WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition News

1.0.5a - released 25 September 2020

NOTE: On some Mac computers, the pack territory overlay does not appear on the World Map. We have been unable to reproduce this so have added additional debug code to this patch. If you have this problem, please submit a bug report (F11 or via ESC - Options menu.)

IMPROVEMENTS:
* When client-player is leaving multiplayer game, we added explanatory text about wolf staying in limbo state for five minutes if the player is returning soon.
* When using a controller, controller icons appear now in mission intro panels instead of keyboard icons.
* When viewing a message from a pack, the Reply button now opens the Packs panel so the player can reply to everyone.

BUGS FIXED:
* Various connection issues when creating or joining a multiplayer game. (Fixes for several of these, along with better notifications. Quite possibly some similar bugs remain, so please submit reports if you experience them.)
* Players occasionally encounter enormous packs with 30 or more stranger wolves. (Possible fix in this beta, but if it happens to you, we need reports from host and other players.)
* In Accounts, Add Friend and Add to Pack input fields do not allow underscores or similar special characters.
* Occasionally players are unable to leave the game while sleeping because the "Are you sure" notification is not shown.
* When changing region in multiplayer lobby, the notification stays on longer than necessary.
* In Accounts: Add Friend, username remains in text field after sending the request.
* In Accounts: Packs: you can send a Pack message without a subject line.
* Some animals are missing snow after dying.
* Some unnecessary words removed from badwords filter.

After the excitement of releasing of multiplayer last week, it’s nice to get back to one of my favorite things: working on the terrain. While Mikko and Andrei work on bugfixes for multiplayer and Tommi is now deep in testing and tweaking the Slough Creek quests, I’ve spent some time on ice. Ice floes, that is. I realized that we needed a transitional state for McBride Lake and other water bodies in early spring, and that called for some new 3D models of ices floes and chunks. We brought in 3D artist Donovin Peterman to create these, and today’s devblog video looks at the process of setting them up in the game. Perhaps not as exciting as pups, but I think they add something to early spring in Slough Creek as you search for a den.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

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, Lost River: Classic, and multiplayer mode in both maps. Slough Creek is in development! 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!

IMPORTANT: To fix a critical bug listed below, this version is not compatible with the last official version (1.0.5), so the multiplayer lobby will only show games on the same version (either 1.0.5 or 1.0.5a beta). This will be the case until we release 1.0.5a for everyone, which we plan to do soon.

[h3]1.0.5a beta 2 - released 23 September 2020[/h3]

This beta is currently only available for Windows computers.

IMPROVEMENTS:
* When client-player is leaving multiplayer game, we added explanatory text about wolf staying in limbo state for five minutes if the player is returning soon.
* When using a controller, controller icons appear now in mission intro panels instead of keyboard icons.
* When viewing a message from a pack, the Reply button now opens the Packs panel so the player can reply to everyone.

BUGS FIXED:
* Game stalls out when trying to create or join multiplayer game, or returns to main menu. (We've fixed a couple bugs with this, but there may be others still, so please submit a bug report if it happens.)
* Players occasionally encounter enormous packs with 30 or more stranger wolves. (Possible fix in this beta, but if it happens to you, we need reports from host and other players.)
* Some unnecessary words removed from badwords filter.

[h3]1.0.5a beta 3 - released 24 September 2020[/h3]

IMPORTANT: To fix a critical bug listed below, this version is not compatible with the last official version (1.0.5), so the multiplayer lobby will only show games on the same version (either 1.0.5 or 1.0.5a beta). This will be the case until we release 1.0.5a for everyone, which we plan to do soon.

BUGS FIXED:
* In multiplayer, if some players are using this beta version and others using the last official version (1.0.5), wolves have generic "NPC Wolf" names.
* Occasionally players are unable to leave the game while sleeping because the "Are you sure" notification is not shown.

[h3]1.0.5a beta 4 - released 24 September 2020[/h3]

BUGS FIXED
* Various connection issues when creating or joining a multiplayer game. (Fixes for several of these, along with better notifications. Quite possibly some similar bugs remain, so please submit reports if you experience them.)
* In Accounts, Add Friend and Add to Pack input fields do not allow underscores or similar special characters.

[h3]1.0.5a beta 5 - released 23 September 2020[/h3]

IMPORTANT: To fix a critical bug listed below, this version is not compatible with the last official version (1.0.5), so the multiplayer lobby will only show games on the same version (either 1.0.5 or 1.0.5a beta). This will be the case until we release 1.0.5a for everyone, which we plan to do soon.

BUGS FIXED
* When changing region in multiplayer lobby, the notification stays on longer than necessary.
* In Accounts: Add Friend, username remains in text field after sending the request.
* In Accounts: Packs: you can send a Pack message without a subject line.

[h3]1.0.5a beta 5 - released 24 September 2020[/h3]

BUGS FIXED
* When changing region in multiplayer lobby, the notification stays on longer than necessary.
* In Accounts: Add Friend, username remains in text field after sending the request.
* In Accounts: Packs: you can send a Pack message without a subject line.

