Status Update

Posted on June 23, 2016 by admin

Howdy hunters,

The summer is here, the short time when it’s actually bearable to be in Sweden 😀 The EW team members are slowly drifting off to their vacations and it’s getting quieter in the office. Having said that, the work on developing and improving theHunter continues. Earlier today we released a patch with fixes and a GPS pin for your dogs and you can find a technical update from our producer Philipp about our ongoing work and plans below.

Tomorrow it’s the big holiday of Midsummer in this part of the world, during which the whole Sweden will be drinking spicy snaps and eating strawberries in the midnight sun. To celebrate it theHunter style, we are throwing in a weekend membership sale, so you can renew your membership at up to 30% off. Check the image below for the codes and please note that the sale runs until Monday, June 27th. There are also some great weekend discounts on duck equipment and weapons, up to 50% off – check them out.

Game Improvements Update

Hello Hunters,

with the continuing work on game improvements, we want to update you about our efforts, what has been done since the last announcement and what is to come.

This time we are taking a more general look at both server / database and also gameplay improvements. The goal is to get to the next level in terms of communication for game improvements and to give you a better overview about what is being worked on instead of repeating ourselves that game health is the main priority for us.

Improvements for server stability

Calle and Emil are monitoring our performance and stability around the clock, looking for slow and stressful processes and queries. After identifying the main offender, they released a major update to how the inventory system responds and is updated yesterday. There are no perceivable changes for players but we hope to improve stability and connectivity significantly. Releasing a fix is of course only the first step so we will collect data over the next days and then decide how to move on.

In the meantime they look for the next biggest offender, rinse and repeat and also help the client programmer by improving our crash reporter to be more detailed which helps us to prioritize what to fix next.

Next to that we are working on a bigger plan to relieve our database making better use of the Google service that we use. We might share the details of this in the next update or a later one.

Improvements for gameplay

Our client programmers have not been lazy either. After releasing the Scent Hound, they fixed several random crashes that slipped our testing and analyzed the main problems (crashes, bugs) we currently face in-depth.

We can’t share any specifics yet but we have our eyes mostly on graphical performance and memory, user interface and system memory used by sounds.

While we work on solutions for this (which will be shared in the next update or a later one) we released a patch today with fixes for Turkey and Pheasant scoring issues.

We hope this gives you a better impression of what we are working on and of the improvements to come. Stay tuned for the next updates as we share more specifics, fixes and the plans how to tackle what is left to do.

All the best and good hunting,

Your Phil and the rest of theHunter team

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Game Update

Posted on June 23, 2016 by admin

Features

Dog GPS

Bug fixes

Turkey and Pheasant spotting bug – spotting information about score didn’t reflect the final one
Tree stand crash fix
Pulsar bow reloading fix
Dog command window fix

Changes

Faster server side inventory updates
Reworked multiplayer game list to be ordered and filtered by the launcher
Removed crash command

Misc.

Localization update

In progress

Increased security by enforcing secure connections
Moving game data (kills, etc.) to a faster database
Improving performance for checking missions
Better cache logic for getting more recent data when performing actions
Ordering events in the client code
Better query system for competitions

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Status Update

Posted on June 17, 2016 by admin

Hello hunters,

Time for another status update from Expansive Worlds.

Server update

Many of you experienced interruptions and disturbed game performance on Tuesday, Wednesday and for a short time on Thursday. Our servers had been up and down due to our database responding to queries slower than usual. Our backend guys have been all hands on deck in the last days, streamlining queries and making the whole server-database communication more efficient. We are also working together with our server provider Google on getting to the bottom of the issue and at the same time improving the database performance. Our sincere apologies to everyone affected. Due to the service disruptions this week there was no new content released, but we are planning to resume the usual flow as soon as we can.

Additional attempts and new season

Since many of you have lost attempts in the Actual Football Event competition, we’ve added 10 additional ones. Also, as you might have noticed, the new 20th season started today. From now on, we are planning to make the season change more often and regular, you can expect to hear more details on this later.

