Bug fixes
Howdy hunters,
It’s Thursday again and it’s time for another status update. Today we’ll be mostly talking about Its Majesty Bison, let me just go through a couple of things before we dive into that: so, on Tuesday we released Tobii Eye tracking integration which will literally let you play the game using your eyes; if you missed that, you can update yourself here. Some players have been running into problems with the latest patch, if you are one of them, installing vcredist 2012 from here should help. In the meantime we’re working together with Tobii on resolving the issue that cause this and will keep you updated on the progress. Our apologies for this inconvenience!
Yesterday we also released the new Canada Goose decoy – the lighter and more efficient version with flapping wings, ideal for those who like moving their set-ups around and enjoy flexibility. And yes, there is also a bundle with those, offering a nice discount.
Now, let’s cut to the chase. A lot of speculations about the bison have been circling in the community since the announcement of this species, so I’ve been bugging the devs here with the questions for the promised behind-the-scenes. Our game designer Daniel, artist Simone and animators Ryan and Dick, who have working with the bison the most, have been really helpful (save an occasional grumble ;)) and generously shared lots of top notch information – read on for some great stuff, including WIP images and even some animation videos!
Daniel, game and level designer:
Q: So, why bison? Why was it chosen as the flagship animal for the new sub-arctic reserve?
A: Because it is such an iconic animal. We wanted to add a bovid to the game for a while and seeing that is was one of the most wished for animal types in the latest survey we decided to go for it with this new reserve.
Q: Did you have any concerns about introducing the bison?
A: Well, the history of hunting bison is perhaps one of the worst examples of overhunting in history and many still associate hunting bison with mass slaughter. Because of this we thought that the choice might be very controversial but so far we have only received positive feedback. Bison hunting is done in North America (although under very controlled circumstances), so we have no ethical qualms with this choice, but we are happy that the decision was well received. Besides, the Evergreen Hunting Reserve is after all a fictional place.
Q: Which species is the game design based on?
A: The design is mostly based on the Plains Bison but, like with many other species in the game (Moose, Reindeer etc.), it borrows a little from other subspecies. In this case that subspecies is the Wood Bison. However, in the game it is simply called Bison.
Q: Will there be something unique about hunting bison?
A: Bison are ill-tempered and fearless. Bring First Aid Kits on your hunt.
Q: Some community members are eager to know whether it will be a herd animal, like a reindeer?
A: No, it will not migrate through the reserve like the Reindeer but behave more like Elks do in the game.
Q: Can you already show us how the bison looks in the environment?
A: Here is a WIP screenshot of a small bison group pour vous: 
Simone, 3D Artist:
Q: Where did you take the inspiration when modeling the bison?
A: I took “inspiration” mostly from photo references, the first thing I did was searching on Google for high resolution photos in order to understand the anatomy, proportions and so on.
Q: What was the main challenge?
A: The main challenge was the fur. The bison has at least 3 different fur patterns, short, clumpy and long, all of them are really difficult to replicate with our current tech.
Q: This is the first animal in theHunter with “real” fur, can you tell us more how you’ve managed to achieve this?
A: I used what we call the alpha plains technique. Basically, I use a pre-made Photoshop texture containing all the hair style I need and then I apply that to the alpha plains placed on the bison’s mesh. Obviously, I didn’t place all the polygons (alpha plains) one by one (not all of them), I took advantage of a tool in Maya called XGen to groom them.
Q: Are there plans to “dress” the existing animals, such as bears, into the fur?
A: I can say that we are experimenting with different solutions to address that problem and the new sub-arctic reserve with bison is a good playground for us in this matter. We are working on a better rendering quality and improved pipeline in order to get it done in a decent amount of time. I think, once we’ve figured out how to do that in the most efficient way we can consider applying the fur to the old models as well.
Q: Can you share some very first mock-ups of the model?
A: Instead of box modelling in Maya I usually make my mock-ups in ZBrush because I can shape the overall shape quickly having a decent result. So here you go (the images are work in progress):
Ryan and Dick, animators:
Q: When working on animations, was there something particular you wanted them to communicate about the bison?
A: The great thing about bison is that they have a powerful presence about them, but under their seemingly calm exterior lays a wild and fickle temperament. When working with the bison it was important to convey both their grace as well as their menace in order to represent this unpredictable nature.
Q: What was the most challenging thing of animating the bison?
A: When working on the animations for the bison the most important thing to consider is their sheer bulk and strength. Bison are massive, powerful animals, but despite their lumbering presence they can actually be quite fast and agile.
