WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition News

Being a wolf is dangerous business. You have to stick your face right into the thick of it, biting animals that weigh three or or four times more than you do. Wolves can take a beating and survive -- but sometimes they get hurt. So, to represent that, beyond the damage and health system, we've been thinking about adding an injury system to the game for a long time. But the question has always been how to make injuries into good gameplay. Having just a random change of getting an injury, and a penalty to an attribute, doesn't seem fair (even though that's realistic).

We mulled over this, periodically, for a couple years, and then, last summer George came up with the idea of injury tiers: You can get a minor injury any time, with a small penalty, and then, while you have that minor injury and before it heals, you have a chance of getting a major injury. So once you have a minor injury, you must decide how much risk you want to take on, given your current situation.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

This adds a nice element of risk and reward for player tactics. So we refined that into what we've now built in the game. At any time, when taking damage, there's small of getting a minor injury. If you do, that injury stresses your body (and perhaps you're compensating a bit for it), so then you're at risk of getting a major injury, which has a much bigger penalty. Both kinds of injuries heal -- minor heals faster than major, of course, and both heal faster when your health is high. To keep track of your injuries, we've revised the Pack Info layout so you can see exactly what's going on: what kind of injuries you currently have, and what effects they have.

Most injuries don't have a physical manifestation, but major leg injuries do -- which means we're bringing back Limpy! In WolfQuest 2.7/Classic, Limpy was based on a real Yellowstone wolf who had a permanent limp. But wolves also get injuries which cause temporary limps, and that’s what we are representing in this new injury system. And now you can get a leg injury and thus a limp on any leg (not just the rear right leg, like the original Limpy).

This new injury system is coming in the next patch (probably in several weeks) along with a new DLC pack featuring cosmetic injuries (and ten new coats)! Stay tuned for more about that!
________________________________________

The WolfQuest saga will continue! Stay tuned for more news in upcoming devblogs. More maps and wolf customizations are also coming in 2022!

Once the game is completed on PC/Mac, we will turn our attention to other platforms.

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

We love reading players' comments and questions about WolfQuest -- and there are so many questions! So, for today's devblog, I thought I'd answer a handful of them. The text below has concise answers to each one, but please watch the video for more expansive answers.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Are there any plans to make territory hex colors customizable?

This is not a big task -- but we have a list of more than one hundred minor improvements that we'd like to make to the game, and it's a constant struggle trying to prioritize them. Which ones offer the most the bang for the buck? Which should we do now or soon, knowing that they'll take some time away from work on the Saga, and which should we set aside for the future? So, this one is on the list, but, honestly, it's pretty far down the list.

In the Saga, if all your pups die, will the year continue on rather than resetting you into the past like it currently does?

Yes, if all your pups die you'll just keep on playing. Time will continue to pass, through the seasons. If it's your first litter of pups that died, then you and your mate will just hang out and live the rest of the year hunting and exploring and whatnot. In subsequent years, you'll have your yearlings until the next pups are born in the springtime.

When the pups are older, there will be more emphasis on establishing dominance?

No. Wolf packs generally are a family unit, and they don't have intra-pack dominance challenges of that sort. I posed this very question to one of our advisors, Dr. Dan Stahler, wolf biologist at Yellowstone National Park, about this sort of drama -- a three-year-old offspring challenging a parent for the breeder role. But he reaffirmed that this is simply not known to happen. If they want to lead a pack, they disperse and look for a good situation.

Will the Saga be released in stages or all at once?

There are some aspects of the saga that we will be rolling out incrementally -- the courtship overhaul that we released last month was one of those. There will be others but much of the Saga consists of interlocking parts that don't work properly alone, so the bulk of the Saga will be released all together.

Will there be any new achievements when the Saga is released?

Yes!

Will there be collectible objects on the new Lost River map?

Yes!

Will i be able to bring my mate from Lost River to Slough Creek or Amethyst or vice versa?

No, for several reasons. One is that Lost River is some distance away from Yellowstone (though as a fictional locale, we don't know exactly where or how far). While wolves have been known to travel very long distances, generally those are solo wolves who are looking for a new place to have a territory and find a mate. But maybe more importantly, Lost River is its own world. Some weird things have happened there. Whereas we want to make the Yellowstone maps as realistic as we can, Lost River is an alternate universe where we can have some fun, and I don't want to connect it to the reality of Yellowstone.

Will there be a multiplayer mode where you can put players in different packs and have territory battles?

We have thought about this since starting work on Anniversary Edition. It sounds fun and certainly would be realistic in many ways -- but multiplayer has evolved in ways that make PvP much harder to implement properly. In addition to the usual measures necessary to prevent cheating, we would need to somehow handle special functionality like teleporting which has a legitimate use in the game, but could be abused by malicious players. So this still remain on the back burner, at least for now.

