We got a suggestion from a player that it would be cool to add a special animation for the way elk sometimes pull their heads up and back when they are alarmed and fleeing wolves. We were perplexed because this is already included in the game. But no, it turns out that this animation stopped working sometime ago and no one had caught that. So, it’s back in the game now…. And now we are getting bug reports that the elk look weird when they run! So, that’s not a bug.



But why do elk hold their heads that way sometimes? As Dr. Dan Stahler, one of our game advisors, explains:

“Elk head position during wolf pursuit probably serves a couple purposes - although these are somewhat speculative because I don't think there's any real data per se. One, due to position of their eyes on the sides of their head, it's thought to provide a little better vision on the field of view behind them when they tilt their head back. This may help with tracking the pursuing predator to anticipate evasive maneuvers or need to kick.

"When the head tilt is exaggerated, it usually accompanies a high stepping prance. This is more akin to the honest signaling you see in stotting mule deer, or the African ungulates like springbok, gazelle, etc. These are energetically costly movements for these animals, but the ability to do it is thought to be an advertisement of body condition that may cause a pursuing predator to gauge probability of capture (and risks associated with trying to do so).”

This week also released Patch v1.0.6m with lots of improvements and bug fixes. You can see all the patch notes and updates here: https://support.wolfquest.org/help/patches-wolfquest-anniversary-edition

Finally, we love all the WolfQuest screenshots people post on social media!  Most people turn off the HUD for better pictures. But we actually need some shots showing gameplay with the HUD displayed. We will select our favorites to promote the game — and those players will get a free DLC pack (WQ soundtrack or the upcoming Yellowstone coat pack) in appreciation. We are looking for screenshots in Fantastic or Glorious graphics quality, 1920x1080 resolution. Please email them to info@wolfquest.org— and thanks!

EDIT: I totally forgot that we hide the HUD in Photo Mode screenshots. Ack! So with Steam, just press F12 instead of spacebar when in photo mode and you'll get the HUD in the screenshot. Sorry about that!

_______________

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, Episode 2: Slough Creek, Lost River: Classic, and multiplayer mode in Amethyst and Lost River. (Slough Creek multiplayer is coming soon,.) 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!

Patch v1.0.6m is now available for Windows and Mac.

* Refactored scent system to make it more robust. This should reduce or eliminate bugs with disappearing scent tracks and pups leaving tracks when carried, along with improvements to how the scents are laid down when the animal makes sharp turns, and what happens when a pup enters and exits a den.
* Notably faster loading times when starting new game or loading saved game.
* Spring flood ponds in First Meadow retain their shapes when seen from far away.
* Better creek sound effects.
* Switched to new rocky-ground terrain texture in Amethyst with much better tiling.
* Improvements to terrain texturing in Amethyst and Slough Creek.
* Improvements to June elk calf limb movements when being carried.
* In Wolf Customization, the Coats panel is taller to show more rows, and clicking and scrolling is more intuitive.

* When fleeing predators, elk should often pull their heads back, but don't. (This was in the game originally but broke at some point, probably a long time ago.)
* Predator music bugs (same clip plays repeatedly, wrong clip plays).
* Female wolf sometimes does not have pregnant belly in winter and early spring.
* Game accepts keyboard inputs when another app has focus. (Really fixed time!)
* Game sometimes pauses during courtship in Lost River.
* Quest music doesn't play reliably at start of each quest.
* Terrain switches back to previous season in certain situations.
* In Lost River, game sometimes pauses for some seconds during courtship.
* One stick rides too high in the pup's mouth.
* In multiplayer, buggy behavior after clicking Exit Game or Main Menu buttons.
* Lost River music keeps playing when returning to main menu.
* Wolf ears do not fold back when howling while lying down.
* Mate is unable to enter tree stump den.
* Pup carcass oddities when carried by parent.
* Some save game errors and failures.
* Pups won't exit tall grass if parent is inside as well.
* Pups will follow player far from the den or rendezvous site if trying to respond to a social emote.
* If terrain quality is low or very low, but Enhanced Sky & Vegetation mode is enabled, dirt dens do not have holes in ground.
* When adding a player to a pack, can't click OK button to continue adding more players but must click Done and then reopen Packs panel.
* In main menu, wolves in the My Wolves carousel are floating a bit off the ground.
* Map labels for two ponds are in wrong spot.
* Grizzly cub and elk calf can get stuck in turning animation.
* In very particular circumstances, a litter can have zero pups.
* Winter can rudely interrupt Endless Summer in Slough Creek.
* Fish sits a bit high in the mouth.
* Text edits and corrections.
* Terrain and water issues.

