Elk will stumble occasionally when fleeing from wolves, giving nearby wolves a moment of opportunity to bite while the elk is down. Chances of stumble are higher when elk is low on stamina or health, or running downhill. Elk take damage from stumbling (varies from a little to a lot).

* Wolf bio allows more text (1500 characters, about 250-300 words). The bio is now editable in Pack Info.
* New musical cue when player injury heals.
* Adjusted some odds for competitor den raids to try to balance out variety of attackers.
* When pup is sick, companionship (boosting the pup's odds of recovery) now won't have any effect when the player-wolf's wakefulness drops to zero. (Put on your oxygen mask first, parents!) Companionship effect increased a bit to compensate.
* Elk run faster to catch up when they fall behind the herd.
* Updated "End Ironwolf Run" alert to mention Jump Ahead to Next Year option.
* Sync lowest difficulty with current difficulty when using the Jump Ahead option.
* Changed texture around burrow den near Gravel Fan to match the den texture better.
* Reduced volume of wind-in-grass sound effect.
* Tweaked pup version of Bronze Forehead to be more clearly a black coat.
* Increased odds of carcass spawning when player-wolf is very hungry.
* Multiplayer: When a player-wolf is killed by large prey, the prey is now more likely to wander some distance away from the player, so the player can revive themselves safely.
* Multiplayer: Season is now indicated in preview panel for Pack Life and Territory Quest games.

* Carcass confrontation music keeps playing after competitor leaves carcass.
* If player is in Find New Den subquest when pups near 15 lbs, rendezvous sites do not appear on map when they should.
* Wolf ear customization twitches in Family Tree viewer.
* Bull elk antlers change form upon dying, if bull was spawned in earlier season.
* Cryptic message appears if player tries to log into account that hasn't been activated yet.
* Eagle gets stuck when trying to swoop kill something in certain areas.
* Birds land when trying to circle their target in certain areas.
* Mate can't fight because it's carrying a meat chunk and won't drop it.
* Wrong texture assigned to Frosty NPC coat.
* Wrong coat banner image (displayed during courtship) assigned to 1091 coat.
* Snow accumulation issues on beaver lodges.
* Small white specks on base of tail on some wolf coats.
* In Main Menu, sometimes Secondary Howl 6 won't play audio.
* In very specific circumstance, game freezes after going into My Wolves.
* In very specific circumstance, buttons in Main Menu are disabled and not clickable.
* Buy DLC alert stays onscreen sometimes after leaving wolf customization.
* Coyote howl is silent.
* Pups can have trouble navigating through the roots of the northeast tree-root den.
* Sometimes bark emote has no audio.
* Multiplayer: Game gets stuck if player has Options menu open when another player submits a bug report and window appears asking player to submit one as well.
* Controller: Can't navigate around some Wolf Customization panels.
* Controller: Can't navigate to Finish Quest in Establish Territory Quest panel.
* Scent view breaks if you switch into it the instant you wake up.
* Problems ensue when a pup somehow gets an injury, when that isn't technically allowed.
* Wolf preview in Family Tree doesn't show Blind Eye when it should.
* Multiplayer: Client players cannot move after joining a game.
* Elk sometimes get confused and stop running when the run into a steep slope or wall. (Partial fix, more refined improvements to come in the future.)
* Blind Eye visual glitch when wolf is panting.
* Grizzly bears chase too slowly.
* Mate sometimes get stuck walking into a rock when it's trying to find some privacy.
* Game freezes if player goes to sleep just as a popup window appears.
* Short Tail modification isn't visible on wolves inside den.
* Sometimes game will duplicate wolves when syncing with the server.
* Move to New Den subquest is indented below wrong quest.
* Black smear on left edge of 870Fs mouth
* Hole in the rocky outcrop of Lake McBride.
* Terrain edge visible in one den entrance.
* Wolf canter animation plays too fast.
* Dead wolves don't get Short Tail body mod when they should.
* Ride of the Wapiti music restarts when switching intensity levels.
* Some spring/summer aspens have too much specular lighting on leaves.
* In the northeast root den, ground behind the den doesn't quite meet the terrain.
* Terrain and water issues.

