WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition News

That's right -- we're talking about wolverines today! Of all the animals we've wanted to add to the game, wolverines have been one of our favorites. Wolverines are notoriously fierce and feisty -- with their formidable claws and jaws, they can and do take on larger and more powerful animals. The problem has been that they don't really live in Yellowstone National Park. A survey in 2009 found a few wolverines in only two areas of the park: the southeast and one area of the northern border -- which, as it turns out, is where our upcoming Hellroaring Mountain DLC map is located! So we took this opportunity to add wolverines to the game, only on this new map.

Wolverines will put up a heck of a fight if you challenge them over a carcass. And they've got some new moves you haven't seen before (thanks to animator Zoltán Záhorszki, who created all of the wolverine's animations). Get a sneak peek at our wolverines in today's devblog!

Get a sneak peek at our wolverines in today's devblog!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
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The WolfQuest saga will continue! Stay tuned for more news in upcoming devblogs about it and other new features!

Once the game is completed on PC/Mac, we will consider porting the game to other platforms.

We do not announce specific release dates. We will release them when they are ready.

The upcoming Hellroaring Mountain DLC map is shaping up nicely! Like every game map, it needs a lot of potential den sites. But after making over 90 dens in the other three maps, coming up with some new, interesting dens in HM has been a challenge. Of course we have the standard dirt burrow dens -- the most common type of dens in the real world, along with the tree and rock dens. But how to give some of the Hellroaring dens a fresher look? Inspired by photos of real wolf dens as well as hikes in the wilderness, I came up with several somewhat interesting variations. We're aiming for a spring release of this DLC map.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

___________________

The WolfQuest saga will continue! Stay tuned for more news in upcoming devblogs about it and other new features!

Once the game is completed on PC/Mac, we will consider porting the game to other platforms.

We do not announce specific release dates. We will release them when they are ready.

[h3]NEW:[/h3]
* Unlockable coats (formerly called NPC coats). Now when you raise a pup with one of these coats, that coat is unlocked in Wolf Customization after you generate the summertime Family Tree snapshot. (Only works in new games, not retroactive. There are some cheat-prevention methods in place so you can't share wolf saves with other players to let them unlock a coat.)

* Among real wolves, males are more likely to disperse to find a mate. Females are more likely to stay in their natal (family) pack. We have added this behavior to the game. So now, when looking for a mate, you'll find more males in the dispersal groups, and more females interested in courtship in rival packs. A red heart icon on the compass indicates courtable wolves (when they howl back) and on the Scent View panel.

* Multiplayer map moving: You can now move to another Yellowstone map in multiplayer games.

