Life and Death and Beavers (v1.0.7 Released!)
Today we are releasing the next big update of WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition, with three new features — Age Perks, Ironwolf, and Beavers — plus dozens of smaller improvements and bugfixes. Get an overview in the devblog video and then dive in and try them for yourself! Many thanks to all the beta testers who provided essential feedback over the past weeks. We really appreciate your help!
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Learn more about these new features in the WolfQuest Knowledge Base:
* Age Perks: https://support.wolfquest.org/help/age-perks
* Ironwolf: https://support.wolfquest.org/help/ironwolf
* Beavers: https://support.wolfquest.org/help/hunting-tips
[h2]WolfQuest Update 1.0.7 - Released on 4 May 2021[/h2]
[h3]NEW: [/h3]
* Beavers now live along the Lamar River, Slough Creek, and in the Lost River beaver pond. They are most active at dawn and dusk. When you find a beaver trail, follow the tutorial tip to lie in wait and (hopefully) ambush one. (More info in Game Help: Hunting Beavers)
* Age Perks system offers a selection of physical, clout, and wisdom bonuses for each year of your wolf's life. Once a year, you have the option to advance your wolf in age by one year and select from a new set of perks. On your birthday (in April, just before your pups are born) you will be presented with the Age Perks menu, where you can view all of the Age Perks available at each age. You can select up to three new Age Perks if you wish to advance to the next age. If you advance through the years, your final choice will be whether to advance to age eight, which will make your wolf an Elder Wolf who, at some point, will die. (More info in Game Help: Age Perks)
* Ironwolf mode: In the real world, wolves are one false move or unlucky kick away from death. Now you too can live life on the edge by choosing Ironwolf mode when creating a wolf. This is a hardcore mode for players who really want to live the life of a wild wolf. Ironwolves have only one save, and upon dying will be permanently dead. (More info in Game Help: Ironwolf)
* New "Reminisce" mode: After an Elder Wolf dies, older saved games (from before age eight) use this mode so you can revisit your mate and pups and relive memories, but you cannot save your game.
[h3]IMPROVEMENTS:[/h3]
* Scents: New system for floating scents and ground scent tracks. This should look just like the old scent system, but without some problems that the old system caused (slow performance on Intel integrated graphics; on some newer GPUs, after several hours of playing, screen sometimes would go black, or possibly white, or screwy in some way).
* Revised adaptive music system: Eliminates bugs with out-of-sync tracks. Also modest reduction in memory load from music tracks.
* Enabled headlook when wolf is sitting and lying down (latter only in initial pose).
* Trees in Basic Sky & Vegetation mode move more appropriately with the wind.
* Tweaks to snow coverage on trees (Enhanced mode only).
* Aspen trees in LR now have fall colors, as they did in WQ Classic.
* Scent tracks now disappear quickly when the source dies. (The way they persisted longer was a feature of the new scent system, but it is understandably frustrating, so now they fade at a faster rate. We don't want to remove them instantly or you get the "scent tracks disappear suddenly" bug which is also annoying.)
* New Amethyst episode intro text when starting a new game with an experienced wolf.
* New shader on big glacial erratics (boulders) that eliminates occasional harsh look to them.
* Distant views of landscape are nicer (smoother and softer ground cover, using linear blends instead of heightmap blends).
* Added bite-sfx when biting beaver, fox, and coyote.
* Music ducks (lowers in volume) when alert sounds play.
* Eliminated areas with stretched or discordant texturing in Slough Creek (the creek itself) and the McBride feeder creek.
* Better water effects when wolf is swimming.
* In Amethyst, Very Large Objects (mainly the cliff rocks) now get dynamic snow even on Very Low quality level.
* In Setup New Game, moved Lost River Classic below Slough Creek.
* Updated version of vegetation renderer (for Enhanced Vegetation mode) generally makes trees look better at a distance, but there are a few quirks to refine.
* Enabled Right Ctrl key input for Walk/Stalk (was only Left Ctrl).
* Added music stingers when killing beaver, fox, and coyote.
* Increased moose swimming speed.
[h3]BUGS FIXED:[/h3]
* Multiplayer: Client wolf in stranger territory is not teleported to host when host forces sleep.
* Multiplayer: Host-triggered sleep fails if a client wolf has a meat chunk in mouth.
* When loading MP save, sometimes you get the SP Setup options instead of the MP options.
* Renaming a wolf by only changing the case will result in wolf name being "NPC wolf" in-game.
* Sometimes the family snapshot prompts can appear incorrectly while playing.
* Pups can get stuck, motionless, when swimming against the current.
* Sometimes pups follow mate when the "Raise pups" quest starts.
* Sometimes pups will go into flooded den on their own accord, even when they refuse if so commanded.
* Invisible wolf attacks player-wolf.
* In certain spots, scent posts get destroyed soon after they were created.
* Can't claim territory when competitors are preparing an attack.
* Elder Wolves will have smaller litters than they did when younger.
* Grizzly cub carcass lacks a name.
* Pup icon does not appear on map when moving to a new rendezvous site.
* During the journey quests, dispersal wolves stalk wolf pups and are considered a dangerous predators, and are confused about their purpose.
* Sometimes the mate heads off on a hunting excursion immediately after the pups leave the den for the first time. (Also, some mates go hunting too frequently, so we have set a minimum time at home.)
* Pups gradually increase in size as they grow older, but this size increase was applied only when loading a save, not incrementally during gameplay
* In Basic Sky & Veg mode, in main menu, when in Eye Customization, scene color and brightness are incorrect.
* In Pack Stats, mate's age is truncated if pack name is longish.
* Mate doesn't catch hares anymore.
* In certain situations, camera gets stuck circling above the pack after the end of Journey to Rendezvous Site quest.
* Increased hunger threshold on mate so they will eat even if not very hungry.
* DLC coats are somewhat more likely, instead of very more likely, to be assigned to dispersal wolves and pups.
* Permanent bull elk carcass near LR spawn point.
* One meat chunk floats out in front of the wolf's mouth.
* Water clips in headcam and scent view.
* No grass or sage on Lamar River island.
* Many terrain and water issues.
_______________
WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition is available now for PC/Mac on Steam and itch.io, as Early Access. The game currently includes Episode 1: Amethyst Mountain, Episode 2: Slough Creek, Lost River: Classic, and multiplayer mode in Amethyst and Lost River. (Slough Creek multiplayer is coming soon,.) The mobile version will come after the game (including Slough Creek) is completed on PC/Mac platforms. The next episode, Tower Fall (DLC) will follow. We do not announce specific release dates. We will release them when they are ready!