WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition News

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

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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.

We are rolling this patch out tonight and tomorrow, to get the hotfix for the Shake Off Attacker bug out as quickly as possible. It's released now for Windows. If you are on Mac and have that bug, in the meantime, open Game Settings >Controls > Remap Controls and click Reset to Default Setting and it should work again.
[h2]
IMPROVEMENTS:[/h2]
* Tweaked the way the scents are laid down behind animals as they move, considerably reducing the delays involved in that.

[h2]BUGS FIXED:[/h2]
* 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.

For some players, the Shake Off action (pressing A and D keys rapidly to break free from attacking stranger wolves) doesn't work in the latest patch. Upon investigation, we found that the A input for this action has somehow gotten remapped to the spacebar. Very puzzling. We'll get a patch out soon fixing it, but in the meantime, if you're having this problem, just open Game Settings > Controls > Remap Controls and click Reset to Default Settings and it should work again. Very sorry about that!

[h3]NEW:[/h3]
* Five new black coats for NPC wolves. These are variations on existing coats, modified to look distinctive. They are not available in the Wolf Customization panel, but dispersal wolves have a chance of getting these coats. Grown pups can also get them (which is the only way to play as a wolf with one of these coats). (Why did we add these? We were having trouble preventing multiple wolves from having the same coat, due to the paucity of true untinted black coats, so now NPCs have five more black coats to choose from, which along with some other measures should prevent duplicates.)
* When Pack Territories are displayed on the World Map, a new toggle in lower-right will display all territories' hex strength percentages (intended for controller usage but might be helpful to anyone.)

[h3]IMPROVEMENTS:[/h3]
* If starting a new game in Amethyst with a wolf who has completed those quests before, the game now shows the episode introduction and then skips the Learn to Hunt quest info, going directly to Find a Mate quest.
* Reduced the wait time to reinforce a scent post from 24 hours to four hours. (Because stranger wolves can degrade your territory within that time, it's confusing to get a "Too Soon!" alert when the territory is clearly weakened, so we are reducing this delay period confusion.)
* Modest increase in the odds that a grizzly bear will attack pups at the den.
* Establish Territory quest doesn't require a specific territory gain or den discovery action to reach completion. (Previously did, so was possible to meet requirements but not trigger completion. Completion requirements themselves are unchanged.)
* Reduce the odds that multiple dispersals, or multiple pups in a litter, will have the same coat as adults.
* Reduced odds and damage from fall/winter calf elk kickoff.
* Reduced wolf max speed when carrying moose calf.
* Added flattened grass at rendezvous sites and in meadows in springtime.
* Game remembers if dens and rendezvous sites were toggled on or off in World Map.
* Added some anti-cheat measures to multiplayer.

BUGS FIXED:[h3]
[/h3]* Game stalls when loading a multiplayer saved game for Lost River.
* Sometimes the Show Dens button doesn't appear when it should on World Map.
* Distant landscape in early spring has no snow. (Still working bug with those landscapes having no snow in late spring and summer.)
* In multiplayer, the chat panel covers up part of the Accounts panel, blocking the Add Friend input field.
* White wolf coat has a weird white mark at the tip of the tail.
* Occasionally you'll get the "Dangerous Territory" alert when marking in the central area of the map.
* On the World Map, some custom markers are rotated based on the player-wolf's orientation in the game world.
* Courtship banners for a few wolves don't match the coat.
* Game accepts keyboard inputs when another app has focus.
* Pack naming GUI displays repeatedly.
* Pup can get stuck in grass and refuse to come out.
* Player-wolf can get stuck on rock face of den.
* When getting a new mate out of a group of siblings in Slough Creek, the siblings and your new mate turn against each other immediately.
* Mackenzie coat has a bit of white on the upper eyelid with some fur settings.
* Snow can accumulate inside dirt dens.
* Patchy fur on pup chin.
* Moose calf has odd coloration when fur is disabled.
* No gallop sound effect when wolf is running up steep hill.
* Boltz coat has pattern mismatch on crown of head.
* Sometimes the wolf coat when fur is disabled doesn't match the coat when fur is enabled.
* In certain cases, game freezes when remapping controls.
* Renaming a pup that's in the den gets "(In Den)" permanently added to its name.
* Some mismatch between characters allowed in password fields on Register and Login panels.
* On some computer hardware and game graphics settings, water bodies float in air when sprinting.
* Pups can get stuck alongside river in certain situations.
* If mate commands pups into den, the command lingers even if the player or mate returns home.
* Terrain and water issues.