It was important to convey how heavy they are without it looking like they are struggling under their own weight.
Q: Can you share a sneak peek at some animation?
A: Here you go:
Hope you’ve enjoyed this short sneak peek at how we work on the new species. In the meantime, please don’t forget that we’re still collecting suggestions for the reserve name here. The thread will be open until the end of August, 31st.
Happy hunting!
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As we’ve mentioned in one of our status updates, we’ve partnered with the Swedish company Tobii to bring their sophisticated eye tracking system into theHunter and with today’s game update that integration is finally live!
From now on, if you have Tobii’s nifty EyeX gadget, you can control certain aspects of the game by moving just your eyes. The camera will pan to what you are looking at, which will bring a new intuitive experience when scanning the terrain for animals to hunt. It is even possible to raise your weapon with your eyes. Using traditional controls (keyboard and mouse) you navigate the same as always, except now, as you look to the left of the environment so will your character – all without breaking stride. This is called ‘Infinite Screen’ because no longer are you restricted to the size of your monitor to explore the territory freely. As a player, not only do you feel more immersed in your environment, you now have the ability to become more aware of your surroundings as you explore the unknown.
You can customize the EyeX settings in the Options menu in-game to make it behave exactly as you want. Note that these options are only visible if you have the EyeX connected with the relevant drivers installed (for any hardware-related issues please contact Tobii support).
Here’s how one theHunter player who has been helping us to test eye tracking describes it:
“The Eye Tracking software was a great surprise – it was technology that I wasn’t sure about initially, but I ended up really liking it the more I used it. It’s very configurable and aiming by closing one eye is really immersive to the entire hunting experience. Watching the view move as I scanned my peripheral for animals really makes you feel like you’re actually there, and helps keep track of any animals you may have otherwise missed as you walk around. Waterfowl and pheasant hunting is a blast with this technology, and makes leading them a bit easier as well. One of my favorite experiences with it was soon after I first got it up and running, had jumped into Whitehart Island, and was tracking a herd of Roosevelt Elk – sitting motionless both in game and in real life, and having my view change to follow them without touching anything was incredibly immersive and fantastic, and I found myself holding my breath in real life.”
You can purchase your Tobii EyeX here for just $99 (regular price $139) using the code TheHunter. When playing theHunter with Tobii EyeX installed for the first time, you’ll receive a special Tobii Eyemaster membership bundle bundle which includes a 14 day membership, 12 GA Pump Action shotgun, Male Mallard Decoys, Waterfowl Blind and a Sneaky 3D Summer Swamp outfit.
Happy hunting!
Features
Bug fixes
Changes
Hello hunters,
It’s status update time and here’s what we’ve been up to.
Winter is coming
By this point we all know that winter is coming and I’m sure you’re dying to learn the details of the upcoming sub-arctic reserve, how tracks in the snow will work, what animals apart from bison will reside there and where on the map it’ll be located. Don’t panic, everything will be shared and all secrets will be revealed. One thing at a time. There is a lot of work left to be done and we’ll make sure to keep you updated on the progress. For now, here are a couple of work-in-progress screenshots from our art team for you to get inspired.
Now it’s time for our good ol’ tradition! A community brainstorming session where we come up with a name for the new reserve! So, let’s put our heads together and come up with a great name worthy of this beauty. I think a lot of you know the drill from our previous reserve releases, but here’s a short reminder:
Your name must be unique, easily pronounceable in all languages (spare a thought for players from all over the world who would need to be able to utter it without breaking their tongues), capture the essence of the upcoming location and fit our existing names. The new reserve is inspired by the subarctic parts of North America, but, like with the rest of the EHR, we never limit ourselves to a specific real life location.
Here’s a thread for your suggestions. We look forward to them!
Summer Fiesta
Our grand Summer Fiesta event is over and wow, what a hunting feast it has been. With tens of thousands of people taking part in both the competitions and the missions, it has been the biggest event theHunter has ever seen. So, everyone who got at least one trophy shall consider themselves a winner! I’ll prepare some numbers for next week’s status update, but here is the list of the main triumphant winners of the tournament who made it all the way to the Tier 4.
Alongside fame, glory and sweet prizes, the top three participants also won the coveted 7mm Bouquetin rifle. This premium rifle will be released in the store at a later point. Congratulations, this has been amazing! Let’s do it again some time.
Community vs Devs Battle
We’ve received over 100 applications for the upcoming hunting battle between Devs and Community, so we’re closing the application form and in the next week will choose the hunters who will represent the community (if you have a HS below 50, you have a good chance to be one of them ;)) You can expect to hear more about this event soon.
