WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition News

Our top priority over the last several months has been multiplayer modes for the Saga. We're making good progress but it's not ready for public beta yet -- but here's a preview of those modes:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We are expanding the "Story" mode to last through a full year, from Establish Territory to the end of Young Hunter in the following winter. This is now called "Saga Year" and, like in Story mode, you can have up to five players, all acting as members of a family pack. When playing in this mode, the game ends upon completion of the Young Hunters quest, before the next litter of pups is born, because things would get pretty complicated with the pups of the year aging up to yearlings, and yearlings to subordinates, etc -- especially with players coming and going as often happens in public multiplayer games.

But we know that some players really want to have the full Saga experience in multiplayer, so for them we are creating a new "Full Saga" mode which does continue, year after year, until one player dies as an Elder Wolf. This mode has some restrictions: two players, only in a private game, and using the same wolf throughout the entire game. We intend this mode to be for friends who have the time and commitment to devote many hours playing through to the end.

We're deep in private beta testing and expect to be for awhile longer, but we're getting there, so stay tuned for updates!

We're delighted to announce that Jessie Clarey-Berthiaume, AKA Loach, is now officially the WolfQuest Community Manager! Loach is a longtime player and beta tester, and for years now she has been invaluable as a moderator on WolfQuest Steam Discussions, on our Discord, and on Reddit. She brings her deep knowledge of the game along with a deft touch to social media moderation, and we're glad to finally make her an official member of the WolfQuest Team. In addition to moderating our social media, she will handle multiplayer abuse reports, player support, and more (including icons for new achievements)!

In a game with so many elements and subsystems, it's natural for players to make their own hypotheses about how things work -- but it's not always easy to prove or disprove those even by playing the game over and over. So today we'll look at a few myths that have arisen about the game over the years, and then look at other mysteries about the game's development and history.

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Questions addressed:

Are elk who hold their head up/back weaker than other elk? (0:35)

Do fleas cause sickness in pups? (1:10)

Do meat chunks have different food values? (1:31)

What goes into a wolf's diversity rating? (1:52)

How are pups' coats determined? (2:37)

Will we ever be able to raid rival wolves' dens? (3:11)

Will multiplayer ever have pack vs. pack mode? (5:17)

Are there any plans to make more maps that connect to Lost River?(6:27)

Are there any other maps planned after Tower Fall? (6:53)

Are you going to make more animal quest games after WolfQuest? (7:46)

An essential (and enjoyable) part of making game maps for WolfQuest is visiting the real locations, so we can see, feel, and sometimes smell what they're really like. We've visited the Tower Fall area on all four of our visits to the park since 2017 -- and most of the shots in today's video come from that first video, when we were still thinking of Tower Fall as the next episode of the game. Now, of course, with the saga out, Tower Fall is simply another DLC map, coming later this year.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The Tower Fall map is west of the main game maps and south of Hellroaring Mountain. Back when we started planning this map, it was going to be square and only 4x4km (which is what we were originally planning for all the game maps). But we soon expanded that to 7x7km -- and then, looking at the topography of this area, we realized that this needed to be rectangular rather than square. So now the map extends from the actual Tower Fall waterfall in the north corner of the map to Mount Washburn in the southwest corner.

In our visits, we hiked down to the Tower Creek-Yellowstone confluence, and up along the Yellowstone River shore, and along Tower Creek above the fall -- but we could not hike into the heart of the map. Almost all of that area, the main extent of the Antelope Creek watershed, is a Bear Management Area, where hiking is not allowed. But at least we have main Grand Loop Road that runs the length of the game map. It offers some spectacular views of Antelope Creek and its tributaries. Wide open spaces, rolling grasslands with patches of forest -- just what wolves like!

We'll share more about the Tower Fall map development as we go, so stay tuned!

[h3]BUGS FIXED:[/h3]
* Player-wolf gets stuck if attacked while outside map border.
* Multiplayer: Revive doesn't work in some situations, especially on Lost River ranch.
* Map-moving stalls if a persistent wolf somehow gets destroyed while in off-map storage.
* Rival pack homesites shuffled up if returning to a map with an ex-player pack.