Status Update 202

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Hello Hunters,

This will be my very first Status Update for theHunter Classic, so we have a little premiere to celebrate today *drumroll*   

First of all I want to introduce you to our newest team member, Luna. She has joined the team as a back-end developer last week and will take over from Emil, who will be moving on to new adventures shortly. Here are a few words from Luna:

“Hello everyone!

I’m Luna Duclos, I joined the team last Wednesday and will be working on the back-end code for theHunter Classic. My background is in python, C#, Go and C++, mostly on games, though also on some less interesting projects before I’ve gotten in the games industry.

I’ve been mostly playing MMORPG (Currently FFXIV) and 4X (Currently Stellaris) games, so theHunter is quite new to me. I’ve gotten through the tutorials so far and am looking forward to diving into it more and meeting people in the community. I’ve been lurking the forum the past few days and people seem really nice and welcoming.

In my free time I play a lot of games, travel around Europe and attend occasional game and programming related fairs and conferences. Occasional skiing has been known to happen as well (though I’m quite rusty by now, it’s been a while).

I intend to focus primarily on improving the back-end code and develop some new cool features as things go forward, and hopefully not accidentally kill the live servers …” 🙂

luna

Of course, there should be no Christmas without presents and this one is from us to you to say “thank you” for yet another brilliant year. Our first ever and hence not-that-nice-looking weapon, the  Old .243 Bolt-Action Rifle has gotten a makeover. We have re-done the model and animation of the weapon. Skills and achievements earned for this weapon are unaffected by the changes and stay.  

SplashScreen_weapon_newfree

We have also added our fantastic Cable backed bow to all active bow competitions which should spice things up a good bit and give you ever more freedom of (bow) choice”.  

cable_back_bow_01

 

Right in time for the upcoming Turkey mission in the Holiday Event the Turkey equipment bundle is making a comeback to the store . It was gone for a while but we´ve decided to re-add it based on feedback of the community. – make a good use of it!

LIVE STREAM TODAY

22nddec

At 4PM CET Johanna and I will go live again for some Elk Hunting and also have a some give-aways which we will hand out in a Holiday raffle. You can watch us on Twitch.

Holiday season and the new year are coming closer with big steps. This means that for the next week there will be a bit less “noise” from us since it is also vacation time in Sweden. However, we´ll still make sure that the weekly Status Update comes out, however this time on a Friday.

The theHunter Classic Team wishes you and your loved ones happy holidays! 😀

Happy hunting!

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Game Update

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Changes:

SplashScreen_weapon_newfree

Bug Fixes:

  • Fix for White-tailed ptarmigans hiding

In progress:

  • Shooting ranges preparing to open (some changes were made but they are still not working properly)

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Status Update

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Howdy hunters,

Welcome to another status update, second this week. Yes, a lot of stuff is happening here, and we believe that there is no such thing as too much communication 😉

Continuous work on game quality

Yesterday we released another game update, most likely the last this year, with a lot of bug and crash fixes, changes and tweaks to make the game more enjoyable for all of you. Following your feedback, Wolf permitted ammo has seen some tweaks and now corresponds to that of Coyote. You can find the complete list here.

Not everything is fixed, and we continue working on existing issues, including the launcher patching problem. The launcher is certainly a very special beast, and working with its code requires very meticulous work and patience, but it looks like we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and the problem will hopefully soon be fixed for those of you who have been plagued with full download after certain patches. As the holiday and vacation season is approaching, we probably won’t release the fix this year, but we are committed to doing it as soon as possible early next year.

Bits and bobs from the Holiday Season

Speaking about holidays, now is the perfect time to sum up 2016 and look back at what we have (or have not) achieved in the last year. Come join the discussion, we all are super curious to learn about your personal highs and lows!