Jamboree update

The Football Jamboree event is in full bloom. Don’t forget to buy the t-shirts before June 22nd, at the lowest possible price of 120 em$. The prices will double on June 23rd as we enter the Round of 16, so act fast. Also, today is the last day to get the bundle with all 24 T-Shirts at a super price. That Golden Bullpup is not going to win itself!

Lock & Learn

Yesterday Johanna was joined by our community member and a real Turkey connoisseur JackRbbt in pursuit after her first Turkey, notorious for being one of the trickiest species to hunt in theHunter. You can catch the recap of the livestream below. Please note that next week there will be no Lock&Learn due to the Swedish Midsummer, but if you want to join Johanna on one of her future streams – give her a shout!

Spot on HunterTalk

And finally, we wanted to share with you some news about our German community HunterTalk. It’s one of our oldest non-English communities and it’s still holding strong. The HunterTalk staff have recently made amazing work moving the forum onto a new platform and it looks great. Together with the new platform, new events, functions and tools were added. For our German speaking players, you can find more details in this post from the HunterTalk admin M9Chis. Waidmannsheil!

That’s it from us for today.

Happy hunting!

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Das Neue HunterTalk forum! (DEUTSCH)

Posted on June 17, 2016 by admin

Nach unzähligen Stunden der Arbeit freuen wir uns, euch nun endlich das neue Huntertalk Forum präsentieren zu können.

Für alle neuen deutschsprachigen Spieler möchten wir uns kurz vorstellen: Huntertalk.de ist die offizielle deutschsprachige Community von deutschsprachigen Spielern für deutschsprachige Spieler. Wir sind für dich der Anlaufpunkt #1 wenn du dich mit anderen Spielern austauschen, diskutieren oder zu einer Jagdrunde verabreden möchtest.

Huntertalk richtet sich vor allem an all jene Spieler die so ihre Probleme mit der englischen Sprache haben. Hier findest du alle Spiel- und Status-Updates komplett auf Deutsch.

Huntertalk nicht nur im neuen Design

Viel Zeit und viel Arbeit hat es gekostet, aber es hat sich gelohnt. Neben bekannten Forenfunktionen findet ihr nun auch kleine praktische Helfer die euch z.B. das Einbinden von Bildern direkt im Thread oder Post erleichtern ohne es erst auf einer externen Seite hochladen zu müssen. Das Portal versorgt euch mit den neuesten Infos aus dem Forum. Die Shoutbox ermöglicht euch eine kurzfristige Verabredung zur gemeinsamen Jagd oder einfach nur einen kleinen Smaltalk.

Du hast einen Youtube-Kanal zum Thema theHunter? Auch dafür gibt es bei uns einen Platz. Zeige der Community deine Videos und mit etwas Glück bekommt dieses auch auf unseren sozialen Medien seinen Platz.

Wie gewohnt übersetzen unsere Übersetzer alle neuen Infos für euch. Das Eventteam konzeptioniert neue Wettbewerbe und richtet diese aus.

Du hast ein (technisches) Problem? Kein Ding. Für fast jedes Problem findest du bei uns eine Lösung. Musst du doch einmal dem Support schreiben und bist der englischen Sprache nicht mächtig, wird dir auch dabei gerne geholfen.

Profitiere vom Wissen erfahrener Spieler und gehe mit ihnen gemeinsam auf die Jagd.

Und noch einiges mehr…

Huntertalk jetzt auch bei Facebook, Instagram und Twitter

In den sozialen Medien möchten wir euch ausschließlich mit den aktuellsten Informationen versorgen. Neben den Game-Informationen findet ihr außerdem Ankündigungen zu den Huntertalk.de-Wettbewerben, Siegerehrungen, Videos von Usern für User, Einsteiger Guides und noch einiges mehr. Natürlich wieder komplett auf Deutsch.

Neues Wettbewerbs- und Newslettersystem

Unser Eventteam hat, in Zusammenarbeit mit FumarPorros, die Huntertalk-Wettbewerbe auf eine neues Niveau gehoben. Dank des kraftvollen Tools sind die Wettbewerbe für den Einsteiger genauso interessant und fair wie für den Veteranen. Messe auch du dich mit den Großen und sahne den ein oder anderen em$ ab. Eventuell schaffst du es auch auf einen der Plätze der Jahresbesten und erhältst nochmals tolle Prämien für deine Arbeit!