[h3]CHANGES:[/h3]
* A few pup coats have changed a bit, retroactively (to get better matches in the pup-to-adult coat sequence in the Saga).
[h3]
IMPROVEMENTS:[/h3]
* Persistent Pack code was refactored to make it more robust, which should not have any changes except as noted here, but might create new bugs, please report if you see any!
* Yearlings are now called Yearlings until their second birthday -- but they can potentially disperse before that birthday. (Previously they changed to Subordinates at 18 months of age, to allow dispersing, due to a limitation in the code.)
* Reduced rival pack aggressiveness after player intrudes into their territory from 24 hour cooldown to 8 hours. (So you can return much sooner if you're trying to court a pack wolf.)
* Reduced odds of dispersal wolf finding another dispersal as mate (to reduce dispersal churn).
* Increased odds of mortality for older wolves in rival packs. (Should also make packs a bit more likely to disband periodically.)
* Improvements to 9F coat.
* Adjusted odds of certain wolf coats higher or lower.
* Persistent Packs: Added a delay before widowed pack leaders can find a new mate.
* Wolf nametags are now controlled independently from HUD, using N key to toggle on/off
* Multiplayer: If player goes AFK while in den, their wolf automatically exits the den so as not to prevent game progress.
* Multiplayer: Greatly reduced the number of dispersal wolves in non-Story games (since they aren't needed and can get annoying).
* Increased minimum number of dispersal wolves on each map at any given time.
* Added info about dispersal differences to Find a Mate: Tips text.
* Controller: Enabled auto-scroll when using controller to navigate in Known Wolves panel.
* Controller: Improvements to controller navigation of Known Wolves panel.
* Controller: All Tab menu buttons remain visible now, with highlight of the one selected, to help with navigating the tab buttons.
* Controller, switching tabs with shoulder buttons navigates to left/right from selected button.
[h3]
BUGS FIXED:[/h3]
* Female wolf doesn't look pregnant after going from Establish Territory to Find a Den quest.
* Player-wolf is invisible in scent view when switched to Carmella mode.
* Game stalls when in Reminisce mode and trying to jump ahead to next year (which should not be possible).
* Player-wolf can go beyond the map border when bite-holding prey, which can lead to a long forced-walk back into the map afterwards.
* Multiplayer: Pups repeatedly playbowing the wrong parent when they switch to an absent favorite parent.
* Multiplayer: On Known Wolves panel, dead pack wolves are not synced correctly.
* Longer pack names are truncated on the World Map legend.
* Controller: Can't access Departed Wolves section on Known Wolves panel.
* Known Wolves: Yearlings can die when pack disbands even if old enough to disperse,
* Persistent Packs: Rival packs don't disband (or see other changes) if player has reached the end-date of the current quest.
* Persistent Packs: Unborn pups not removed from rival pack when it disbands.
* Persistent Packs: Unborn pups are not removed from rival pack if female breeder dies.
* Light rain audio is too quiet.
* Mate pathfinding issue near Lost River (DLC) ghost town den.
* When moving to another map with a trial mate, trial period ends automatically when arriving at the other map.
* Lost River DLC: In wintertime, an invisible floor in coffeeshop is higher than the visible floor.
* Known Wolves: Unborn pups immediately grow into yearlings.
* File sync throws an error if manually triggered again while already in progress.
* Pup said to have starved to death when it was really killed (in rare situation).
* Controller: Physical keyboard doesn't work when renaming mate or pup.
* Dispersal wolves go into ranch area.
* Can get stuck underground after certain sequence of events and map-moving in Find Den quest.
* Error after a dispersal NPC group fought a territory NPC group and won.
* Error when loading saves from a short period of 2021.
* Known Wolves: Dispersals can return to a natal pack that no longer exists.
* Error thrown when trying to delete many save games
* Pathfinding issues at several dens.
* Typo in rival pack name.
* Various terrain issues.


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See all patch notes here.

At last, the second chapter of our documentary video series about the history of WolfQuest. This chapter covers the continued development of the original game from 2008 through the end of the project in 2012...and then the revival as WolfQuest 2.7 in 2015.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We've got a new public beta out on Steam and, along with the usual variety of bugfixes and minor improvements, it has three notable new things:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

1) In multiplayer games, you can now move between Yellowstone maps (currently Amethyst Mountain and Slough Creek) whenever you don't have pups, same as in single-player. Run to a section of border with the "To [Map Name]" label and you'll be asked if you want to move (using the procedures of either Host Decides or Majority Rules).

2) The devblog a few weeks ago talked about how, among real wolves, males are more likely to disperse to find a mate, while females are more likely to stay in their natal (family) pack. We have added this behavior to the game. So now, when looking for a mate, you'll find more males in the dispersal groups, and more females interested in courtship in rival packs. To make it easier to find a prospective mate, we've also added some visual clues: a red heart icon indicates courtable wolves on the compass (when they howl back) and on the Scent View panel.

3) For several years now, NPCs in the game (rival wolves, dispersal wolves, and grown-up pups) have sometimes had an "NPC Coat" -- a coat that is not available to players in Wolf Customization, so it's restricted to those NPCs. We've decided to open these up by making them unlockable. So now, if you raise a pup who has one of these coats, when you make them a playable adult wolf (in the Family Tree), the coat is unlocked so you can select it for your own wolves. This is not retroactive, so it will only occur in new games (in this beta and then the v1.1.1g patch release) that you start fresh. (Note that we have some cheat prevention code in there so you can't trade wolves with the coat. You must start a new game (or jump ahead to next year) and raise the pup on the same computer. After the Family Tree snapshot is generated and the coat is unlocked, it's then registered to your WolfQuest account – so it'll remain unlocked if you get a new computer. If you don't have a game account, it'll remain unlocked on that computer.)

See what else is new and improved in the beta notes here.

This public beta is available on Steam now for Mac and Windows.


___________________

The WolfQuest saga will continue! Stay tuned for more news in upcoming devblogs about it and other new features!

Once the game is completed on PC/Mac, we will consider porting the game to other platforms.

We do not announce specific release dates. We will release them when they are ready.