Howdy hunters!

Welcome to this week’s slightly belated status update.

First we’d like to shed some light on the recent server problems. As our producer Philipp announced in the forum on Monday, our servers fell victim to scripting attacks which led to significant service interruptions. Despite the safety measures our backend programmers implemented in an attempt to circumvent the attacks, our infrastructure continued to take a beating through Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, forcing the servers to their knees. On Thursday Emil and Calle carried out a major change which we hope has put an end to the issue. There have been no subsequent outages or service interruptions. We will continue to monitor server performance to ensure stability so that you can continue to enjoy the game. On a side note, you can be absolutely sure that no personal data was accessed or compromised in any way.

In the hope of removing the bad aftertaste following the lost weekend, we added 3 extra days to existing memberships on Monday. Today we’ll be adding another 3 days as well as some sweet consumables – 100 bear and hog baits as well as a large bottle of scent eliminator to everyone. Just start the game before April 22nd and you will find these items in your inventory.

During the recent issues, you may have missed the release of a really nifty piece of equipment – the new Hunting Horn. It’s awesome, great fun to use, and we wanted to celebrate it with a little video competition. The only restriction is that your video must not exceed 2 minutes, contain no copyrighted material such as music or images, otherwise the sky is your limit. Make a little orchestra with your friends, stage a mini hunt, go nuts! You can find the thread with the rules here. The winner of this contest will receive a nice little prize of 5000 em$ or a Pathfinder membership bundle (winner can decide). Looking forward to your entries!

And lastly, a note from our QA manager Dennis; there seems to have been a bit of confusion regarding the hog feeders lately, and a lot of people have been reporting unusual behaviour which they believe to be a bug. We’ve done some digging into this issue and we can confirm the hog feeders work as intended. This means that you need to pick up the right location for it to attract pigs. You can find the extensive info on how they work in our wiki.  What causes some confusion is that the feeders had been bugged before and for a long time, so they attracted pigs from all over the reserve. This has been fixed, together with the bear barrels bug fix back in 2015.

That’s it for today!

Happy hunting!

Discussion

Howdy hunters,

We are back from the Easter break and the exciting stuff I mentioned last week is starting to happen! Earlier today our backend programmer Emil performed server maintenance during which he deployed some important changes to how hunting statistics get saved in the database. Long story short, with these changes we are hoping to see the end of the tracking, spotting, travelling and skill data getting lost if the game doesn’t close properly. You can find the details of the server update here. Unfortunately, your already lost stats will not be registered retroactively, but we’re planning to run a double XP weekend soon, so you’ll have a chance to catch up! Stay tuned.

Just a couple minutes ago we also released a game patch with a bunch of cool things. Apart from some (did I say some? lots!)  fixes, we’re also listening to your feedback and trying to stick to our promise and invest more time and resources into improving the quality of the game. So, our sound designer Greg has given new voices to several weapons (he is super grateful for all the suggestions you shared with him in this thread). And our animation team has been revamping some old weapon animations to make them more alive and realistic. Here are some notes from our animation intern Morris, who has been mostly working on this, explaining the changes and the super cool video he made for you showing the evolution of the animations.

Revamped animations

Now that we have three animators on the project we feel that we have the time to begin reworking some of the older animations in the game. The way we’re approaching this is in layers, so for now we’re mainly focusing on the bigger animations per weapon; reloads and pumps. And when these are done and we have more time for more revamps we’ll continue with the next layer (could be idle variations, movement-animations, how the hands are holding the weapon, etc).

In the video we show an excerpt of how some of the animations are now (the old animations) followed by the new rework of those animations. Main things to notice is that with the new animations we’re focusing on a couple of things to improve:

• Show the weapon from a better angle during reloads/pumps, i.e. if the character is inserting bullets we try to pose the weapon in a more natural way so that the player can see what is happening.
• Less robotic movements. Explains itself 🙂
• Head and spine-movements during third person animations. Previously only the arms have been moving during the third-person animations, and it has been something we’ve wanted to fix.
• Different animations depending on whether the player is in standing or prone position. Only a minor thing, but some reloads will look a bit different in standing and prone for more immersion.

Free species weekend

To celebrate these hefty improvements and to thank you for your passion and loyalty, we’re making all animals free to hunt from today until the end of the weekend. Why yes, Polar Bear will be in a huntable mode and free as well (and will remain in the huntable mode until we communicate otherwise). While this is mostly good news for guests, we wanted to do something for our members as well, so we put together a large equipment sale (starts around lunchtime CEST tomorrow) during which you can stock up on tents, tripods, blinds and similar stuff, because one can never have too many of those babies. There will also be a little weekend competition for you, check back for more news tomorrow.

