Howdy hunters,

It’s that time again – so dig in 😉

New Landing Page

For some time now we’ve been planning to update our landing page, and in particular, streamline the sign up process for theHunter. Our backend developers and artists have been working hard on designing and creating this new functionality and we are soon ready to release the changes.

New players who sign up to create a theHunter account will hopefully experience a much more user-friendly welcome to the game, and will enjoy a new wizard-based, step-by-step process that will guide the player through the first steps of creating their new game account. This will include everything from choosing their avatar and their name, to embarking on their first hunt in the game as they walk through the tutorials to learn the basic controls and game mechanics of theHunter.

Our hope is that this change will help make the sign up process more enjoyable and simple, and that it will encourage new players to follow the tutorials and learn the basics of the game before they begin their hunting careers. After all, we want new players to stick around and enjoy the game as much as our long-term players.

Here are some screenshots of how the new pages will look when they go live next week. Stay tuned for more information.

theHunter Moments – GIF Competition

First off, we want to thank everyone who took the time and put in the effort to create a GIF for the recent community competition. We thoroughly enjoyed watching the GIFs and had a hard time choosing the winners. However, the votes have been counted and the results are in.

1. Run, rabbit, run! – Deadlili – reward: 2,500 em$
   
2. What it looks like when you can’t dance – warhawk373 – reward: 2,000 em$
   
3. IN YOUR FACE – ForstHeld – reward: 1,500 em$
   

We also really liked the following GIFs too so have decided to give out a few more smaller prizes:

• When you realize, that you took the wrong callers – MooseHunter330 – reward: 500 em$
• Angry Blonde! Last bear mission – DaiNochii – reward: 500 em$
  
• OH MY GOD!! – JDplay_ – reward: 500 em$

Congratulations to the winners and thanks again to everyone who took part! Look out for more community competitions coming soon.

Snap Happy Chappy

We’ve recently created an official theHunter Instagram page. If you have an Instagram account, please follow us for regular snippets of our day-to-day life here at Expansive Worlds. We will share regular highlights and things of interest here at the office, and give you sneak peeks into how we work and who we are. If you don’t have an Instagram account, go create one then follow us – you can find us under @thehunter.game 🙂

Behind the scenes with  Marcus & Mattias

As we continue to work hard on making the new Rocky Mountain reserve beautiful and perfect, we thought it might be fun to do a quick Q&A with our talented artists Marcus and Mattias.

Q: What was the most fun part for you to work on this reserve?

Mattias: Working on the firewatch tower, I learned a few new things.

Marcus: To see the reserve starting out as an ugly duckling, with temporary models, textures and materials etc. to then finally, slowly but surely transform into the best looking reserve we’ve managed to create so far.

Q: And the most challenging one?

Mattias: Making the locations look believable, as though someone had worked and lived there once upon a time.

Marcus: If you stand anywhere in the reserve and look in any direction, I still want it to be aesthetically pleasing. But it’s challenging to make it look like a beautiful fall setting and still use these saturated red, yellow and greens, without making it look “clowny”.

Q: What is going to be unique in this reserve in terms of the environment?

This reserve features the most variety when it comes to vegetation, compared to the previous reserves, ranging from big dense conifer forests to open fields, then transitioning into beautiful aspen forests, sparkling with different colors.

Q: What types of vegetation will we see and what made you choose those particular types?

Some examples are ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, red osier bush, quaking aspen, larch and more. Quaking aspen and Douglas fir were obvious choices as they are associated with the Rocky Mountains.

Q: What kind of points of interest will we see in this reserve, and why did you choose those particular ones?

We’ve focused on the lives of the miners during the gold rush era, early 1900, and built the buildings and locations accordingly. We’ve also spent a lot of time with all the props, buildings, vegetation and locations to add to the exploration and keep the players interested.

Q: What inspired you? Did you use references from specific areas?

When we decided on the Rocky mountains we gathered a lot of reference photos of the area in general. Looking at references and slowly seeing everything coming together, as well as receiving all the positive feedback from the community.

Q: What excites you most about the upcoming reserve? What are you looking forward to the most?