No dev blog video this week. The furnace is out at WQ HQ in Minnesota – brrrrr! We still are working in our long johns and extra wool socks waiting for the repair crew so this great screenshot by Ominous Odyssey suits our mood today. The team is working on bugs and boring necessary things. Susan is prepping for tax time (again, see comment about screenshot mood).

Cheer us up by telling us about other games you like to play and why!

NOTE: Multiplayer in this beta is not backward-compatible with the last release, so you can only play with others who have this beta. Save games are also not compatible, so it's best to backup your Saves folder. However, wolf files are backward compatible so you don't have to worry about those.

This beta is for Windows only.

* Refactored scent system to make it more robust. This should reduce or eliminate bugs with disappearing scent tracks and pups leaving tracks when carried, along with improvements to how the scents are laid down when the animal makes sharp turns, and what happens when a pup enters and exits a den.

* When fleeing predators, elk should often pull their heads back, but don't. (This was in the game originally but broke at some point, probably a long time ago.)
* Predator music bugs (same clip plays repeatedly, wrong clip plays).
* Lost River keeps playing when returning to main menu.
* Wolf ears do not fold back when howling while lying down.
* Mate is unable to enter tree stump den.
* Pup carcass oddities when carried by parent.
* Some save game errors and failures.
* Pups won't exit tall grass if parent is inside as well.
* Pups will follow player far away from the den or rendezvous site if trying to respond to a social emote.
* If terrain quality is low or very low, but Enhanced Sky & Vegetation mode is enabled, dirt dens do not have holes in ground.
* When adding a player to a pack, can't click OK button to continue adding more players but must click Done and then reopen Packs panel.
* In main menu, wolves in the My Wolves carousel are floating a bit off the ground.
* Female wolf sometimes does not have pregnant belly in winter and early spring.
* Map labels for two ponds are in wrong spot.'
* Grizzly cub and elk calf can get stuck in turning animation.
* Winter can come awfully early to Slough Creek.
* Fish sits a bit high in the mouth.
* Text edits and corrections.
* Terrain and water issues.


* On Basic Sky & Vegetation mode (lower quality levels), wolf's eye is too bright.
* In multiplayer, buggy behavior after clicking Exit Game or Main Menu buttons.


IMPROVEMENTS:
* Spring floodponds in First Meadow retain their shapes when seen from far away.
* Better creek sound effects.
* Improvements to June elk calf limb movements when being carried.

BUGS FIXED:
* Some scent tracks have no names in scent readout.
* Game sometimes pauses during courtship in Lost River.
* Both male and female wolves look pregnant in Slough Creek.
* In Lost River, game sometimes pauses for some seconds during courtship.
* At tree stump den, the scent source and Enter Den arrow are offset away from den entrance.
* One stick rides too high in the pup's mouth.


BUG FIXED:
* Game accepts keyboard inputs when another app has focus. (Really fixed time!)


BUG FIXED:
* Wolves can walk on water (on the western half of Slough Creek).

__________________________________


BUGS FIXED:
* Scent trails sometimes end unexpectedly.
* Age of scent trails is sometimes reversed.
* Floating scent sometimes have no proper name (or other) info in readout.
* Enter Den arrow is often some distance from den entrance.
* Terrain is covered with snow in April/Find a Den quest.
* Wrong texture on wolf's nose.

__________________________________


BUGS FIXED:
* Sometimes scents disappear instantly in scent view.
* Sometimes there are no floating scents emanating from scent tracks.
* Stationary animal can generate excessive number of scent tracks.
* A litter can have zero pups.