Meet Johanna

Last but not least, we have another new face on the team. Meet our 2D/Community intern Johanna, she will be helping us with social media and, well, 2D graphics. She has already been studying the forums, learned some ropes from you guys and harvested her first Mulie! Say hello to Johanna 😉

Ohoy!
My name is Johanna Schramm and I am the new 2D/community intern here at Expansive Worlds, helping out on theHunter.
I am a game graphics student with a passion for social media and graphical design, currently finishing my bachelor’s degree at Södertörns Högskola. I have previously studied graphic design and communication as well as English. I am born and raised in Stockholm, where I also live today with my fiancé and our cat Strumpan (Swedish for sock). I spend most of my spare time on cosplay – making costumes from games/films/comics etc. (you can check my official Facebook page, if interested) and I also love art and eSports.
The first game I remember playing is Keen 4 on Windows 95. Ever since I have fallen in love with the magical world of games more and more. An interest that has led me all the way here!
As a child my family went camping for a few weeks every summer. We would sleep in a tent and hear the animals roaming around the forest, go fishing and cooking our food outside. I hope this has prepared me for this great hunter adventure!
I hope to create content that you can all enjoy. I’m truly astonished by the passion theHunter brings out in the community, and I’m super excited to be a part of it!

That’s it for today, happy hunting all!

PS: There have been some questions about our traditional April Fool’s pranks. To the utter disappointment of our stand-up prankster game designer April Primera, responsible for all our previous gems (such as this, this and of course this), this year we’ve decided to follow the feedback we’ve read in the forums and not do anything foolish and instead focus on more serious things, such as bugs.

Discussion

Hello hunters,

How are you doing on this glorious Thursday? It smells like spring already in Stockholm and everything and everyone in the office (even Dennis!) has suddenly become all chirpy and is smiling uncontrollably.

Yesterday we released a game update with bug fixes and the new rifle, the 7.62x54R Bolt Action, which might remind you of a certain iconic Russian piece of weaponry 😉 Apart from boasting awesome aesthetics, it is also permitted for a vast number of species. The community response thus far has been overwhelmingly positive, which makes us very happy campers.

We are continuing to work on fixing things and improving the game. For example, our animators have been working on revamping some weapon animations, and our sound engineer Greg is collecting your feedback to improve weapon sounds. If you have something good and constructive to share on this matter, please do leave a post here.

New forum and wiki

The server move we’ve been writing about for the last couple of weeks is finally complete and now all our assets are safely stored and functioning in the cloud. The final step of the move was the forum and wiki. During the move, our 9 year old forum received some love in the form of a facelift and improved functionality, and it performs much better on mobile browsers. The first colour theme we launched with received critique for its brightness, so we jumped right onto it and gave the forum the earthy / coffee / rusty look and feel which we hope you’ll enjoy much better! Have a look and tell us what you think!

Our official wiki has been moved onto a third party platform called Wikia which is the most vibrant wiki community in the world. You can access the English wiki here (the old link redirects there as well) and German (still a work in progress) here. With this move we wanted to try a new experiment and open up our French and Portuguese wikis to the community. If you are interested and know French or Portuguese, just create an account on Wikia and start editing! We of course will have trusted admins and editors who will go through everything added and remove unacceptable content. If this experiement works well, wikis in other languages might follow. The English and German wikis will remain closed, it means that you will still need to apply to join the teams. If you have any questions about Wikis, send a PM to myself, David Lucas or our Wiki champion HooCairs.

St Patrick’s Event

Coming back to the topic of spring, today is St. Patrick’s Day! It’s become a nice little tradition in theHunter to celebrate this day with some festive activities. This year we’ve prepared something sweet for you too, check this announcement for details. And hurry up, the event will go on until Tuesday only, at which point we’re kicking off our Easter event. Check back on Tuesday to learn what’s up.

Team update

Finally, onto some staffing news. First and foremost, theHunter ship has got a new captain, ahoy! Hannes, who was theHunter’s producer, has left for pastures new, and Philipp Strecker, who many of you already know from the forums and who has acted as an interim producer for the last couple of months, has now been officially appointed as the Live Producer. Phil has a great knowledge of the game and community and we’re sure he will do an excellent job of steering the theHunter ship through the sometimes turbulent waters of game development.

Another lovely piece of news! We now have a new artist, her name is Ami and she has just joined the team as a (mainly) character artist. Ami’s intro is below, enjoy!

Hellu!