Verpasse keinen Wettbewerb mehr, weil du vergessen hast dich zu informieren! Melde dich für den Wettbewerbsnewsletter an und erhalte den kompletten Wettbewerb als E-Mail und PN im Forum.

Tools von FumarPorros

FumarPorros stellt euch seine praktischen Tools für das Spiel zur Verfügung.

Waidgerecht auf einen Blick:

Seht auf den ersten Blick, welche Waffen/Munition für ein Tier zugelassen ist oder schaut welches Tier ihr mit welcher Waffe bejagen dürft.

Map Placementtool:

Dieses Tool soll euch dabei behilflich sein, etwas auf einer TH-Map zu veranschaulichen. Das kann die Darstellung eines vollständigen Equipment-Aufbaus oder aber auch nur eine einzelne Markierung oder Text sein. Das Besondere daran ist, das man die Bearbeitung nicht nur als Bild, sondern auch als Textdatei abspeichern kann. So kann die Karte bei Bedarf immer wieder editiert, mit euren Freunden geteilt und verglichen werden.

Vorkommen:

Mit diesem Tool könnt ihr ganz schnell sehen, wo ihr welche Tiere auf der Map finden könnt.

Organ Tool:

Klein aber fein. Schaut mit nur einen Klick nach wo ein Tier seine Organe hat und tragt einen sauberen Schuss an.

Sei ein Teil der offiziellen deutschsprachigen Community und finde bei uns deinen Platz. Wir hoffen, dich bald bei uns begrüßen zu können.

Euer Huntertalk.de Team

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Status Update

Posted on June 9, 2016 by admin

Howdy hunters,

Our weekly status update is back after a short break due to the action-packed dog release. Here’s what we’ve been up to.

Scent Hounds

For one, the scent hound release went really well and the whole team were super happy to read your comments showing that most people loved their new dogs and enjoyed their functionality. We have learned a lot from our first dogs, the retrievers, as well as excellent testing by our closed beta team which delivered great results. Thank you guys, you know who you are! Sadly, the server issues have rained on the parade. You can find an official statement and explanation from our producer Philipp here. Following the release, an increased amount of game crashes have also been reported, fixes for one of them is already included in today’s game update, please rest assured we continue working on that.

If the whole scent hound frenzy passed you by, be sure to check some videos so you know what all the fuss is about. Our community members ronMctube, Mills, Flinter have made some good ones, and also you can catch the recap of our official pre-release livestream with Pratze and Johanna.

We are also curious to hear what you think of your retrievers now that we’ve made some significant AI adjustments. Hopefully you’ll enjoy them more now. Anyway, test them and let us know.

The best classic rifle is chosen!

The hounds were the name of the game last week, so some of you might have missed the end of our much praised Classic Showdown event. It’s been a truly amazing event but the victory goes to the K98k Bolt-Action Rifle team, due to what was a trophy of a lifetime. A piebald elk scoring 421.261. Although my personal favourite rifle has won, I just want to say well done to everyone! Here are the results of all four team competitions, each of them is a great accomplishment in itself!

We’re inspired by the success of this event and will probably make something similar for other weapon classes, where applicable.

Football Jamboree 2016

And now onto an event of a totally different caliber. Those of you who have been with us long enough, must remember our Football Jamboree 2014 and the super-exclusive Royal Shotgun. Well, it’s time for another jamboree, this time with a slightly European flavour 😉 But don’t worry, we’ve also prepared something for those of you who are not that involved in the grand sporting event kicking off in France tomorrow. Why yes, there will be another exclusive “golden” weapon and this time it will be one of our most popular rifles in theHunter. Read on!

Lock&Learn

Lock&Learn is back as well, and this week Johanna will be joined by our Lead Client Programmer Danny and they will take it to our all-time favourite, Whitehart Island, and try to perform a shot through the hart 😉 Make sure you join if you’re available. If you’ve read some of Danny’s posts in the forum, you can probably guess that it’ll be worthwhile.

Robin is back!

