Hello Hunters,

I hope you are all having a good week. Winter has slapped us in the face hard (finally) here in Stockholm. It has been snowing since Tuesday and the snow is actually a nice change, as it illuminates everything at night and brightens up the short, dark, winter days!

So what’s new?

Updated Albino Textures

So the term ‘deeper not wider’ gets thrown around from time to time and we hope that these updated Albino textures prove that we are still committed to making the game a more immersive experience and that we do listen to you guys and gals, in case you weren’t sure 😉

The new textures have been updated for Whitetail Deer and Moose and they were remade by our talented character artist Cecilia. If you are lucky enough to bag one, we have a competition running at the moment, to read more and enter Click Here. 

What is in the chamber?

We have been working on a lot already this year and as per usual we can’t talk about most of it just yet. But what I can tell you is that we are working on another new rifle, and if you are interested in an early look you should definitely tune into the stream this afternoon! We will be giving you all a sneak preview, 4pm CET Watch Here. We are also going to be trying our luck at getting some of the new Albinos.

Scent sprays are in the works for Sambar and Rusa, they are currently with the Beta testers making sure they smell… ahh, I mean work properly.

We are still working on the WRR sound issue and we have worked out a good long-term way to fix it. The nature of the fix however does mean that it is taking a little bit longer than originally expected, sorry for the inconvenience.

New Weekly Competitions

We have started two new weekly competitions which feature on our social media networks. ’Rare’ and ‘Trophy’ of the week are the two new competitions, and all the details are in the title really. As long as you have shot a Rare or Trophy animal from the past week, then put it in the Rares or TruRACS thread and we judge it as the most impressive of the week, you win some sweet em$. Here are this weeks winners.

The ‘Rare of the Week’ is an amazing Piebald elk with a score of 394.487 by Radukukiller90

And the ‘Trophy of the Week’ goes to xOEDragonx for her amazing Banteng with a score of 154.405

Free Rotation

This week’s free rotation lets our guest hunters have a shot at Roosevelt Elk and Grey Wolves. Keep your ears open for that spine tingling Elk bugle and scan the river banks carefully for those Wolves!

Best of luck out there and I hope you all have a good weekend!

TK

Discussion

Hello Hunters!

It’s the end of the week, and therefore time for another Status Update! The office is very calm right now as everybody is back, rested after the holidays, and hard at work creating new content and game improvements.  On Wednesday we added some new backpacks for your hunting dogs and the team is getting up to speed on lots of other goodies to make 2018 a year to remember!

Wish You Were Here…

We recently wrapped up the Piccabeen Postcard competition that TreeKiwi has been running on our forum.  We’ve had a lot of great entries to choose from and finally settled on the top three, feel free to check them all out on the above linked thread, but for convenience here’s our winning entry from DarkHunterxx (big congrats!):

These Missions are the G.O.A.T!

I hope that pun “worked”, but in any case, we have new missions!  This week we added a whole new series of activities for you to do based around our agile Feral Goat population.  These missions certainly raised a few chuckles when we showed them off on stream, we hope the rest of you enjoy them.  The concept itself came from forum member Tanngnjost, many thanks!

Our Bags are Packed…

Or well, our ever-faithful hunting dog’s bags are!  This week’s new content consisted of two stylish, and very functional, packs for your dogs to carry supplies in.  The two new colour options consist of the Summer Forest and Winter Forest patterns and are sure to look great on any occasion!  Or well, I guess the purpose of camouflage is not to be “seen” at all…but you get my meaning. 😉

Free Species Rotation

To aid everybody in their feral goat missions they are of course on free rotation this week, along with one of our newest arrivals to the EHR, the Sitka Deer.

Back to Goats…

To complement our new missions we’ve discounted a whole bunch of goodies that’ll come in handy.  Please do drop by the in-game store and take your pick, I highly recommend that 7mm Bullpup if you didn’t have one already!

Until next week!

/Graham

Discussion

TK

Hello Hunters,

Welcome to the last Status Update of the year! As you’ve likely noticed we’ve been progressively getting more festive, and soon marks the time when the Devs will go away for a well deserved break, and lots of holiday food!

On the Subject of the Holidays…

A quick update on our Holiday Event!  We still have plenty more to go and we are seeing some excellent participation from all of our fans.  Best of luck grabbing some prizes!  The prizes themselves you can count on receiving in the New Year at the very latest, although all being well you should get them on the 25th (that 9.3x74R O/U sure makes for a great gift for the lucky winners!).