That’s it for today.
Happy hunting!
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Features
Changes
Hi there hunters,
I know that many of you have been patiently waiting for this status update, so let’s take the plunge right away, shall we? First of all, be sure to check out yesterday’s game update which boasts a beautiful array of changes and bug fixes, some long-awaited and all highly welcomed (e.g. the muzzleloader reload animation).
Let it snow!
Now moving on to something that we briefly mentioned last week. The new species in the works. There was in fact one more hint that some of you picked up on. The snowy reserve background on the image of the “Lone Star” release. No, it wasn’t Hemmeldal and yes, it has a direct relation to the upcoming species. To cut a long story short, it’s the BISON indeed (as it has become known thanks to curious players roaming through our German partners’ site) and it will be living in the new, very exciting reserve, located somewhere in the sub arctic (we call the new area the Arctic North). Our artists have been working their magic on it for a while and, as you know, it takes a tremendous amount of time and efforts to create a new area in theHunter. The work will be ongoing for quite a bit. As we progress, we’ll be sharing some behind-the-scenes moments and other exciting stuff with you, but for now, just savour these screenshots which should hopefully give you a rough idea of where you’ll be able to hunt one glorious day soon 😉
Please bear in mind that what you see here is very, very much work in progress, lots of things will change and improve. We don’t have the final release date that we can share with you yet, but stay with us and you’ll be in for a treat as the EHR Arctic North will come with more surprises and hidden gems.
Best community load outs are chosen
The anonymous polls for the best reserve load-outs are over and the winners have been picked in a fair and square competition. Here are the hunters who have managed to pull together the most efficient, versatile and practical load-outs:
Congratulations to the winners, please drop me a message and specify the prize you’d like to receive. All winning load outs will be featured in theHunter store as permanent bundles. You can now find all the players’ names next to their load outs.
Thanks to everyone who took part in this competition, it’s been really cool.
Community vs. Devs hunting battle
It all has started the way crazy things start here at the office. During one of the hunting sessions Daniel dropped to us: “How about … we do a hunting battle Devs vs Community?” The idea got lots of love and we’ve gathered a brave bunch of devs who would like to take on the challenge to compete against representatives of our community. We’ve been picking our brains on how to choose players from the community, since as we can imagine there will be a lot of volunteers, so here is how it’ll work. The contenders will be chosen amongst those who have filled in this form. We’ll try to pick hunters based of different skill and experience levels, so everyone has a chance! We’ll tell you more details later on.
Translators wanted
As we are looking to introduce more people all over the world into the thrilling universe of theHunter, we are right now on the search for players who are native in Japanese, Chinese and Thai languages and who would like to help us with translating the game. If you are one of those, or if you know any other language on a native level, have some free hours to helps us with translation and can keep secrets, get in touch!
That’s it for now, happy hunting!
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Features
Bug fixes
Changes
Release notes
.223 Ammo Changes
There have been a lot of complaints from players that the .223 simply did not perform well enough on some of the animals it was intended for. So, we’ve decided to make the bullet just a little heavier, so that it can quite easily take down even Coyotes and Roe Deer. We’ve also added the Red Kangaroo to the list of permitted species since it is widely used in Australia for this kind of hunting.
When we released the .303 British Bolt Action Rifle, the permitted species list was perhaps a little too permissive for the type of bullet we chose. By switching from hollow point to jacketed soft point we got a bit better penetration for this ammunition, making it more suitable for the animals on the permitted list. However, it is still a rifle for the skilled hunter, and a good shot placement remains essential. The tweak we are introducing today does not make a cannon out of your .303 British Bolt Action Rifle, but it at least turns it into a very decent hunting rifle.
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Howdy hunters,
Here is your weekly piece of news from the EW headquarters.
What’s being worked on
As our team members gradually return from vacation, the office is starting to feel unusually packed and the work has been picking up. For example, we’ve been working on a number of minor tweaks and fixes that we think you’re going to enjoy. Our deployable hunting towers have received some long overdue attention. Two of the less popular ammo calibers have undergone a revamp which will allow you to rediscover a couple of rifles, plus we’ve applied some tweaks to address the rangefinder vs. shot distance discrepancy. All these fixes will be included in the next game update, scheduled for release next week.
Another big thing that we’ve been working on for a while, which we hinted to in our last status update, is a brand new species! Our latest added (huntable) species was the red kangaroo and this time we’ve decided to do a full 180. No clues yet, sorry folks, but we can tell you it’s going to be something very different from what you’re used to seeing in the EHR. Feel free to speculate, we’re looking forward to your ideas and guesses, more details on this wicked animal coming soon!