__________________________________


IMPROVEMENTS:
* Switched to new rocky-ground terrain texture in Amethyst with much better tiling.
* Improvements to terrain texturing in Amethyst and Slough Creek.

BUGS FIXED:
* Random gaps in scent tracks.
* Pups leave scent tracks on top of den when entering den.
* Quest music doesn't play reliably at start of each quest.
* Terrain switches back to previous season in certain situations.
* Enter Den arrow at McBride lakeshore den is too far out from den entrance.
__________________________________


BUG FIXED:
* Multiplayer is totally broken.
__________________________________

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.


Many thanks to Cupcake_Le_Foxy for the game screenshot!

It's time for another chance 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 choose the WolfQuest Soundtrack and Music Extras.

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 contest1@wolfquest.org

All entries must be received before midnight (Eastern Daylight Time) on Tuesday, February 23, 2021.

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.

UPDATE: Patch 1.0.6l2 is now out for Windows and Mac. This fixes the glitches that occur if a multiplayer host is still on 1.0.6k but you are on 1.0.6l. This also removes the long white UFO hovering over Second Meadow in Slough Creek. (The aliens observed for a few hours and then decided to return in a few million years to see how wolves have evolved by then.)

* Made mates in Slough Creek somewhat more likely to go hunting and marking on their own.

* Main menu is broken if there are no wolves available.
* In multiplayer, game cannot be saved if a player marks a scent post and then leaves permanently.
* Floating tree saplings near Little Butte.

NOTE: As of this patch, multiplayer is not backward-compatible with previous patches, so you must be sure to have this patch to see games in the lobby (and for others to see your games).

We have rewritten the save-game system to be more robust and reliable:
* Should reduce the chances of a corrupted save.
* Game screenshots are now embedded in the save file, rather than stored separately in the Screenshots folder.
* Save files are much smaller than before.

This also includes improvements to the wolf files:
* You can now rename a wolf without having to create a duplicate
* Multiple wolves can have the same names without causing problems.

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

* Many music fixes. A few tricky ones remain, so 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.
* Newborn elk calves are invisible when hiding in grass. (Actually not invisible, just very very small.)
* Bull elk antlers (springtime) have too-close LOD distance.
* Bull elk bugling audio does not carry very far.
* Main Menu grass density is inconsistent in quality levels.
* Some account register/login issues.
* A newly-created wolf is considered "experienced" (i.e. has finished Amethyst previously) if you create it right after modifying an experienced wolf.
* Tutorial tips about mate and pup commands sometimes appear before Raise Pups quest intro.
* Rock den lacks water when flooded.
* Odd white squares appear on compass in multiplayer games.
* Players can create a wolf without a name.
* Aspen trees near cliffs in Amethyst are missing in Basic Sky & Veg mode.
* Several patches of tall grass are floating above the ground in First Meadow.
* Game gets stuck loading into multiplayer if player previously entered MP or SP game but left very quickly.
* 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.
* Many terrain and water tweaks.

Many thanks to Neamara for the game screenshot!

We get lots of player requests and suggestions for things to add to WolfQuest. Many are great ideas and often match items on our own extensive wishlist. But we don’t add everything to our list, and for today’s devblog, we thought players might be interested to hear about a few popular requests that won’t be coming soon (or at all) and some of our reasons why.  



Video screenshot by Kayla Ann.
_______________

To cheer you up, the WolfQuest Original Soundtrack and Music Extras is on sale this week -- 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.
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: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1207610/WolfQuest_Soundtrack_and_Music_Extras/
* on Itch.io: https://eduweb.itch.io/wolfquest-music

_______________

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, Episode 2: Slough Creek, Lost River: Classic, and multiplayer mode in Amethyst and Lost River. (Slough Creek multiplayer is coming soon,.) 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!

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.



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.
* https://eduweb.itch.io/wolfquest-music.

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.).


* 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.

* 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.)

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.



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.


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.


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.


[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.


[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.