In one of our old status updates we told you the story of our programmer Robin who suffered a stroke about two years ago, and has been going through rehabilitation since then. A lot of you have been sending your best wishes to him, and Robin is so, so grateful for those! Today, after a long wait, we are finally delighted to tell you that Robin is back on the theHunter team. He is returning half-time initially and will slowly be working into full-time. He has already started working on a nice new feature and hopes that you will like it once it’s released. Once again, thank you to everyone who offered support and kind words.

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

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Game Update

Posted on June 9, 2016 by admin

Features

Football Jamboree T-shirts (Special for the Football Jamboree 2016 Event)

Bug fixes

Random crash fix when tracking with the scent hound
Multiplayer games where host is inactive for more than 30 seconds are no longer invisible in multiplayer list
Games where creator of the game is inactive for more than an hour is no longer ended automatically

Changes

When walking backwards, the dog will heel next to the player better
Some scent hound sounds updated

Misc.

Localization update

In progress

Turkey scoring-spotting bug

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Game Update

Posted on May 31, 2016 by admin

Features

Scent hounds! – Release notes
Dog winter vests

Bug fixes

Fix for placing feeders and barrels when using a dog – it wasn’t possible to place them if a dog was close to the placing position
When the player gives a dog command or performing an emote, bows will not require to reload and arrow anymore
Fix for dogs getting stuck in environment, now they should be able to get to the player eventually
Dogs can walk on bridges now (except for the long hanging bridge in Logger’s Point)
Fixed the bug with dogs staying outside of ground blinds after having received the command to go in
Fixed dog presence sounds, update with correct position
When “equipping” dog in inventory it now spawns in front of the player and sits down

Changes

Retriever stamina cost for fetch lowered and skill levels increased
When “equipping” dog in inventory it now spawns in front of the player and sits down
When the player fires a weapon, the dog now goes into the “attentive” state
When the player is aiming the dog now sits down
The “Come here” command now has two different sounds depending on how far away the dog is

Misc.

Localizations

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Introducing Scent Hounds in theHunter

Posted on May 31, 2016 by admin

One year ago we released the first dog in theHunter: the jolly and rather unruly Retriever. It was a huge success and not too long after its release, players were taking their dogs with them regardless of whether they were out hunting waterfowl or deer. Soon however, it became evident that the Retriever, despite being fun to bring along on a hunt, was a retrieving specialist and not too much use when stalking deer or other animals. With the Scent Hound, you’ll get a loyal and disciplined hunting partner that you can take with you wherever you go.

Why a Scent Hound?

We saw that there was a need for a hunting dog that could cover aspects of the hunt that the Retriever was never intended to. This new dog needed to be a companion, but also serve a purpose other than simply being a pet that followed the player around. One game aspect that is time exhaustive and frustrating and also goes against hunting ethics, is animals that go unharvested due to the difficulty in finding them when they flee from the hunter after a poorly placed shot. It felt natural therefore to add a dog that would be a loyal friend out on the field, but also an aid to the player in finding those injured animals.

Impact of the dog on the game

Much like the Retriever, the Scent Hound is more of an experience and a convenience, as opposed to a game-changing addition to theHunter. The dog has no real impact on missions or competitions either since the stalking and shooting is still done by you. However, with this dog, the days of not finding animals are over.

How it works

Taking a dog with you on a hunt is simple: Just drag it out from the lodge or tent inventory and place into the dog slot in your own inventory. It will spawn next to you once you close the inventory screen. If this is the first time you bring your dog with you, you will be prompted to give it a name (choose wisely as it’s not possible to rename your dog – at least for now). Once you leave the lodge or tent area you won’t be able to un-equip the dog (try putting a Scent Hound into a backpack and see how that goes). You can access a set of dog commands by pressing the “V” button. While holding “V”, simply select the command you want to give your dog by moving the mouse in the relevant direction and confirming with a left-click. Play around with the different commands and see how your dog behaves. It’s a lot of fun!