We are also expanding our holiday clothing collection with three gorgeous theHunter inspired variations of our knitted items. You can get them as free bonus gifts in two time limited campaigns:

  • Recruit your friends to theHunter before the end of the year – we are adding these lovely items to our Recruit a Friend rewards, find more details here.
  • Renew your membership this weekend, before Monday, December 19th – here is the breakdown of the bonus gifts:

holiday_event_membershiptop

The Ultimate Bear Hunter event

bear_update1

As you know, our Black and Brown bears have recently received a thorough overhaul and now look so much cooler and more realistic, while sounding more dangerous. To give you an additional incentive to check them out and enjoy their new looks and animations, we are launching a small bear event with a special set of missions. The Ultimate Bear Hunter 2016, in which you will get to hunt all four of them in pursuit of a unique trophy. There is also a bundle in the store with some equipment that can come in handy for hunting all the different bears of the EHR. The missions and bundle will be available until the end of the year.

Adjustment of EUR em$ prices on Steam

This update only affects players located in Europe who purchase em$ via Steam. Today we made an adjustment to the em$ prices on Steam (in Euro/EUR) to adapt to the currency exchange development. Please note that prices on our website will not change, nor will localized Steam prices for other regions outside the European Union. Thank you in advance for your understanding.

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

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Game Update

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Changes:

  • Wolf size adjustment
  • Wolves shouldn’t freeze anymore
  • Clue dropping reduction on Timbergold Trails – should fix the “disappearing tracks”
  • Bear texture update
  • Permitted ammo for wolves updated, now it’s the same as for coyote
  • Timbergold Trials are now Timbergold Trails!

Bug Fixes:

  • Fixed spelling error for contextual help
  • Fixed crash related to carcasses
  • Fixed the black bear and wolf texture variations (chances for variations)
  • Bear call and roar sounds are now correct
  • Delayed character moving sound is fixed

In progress:

  • Shooting ranges preparing to open
  • Investigating patching issues
  • Investigating white-tailed ptarmigan behaviour

Misc.

  • Localization update

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Status Update

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Howdy hunters,

Last week was super busy and intense, with lots of things happening at Expansive Worlds headquarters. Here is a short wrap-up of the latest and greatest.

Closed Beta of theHunter: Call of the Wild

For one, we released the long awaited gameplay trailer and had a closed beta session for theHunter: Call of the Wild. It’s been tons of fun and your engagement was beyond what we expected, thank you! For all the details around the closed beta please check our official community hub on Steam. Later this week we’ll posting there a selection of best moments from the closed beta, created by participants.

Grey Wolves are here!

grey_wolf

Similarly great news, on Wednesday we finally released Grey Wolves onto Timbergold Trails! The release hasn’t been our smoothest one, which we had expected with adding such complex functionality and animal behaviour to a content-filled game of theHunter’s scale. Having said that, we jumped on the issues right away and fixe the majority of crashes in a hotfix patch the day after. The residual issues are being worked on and we are preparing a patch with the fix for the rest (delayed walking sounds, messed up bear sounds, disappearing tracks on Timbergold Trails, “invincible” wolves). We are also working on the launcher patching issue, unfortunately, we have no ETA on when it’s going to resolved, but we will keep you updated.

Old new Black and Brown Bears

brown_bear_new

And finally, another long, long awaited update! Our ugly ducklings, the Black and Brown Bears, have finally received an overhaul in terms of their coats, animations and sounds! The release ended up being a bit sneaky (unintendedly so), but hopefully a pleasant surprise nonetheless! Later this week we are going to make more noise about them, with some bear related events and sales. In the meantime, make sure to check this awesome forum thread by BucksNBuffalo where he put together a nice showcase of the different textures of the updated Black Bears.

black_bear_new

Movember results

November is all over as is our traditional Movember fundraising for awareness for men’s health. This year our community bought 962 moustaches for which we donated $1924 to the Movember Foundation. Thank you for this year, the engagement has been great, let’s do it again next year!

Movember_Sweden_-_Home_-_2016-12-12_08.53.38

Say hi to Stefan!

