WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition News

The WolfQuest Original Soundtrack and Music Extras is on sale -- 30% off -- for Steam's Lunar New Year Sale!

The soundtrack includes all the new music from Slough Creek as well as all the tracks from Amethyst and Lost River maps. Thats' 80 tracks in all and over two and a half hours of original music.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Also included: a 25-minute video featuring Tim Buzza talking about how he created the signature sound of WolfQuest and many memorable tracks in the game.

The sale runs through midday on February 15th:
* On Steam.
* On Itch.io.

The Public Beta for v1.0.6k (beta 8) is now available in the Public Beta branch, see instructions below on how to access it. This beta is for Windows only. This features our new save-game system, which means that saved games and wolves from this version are not backward-compatible with the last official release (v1.0.6j). If you think you may want to switch back, please make a backup of the Wolf Quest Anniversary folder on your computer. (It's in Documents on Windows and your user directory on Mac.).

[h2]Beta 8 - 6 February[/h2]

[h3]IMPROVEMENTS:[/h3]
* Rewritten save game system, which should be more robust and reliable, reducing the changes of a corrupted save. This also includes improvements to the wolf files, e.g. you can now rename a wolf without having to create a duplicate. More improvements are coming soon.
* More placenames added to Slough Creek map.
* Reduced territory decay (after pups arrive) in Accurate difficulty.
* Reduced the maximum strength for stranger wolf hexes at the start of Slough Creek, to give players more time to claim hexes before the strangers start expanding.
* All the ground clutter and other objects (like fossil forest and ranger cabin) are switched to new shader with dynamic snow that better matches snow on terrains.
* Added confirmation dialog after clicking to move to a new den or rendezvous site.
* New music sfx when entering another hex in your territory, when creating a scent post, when hex strength reaches 100%, when discovering a den, when a pup is sick and when a pup recovers.

[h3]BUGS FIXED:[/h3]
* Many music fixes. A few remain, but please report if you hear any.
* When pups first emerge from den, player spawns on rock at far NE rock den.
* Added tip about Pupcam to Pup Interaction tutorial tip.
* Terrain and water tweaks.
* Bull elk antlers (springtime) have too-close LOD distance.
* Main Menu grass density is inconsistent in quality levels.
* Rock den lacks water when flooded.
* Several patches of tall grass are floating above the ground in First Meadow.
* Player-wolf can glitch inside several rock dens if they try.
* Dirt den roots are disconnected from den ceiling.
* Mule Deer fawn and grizzly cubs have wrong/missing scent glows.
* Newborn elk calves are invisible when hiding in grass. (Actually not invisible, just very very small.)

[h3]TO GET THE BETA BUILD[/h3]
1) In the Steam app, go to your Library, then right-click on the WolfQuest: AE name in the left column and choose Properties.
2) Then go to the Betas tab and select the WQ current Beta option in the pulldown. No password is necessary. Steam should then start downloading it. Later you can switch back to the public version in that Betas tab, by selecting NONE in that pulldown.


[h2]Beta 9 - 7 February[/h2]

BUGS FIXED:
* Errors during saving in multiplayer games.
* If in multiplayer game with host on the last released version (not the beta), you cannot create a scent mark.
* A newly-created wolf is considered "experienced" (i.e. has finished Amethyst previously) if you create it right after modifying an experienced wolf.

[h2]Beta 10 - 8 February[/h2]

IMPROVEMENTS:
* In Slough Creek spring and summer, replaced several terrain textures with new textures that don't have such obvious tiling patterns.

BUGS FIXED:
* Multiple notifications about pup recovered from sickness appear at the very start of Raise Pups quest.
* Tutorial tips about mate and pup commands appear before Raise Pups quest intro.
* When moving to a new den or rendezvous site, the Moving Day music sometimes does not play.

[h2]Beta 11 - 9 February[/h2]

BUGS FIXED:
* Game can freeze sometimes during courtship, and when hunting.
* Odd white squares appear on compass in multiplayer games.
* Slough Creek saved game fails to load (fixed one cause of this).
* Water and terrain issues.