My name is Ami Jansson, and last week I joined the awesome theHunter team here at Expansive Worlds. I’m a 3D artist and my job will be to model animals among other things for the game, which I’m really excited about. I just recently moved to Stockholm, having spent the last 10 years in Malmö, and before that in a smallish town called Kalmar in Småland. Like quite a few of my colleagues I’ve attended The Game Assembly, and after my graduation I worked as a Character Artist on Tom Clancy’s The Division.

On my spare time I like lifting weights, engaging in deep discussions about politics, metaphysics and psychology, and play pen and paper role playing games. I also like reading horror fiction, write stories and draw digital art. I don’t have any pets, but I hope to keep a cat, a dog and an aquarium with jellyfish one day, as I’m a big time animal person.

The first game I remember playing was the first Doom game back in ’94 (an exciting and horrific experience for a four-year-old), and I later moved onto more child friendly games like Little Big Adventure 1 and 2. My favorite game of all time is The Longest Journey, a game that inspired me to one day join the games industry myself.

I knew games were going to be a big part of my life, so I began studying to become a programmer, but neither the school or the classes felt right so I dropped out. I’ve always loved drawing but never thought of it being something I could become a professional at, until I attended the Game Art program at The Game Assembly. I share an equal love for 2D as I do for 3D.

I’ve already got the privilege of talking to some of you on the forum, and you seem to be a friendly bunch of people, so don’t hesitate to shoot me a pm if you’d like to talk. 🙂

Cheers!

That’s it from us for today!

Happy hunting!

Discussion

Hello hunters,

It’s Thursday again and it’s status update time.

News from the tech corner

We are still busy with the server move which will happen some time next week. During the move the forum and wiki will be down for some time before they re-emerge in their new capacities. We’ll keep you updated as to when this will happen, the game itself won’t be affected though. Because of the server move our backend guys have been working in kind of force majeure circumstances, but after it’s done we’ll have more time to devote to some lingering issues which we know have spoiled the game experience for many of you, such as spotting and tracking stats not updating as they should.

Today we released a patch with bug fixes and we will continue working on other pestering bugs, such as the game sometimes not closing, travelling distance not calculating properly, the harvest function of the huntermate bug not working as it should and other issues reported by you in our bug report forums or via support. Unfortunately, we can’t tell you which bugs will be fixed and when, as it is impossible for us to make those promises. We understand that “we are working on it” is not the most satisfactory reply, but it is the only one a game programmer can give before the fix is tested and committed. We just want to reassure you that we are 100% committed to improving the quality of the game and we want to thank you for your patience.

New guest competitions

As we promised before, we will be splitting all free species competitions into two divisions: one will only be open to guests, the other one only to members. You can tell members only competitions by their names. Both divisions will feature new trophies, designed by CaptainMunch and our artist Tomas. This change will happen in two steps:

• This Friday, March 11, the free species competitions that are running over the weekend will only be open to guests.
• On Monday, March 14, when the competition schedule restarts, new members only competitions will start running alongside the guest only versions. This also when the new trophies will be added.

This is a new feature for us, so we appreciate any feedback you might have. Please share it either by contacting support or leaving a comment to this status update thread.

Game contributor memberships

Briefly coming back to the winners of the community game design contest we announced last week. Apart from em$ or memberships, they will also receive a unique item. A little brother of the magic DEV jacket – well, they are almost devs, after all 😉

Aside from the jacket (will be added to winners’ inventories after the next patch), we wanted to add something extra special to those people who helped with making theHunter more fun and diverse, so, we’ll create a special membership type, Contributor, which will be assigned to players who have written their names in the history of the theHunter game development. Apart from the winners of the game contest above, it will also be given to Gostwind who created the design for the Ghillie suit, CaptainMunch who designed the new trophies, Stevenky (bowhunter93) who came up with the name Whiterime Ridge, MonacoSteve who came up with Hirschfelden and Haldur, who came up with Val-des-Bois. Our translators, wiki team members and moderators can also apply for this title – just give me a shout.

Membership sale

Today we’re kicking off an end-of-the-week membership sale which will run until Monday next week. It’s a good opportunity if your membership is about to run out or, even if not, just to make a bargain, since your membership time stacks.

Use the following codes in the store to get discounts on memberships and membership bundles:

• WAYFARER – 15% off on 3 months memberships and Wayfarer membership bundle
• PATHFINDER – 20% off on 6 months memberships and Pathfinder membership bundle
• TRAILRUNNER – 25% off on 12 months memberships and Trailrunner membership bundle

That’s it from us for today!

Happy hunting!

Discussion

Ahoy all you good hunters, time for our weekly status update!