Don’t forget that our very own Mat/TreeKiwi/TK (he goes by many names, can get confusing…) will be continuing with some streams and assisting with those missions during the break, so please do check in and keep him company! twitch.tv/expansiveworlds

The Holidays Came Early!

We had some VERY happy Devs recently when this aid package arrived all the way from Vienna!

Community member D3AKUs sent us a box containing all kinds of delicious Austrian goodies, my stomach was pleased, my bathroom scales likely not so much!  D3AKUs, thank you SO much, it’s really appreciated and we hope that in return we can give you the gift of an awesome game, all throughout 2018, and for many more years to come!

Deck the Halls (or Trophy Lodge…)

We highly recommend you take a peek at your “Classy” style trophy lodges before the holiday period ends.  We’ve sprinkled some seasonal magic around and feel that it’s now really the place to be to really get into that festive spirit!  Sources say that the red in the decoration really sets off that in Rudolph’s nose quite nicely. 😉

Free Rotation

Our current free rotation for our guest hunters bring the Feral Goat and Arctic Fox into the mix.  Extra-stealthy tactics will be needed to get past the heightened senses of these two creatures, good luck!

This sign’s me out personally until next year, but keep your eyes peeled for a Holiday farewell from the rest of the team very soon!

Discussion

Hi Hunters!

Or maybe we should say “G’day”? Today marks the unveiling of Piccabeen Bay!

The team has been hard at work over the past months creating what we hope to be  one of our best reserves to date. We set the bar pretty high when we created Timbergold Trails, and we have aimed to maintain that same standard of quality, love and attention to detail with Piccabeen Bay. As well as all-new flora and species, there’s been some technical changes we’ve rolled out for the first time. Read on or the full run-down!

A New Reserve, With New Inhabitants

When stalking the tropical woodlands of Piccabeen Bay. we’d recommend you bring out the “big guns”. This reserve features our biggest animal to date (also, the biggest horns – a real treasure for your trophy lodges), the mighty Water Buffalo! This sedate-looking bovid, as its name suggests, can often be found wandering around swamps or rivers. But be on the lookout, the Buffalo’s calm exterior gives way to fearsome charges should it feel threatened. No hunter wants to be on the receiving end of 600 kg (1,300 lb) of charging horns and muscle!

On the subject of big bovids, we move on to our next inhabitant of Piccabeen Bay, the Banteng. Although at a glance similar in appearance to the Buffalo, a Banteng can be easily differentiated by its high, almost upright, curved horns. No need to panic should you meet one, these are a lot more docile than their Buffalo cousins! Originally introduced to Northern Australia by the British as a livestock animal, the Banteng fast adapted to its new home and spread prolifically.

Moving away from the big lumbering beasts above to the more delicate Rusa and Sambar deer. These two deer species are biologically allied but can be differentiated by their size. Whilst a big Sambar can weigh up to 546 kg (1,204 lb) the Rusa is much more diminutive with around 135 kg (300 lb) being more common. Both animals however sport a fine rack of antlers that will be sure to look great in your trophy lodges! We’ve also equipped Rusa and Sambar with some lovely new behaviours and animations, and hope you’ll enjoy the new level of realism and immersion they offer. You can grab the new Rusa Deer “Grunt” Caller in the store, however hunting Sambar Deer will require extra skill and patience. We plan to release urine sprays for Sambar and Rusa deer in the not-too-distant future.

Now for our last inhabitant of Piccabeen Bay, we shouldn’t forget the Feral Hogs! Unlike the Wild Boar, this animal has clear lineage to domesticated livestock and tends to either be an escapee of farms, or a direct descendant of said freedom-loving suidae. Pigs of all kinds are lets say… very enthusiastic feeders. Their foraging and digging of roots can cause extensive damage to plants, even resulting in serious erosion issues around rivers and such. Save the world, hunt a Feral Hog! 😉

Things Are Hotting Up!

Inspired by the hot tropical forest region of Australia, we wanted to differentiate the feeling of the reserve with more than just new plant life and animals. Similar to Whiterime Ridge, we have introduced a map-wide mechanic which takes into account the punishing nature of the climate.

