Howdy hunters,

Welcome to our weekly status update. Things in the office are going well, Calle has been settling in and has already started to dig into the much missed Personal Bests feature. Hopefully he’ll be able to find a better way to implement this functionality and bring it back to us soon.

Thank you for the feedback

Thank you everyone who have completed our feature survey, there were some interesting insights and we’ll be working on implementing them into our future roadmap. As promised, we randomly picked three respondents from all people who have replied to the survey and added 1000em$ to their accounts. Here is the lucky trio: Cashet, Jeff1963, restor104. Congratulations!

We went through all the feedback on our offerwall (”Earn em$”) you’ve shared both in the survey and dedicated forum thread, and right now we are working together with our offerwall partners on streamlining the offers, to make the ”Earn em$” feature more reliable and user-friendly.

The new reserve has got its name

Thanks for all the name suggestions you’ve shared on 20 forum pages, some of them were really brilliant. We went through all of them and in the end settled on this gem we really liked: Val-des-Bois. It is pronounced /val-de-bwah/ and, loosely translated from French, means ”a wood valley”. We thought that both the melody and the meaning suit the new reserve and other EHR names very nicely. Our special thanks and appreciation goes to the player named Haldur who has suggested this beautiful idea: congratulations, your name has now been recorded in the chronicles of theHunter 😉

The secrets of Val-des-Bois

As you might remember, we’ve mentioned that the new reserve will come with a couple of surprises. For starters, there of course will be a new animal living there, more on this in our next status update, but feel free to place your bets. Another surprise and a totally different game design feature was dictated by the mountain nature of the new reserve, and namely, to access certain particularly steep areas in Val-des-Bois you’ll have to climb! The ability to climb will come with special gear and some hazards, naturally associated with this kind of activity. More details will come later, for now here is the sneak preview of the climbing with Robin testing the new mode and animations (please note that this is still very much work in progress):

Deployable hunting tower

Today we released a new item – a deployable hunting tower which has been a popular community request. The hunting tower is different from the majority of our items in that you can not buy it in the store. These towers can only be obtained (for free) when buying selected types of memberships and membership bundles. The good news is that all existing members holding 6 or 12-month memberships, purchased via our website and Steam, got their first hunting tower automatically for free. For more details please check today’s game update and the item description.

See you next week,

Happy hunting!

Discussion

Hi there,

My name is Calle and I’ve just joined Expansive World, where I will work on our backend systems.

I’m originally from a tiny village on the eastern border of Sweden, between Småland and Östergötland, called Skeppsgården. I moved to Stockholm when I was 16 to study multimedia with the vision of becoming a game developer. As it turned out, the school was more about motion graphics, 3D design and the web. I tried all of them but got stuck with web development as that was the most “programmy” option.

Since then I worked as a web developer for a couple of years, studied at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, worked with ‘Smart-TV’ systems and only now, after 17 years, I’m finally in the business I aimed for when I was a pimply teenager.

I usually spend my free time with my girlfriend, my friends and my family. I’m into GeoCaching, watching TV-series and brewing beer.

Calle has already had his induction by fire into theHunter team, or to be more precise, induction by yellow paint balls. Yesterday our team went playing paintball to the woods of Stockholm, and here is a little photo report for you of this fun but quite happening.

See you in the woods, happy hunting!

Discussion

Hello Hunters,

In this status update: news about the EW team, information about the upcoming reserve and the new animal revealed, so read on!

On the hunt for an awesome frontend developer

Sadly, our backend developer Adam and frontend developer Herman have left Expansive Worlds for other adventures, which means that we are short on the web staff at the moment and things might require additional time to get fixed and updated. A new backend developer is already on his way, but we’re still on the lookout for a talented frontend developer to fill in Herman’s shoes. If you know someone who might fit the role, send them our way! Here is the detailed job description.

It’s gonna be mountains!

The work on the new reserve continues and we’re happy to tell you that it’s going to be an Alps inspired reserve. It will feature ample meadows, shady mountains, lavish spruce and a sparkling creek. Once we’re ready, we’ll share more details and some screenshots with you, for now just rest assured that the new reserve will come with a couple of surprises.

You know Dasher and Dancer…

Here comes the most exciting piece – the mysterious new species. Well, not that mysterious, since hundreds of people hit the nail on the head with their guesses. Yes, it’s a reindeer and it’ll come to Hemmeldal. Here are some screenshots of this gorgeous boy for you to savour, please bear in mind that it’s still being tweaked and some minor changes might be added before the actual release.