To track a wounded animal you’ll need to walk up to a blood track, ID it (left-click on the track with the HunterMate) and then hold “V” and select “Track”. The Scent Hound will move to the selected track to get its scent and then it will start tracking. It can track blood tracks and fleeing tracks of an animal, but not water tracks. When the dog has found the dead animal it will stay by it, baying and barking so you can easily pinpoint the location. When can a Scent Hound fail with tracking? Well, there are basically two scenarios. The first is that the dog simply got distracted during tracking. It may have caught the scent of another animal or the distance between two clues was too far. The second scenario is that the animal being tracked just got brushed by a projectile, bled for a few minutes then the bleeding stopped. In this case the dog cannot continue the tracking.

Experience

When you first purchase a dog, it’s already a capable Scent Hound. It should perform its tasks without any fuzz, most of the time. But if a dog does not understand a command, a small icon with a question mark is shown. If the dog understands the command then an icon with an exclamation mark is shown. If the dog is too far away to be given a command, the icon to the right will be shown.

More experience will make your Scent Hound hone its skills as a tracker, finding clues that are farther apart and finding them faster. Your dog has 50 levels and each new level comes with a skill increase or a small gift. Levelling up is fairly quick in the beginning but will slowly become tougher and tougher. You can see your dog’s experience and level in the right corner of the screen when you bring up the command menu, as well as its stamina state.

Stamina

Each performed command reduces your dog’s stamina. This doesn’t have much impact on how long your dog can work with you, but a lower stamina means it gains less experience, such as a tired dog learns a bit less than a well-rested one. Letting your dog mind its own business will regenerate its stamina.

Skills

On your dog’s profile page you’ll see two sets of icons. One set governs basic dog skills, called Loyalty skills, the other set is specific to Scent Hounds. The number in the upper left corner shows which level your dog is at on that particular skill. Each skill starts out on level 1. All Scent Hound skills have a maximum of 3 levels, but some of the Loyalty skills have more. For information on what each skill does, just hover the mouse over the skill icon.

What about those darn rascally Retrievers?

We have reviewed the Retrievers as well and increased their skill levels across the board. They will be better at understanding commands and be a little bit quicker at finding and retrieving birds than before. They will still be quite rowdy when on the move but they will perform their duties in a much more stable manner.

Special release events

To celebrate the release of our scent hounds we’ve prepared some tasty offers that you’d be barking mad to refuse. If you buy a dog before Tuesday, June 7th 12:00 CEST you’ll get a 20% discount and receive a cherry on top – free Founder collar! Please note that the free leather collar offer is only available in the Bundles section in the store. You can however buy dogs separately in the Dogs section.

Also, Daniel has created a special package of dog missions for you to hang out with your new buddy and try to win this gorgeous trophy. These are time-limited missions, and you have until Tuesday, June 7th 12:00 CEST to complete them.

We’ve also released three new winter vests for your dogs in the variety of colours – they will keep both your scent hounds and labs warm and toasty.

Now it’s time to go and make use of that heel command – happy hunting with your scent hounds!

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Status Update

Posted on May 27, 2016 by admin

Howdy hunters,

Let’s see what we’ve got for you today.

Testing of our precious scent hounds is in full gear and they’re starting to look more and more promising and inspiring each day. We hope to be able to release something truly amazing this time!

Our client programmer Carl-Oscar and his loyal hound called Debugger with their first track and first kill

Scent Hounds – Pre-release Livestream

On Monday you’ll have an opportunity to see the new scent hounds in action, during our traditional pre-release livestream. This time our streaming resident and theHunter veteran Pratze will be joined by Johanna, who by the way has recently swooped into a full-time position at Expansive Worlds as Marketing Coordinator. Congratulations Johanna! Please join us on Monday 30th at 19:00 CEST on our official Twitch channel to enjoy some scent hound action.

As Johanna is busy preparing the livestream, there was no Lock&Learn today. Sorry to all the fans, hope to see you all on Monday!

Sound Recording

As you will hear soon enough, our scent hounds have new sweet sounds. To record those, one February morning our sound designer Greg travelled all the way to a little Swedish village called Gränna to visit a lovely family of hunters who are also experienced dog trainers. Here’s a short photo report of Greg and the man of the house trying to trigger the typical bark of Gunnar, the Bluetick Coonhound, by hanging moose heads and fox skins off the trees. The family was super friendly and welcoming and helped Greg put Gunnar in good condition to get the best recordings possible for a great hunting experience. Thank you so much!