And last but not least, we finally have a new community manager! His name is Stefan, some of you have already met him on the theHunter Classic and theHunter: Call of the Wild forums, and here comes his official introduction:

StefanHello all,

My name is Stefan and I am the new Community Manager for theHunter. I have joined Avalanche last week and will take over the Community Management from Alena who is moving into a new role as Producer for theHunter Classic.

Originally I come from Germany, more precisely a small town in the Eifel Region near Koblenz and I am 32 years old. I’ve previously worked at Electronic Arts in Ireland since 2011 where I have been a FAQ Content Author, Team Manager and Community Coordinator for games like Battlefield, Crysis and Need for Speed.

PC Games have been my great passion since I started out with playing “Stunts” and “Raptor” on the 386 and 486 in my best friend’s room. As soon as I got my first PC I was helplessly lost and dreamed about working in the gaming industry, bringing the same joy and excitement to many people around the world. The gaming Community is a very important part of the overall experience for me which made it especially interesting for me to work in and with communities, eventually joining the theHunter team here in Stockholm.   

In my private time I enjoy outdoor activities like hiking, camping and kayaking as well as Olympic weightlifting and making music. I also have two wild little kittens, Lykke and Lovis, who keep me busy when I’m at home.

I am looking forward to meeting you on the forums, Steam or in game and exchange ideas, game experiences and have a good time together! 🙂  

Cheers,

Stefan

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

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Game Update

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Features:

Changes:

  • ”Basic 3D Forest Fall” camo now works for all forest areas in Timbergold Trails
  • ”Ghillie suit Fall Leaf” camo now works for all forest areas in Timbergold Trails
  • ”Basic 3D Field Fall” camo now works for all field areas in Timbergold Trails
  • ”Basic 3D Alpine” camo now works for all mountain areas in Timbergold Trails
  • Tweaked the population of Bighorn Sheep s a bit

In progress:

  • Shooting Ranges preparing to open
  • Investigating patching issues

Misc:

  • Localization update

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Grey Wolf – Game design notes

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wolf_sc3

Wolves are one of the most successful predator species in the world. These iconic animals have been long sought-after residents of the EHR and today, we are thrilled to finally bring them to theHunter. They are by far the most complex species in terms of AI and animation, that we’ve ever introduced, and probably will ever introduce. The crown jewel of theHunter animal kingdom if you like. We can’t wait to hear what you think!

Wolves are highly social animals, which is the key to their success in the wild. This is reflected in theHunter by means of our new group behaviour, new hunting behaviour and the calls they make.

Pack behaviour

A wolf pack in theHunter has a three-level hierarchy, which is visible in their unique animations.  Each pack has one or two Alphas, a bunch of Betas making up the bulk of the group, as well as Omegas. In addition, there is always one lone wolf at the bottom of the hierarchy. When you pick up a howling call on your HunterMate, it will always be the Alpha of the pack.

Chasing behaviour

Wolves are top of the food chain predators, and they will be chasing some animals that get too close to them. So, next time you are stalking a group of Mule Deer, decide to take a shot and raise your rifle, don’t be baffled if you see the deer spooking and running away. A couple of moments later you will surely see a pack of wolves running after them.

Carcasses and feeding

Where there are wolves, you might come across carcasses of dead animals which wolves usually prey on. Those carcasses are spawned randomly and act as bait sites, so don’t be surprised when you see a group of hungry wolves nibbling on their downed prey, all according to their group hierarchy. Stay a minute and watch them while they are it, it is truly fascinating!

Howling

Wolves use howls to signal stray members of their pack or to ward off rival packs. So, a wolf will not just howl randomly for the fun of it. It is also not likely that a lone wolf will howl on its own as it would then reveal that it has no pack around to help protect it. Your HunterMate will register a call if the howling pack is within its pick-up radius, but howling can be heard far beyond that.

Hunting methods

Grey Wolves are hunted by spot and stalk methods or by waiting by a carcass in wolf territory. They can be lured closer with a special “Calf Elk” Caller which also has a chance of attracting Rocky Mountain Elk cows.