Polar Bear post mortem

We’ll start with the Polar Bear which we released earlier this week in a huntable mode. A common sentiment which we’ve gathered from many recent forum posts has been disappointment, since you got the impression that we didn’t listen to your feedback during the open beta by releasing it with hunting restrictions. To address this, we did listen very closely to your feedback and a lot of changes and tweaks were made solely based on your feedback (such as the bear fur colour). However, the final decision on the game design itself was taken long before open beta. We didn’t have room for any major changes in this respect and we should have been more clear about this, our bad! The event-based game design for Polar Bears has been the result of many a discussion and we of course have taken into consideration arguments that we see being brought up on the forum, theHunter being a hunting game and all. Community feedback and input has always been one of the main driving forces behind every single decision we take, but, naturally, it’s not the only important criterion we have to take into account as a company, there are a number of different factors that we need to weigh against each other.

Regarding the achievements and leaderboards many of you were asking about, we’ve decided to remove them in line with the underlying concept of the Polar Bear game design. It’s the first species in theHunter with which we are taking a step away from the sport, or trophy, style of hunting. The way the Polar Bear is intended to be hunted in the game is rather a population control style, and we don’t see achievements and leaderboards fitting into this. We understand and respect the fact that this way of hunting will not be for everyone, but our game is as diverse as our community, there are various ways to play it and we hope that everyone can find something to their liking.

If you haven’t had a chance to go on your first Polar Bear adventure yet, check out this new video by HooCairs to know what it’s like:

Update on game crashes

If you read our game update from the 1st of March, you saw the mysterious crash reporter note. Now, what it means is that we developed a more advanced and sophisticated software that allows us to collect better data quicker and therefore take a deeper look into game crashes. Since the crash reporter introduction, we’ve already found and fixed two game crashes (these will be included in the next patch). However, the most common one, that usually happens after quite some time playing the game, is still being looked into. It’s deeply rooted into our code and it’s going to take a while to get to the bottom of it. Alt+tab’ing the game significantly increases the chances of a crash, so if you want to stay on the safe side, try to minimize your alt-tab’ing when playing (or make sure to harvest all your downed animals before doing it). Hopefully this temporary solution will reduce the amount of crashes you experience while we continue working on the fix.

New forum and wiki

As we’ve mentioned a couple of times before, we’re in the process of moving the rest of our infrastructure to Google App Engine (the main game server move happened over one and half year ago, you can refresh your memories here). We’ve already moved our launcher and patching process (which will result in much faster and more pain-free downloads of the game and patches). Right now our hard working Wiki team is moving our precious well of theHunter knowledge onto its new place (more on this next week) and Calle is working his magic on the forum. As a part of this move, our good ol’ forum has received some much needed love, in form of a face-lift and improved user experience. We’ll be migrating onto the new forum within the coming weeks, and we’ll of course keep you in the loop. Here is the sneak peek screen of the new forum theme (still work in progress), stylized by our community member caledonianblues, together with our artist Marcus and backend dev Calle. Click to enlarge.

Desktop view

Mobile view

Winners of the game design contest

The community game design event has been a huge success with a whopping amount of entries (you can find all the numbers here). Daniel and myself have spent long hours going through your submission and we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of many designs, having said that we’ve also received a fair share of amusing ones (my favourite has been a mission objective to harvest a mutant Snowshoe Hare killed with a .22 Pistol with tranquilizer adapter). But the votes are in and winners are:

• Bison missions – Villkatta, for the unique historical touch
• Bison competitions – Ash1302, for the variety and staying true to existing competitions
• Snowshoe Hare missions – Bengalis17, for all the science
• Snowshoe Hare competitions – Bosloe, for keeping it short and sweet
• Arctic Fox missions – Waiora, for the meticulously pedagogical approach
• Arctic Fox competitions – Waiora again, *this guy is just too good*
• Sitka Deer missions – Mills, for a good story in the style of existing missions
• Sitka Deer competitions – Zack775, for good variety and sane approach

Bonus winner:

• Whiterime Ridge travel missions – Hardtree

Congratulations guys, you can be really proud of yourselves! You can find the winning designs here and we are starting to work on incorporating the first packs into theHunter.

All in all, the engagement in this contest has been amazing, and so was the quality! We are really impressed and are planning to do similar events in the future.

End of support for Windows XP and Vista

A reminder, as of yesterday, we no longer support outdated operating systems Windows XP and Vista. If you run those systems and can’t play theHunter any more, we are offering you a refund or membership transfer. You can find all the details in this announcement.

That’s it from us for today.

Happy hunting!

Discussion