You will soon hear Gunnar and the results of Greg’s successful work in theHunter 😉

While in Gränna, Greg also tried to record some new Moose sounds, but the results were not as successful as the ones with Gunnar. Sadly, he didn’t manage to record anything worthy of adding to the game, but he still wanted to share with you a couple of pictures from the process:

The Bow

Compound Bow Pulsar Yesterday we released a new bow with a cosmic name, Pulsar. It’s our third compound bow, some say it’s somewhere in-between the Snakebite and the Parker Python, some say it eats them both for breakfast. We say give it a try and make up your own mind. Luckily there’s a nice little “bowndle” in the store with the bow, the 5-pin sight and a two person tree stand, on sale at a nice discount. And before you start testing out your new bow, be sure to activate the Compounds n’Treestands competition. You never know when the biggest turkey of your life might saunter by 😉

A Classic Showdown

One week of our Classic Showdown event has passed by and although we know that the top Roosevelt Elk by R1Maddin (on the picture) is pretty intimidating (it’s also a piebald, oh my) we’ve seen bigger ones in this game 😉 The main battle is still to be won and you have another week to bring your team to fame and glory. Go hunt some elk!

The current leading Roosevelt Elk for all the rifles:

Team .30-06 – 408.111 by KCROWE
Team 7.62x54R – 417.679 by prohunter93
Team .303 British – 389.134 by Marteau1245
Team 8×57 IS K98k – 421.261 by R1Maddin

Free Species Rotation

For free species rotation we’re exchanging Arctic Fox and Roe Deer for Feral Hog and Bison. You can hunt them for free until next Thursday, June 2nd.

That’s it from us for today, see you all on Monday for the pre-release livestream!

Happy hunting!

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Status Update

Posted on May 20, 2016 by admin

Howdy hunters,

Welcome to our slightly belated weekly update.

New and (better) old stuff

On Wednesday we released a game patch with some new things, as well as improvements for old items. Nifty scopes for some of our old reliable rifles, enhanced functionality for the two person tree stand, new iron sights for the .243, .270 and .300 rifles, increased magnification for the spotting scope and more. You can find the full list here.

Battle of the classic rifles

We launched a pretty cool event which everyone seems to be really enjoying so far. A Classic Showdown. The whole community is divided into four teams and fighting against each other to have their chosen classic rifle named the best of the best. As you can tell, I am in team K98k (which is so going to win ;)). What about you? Have you picked your team yet?

New collectibles

This week we also dropped a bunch of lovely eagle feathers and ammonite fossils on Val-des-Bois, one of the reserves that hasn’t had any collectibles until now. Later we will be adding some cool stuff for you to pick up on the other two empty reserves – Rougarou Bayou and Whiterime Ridge. Stay tuned!

Scent hound update

We are starting the testing phase for scent hounds, together with selected people who applied for our closed beta session. If you haven’t received an email from us this time, please don’t be discouraged. Hopefully next time you’ll be more lucky!

There have been a lot of questions about the upcoming scent hounds, everything shall be revealed in due course. We are also planning our traditional pre-release livestream where you can watch them with your own eyes.

With the release of scent hounds we’ll be tweaking the behaviour of our retrievers, so they will become a little bit smarter (but not as smart as their sniffing brothers and sisters). All the dog equipment and accessories, since it is manufactured from a top quality super stretch material, will of course fit both types of dogs.

We also wanted to share with you a couple of sneak peek screenshots of the scent hounds. They are work in progress, but still – what a beauty!

Service disruptions

Over Tuesday and Wednesday night we had some problems which were caused by service outages experienced by our server provider Google. Please read the statement by our producer Philipp here.

Free species rotation

Finally, the next two animals in our free species rotation are Arctic Fox and Roe Deer. You can hunt them for free until Thursday 26 May, when they will be exchanged again with two other species. Guest players are now able to see animals they are allowed to hunt in the top right corner of the website once logged in.

That’s it from us for today.

Happy hunting!

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