Will we be able to change who gets to be the host if the current host needs to leave?

This feature, called host migration, is obviously very desirable. It's also technically challenging, but we do plan to look into it sometime.

Where are the bighorn sheep?

We've been planning to add bighorn sheep for quite awhile but, because they spend their time up on and around the cliffs, we first need to improve the physics and IK and grounding functionality so they can navigate those areas nicely.

Where are the toads?

Years ago, a devblog showed a pup pouncing on a toad. We are still thinking of adding toads, probably as part of some new pup play and practice-hunting behaviors.

Are there any major parts of the game development process that often don't get shown in devlogs?

Good question! Yes, most parts of game development don't get shown on devlogs, because it's just not particularly interesting to watch our developers Tommi, Mikko, and Andrei coding on their computers. But that is the most essential work of all, of course. So you can get a glimpse of it in today's video.

What are the team's favorite and least favorite bugs?

For me, it's always the goofy graphical bugs that we've featured in many devblogs. Tommi likes bugs that are easy to reproduce and hard to solve. Mikko's least favorite is the Windows file system issue -- this is the main reason why games fail to load, because for for some mysterious reason, Windows can't find the save-game file that it just showed you 20 seconds earlier. And Andrei's favorite bug is from 2019: an enormous mule deer that fills the screen and has big bright eyes.

What's been your favorite part of developing the Lost River map so far?

I've been having a lot of fun developing it, setting up a lot of neat little locations -- but if I shared them here, I would have to delete this devblog before anybody saw. So you'll just have to wait!

In what ways has the community helped shape the game?

First of all, the game wouldn't exist without the community, which initially formed back in 2007 before the game was even released. And the fact that the community continued playing the game after development stopped in 2011 made me think in 2014 that maybe we should revive this thing. And then enough people bought WolfQuest 2.7 that I thought maybe we could start over and remake the entire game. So, fundamentally, the community is responsible for the game. But going beyond that, players have suggested many things that have truly informed game development. On top of that, public and private beta testers have helped shape the direction of all the new features and gameplay that we've been developing. So ultimately it's been a collaboration between the team and our ideas about what kind of game want to make, and wolf researchers who have published an enormous amount of knowledge about wolf biology and ecology, and our players who contribute their energy and ideas and suggestions about what kind of game they want to play.

What is your favorite place in Yellowstone?

Slough Creek, especially First Meadow, have been my favorite for awhile, but on our last visit in September, we explored a few new areas. We hiked up Bunsen Peak, which was spectacular. We hiked into a new (to us) area of the Northern Range, which is likely going to be another DLC map after Tower Fall. We're not ready to announce where exactly that is, but it has that combination of mountains and valleys and forests and grasslands and rivers and a couple special spots that will make an excellent map.

Are there more wolf coats coming?

Yes! We're now working on a new DLC pack which will have more new coats, which brings me to a question for you all: Would you like to nominate a Yellowstone wolf with a beautiful coat to be included in this next DLC? If so, please post that wolf's name in the comments below -- and if you have a link to a nice photo of that wolf, please include that. We will look them over and see what we can do!

________________________________________

The WolfQuest saga will continue! Stay tuned for more news in upcoming devblogs. More maps and wolf customizations are also coming in 2022!

Once the game is completed on PC/Mac, we will turn our attention to other platforms.

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

[h3]IMPROVEMENTS:[/h3]
* Optimizations to movement code.
* Improvements to pathfinding around large obstacles.
* Wolf fights now don't block friendly courtship interactions.
* Increased tall grass rendering distance (so fawn/calf doesn't appear before it does, at least not as noticeably)
* "Hanging with the Pups" music now plays at rendezvous site as well as at den.
* Controller: Changed Left D-pad to Nametags and Down D-pad to Photo Mode (in singleplayer) and Chat (in multiplayer).
* Controller: On Load Game panel, when Filter popout is displayed, pressing "B" button now closes Filter popup instead of closing Load Game panel entirely.
* Controller: On Emotes panel, left/right shoulder bumpers are now used to switch between emote categories, instead of right thumbstick.
* Emotes: Current Favorite emote is now indicated with small "Favorite" text below it, and the glow-highlight that previously indicated that is now used as better feedback about which emote is currently highlighted by mouse or controller thumbstick.
* Emotes panel: Increased delay (from 0.5 seconds to 0.75s) upon selecting an emote before right joystick is active for camera control again.
* Courtship Emotes panel: Assigned correct icon for Confident Tail Wag.
* Setup New Multiplayer Game: Added popup about game modes.
* In Game Settings, increased height of Frame Rate dropdown menu to show all options.
* Enlarged Controls Mapping image (of keyboard, controller, or Steam Deck) for better readability on small screens.
* Updates to Game Help: Learn to Hunt.
* Added custom quest intro text in Lost River for experienced wolves.