The new warm weather mechanic is something that will begin to take effect as you progress into long hunts. Your screen edges will start to blur and your aim will not be as true or steady as it was before. In order to combat this, we’ve introduced a new Water bottle item (you’ll receive three of these for free, and they replenish automatically at the beginning of each session) which you can take a sip from to stave off the effects from the heat. Like in real life, you slowly recover when standing still and overheat faster when running. You also need to be smart about the clothes you are wearing (all the basic clothes you received for free when registering for an account at theHunter will work great, and you can find the new warm weather resistance parameter in the store description for each clothing item). The new Sneaky 3D Tropical Forest camo gear with its high-tech synthetic materials will keep you protected not only against the heat but also from animals’ eyes. On an average-length hunting session, you shouldn’t feel overly impacted by this effect, but we would NOT recommend wearing arctic gear or bringing your heated tents!

In addition to Piccabeen Bay, the new warm weather gameplay mechanic has been rolled out to Bushrangers Run, given the similar climate. The Outback outfit, a common choice for hunters of Bushrangers Run, will also help keep the warm weather effects at bay.

What’s Special About This Reserve?  A Word From Alena.

The tropical forest environment was the clear winner of our last player survey and we were happy to take this opportunity to add something new and unique to theHunter Classic.

For one, our programmer Patrik took a stab at something we wanted to implement for a long time – running water. You can find small rivers with running water throughout Piccabeen Bay.

Secondly, we’ve also added thunder and lightning, to add a special touch of atmosphere to this reserve when it rains. Like Timbergold Trails, released last year, Piccabeen Bay won’t support low settings. This means both Timbergold Trails and Piccabeen Bay are forced to medium scene complexity, even if you set this to low in the launcher. For more information on this decision, please check this status update.

Since technology development doesn’t stand still and we keep receiving conflicting reviews on how the game plays on some computers, today we are introducing “recommended settings”.

Recommended settings:

• Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit
• Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.4GHz or Higher
• Memory: 8GB RAM
• Graphics Card: GeForce GTX760 or Higher

Discussion

Hello Hunters,

Weekend is fast approaching, and what better way to wrap up your week than with a read through our Status Update? We have the name of our new reserve to share, some behind the scenes chat with our art team, and new seasonal goodies have been dug out from the back of Doc’s Shed.

What Sounds Better than Tropical Forest?

Piccabeen Bay!  As Alena announced on-stream yesterday, we now have a name for our new Australia-inspired reserve!  We took a lot of inspiration from the suggestions that were made on the forum but didn’t quite find “the one”, as such we thought why not ask our resident in-team Aussie, Bethany?  The name itself comes from the Piccabeen palm, a.k.a Archontophoenix cunninghamiana, which you’ll find growing abundantly throughout  the reserve.  Here’s an example:

Seeing IS Believing

Yesterday marked our first look at Piccabeen Bay as we played some of the new reserve live on stream.  Mat, myself (Graham), Alena, and special community guest, HooCairs took us through some of the sights and got face to face with the reserve’s inhabitants.  We even had a brief visit from an albino Buffalo, which we promptly lost in the foliage…lets hope one of you can find it for us when the reserve is live!

If you weren’t able to make the stream then please do take a look at the VOD (that’s what the cool kids call “video on demand” dontcha know?).

We should mention that we’ll be streaming most days on the run-up to the holidays taking you through the Holiday Event Missions, but our next Piccabeen Bay stream will be on Tuesday 12th December.  Catch us at 16:00 CET at twitch.tv/expansiveworlds

Meet Some More of the Team

Of course the whole team is very busy putting in the final polish to the reserve, but I managed to grab one of our 3D artists, Mattias, and pitched him the same questions Moe and Carolina answered last week.

First-up are some examples of what it is that Mattias looks at, and creates, all day.  We have a view of Piccabeen Bay followed by some of the textures that went into the reserve itself.

And some quick Q&A with Mattias himself:

What has been your favorite part of working on the new tropical forest reserve?

Mattias: I really enjoyed the opportunity to add new features, as well as cooperating with the programmers to improve things across the reserve.

What has been the trickiest part to get “just right”?

Mattias:  Getting the feeling of a dense tropical forest but still thinking about performance was a real challenge! 

What part of community interaction helps you most with your job?

Mattias: Getting feedback on plants, density, crossings are all very useful. (Graham: We had a great live example of the latter in our stream yesterday)

Tune in next week for some more art team behind the scenes with our 2D/3D artist, Johan.

What’s Up Doc?

Doc is feeling festive and taken time to bring out some seasonal goodies from the back of his shed.  Feel free to drop by the store and pick out a nice holiday sweater or some accessories to make those hunts a little more “jolly”. 😉  On the subject of jolly…here’s some of the Marketing and theHunter Classic team today:

Discussion