Sneak peek competition – Winners

We’ve received 280 correct answers to our the competition to guess the animal and reserve. Much more people guessed right, but they didn’t qualify for one or another reason (their guesses were either not submitted in the specified forum thread, or after the deadline, or mentioned only the animal, or made several guesses). We accepted both ”caribou” and ”reindeer” as correct replies, because those are two names for the same species used in different areas of the world. Since Hemmeldal is set on our European inspired continent, we decided to use the local name ”reindeer”. Here are the names of the 10 winners, chosen randomly from 280 people, who will receive a new reindeer rattler caller, a large bottle of scent eliminator and, if applicable, a one-week license to hunt the very same.

• The Herring
• Rabbitfriend
• EclipseStar
• extremebowhunter12
• Villkatta
• ItzCriscco
• Renier Cronje
• Lateralus
• Charlie2299
• SeeDoe

If your name in game is different from your forum name please contact Alena.

That’s it from us for today, let us know what you think about the looks of the reindeer in the discussion thread linked to below.

Happy hunting!

Discussion

Hello good hunters,

Here comes our weekly status update. A lot of you have been eagerly waiting for some news about the new species, so I’ll start with that one.

The cat is (almost) out of the bag

Today we’re ready to reveal the first sneak peek of the new animal, so here it is, as seen though the eyes of a short sighted hunter:

By showing you this blurry picture we wanted to prolong the suspense a tiny bit more as well as throw in a small competition. Based on the screenshot above, try to guess what the new animal is and in which reserve it’s going to reside and leave a reply with your guess in the discussion thread to this status update. Only guesses submitted before Sunday, 17th August midnight CEST will be considered. 10 people who have correctly guessed both the animal and the reserve (winners will be chosen randomly) will receive a special prize: a lure for the new animal (not released yet), a large bottle of scent eliminator to better hide from its curiosity, and, in case a winner is a guest, a one-week-license to hunt the very same Mr X.

You can only guess once, people who have submitted several different guesses will be disqualified. The winners, alongside the identity of the new animal, will be announced in the next status update.

Summer Fiesta – Bonus challenge

As promised in our previous status update, today we’re adding an additional ultra-challenging challenge for those of you who have completed all the Fiesta missions (and have been complaining that they were not difficult enough 😉 ). The 6th bonus mission consists of three objectives and can only be activated after you’ve completed 5 ”normal” Fiesta missions. Those who manages to accomplish all three objectives will receive this stunning diamond stag trophy. Worth a try if you ask me.

What you didn’t know about NAOutdoors…

Our support manager David NAOutdoors has replied to your questions in his Ask Me Anything thread. Read his answers to find out which theHunter weapon has been modelled from his own, the impressive variety of animals he has hunted in real life and much more.

That’s all from us for today, please note that from now on our weekly status updates will mostly be published on Thursdays.

Happy hunting!

Discussion

Hello hunters,

Most of the team is back from their holidays, fresh and well-rested (and annoying to those of us who haven’t had a chance to go on their vacations yet), and the work on the new reserve and species is humming here. In the meantime, we’re planning to release more of exciting stuff, such as a new weapon and more goodies. If everything goes as planned, in the next status update we’ll be able to share some sneak peek screenshots of the new animal with the community. Until then, since some of you have asked for more hints, I can reveal as much as it has four legs and one tail 😉

August Fiestivities

The Summer Fiesta event and grand sale started on Monday, much to the joy of the community. Since the event has been highly appreciated, and because some of you have already completed all the missions, we’re thinking to spice up the Fiesta a bit, more news about this to come!

AMA with NAOutdoors

It’s time to bring back the popular Ask Me Anything, and this time it will be with David Lucas, a.k.a NAOutdoors, our support champion, one the oldest veterans of the game and all-round cool guy. Please note that, although he is our support manager, support questions will not be allowed, as we have a special channel for those.

David’s AMA thread will be unlocked for 48 hours, starting at 9:30 CEST on August 8th. All the questions will be moderated and supervised by the moderation team, the standard AMA rules apply.

UPDATE: NAOutdoors’s AMA thread is now unlocked. Welcome with your questions!

That’s all from us for today!

Happy hunting!

Discussion

Hello hunters,

There was no usual status update last week, since we communicated all the releases and changes in the game updates, so here comes a double portion of news from us.

What’s cooking?

Half of the EW team is still out of office, but the work on the new species is moving along nicely, albeit slowly. With all the work to be done down the line, we are not ready to tell you the release date yet. I know that most of you are waiting impatiently to learn what it is, but it is still too early for us to reveal. The first drafts of the new animal look stunning, and I can’t wait to share some screenshots with you at a later point.