[h3]BUGS FIXED:[/h3]
* Pack wolves turn hostile after courtship if there's more than one group present. (Fixed by adding rejections to all spawned flocks sharing packs with the courting flocks.)
* Starting new courtship with NPC wolf immediately after rejecting trial mate causes problems.
* Maximum possible initial courtship level of interest is lower than it should be.
* Growling during fights still chases courtables away.
* Mate hangs around den after heading off on their own. (Reason: It has been "defeated" by something and interrupted their trip, yet not properly returning home either.)
* Autosave fails to fire when completing quests (so Experienced tag is not applied to wolf when completing Learn to Hunt quest).
* Pup cannot be targeted if you take it with you to hunting and then summon your mate (because your mate woofs to put all pups in the den before joining you, and the pup with you responds to that command even though far from den). (Fixed now, but it's still not recommended to bring pups on hunting or marking excursions. They really would rather stay back at the den.)
* NPC animals don't consider other animals to be obstacles (so they sometimes clip through other animals or get stuck walking in place behind them).
* Multiplayer: "Waiting for Others" notification locks up screen so player can't do anything.
* Multiplayer: Sometimes pups are outside the den at the start of Raise Pups quest, until the pups exit the den.
* Multiplayer: Disconnected alert is not always displayed if game loses connection with multiplayer server during loading process.
* Multiplayer: Sometimes chat from previous game is carried over into new game.
* Multiplayer: Spawning errors can cause lag for awhile.
* Multiplayer: Autosave fails during Age Perks/Birthday and Newborn Pups.
* Multiplayer: Can't close the "Submit report" alert after another player submits a bug report.
* Multiplayer: AFK players are still considered online for a little while in terms of quest progression.
* Mate keeps stopping mid-chase to growl.
* In-game messages: "Attempting to send message" notification can get stuck onscreen.
* Bug in View Pack panel can cause interface to stop responding to clicks.
* Can't access UI panels after sending friend request.
* Extra notifications sometimes appear when sending messages or adding users to pack.
* Can't reject a trial wolf.
* Account registration: Username field accepts spaces.
* "Ride of the Wapiti" music plays during parts of the elk showdown.
* Controller: Saved Game panels: Cannot use Delete Multiple option properly.
* Controller: Custom rebindings interfere with Emote panel RB/LB input.
* Controller: Can't rename pack in Pack Info panel.
* Controller: Can't dismiss Disconnected from Multiplayer notification.
* Controller: "Use controller?" notification appears after controller is already enabled to use.
* Elk can accidentally kill a raven, causing errors.
* In Slough Creek, distant flooded ponds flicker in fog.
* Terrain and water issues.

We have finally updated the WolfQuest Soundtrack DLC with new music tracks added to the game last year: Age Perks, Waiting for a Beaver, Premonition, and A Peaceful Passing.

And we've decided to make a documentary video, "Tim Buzza and the Music of WolfQuest," which was part of the Soundtrack and Music Extras package, freely available to everyone now. We created this video back in 2016 during the WolfQuest 2.7 era, and it features Tim Buzza talking about how he created the signature sound of WolfQuest and many memorable tracks in the game. Enjoy!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

If you already own the soundtrack, it should auto-update on Steam, while on itch.io you'll need to download the full package again. If you don't own it, you can buy it here on Steam.

________________________________________

The WolfQuest saga will continue! Stay tuned for more news in upcoming devblogs. More maps and wolf customizations are also coming in 2022!

Once the game is completed on PC/Mac, we will turn our attention to other platforms.

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

Multiplayer in this beta IS compatible with the last patch, v1.0.8j, so you can play games with others who have that version. This patch is available for Windows and MacOS.


[h2]BETA 1 (7 March 2022)[/h2]

[h3]IMPROVEMENTS:[/h3]
* Optimizations to movement code.
* Improvements to pathfinding around large obstacles.
* Made fights not block friendly courtship interactions.
* Added custom quest intro text in Lost River for experienced wolves.
* Increased tall grass rendering distance (so fawn/calf doesn't appear before it does, at least not as noticeably)

[h3]BUGS FIXED:[/h3]
* Multiplayer: "Waiting for Others" notification locks up screen so player can't do anything.
* Pack wolves turn hostile after courtship if there's more than one group present. Fixed by adding rejections to all spawned flocks sharing packs with the courting flocks
* Mate hangs around den after heading off on their own. Reason: It has been "defeated" by something and interrupted their trip, yet not properly returning home either.
* Autosave fails to fire when completing quests (so Experienced tag is not applied to wolf when completing Learn to Hunt quest).
* Pup cannot be targeted if you take it with you to hunting and then summon your mate (because your mate woofs to put all pups in the den before joining you, and the pup with you responds to that command even though far from den). (Fixed now, but it's still not recommended to bring pups on hunting or marking excursions. They really would rather stay back at the den.)
* Growling during fights still chases courtables away,
* Terrain and water issues.
_______________________