[h2]Beta 13 - 12 February[/h2]

[h2BUGS FIXED:[/h2]
* Game gets stuck loading into multiplayer if player previously entered MP or SP game but left very quickly.
* Some account register/login issues.
* Players can create a wolf without a name.
* At far northeast rock den, player spawns on rock edge when pups first emerge.
* Terrain and water issues.

[h2]Beta 14 - 12 February[/h2]

[h2BUGS FIXED:[/h2]
* Sometimes the difficulty level changes when loading a saved game.
* Various bugs with ungulate music in multiplayer games.
* Various bugs with music during den attacks.
* Aspen trees near cliffs in Amethyst are missing in Basic Sky & Veg mode.
* Bull elk bugling audio does not carry very far.
* Terrain and water issues.

A few weeks ago, we asked players to send in their ideas for placenames for the expanded Slough Creek map in the WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition. We received many, which made it hard to choose from so many great ideas. Thank you, everyone, who participated.  In today’s video we look at the final placenames that we have selected for the map.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The team is working away: Andrei has been fixing music bugs. Mikko rewrote the saved game system. Tommi is refactoring the scent system. There will be a new patch coming up next week with the map placenames and all these improvements.

Happy Groundhog Day, a few days late. Yellowstone marmots are in deep hibernation at this time of the year and, with an Arctic blast settling in over Minnesota, Dave, Susan, George, and Carmella think they have the right idea.  

______________
WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition is a complete remake of the original game. We have released two episodes: Amethyst Mountain and now the Slough Creek, as well as the Lost River Classic map, for PC/Mac on Steam and itch.io, as Early Access.

While in Early Access, we are updating the game frequently with more features and multiplayer (available now for Amethyst Mountain and coming soon for Slough Creek). The mobile version will come after the game is completed on PC/Mac platforms. Future expansions such as Tower Fall  will  be DLC.

We aren’t posting a dev blog video this week but we all are busy working. Mikko has been rewriting the save game system to make it more reliable and robust. Tommi has been fixing bugs and making improvements to the scent system to eliminate some long-standing bugs. Andrei has been working on music bugs. Dave has been working on a variety of upcoming things like DLC coats and beavers. George is working on the Achievements. Susan is keeping busy with some animal research and updating Wolfopedia and the Knowledge Base.

In case you missed it, we released a couple of Patches this week: https://support.wolfquest.org/help/patches-wolfquest-anniversary-edition Your game will update automatically. The most interesting new addition are the new dispersal coat variations that we talked about in last week's video (link below).

Thank you to everyone who sent in Slough Creek place name ideas! We are looking through those and will add some new place names pretty soon. You can still submit your ideas - see last week’s video "Faces and Places” for how to do that: https://youtu.be/qmw7SbM_LLI

**********
We have released two episodes: Amethyst Mountain and Slough Creek, as well as the Lost River Classic map, for PC/Mac on Steam and itch.io, as Early Access.

While in Early Access, we are updating the game frequently with more features and multiplayer (available now for Amethyst Mountain and coming soon for Slough Creek).

The mobile version will come after the game is completed on PC/Mac platforms.

We’ll then resume development of the next episode, the Tower Fall expansion (DLC).

We are rolling this patch out today. It's out on Steam for Windows, with other platforms coming in the next few hours. This patch is out on all platforms now.

[h3]BUGS FIXED:[/h3]
* Scent track readouts do appear.
* Controls remappers sometimes ignores input to assign a new key or controller button.
* Display and input issues with Friends/Pack panel.
* Terrain and water issues.

For non-Steam-Windows platforms, this patch also incorporates the short-lived 1.0.6i patch that we released yesterday for Steam-Windows:

[h3]IMPROVEMENTS:[/h3]
* Tweaked the way the scents are laid down behind animals as they move, considerably reducing the delays involved in that.

[h3]BUGS FIXED:[/h3]
* For some players, the Shake Off inputs (A and D keys; left stick wiggle on controller) don't work to shake off attacking wolves.
* Pupcam can follow pups into the den.
* In spring and summer, grizzly cubs switch to older cub body upon dying.
* Snow accumulates on ground around tree dens in late spring and summer, when it should not.
* Terrain and water issues.