There is yet another new thing we’ve started working on, which is a far more colossal project than a new species and which is, hopefully, will get you even more excited. Namely, for the last weeks our art team has been busy working on the new reserve, yes! We can’t share yet what kind of terrain it is or when it’ll be released, but the work is pretty much in the inception phase right now. According to our art guys, the new reserve is going to be ”glorious”, and it’s something we all are looking forward to.

Known issues

Because of the holiday season, there has been a backlog of mostly web-related issues, which have been an annoyance for lots of players, including ‘Previous competitions’ not working properly, avatars disappearing etc. You can find the complete list here. Once our backend staff is back to the office this week, they’ll be looking to start working on them. We apologize to those of you who have been affected and had to wait for those problems to be resolved!

Turkey hunting revamp

Today one of our most unpopular, although unjustly, species has received an overhaul, which will hopefully help it to rise to theHunter stardom. To be specific, we’ve released decoys, a new ”locator” caller and introduced some tweaks to the bird’s AI; the details can be found in Björn’s release notes. Go give the new equipment a try and let us know your feedback!

That’s it from us for today, happy hunting!

Discussion

Howdy Hunters,

Here comes a small batch of updates from us:

Football Jamboree – Awarding prizes
We know that those of you who have bought Jamboree caps can’t wait for the end of the event to lay their hands on the shotgun with gold engraving. Although the event ends on July 14th, the shotguns and trophies will be awarded to those who qualify two days later, on July 16th. We sincerely apologize for this short delay, but the people who will be issuing awards are on holidays until then.

Known issues
A bit more on the topic of holidays; there are a number of bugs and small issues waiting to be fixed until people responsible for that area of the game are back to the office. These include disappearing avatars, not being able to ban members from multiplayer games, problems with buying memberships via Steam experienced by some players and a couple of others. We’re asking for your patience when it comes to those things, we’ll do our best to fix everything once we’re in full power again.

New community feature – Tip of the week

Today we’re launching a new community feature – Tip of the week. If you have a helpful, insightful, hilarious or even just unique tip, share it with the community in this nomination thread or tweet it with the hashtag #thehuntertip. If someone else’s great tip has been an invaluable help in your hunting adventures, feel free to nominate it as well. The best tips will be featured on our communication channels on a weekly basis and collected in theHunter tips database for everyone’s use.

That’s all from us for today.

Happy hunting!

Discussion

Hello all good hunters,

Here are some bits and pieces from the EW team, heavily undermined by summer holidays:

• José received over 60 questions to his AMA, it took him a while to reply to all of them, but the answers are finally here: he has shared some animation tips and tricks, the portfolio video he used to apply for a job at EW and even a chat up line in Swedish 😉 In short – worth a read!

 

• The programmers have been busy fixing bugs (for more details check the game update from yesterday) and it looks like they finally (not to speak too soon) managed to resolve the persistent ”spinning camera” issue which was driving the community crazy and which we were not able to reproduce for more than a month. The breakthrough became possible thanks to your input, and in particular thanks to the discussion in this thread. Special kudos go to the community member Raptor02 who kindly provided his account for testing purposes and owing to this Andrés and Danny managed to get a lead on this bug.We know that there are still some bugs in the game and we continue working on locating and squashing them.

 

• We’d also like to thank our brilliant team of translators, we hope you know how much we appreciate what you’re doing for theHunter! Due to your hard work, the game is now fully localized into German, Brazilian Portuguese, Finnish and Norwegian and almost completely into Italian, Portuguese and French, with 22 more languages coming. Today our special gratitude is sent to MonacoSteve (German team), XandyBecas (Brazilian Portuguese), Sannas and Lapehunter (Finnish), Arnstein86 and Skogseide (Norwegian), Cireme and mmmick60 (French), lisarob (Italian) and JackRbbt (Romanian) for their consistent and active input, you’ve been doing a huge favour to your fellow countrymen hunters.
  If you want to join our translation team, we are always on the lookout for people who are native speakers of different languages and can keep secrets (all our translators work under an NDA, since they get access to information about yet unreleased stuff). Right now we especially need the help of people who speak Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Hungarian, Czech and Slovak on a native level, but we’d love adding more flags to theHunter website, so even if your language is not supported yet, you are welcome to apply by sending Alena a message.

 

• Our Football Jamboree is moving into an exciting phase with quarter finals starting tomorrow and only 8 teams (and caps) left. If you haven’t made up your mind yet – it’s about the time to grab a cap or two to secure your ”golden” shotgun.

 

• Speaking about awesome shotguns, starting from today the much anticipated ‘12 GA Blaser F3 Game O/U Shotgun – Custom Grade V‘ is finally available in the store. Enjoy!

 
Good hunting all!

Discussion

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