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[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.

We have released multiplayer for WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition! It’s available now in v1.0.5, and your game should automatically update via Steam or the WolfQuest game launcher. Multiplayer truly is the reason that WolfQuest has survived since the very first release in 2007 and we are thrilled to finally bring it back in Anniversary Edition. We are still calling it a "beta" since we have more bug fixes, refinements, and improvements -- but now it's a beta for everyone to play.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

NEW: MULTIPLAYER!
* Create a public game that anyone can see in the multiplayer lobby and join.
* Create a private game with restricted access: All friends, Selected friends, or Packs. Only the selected players will see the game in the multiplayer lobby.
* Choose from two modes: Territory Quest, where players try to claim and maintain territory, and Pack Life, where players have an enforced no-mans-land (much like in single-player) so they don't have to worry about holding territory.
* Choose text chat or no chat. (For players under age 13, text chat is available only in private games with friends and packs. We will be adding phrase chat soon, which will be an option for everyone in all types of games.)
* NOTE: When creating and joining multiplayer games, please select the region and game with the lowest latency (under 150ms when possible). This will help keep latency (ping) as low as possible, minimizing in-game lag and teleporting for yourself and everyone else.

MULTIPLAYER-ONLY FEATURES
* If killed, you can revive yourself after ten seconds.
* If very low on health, use the new Quick Heal action, which converts some food in your stomach to health. Can only restore some health (capped at 40%). On keyboard, lay down, then press-hold the R key. On controller, lay down, then press-hold Y button and right trigger simultaneously.
* Pack Rally: If most players howl simultaneously, everyone earns a stamina boost, which lasts for about six minutes.
* On the World Map, other player-markers are displayed only when they are within two kilometers. If they howl, their marker will appear and remain displayed for one minute. If players do a Pack Rally, everyone's markers will be displayed for everyone else for the duration of the rally.
* When a player leaves the game, they indicate if they are planning to return soon or not. If returning soon, their wolf is put into limbo for five minutes and if they return within that time, they can resume where they were. This also occurs if they leave abruptly without clicking the Quit or Main Menu buttons (such as if they are disconnected from the game).

PACKS:
* In your Account panel, you can create a Pack (private group) and invite friends to join it.
* Send messages to pack members. (NOTE: There are a few known bugs with this: If a pack member sends a message, everyone but the host receives it, and you cannot reply to messages sent to a pack. The next patch should fix both of those issues.)
* When creating a new multiplayer game, select one or more packs to have private access to it.

NOTE ABOUT GAME SIMULATION
The game host runs the entire simulation, so more powerful CPUs can handle bigger simulations than weaker CPUs. The host's game runs a CPU benchmark test when starting a new game and uses that to set a cap on the number of spawned animals. If players mostly stay together, they should rarely be affected by this cap, but if there are a lot of players and they spread out, it's possible (especially if the host has a weaker CPU) to hit that cap. (The cap ranges from 50 animals for weak CPUs to 120 for powerful CPUs.)

FEATURES STILL TO COME
We have many more features and refinements still to come, including:
* Controller support for Accounts panels, add some missing controls for multiplayer creation.
* Refinements to wolf and NPC animal turning (headlook, etc).
* Add multiple spawn points and different territory configuration for each.
* Host can name their pack.
* Phrase Chat
* MP Lobby filtering options.
* Improve jumping and falling as seen by other players.
* Enable contact emotes.
* Add descriptive tags that host can select when creating MP game.

BUGS FIXED:
* On some Mac computers, the Health and Hunger meters are empty when in Enhanced Sky & Vegetation mode. (Apparently some Mac systems do not support the new shine effect used during Quick Heal, so we have disabled that effect on all Macs, since there is no way to identify on which Macs it is a problem.)
* Grizzlies don't have correct swim animation.
* Some unnecessary words in the badwords list.
* Terrain texturing discrepancies.
* It's darkest before the dawn.....too dark.

It's time for the monthly contest to win a free copy of WolfQuest! Lucky winners will receive a free copy of WolfQuest 2.7 (and PC/Mac users will also get WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition Early Access for PC and Mac)! Winners can choose to get any version of the game (Mac/Windows, Android, iOS, Kindle). Or you can also choose the WolfQuest Soundtrack and Music Extras if you already own the game.

[h2]This Month's Contest[/h2]
Email your username (any username is fine, we just have to know what to call the winners) and your answer to the question: "What are three interesting facts about wolves?" to the email address [email protected]

[h2]Deadline[/h2]
All entries must be received by midnight (Eastern Daylight Time) on Thursday, September 24, 2020.

[h2]Random Drawing[/h2]
Winners are selected randomly from complete entries. Please enter only once in each monthly contest. Each complete entry will be assigned a number. We will then use a random-number generator to generate three numbers. The entries bearing those numbers will each win a free copy of the game.