Pretty much everything about the new reserve, and releasing it to the public to see the reactions of the players.

No Climbing!

We have read and taken onboard the feedback from the community regarding the climbing mini-game from Val-des-Bois and we want to take this opportunity to assure players that the climbing mini-game will not be making an appearance in the new Rocky Mountain reserve.

There are however no plans to remove the climbing mini-game from Val-des-Bois. Players have invested in ropes and spent time setting them up, and their removal would require us to completely rework the terrain and topography of the reserve.

Hunting Buddies Where Art Thou?

For some time now, as many of you will probably be aware, Johanna has been hosting weekly Lock&Learn livestream sessions. These livestream sessions are a way for her to learn the game, hunt new animals and share her learning experiences with the community, but also to involve players from the community. She has been joined by community members Fletchette, caledonianblues, JackRbbt and other talented hunters, and today we would like to invite anyone from the community who is interested in hunting with Johanna to register their interest using this form. We realise that differing time zones may make it difficult for some players to join, but if anyone can be available at the scheduled livestream time of 16:00 CEST on a Thurdsay, please come forward and put your name down. Johanna doesn’t bite, and we need new hunting buddies for her!

That’s it for today, there will be no patch this week but we are planning one next week, fingers crossed 😉

Happy hunting!

Discussion

Howdy hunters,

Welcome to our status update. The work on the new reserve (and the new animals) continues. Our epic Summer Fiesta event is over and you can find the final leaderboards here. Thank you all, let’s do it again next year, until then we’ll make sure that you have plenty other things to do.

Yesterday we released a patch in which we increased the limit of world items. Now you can place 8 tents, 7 deployable hunting towers and 15 tripods, blinds or tree stands, per reserve. We are currently also running a sale on the large equipment in the store, so be sure to take advantage and stock up.

Another big (and sad) piece of news is that this is the last week at Expansive Worlds for our game designer Daniel, so I have asked him to reply to some questions about the design of the new reserve, enjoy!

Behind-the-scenes – Game design

Q: Why a reserve based on the Rockies in the first place?

A: It was very much requested by our players and the entire team got excited by the dramatic landscapes that a Rockies based map could offer.

Q: Is there going to be something unique about this reserve? What would make it special, in comparison to the others?

A: It is our first fall map based on a North American environment. It also features quite lot of exploration opportunities, more than any other map we’ve done before. Added to this is a handful of new species to hunt!

Q: What species are going to live there and can you shed some light on why you chose those specific ones?

A: Well, we always try to add animals that make sense in that particular environment but also glance at what the community wants. When we started with ptarmigans we were already working on the new reserve, so we decided to add the White-tailed Ptarmigan to the lineup. There will also be Bighorn Sheep to keep the White-tailed Ptarmigans company up in the mountains. We know there are a lot of people who want to more goats and sheep in theHunter so that decision was an easy one. The Rocky Mountain Elk was also an easy decision since we know people like to hunt Elk. Then we needed something iconic for the reserve and the vote fell on perhaps the most iconic North American big game animal around. The Grizzly Bear. It also felt like it was time to give the good old Mule Deer somewhere new to hang out so they will roam the map as well.

Q: What excites you most about the upcoming reserve? What are you looking forward to the most?

A: The environments are simply stunning! But I also look forward to something unannounced that will be added to reserve a little bit later after the initial release…

Q: Can you rank theHunter reserves from your most favourite and least favourite? Where do you think the Rockies will fall?

A: I think it has the potential to become my favorite reserve. It’s like a combo of Hirschfelden and Redfeather Falls with some Settler Creeks and Val-des-Bois sprinkled on top!

Q: Since it’s your last week at Expansive Worlds, is there something you’d like to share with the community? Some yet unrevealed secrets or your personal highlights? Start pouring out of your bottomless well of wisdom!

A: 1: Eat your greens. 2: Never accept subpar beer. 3: Listen to the community. Oh and 4: The Mallard Missions are based on fact based factual facts.

That’s it from us for today!

Happy hunting!

Discussion

Howdy hunters,

Time for our weekly status update! Have we got good news for you? Sure we have. So grab a cold one, sit back and indulge.

