopards lounge in a tree and often steal rather than hunt. How did they become the most feared within the fiction? They don't even seem to have any different AI than the other big cats, again a bit of a disappointment but that's asking a lot at that point. They're complex animals that learn how you behave so they can deceive you... Doesn't really work in an action game, but there's only so much zerg-rush style wildlife attacks I can take before it seems really ridiculous.. I suppose the character is due some comeuppance for the killings of many, many animals... but honestly, most of the time they started it.
Many of the descriptions are strange as well due to the "codex" being clearly written in the voice of a character (no spoilers please, if that even turns up)!. In real life, an amalgam of lifetime experience, taboos, religion, misinformation, preconceptions, urban legends, and primal fears play critical roles in peoples' view of animals. The concept of something like "Urban Dictionary: Birds and Shit Edition" strikes me as potentially awesome. It' s just largely unsatisfying so far. I'd hope a well-curated book on such a topic would not repeat the same "ex wife" joke for just about any explanatory description, even shoehorning it into such awkward contexts that it seems deliberately un-funny or something... it's bizarre. It might as well be a worthless waste of time if it's neither funny NOR informative, but I appreciate that they tried...
Anyway, I wrote my fair share, just wanted to get it out there, see if others might have noticed things I didn't, or maybe I can be corrected, which I honestly always appreciate. Overall it seems just like a dissonance between the realistic rendering of real lfie creatures and the rather simplistic AIs they stuck them with, in some cases seeming to reverse what would be apprpriate and other weird shit. This is a very interesting game and I'm glad it made me think about something I enjoy in real life as much as the great biodiversity of the world. Lemme know if you manage to engage one!.
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