Happy Wolf hunting!

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Status Update

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Howdy hunters,

Here comes your weekly dose of updates and general musings from the EW headquarters. Earlier this week we shared huge news about our new upcoming game, theHunter: Call of the Wild. If you somehow missed it, you can catch it all, including the breathtaking reveal trailer, in this post. Please note that the official forum for the new game will be on Steam, so make sure to join the community hub there, as well as  follow the official Facebook group and Twitter channel, to be in the loop of everything exciting happening with theHunter: Call of the Wild. This blog as well as forum.thehunter.com will remain mostly about theHunter Classic.There is an unofficial sub-forum dedicated to theHunter: Call of the Wild here for you to chat among themselves, but dev communication will happen on the official forum on Steam.

In the meantime, at theHunter Classic foundry things are humming too. For one, we are at full speed approaching the finishing line with the wolves, squashing bugs and tweaking behaviour. You can expect to hear more on those bad boys next week.

holiday_event_splashscreen

Secondly, our traditional Holiday Event is starting today and is going to run up until December 25th. We’ve prepared daily missions, competitions, sales, unique shiny trophies, and of course, prizes; with the crown jewel being this wicked .308 Bolt Action Rifle. You can find all the details in this forum thread.

And last but not least, we have two new additions to the dev team. Patrick Enz is our new game designer and David Mitchell, who some of you already know from being active in the community, is temporarily joining us to help out with developing some features. Give them both a warm welcome!

Meet Patrick

patrick_enzHello everyone! My name is Patrick Enz and I am working here at Avalanche Studios as theHunter Classic’s newly appointed lead game designer intern. Before this I was working as the AI and World Designer for the recently announced theHunter: Call of the Wild. I started my internship here roughly 3 months ago as a part of my education at The Game Assembly in Malmö, Sweden. Over there I went through 2 intense years, learning how to work effectively in teams and gaining the fundamentals of level design as a whole.

My favorite games are The Witcher 3, Mass Effect 2, Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask and almost all of the Final Fantasy games as they made up much of my adolescence. I also jump around different MMO’s from time to time. Apart from my main interest of video games, I enjoy travelling to different countries and learning how different cultures around the world work. I also extremely enjoy warm humid climates and laying down by the beach in tropical countries as they are, in my opinion, the best means of relaxation.

I’m looking forward to working with theHunter team and the community and I’ll do my best to meet up with expectations! Well met!

Meet David

intro_davidHi everyone!

My name is David Mitchell, or as some of you may know me from the game and forum, “caledonianblues”. I’ve recently started working at Expansive Worlds on a consultancy basis, where I will be assisting the backend programmers and working on some new features and functionality.

I’m originally from the UK but have lived in Stockholm now for almost three years. I’ve been playing theHunter since 2010. I’m very passionate about the game and community, both of which I’ve grown to love and cherish over the years, and feel privileged to be able to work on such an exciting project. I have a background in artificial intelligence and software development and, whilst new to the gaming industry, very much hope to apply my knowledge and skills to this amazing game.

When not working (and not playing games) I write for a Linux technical magazine, and my passions include entrepreneurialism, martial arts, motorcycling and flying. After Christmas I will hopefully be adding snowboarding to that list, if I manage to survive the snowboarding vacation I managed to get talked into. You can still program with broken legs, right? 🙂

And a final note to those of you who can not retrieve their large equipment placed next to borders – right now, the only way for us to deal with it is to retrieve items manually. Please get in touch with our support and provide coordinates of your unreachable equipment and we will sort it out.

That’s from us for today.

Happy hunting!

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Introducing theHunter: Call of the Wild

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theHunter_call_of_the_wild_key_art

Dear hunters,

We wouldn’t be here without you, our community. For that reason we want you to be the first to hear our big news, possibly the biggest to come out of Expansive Worlds, ever. Next year we will be releasing our brand-new game, theHunter: Call of the Wild, offering you a visually breathtaking, technically groundbreaking, hunting experience.