For one, after some additional tweaking and polishing we finally felt that our willow ptarmigans were ready to be released onto Hemmeldal, so we did so yesterday and a little bird told me they are tons of fun. For some willow ptarmigan action, make sure to pop by our official Twitch channel today at 16:00 CEST to catch the latest Lock&Learn 😉

Secondly, and it fills my heart with pure joy to tell you this, our brilliant character artist Ami and equally brilliant animator Morris have started working on upgrading our brown and black bears. Those poor guys have been admittedly our worst offenders among theHunter beasts when it comes to model and animations and the team are super thrilled to finally be able to give them some well-deserved love. I for one can’t wait to see the final result, having said that there is no ETA on when the upgraded bears will be released, so please bear with the existing ones for a bit longer 😉

A bit more on the things in progress. We are aware that the tracking is a bit broken right now and are working on it. Next week we are planning to present a delicious patch with fixes and of course some new stuff, so make sure to be there when we spill the beans.

The last animal for the Summer Fiesta competition is here and it’s a Blacktail Deer. Yes, we are that sneaky. So, if you’ve been mindful with your attempts, like we urged you to be, you can still turn things around in the remaining 4 days of the competition. Good luck to you all and may the best hunters win!

Tomorrow we are launching a little sweet GIF competition on our Twitter channel for you to unleash your theHunter creativity. Keep your eyes peeled for an announcement tomorrow for a chance to get some action and win some prizes.

And finally, what many of you have been patiently waiting for in the last week since the announcement of the Rockies – work-in-progress screenshots! Our artist Mattias has kindly responded to your pleas and snapped a couple of good ones for you. I’ll just leave them here and let you savour all the luminescent beauty.

That’s it from us for today!

Happy hunting!

Discussion

Howdy hunters,

Here’s what’s been happening around here.

I’ve seen it rainin fire in the sky…

In the last status update we planted some seeds about the new reserve in the works and many of you have been spot on with your guesses. It’s a Rocky Mountains inspired reserve with fall environment, whoop whoop! The Rockies have consistently ended up high in our player surveys, as you can see from the snapshots of the results of our 2015 and 2016 surveys below (click to enlarge; some reserve options are of course hidden, but your collective opinion regarding those is duly noted).

Survey results 2015

Survey results 2016

Game design competition – winners announced

We’ve finally had a chance to read through the latest mission and competition submissions and the results are in! In the mission category our game designer Daniel praised the missions by Tanngnjostr for their fun and personality. In the competition category it has been a tight race between three contenders and the winner has been picked only a couple of hours ago. Congratulations to mdfortney! The two runners-up are were waiora and MonacoSteve, whose sets Daniel also liked a lot but some components of them are unfortunately not really implementable with our current competition system. The winners will receive 5000 em$, the Almost Dev Jacket alongside the honourable Contributor rank, and the runners-up will each receive 2000 em$. You can find the winning designs here.

The winning missions and competitions will be implemented in theHunter as soon as they are set up and tested. If your design was not picked this time, please don’t despair, we have lots of new animals coming up!

On the cable-backed bow

Following the release of the cable-backed bow we’ve been collecting your feedback and sentiments and felt that a short explanation from our game designer might be appropriate. The bow got a lot of critique due to it being too weak. These bows are not so powerful in real life and this is why it was kept at the lower end of the power spectrum. We have now increased it a bit, making it resemble a bow made of modern materials more than traditional materials. However, the cable-backed bow is still primarily to be used at distances of up to 30, perhaps 40 meters. Beyond that range it will lose power quite dramatically. That is, until gravity increases the force of the arrow again. On the way down, the speed of an arrow may increase slightly due to the gravitational pull. Pulling off shots like that is quite difficult but the expert archers out there keep on impressing us with their near impossible long range harvests.

Welcome new recruits!

Since the introduction of the new Recruit a Friend programme, oodles of new people have joined us by invitation of their friends, welcome guys! Many a Moose have been killed and many, many camping supplies, membership days and special items have been added to the recruiters. If you want to see the coveted .308 Engraved Bolt-Action Rifle in action, check out this video by HooCairs. We’re happy to see that you’ve been making use of this programme and hope to see more of your friends joining the troops of the EHR.

