WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition News

[h3]IMPROVEMENTS[/h3]

* Large granite boulders in Amethyst now appear at all quality levels/modes (previously only appeared in Enhanced Sky & Vegetation mode). Boulders have proper colliders now so you can't stick your head inside sometimes, and they are walkable! They also appear at longer distances, instead of popping into view at mid-distance.
* Improvements to wolf movement on steep rock faces.
* Improved organization of Game Help panels.
* Moderate reduction in mule deer and moose frequency.
* Optimized performance when snow accumulates on animals.
* Additional text in first mission dialog.
* Refinement to wolf head-turning.

[h3]BUGS FIXED[/h3]
* NPC animals sometimes decide to climb trees, unsuccessfully.
* Camera snaps back a bit after the wolf jumps off a rock or ledge.
* In Wolf Customization, the main theme continues to play instead of the customization music.
* One dead log on ground sometimes looks very wet, when it shouldn't.
* Sky sometimes shows through dream images.
* In Lost River, bridge does not block raindrops.
* Doe mule deer carcass is (still) masquerading as moose in scent view.
* Courtship panel sometimes appears when dispersal wolf is engaged in a fight, showing wrong wolf info.
* Selection-dragging text in save game input field causes errors.
* If your wolf is on a boulder when you save the game, your wolf may be stuck inside the rock when loading that save.
* Various terrain tweaks and smoothing.

Patch 1.0.3j Beta is now available in our beta branch. (Instructions below; beta is Windows only.)

[h2]UPDATE: Beta 6: [/h2]

[h3]BUGS FIXED[/h3]
* Occasionally the player-wolf can get stuck when going down a boulder face.
* Terrain in winter season is black when on Very Low Terrain Quality.
* Doe mule deer carcass is (still) masquerading as moose in scent view.


[h2]UPDATE: Beta 5: [/h2]
Beta5 is now available:

[h3]BUGS FIXED[/h3]
* NPC animals are inclined to stick their head into the ground.
* NPC animals (including the mate) sometimes jitter when running.
* Selection-dragging text in save game input field causes errors.
* At start of new game, camera stutters some in first few seconds.

[h2]Beta 4:[/h2]

[h3]IMPROVEMENTS[/h3]
* Large granite boulders in Amethyst now appear at all quality levels/modes (previously only appeared in Enhanced Sky & Vegetation mode). Boulders have proper colliders now so you can't stick your head inside sometimes, and they are walkable! They also appear at longer distances, instead of popping into view at mid-distance.
* Improvements to wolf movement on steep rock faces.
* Improved organization of Game Help panels.
* Optimized performance when snow accumulates on animals.
* Additional text in first mission dialog.
* Refinement to wolf head-turning.

[h3]BUGS FIXED[/h3]
* NPC animals sometimes decide to climb trees, unsuccessfully.
* Camera snaps back a bit after the wolf jumps off a rock or ledge.
* In Wolf Customization, the main theme continues to play instead of the customization music.
* One dead log on ground sometimes looks very wet, when it shouldn't.
* Sky sometimes shows through dream images.
* In Lost River, bridge does not block raindrops.
* Various terrain tweaks and smoothing.

To get the beta build:

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.

The large granite boulders that are scattered across Yellowstone, and our game maps, are distinctive elements of the landscape. But due to technical constraints, in WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition, they’ve only been visible on higher quality levels, when Enhanced Sky & Vegetation mode is enabled. But that’s changing in the next patch! We’ve created a new method of spawning these boulders so everyone can appreciate them — and even better, they’re now walkable! Get the details in today’s devblog video:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

These new boulders will be in the next patch, coming in the next few days to public beta, and in official release soon after that. (The bison update is still several weeks away.)

______________
We have released the first episode of WolfQuest 3: Anniversary Edition (Amethyst Mountain) for PC/Mac on Steam and itch.io, as Early Access. While in Early Access, we are updating the game frequently with more features, multiplayer, and ultimately the Slough Creek episode with pups. The mobile version will come after the game is completed on PC/Mac platforms. We’ll then resume development of the next episode, Tower Fall (DLC).

[h3]IMPROVEMENTS[/h3]
* Controls remapping: You can now remap mouse buttons to keyboard inputs and vice versa.
* In Graphics Quality, new option for Grass and Bush Variety: Low will be a bit faster.
* Some physics optimizations, which should improve performance if limited by CPU power (sometimes occurs when many animals are active in the game world, though most players are usually limited by GPU power) and possibly reduce some lag spikes.
* In the Quest panel, player's current quest is automatically displayed (instead of first quest in the list).
* Reduced odds of wolf carcass spawning.
* Slightly reduced odds of coyotes and mule deer spawning.
* Refinements in NPC animal turning movement.

[h3]BUGS FIXED[/h3]
* During winter season, after sleeping and dreaming at end of December, terrain is bare ground instead of covered with snow.
* Some areas of snow during Winter Season have obvious tiling patterns or are too dark or contrasty.
* Wolf can get stuck hovering in the air along rock face.
* Wolf sometimes climbs weirdly up a rock and then leaps off.
* Elk Hunt notification can appears when biting other prey and interrupt the action.
* Doe mule deer carcass is masquerading as moose in scent view.
* A dead log has orange rim glow.
* Scent View Tutorial Tip blocks input and scent controls while displayed.
* Typo on one dispersal wolf: Cinnebar instead of Cinnabar
* Animals occasionally will teleport when touching other animals.
* Visual glitches with dreams.
* Water splash audio sometimes stops when you zoom out and then back in again.
* In Lost River, fire tower and porch roofs do a poor job of blocking raindrops.
* Cow elk sometimes freezes when player bites calf.

Anyone who has visited Yellowstone and played WolfQuest has one question: Where are the bison? We did not include bison in the original game, back in 2007, because historically bison have not been very numerous in Yellowstone, and represented a small portion of a wolf’s diet. That has changed in recent decades, though. While elk still outnumber bison in Yellowstone, bison are extremely visible to visitors since they like to graze in the broad Lamar and Hayden valleys, where they are easily seen (and often hard to avoid). And since wolves were reintroduced to the park in the 1990s, they have been learning how to hunt bison. Wolves still prefer elk, which are much easier to kill, but bison now make up about 13% of a wolf’s diet, on average.

We’ve been planning to add bison to the game for quite a long time. (In fact, we had hoped to do it in 2010, but we asked players to vote on several new features and bison lost out.) The large herds consisting of a hundred or more bison pose significant game-performance issues currently, and while we hope to overcome those someday, we don’t want to wait that long to add this important species to the game. So we are adding small groups of elderly bull bison, who typically congregate together after they’ve grown too old to be active members of the big herds. They’re huge and cranky and extremely dangerous — more dangerous than any other animal in the game! It’ll be best to admire them from a distance…but players can use their own judgment.

We’ve been setting up bison in the game with the beautiful animal model and animations created by our partner GIM. There's still some work still to do so it’ll be a few weeks before they are ready to release, but we thought you might like this sneak peak.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Bison are the largest land-dwelling mammal in North America. Learn more! https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/bison.htm

______________
We have released the first episode of WolfQuest 3: Anniversary Edition (Amethyst Mountain) for PC/Mac on Steam and itch.io, as Early Access. While in Early Access, we are updating the game frequently with more features, multiplayer, and ultimately the Slough Creek episode with pups. The mobile version will come after the game is completed on PC/Mac platforms. We’ll then resume development of the next episode, Tower Fall (DLC).