[h2]BETA 2 (8 March 2022)[/h2]

[h3]IMPROVEMENTS:[/h3]
* Emotes panel: When using controller, left/right shoulder/bumper buttons are now used to switch between emote categories.
* Emotes: Current Favorite emote is now indicated with small "Favorite" text below it, and the glow-highlight that previously indicated that is now used as better feedback about which emote is currently highlighted by mouse or controller thumbstick.
* Emotes panel: Increased delay (from 0.5 seconds to 0.75s) upon selecting an emote before right joystick is active for camera control again.

[h3]BUGS FIXED:[/h3]
* NPC animals don't consider other animals to be obstacles (so they sometimes clip through other animals or get stuck walking in place behind them).
* Autosave fails during Age Perks/Birthday and Newborn Pups.
* Multiplayer: AFK players are still considered online for a little while in terms of quest progression.
* Mate keeps stopping mid-chase to growl.
* "Attempting to send message" notification can get stuck onscreen.
_______________________

[h2]BETA 3 (9 March 2022)[/h2]

[h3]IMPROVEMENTS:[/h3]
* Prevent autosaves in Newborn Pups scene (since those are cannot be loaded successfully).
* Updates to Game Help: Learn to Hunt.

[h3]BUGS FIXED:[/h3]
* Multiplayer: Spawning errors can cause lag for awhile.
* Multiplayer: Autosave fails during Age Perks/Birthday and Newborn Pups.
* Multiplayer: Can't close the "Submit report" alert after another player submits a bug report.
* Starting new courtship with NPC wolf immediately after rejecting trial mate causes problems.
* Game crashes when loading Amethyst save in winter season, or transitioning from fall to winter.
* Maximum possible initial courtship level of interest is lower than it should be.
* Bug in View Pack panel can cause interface to stop responding to clicks.
_______________________

[h2]BETA 4 (11 March 2022)[/h2]

[h3]IMPROVEMENTS:[/h3]
* In Game Settings, increased height of Frame Rate dropdown menu to show all options.
* Enlarged Controls Mapping image (of keyboard, controller, or Steam Deck) for better readability on small screens.
* Controller: On Load Game panel, when Filter popout is displayed, pressing "B" button now closes Filter popup instead of closing Load Game panel entirely.

[h3]BUGS FIXED:[/h3]
* Pups don't consider parents to be obstacles when going places.
* Carcass chunks won't spawn in Slough Creek.
* Lost River is a lonely place (no other animals will spawn).
* Multiplayer: In Newborn Pups scene, game advances to Raise Pups when client player clicks Continue, not waiting for host.
* Controller: "Use controller?" notification appears after controller is already enabled to use.
* Elk can accidentally kill a raven, causing errors.
_______________________

[h2]BETA 5 (11 March 2022)[/h2]

[h3]IMPROVEMENTS:[/h3]
* Controller and Steam Deck: Changed Left D-pad to Nametags and Down D-pad to Photo Mode (in singleplayer) and Chat (in multiplayer).
* Setup New Multiplayer Game: Added popup about game modes.

[h3]BUGS FIXED:[/h3]
* Controller: Can't rename pack in Pack Info panel.
* Controller; Can't dismiss Disconnected from Multiplayer notification.
_______________________

[h2]BETA 6 (14 March 2022)[/h2]

[h3]BUGS FIXED:[/h3]
* Multiplayer: Sometimes pups are outside the den at the start of Raise Pups quest, until the pups exit the den.
* Multiplayer: Disconnected alert is not always displayed if game loses connection with multiplayer server during loading process.
* Multiplayer: Sometimes chat from previous game is carried over into new game.
* In Slough Creek, distant flooded ponds flicker in fog.
* Can't access UI panels after sending friend request.
* Extra notifications sometimes appear when sending messages or adding users to pack.
* Can't reject a trial wolf.
_______________________

[h2]BETA 7 (15 March 2022)[/h2]

[h3]BUGS FIXED:[/h3]
* Controller: Saved Game panels: Cannot use Delete Multiple option properly.
* Controller: Custom rebindings interfere with Emote panel RB/LB input.
* Some water issues in Slough Creek.
_______________________

[h2]BETA 8 (16 March 2022)[/h2]

[h3]IMPROVEMENTS:[/h3]
* "Hanging with the Pups" music now plays at rendezvous site as well as at den.

[h3]BUGS FIXED:[/h3]
* Multiplayer: Client players can't bite newborn calf or fawn.
* Account registration: Username field accepts spaces.
* "Ride of the Wapiti" music plays during parts of the elk showdown.


__________________
[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.