Say Ciao to Roberto!

A while ago we told you that our brave soldier Danny left his honourable post as the lead client programmer at theHunter to pursue his dreams overseas, and today we are happy to present his replacement, straight from Italy! Roberto will lead our client programming team, represented by Carl-Oscar, Patrick and Robin. Get to know him via his intro below and say hello!

Hi everyone! My name is Roberto Mangiafico and I’ve just joined the incredible theHunter team as Lead Programmer.

I moved to Stockholm from Italy facing the great Swedish winter to follow my passion for develop and play great games. I’ve started my career in the game industry in 2007 as programmer in Ubisoft, then in 2011 I left to create my own company Bad Seed and now I made a big step forward joining Avalanche and theHunter team!

I’m an avid player, game lover and technology addict and when I don’t play videogames I follow my other passions and do snowboarding, play volleyball and read manga!

See you in the forum and in the woods for a great hunt!

Apropos team changes, sadly, our game designer Daniel is also leaving us in a month to move on to new adventures. We are looking for his replacement (if you know anyone who could fit, please get in touch). Be sure to catch Daniel in the Lock&Learn this Thursday for a chance to soak up his theHunter wisdom and exceptional sense of humour.

Come hunt with us!

We are resuming our Friday play sessions, so if you want to hunt with devs, look for some open multiplayer games, between 16:30 – 17:30 CEST every Friday. I won’t be there this week, but the rest of the devs will, so make sure to kick their butts play nicely.

Happy hunting!

P.S. Here’s a small update for those of you who use our Facebook sign-up functionality. It has been temporarily removed as we are working on some website stuff. You can still connect your account to Facebook once signed up / logged in via the Settings, to share your trophy shots etc. We would also like to gather your feedback on how much you use of this feature, so we can prioritize it accordingly.

Discussion

Hello hunters,

Welcome to our weekly status update!

Birds of a feather

If you missed our game update earlier today, we’ve just released a flock of Rock Ptarmigans onto the mountainous regions of Val-des-Bois where the birds will join the previously solitary Alpine Ibex. The ptarmigans will surely remind you of Pheasants, since they are distant relatives, but they also have some distinctive features as well. For one, they are more social and thus prefer to hang out in larger families. In addition, they have an excellent camo and blend with the environment exclusively, so spotting them won’t be easy. I shall let you find out the rest by yourselves 😉

To help make the search for Ptarmigans easier, we’ll add 40 free units of climbing gear to every player’s inventory who starts a hunting session between today and the end of Monday, August 1st (CEST). Go crazy on those ridges and don’t forget your medkits.

“What about the Willow Ptarmigans?” I hear you ask. We are still working on those little ones. There are some small issues to be ironed out before we are 100% satisfied with their quality and performance. You may come across some traces of their presence on the website, such as achievements, but we’ll make a proper announcement once they are officially released.

Summer Fiesta firing up

On Monday we kicked off our traditional Summer Fiesta. Lots of challenging missions, a competition with a new format and, of course, sales, trophies and prizes. Tons of hunting fun to add some thrill and excitement to your month of August 😉

A few people have already completed all the missions, woop woop! So we’ll see whether Doc will need to step in again and stir the things up a bit. Today the new animal entered the competition, and I hope you’ve been using your attempts sparingly, since there will be lots of jokers later on 😉

You can find the description and discussion of this event in this forum thread.

Community design competition #2

It’s time for the second part of our hugely successful game design competition. There are still three species missing their specific challenges and we are calling for your imagination and game knowledge! It will be a bit different this time, as your task will be to create a set of missions or competitions for all fours duck species. Mallard, American Black Duck, Northern Pintail and Gadwall. The rules can be found in this forum thread and you will have ten days to submit your design for a chance to win 5,000 em$ / 90 membership days, a very special Contributor membership (that will remain with you for the rest of your life in theHunter) and an exclusive “Almost DEV” jacket!

Happy hunting!

Discussion