Tobii Eye Tracking coming to theHunter
As our producer Dan Thornström announced at the GDC Europe 2015 in Cologne this Tuesday, we’ve partnered with another Sweden-based company, Tobii, to bring state-of-the-art eye tracking to theHunter. We implemented it in theHunter: Primal and the response was great. Right now Tobii are in the process of setting everything up and testing the implementation, with the plan to release it at the end of August. What will it mean for you as a theHunter player? Well, if you choose to buy Tobii SteelSeries Sentry eye-tracker, you’ll be able to orient the game’s scene camera with your eyes, so your hunting experience could be even more immersive. We’ll keep you updated on the progress, and we’ll let you know when this feature is due for release.
And a couple of short reminders for the road …
Summer Fiesta Tier 2 is finishing very, very soon. You have just a couple of days left to fight for those silver tickets, which are needed to activate Tier 3 competitions. This battle is not for the weak hearted, but you all know what waits at the end – that amazing 7mm Break Action “Bouquetin”.
There’s also less than one day left to vote for your favourite reserve load outs. So far the amount of votes has been underwhelming to say the least, something we blame on summer, but still – go and tell us which ones you like, we need your votes to make the right choice.
You seem to love the new face scarves for Hemmeldal and Bushrangers Run and based on the feedback we’ve collected, we’ll probably be expanding the line-up. Last but not the least, don’t forget to check out our badass Wild West inspired premium version of the .30-30 Lever-Action Rifle, the lucid and luminous “Lone Star ”– it’s available in the store NOW. Aw, there is also a bundle with it up for grabs!
Happy hunting!
Hi there hunters,
Here is our weekly status update with some bits and pieces from the EW headquarters. It’s still rather quiet here due to the ongoing vacations, but the work is humming as usual as we are working on something new (more details later on).
Dog player survey
Two weeks ago we launched a small survey focused on the release of dogs. About 2000 hunters have completed it and we would like to share with you some results, because we know that you like numbers as much as we do.
First, we asked you how happy you were with the introduction of Labradors, and 60% of respondents said that they were extremely happy, 30% were pretty happy but would like dogs be done better, and only some 9% are either not happy for different reasons or don’t care. We let the numbers speak for themselves:
Then we asked you to rate different aspects of the lab release from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent). Although all the aspects received the weighted average of above 3 (ok – good), the winner is the model (oh hey Oskar!)
Almost everyone who have completed the survey (94%) either have already bought the dog or are going to buy one:
The post-release issues with game crashes and bugs didn’t seem to spoil the enjoyment for too many players, with 12% stating that this was the case.
We are going to leave out results about the requested features, dog breeds and types, not to breed any speculations, but we did take every single suggestions into account.
Here are the lucky winners of our em$ draw, congratulations guys! You will be added 1000 em$ each.
Tbone5543
Mikaeldude
LadyBambi
We also chose our favourite answer to the question: “What feature would you like to be added for your dog?” and the winner is EthanZ with this answer: “I’d like him to go mental and start barking at trees when I say the word ‘squirrels’.” EthanZ receives a medium pack of dog treats for his wit.
3D Camo vests for your dogs
One of the popular features asked for in the survey was camouflage for dogs in form of vests – well, as luck would have it, we have a couple of those for you. Dog’s vests in 3D Summer Field, Summer Swamp and Fall Field camo are now available in the store. They have the same camo characteristics as our good ol’ hunting 3D camo outfits and will conceal your buddy from the most prying eyes. They’ll also look awesome with the matching collar, see it for yourself – here’s Daniel’s dog Gorgonzola rocking her all new Summer Swamp vest right after retrieving a Mallard.
You can buy vests separately in the store, or all together (plus some more dog goodies) in this bundle (available until Tuesday evening).
Important security reminder
I’ve posted it on the forums, but thought I’d mention it here as well: Yesterday we detected a range of unauthorized log in attempts to players’ accounts. (This usually happens when some site’s database gets hacked / leaked and usernames and passwords become available to culprits who then try to log in to other sites using the acquired login details.)
Hence, an important security reminder: if you use the same login email and password on theHunter and other sites, please change both (and make passwords different!). Always remember to use unique passwords on different sites to avoid losing your accounts – you can use special software to manage your passwords, Keepass is free, has good reviews, used by many and seems to be reliable.
Stay safe and happy hunting!
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