What is theHunter: Call of the Wild?

Over the past 7 years, theHunter has grown and evolved at an astonishing rate. It’s been amazing to see the game – not to mention the community around it – thrive. We’ve introduced new species and reserves, weapons, equipment and gadgets. Meanwhile, gameplay, graphics, sound, animation, AI – literally every aspect of the game, has been continuously improved.

A few years ago, we started thinking about what was next for our hunting and outdoor gaming platform. We were – and still are – committed to supporting theHunter like we have in the past, but also wanted to build something new using all the experience and technical expertise that we’ve accumulated over the years. Our new title, theHunter: Call of the Wild, will stay true to the core gameplay of the original game, but will also include new features and challenges.

theHunter_cotw_lookout_tower

At release, theHunter: Call of the Wild will be a next-generation hunting experience, bringing rich and vast open worlds to hunters and wildlife enthusiasts around the world to explore. Our objective is to grow it into something even more immersive, engaging and fun over time. We have worked hard to create a unique gameplay experience by adding deep environment immersion, creating a strong connection and interaction with various kinds of wildlife, and offering a wide range of in-game activities motivating players in both single- and multiplayer. Last but not least, we’ve added an extensive tutorial element to make the the game more accessible to those who are new to hunting, offering them a helping hand on their way to bagging that trophy.

Perhaps the single biggest difference between the original game and the new one is the change to the business model. theHunter: Call of the Wild is not going to be a free to play game, but a one-time purchase which will be supported and evolved together with the community for a long time to come.

theHunter_cotw_fallow_deer

To give you a glimpse of what awaits, we are inviting you to sign up for a closed Beta session of the new game. You can do that on the official theHunter: Call Of The Wild site, where you will find more information, including some stunning screenshots and news for you to follow the development through to the release of the game in early 2017.

theHunter: Call of the Wild is built on cutting edge technology, in the shape of Avalanche Studios’ brand new Apex engine, and requires a powerful PC to run. This also means higher system requirements when compared to what you are used to with theHunter. You can find all the technical details in the Beta sign-up section.

What does this mean for theHunter as we know it?

Simply put, we have no plans to sunset our most successful game to date. theHunter: Call of the Wild offers a different kind of hunting experience, which we think is complementary to the theHunter experience that we have all grown to love. theHunter is valuable and deeply cherished by all of us. We are committed to the product and community and we hope to see it grow and evolve even further in the future. In fact, the roadmap of 2017 is packed with cool, highly requested features, and we can’t wait to spill the beans and hear what you think!

logo_greyHaving said that, some things will inevitably change. For one, the name. Adding a bright new title to the franchise got us thinking about how to make both games feel different and at the same time a part of one theHunter family. So, we’ve decided to rebrand theHunter into theHunter Classic. We chose that name because of what it signals; a timeless hunting experience. Newer, shinier games and technologies may emerge, but that doesn’t mean theHunter Classic is going out of style, it’s one of those games that you always keep coming back to. You’ll see the Classic brand more and more over the next few months.

Secondly, today we are releasing a new landing  page acting as a gateway to both games, dubbed theHunter.com – the Home of Online Hunting Games. You will be able to log in to your theHunter account from there as you are used to, so there will be no additional hassle.

Lastly, theHunter Classic ship will get a new captain. Philipp Strecker, whom you got to know in the last year as our brilliant producer, will now move on to lead the development and live operations of theHunter: Call of the Wild, and his place will be taken by Alena Rybik, who has been our highly regarded Community Manager for the past three years. The two teams are separate, but are looking into various possible synergies that can bring value to both games, and to the franchise as a whole.

We are sure you have lots of questions at this point and we will do our best to answer what we can in theHunter Classic forum and the official theHunter: Call of the Wild forum on Steam.

We are looking forward to this new adventure together and we are counting on your loyalty and support, both for theHunter Classic and theHunter: Call of the Wild. Thank you for all these years and here’s to many more!

Yours,
Expansive Worlds team

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