The next patch, 1.0.8n, is out in public beta now! This has a bunch of fixes and a few notable things. First, the wolf bio now allows more text -- about 250-300 words (1500 characters or 27 lines of text, whichever you hit first). And you can now edit the bio during gameplay in Pack Info.



This patch also features something new: elk will now occasionally stumble and fall to the ground when fleeing from wolves. If you're alert and spot a stumble, or lucky and the elk you're chasing stumbles, you'll have a brief opportunity to attack and bite the elk while it's on the ground. Elk take damage from stumbling -- the amount of damage varies from a little to a lot (but they do not suffer visible injuries). Elk are more likely to stumble when they are low on health or energy, and when running downhill. Keep an eye (or ear) out for the sound of a stumble so you can get in there for a bite. You'll need to be quick -- they only stay down for a few seconds at most.

This beta also increases the changes of non-wolf competitor raids on your den. We've seen reports that such raids seem to be less frequent than in the past, not sure why, so please submit reports about this matter if you test the beta.

Read the complete patch notes for this beta.

The next patch, v1.0.8n, is now in public beta! Available on Steam for Windows and MacOS. Instructions for opting into public beta at bottom of this post.

This beta IS compatible with the last patch, 1.0.8l. You can do multiplayer games with players who have 1.0.8l, and you can switch back to 1.0.8l anytime and your game files will not break. (However, if you are hosting with 1.0.8n and some players in the game have 1.0.8n, there may be minor visual glitches with the elk stumbling. No need to report those.)


Elk will stumble occasionally when fleeing from wolves, giving nearby wolves a moment of opportunity to bite while the elk is down. Chances of stumble are higher when elk is low on stamina or health, or running downhill. Elk take damage from stumbling (varies from a little to a lot).

* Wolf bio allows more text (1500 characters, about 250-300 words). The bio is now editable in Pack Info.
* New musical cue when player injury heals.
* Increased odds of den raids by grizzlies, cougars, and coyotes.
* Elk run faster to catch up when they fall behind the herd.
* Updated "End Ironwolf Run" alert to mention Jump Ahead to Next Year option.
* Sync lowest difficulty with current difficulty when using the Jump Ahead option.
* Changed texture around burrow den near Gravel Fan to match the den texture better.
* Reduced volume of wind-in-grass sound effect.
* Tweaked pup version of Bronze Forehead to be more clearly a black coat.

* Wolf cantor animation plays too fast.
* Carcass confrontation music keeps playing after competitor leaves carcass.
* If player is in Find New Den subquest when pups near 15 lbs, rendezvous sites do not appear on map when they should.
* Wolf ear customization twitches in Family Tree viewer.
* Bull elk antlers change form upon dying, if bull was spawned in earlier season.
* Cryptic message appears if player tries to log into account that hasn't been activated yet.
* Eagle gets stuck when trying to swoop kill something in certain areas.
* Birds land when trying to circle their target in certain areas.
* Mate can't fight because it's carrying a meat chunk and won't drop it.
* Wrong texture assigned to Frosty NPC coat.
* Wrong coat banner image (displayed during courtship) assigned to 1091 coat.
* Snow accumulation issues on beaver lodges.
* Small white specks on base of tail on some wolf coats.
* In Main Menu, sometimes Secondary Howl 6 won't play audio.
* In very specific circumstance, game freezes after going into My Wolves.
* In very specific circumstance, buttons in Main Menu are disabled and not clickable.
* Buy DLC alert stays onscreen sometimes after leaving wolf customization.
* Coyote howl is silent.
* Pups can have trouble navigating through the roots of the northeast tree-root den.
* Sometimes bark emote has no audio.
* Multiplayer: Game gets stuck if player has Options menu open when another player submits a bug report and window appears asking player to submit one as well.
* Controller: Can't navigate around some Wolf Customization panels.
* Controller: Can't navigate to Finish Quest in Establish Territory Quest panel.
* When wolf has blind eye, a bit of the eye is still visible when wolf is panting.
* Dead wolves don't get Short Tail body mod when they should.
* Ride of the Wapiti music restarts when switching intensity levels.
* Tweaked pup version of Bronze Forehead to be more clearly a black coat.
* Some spring/summer aspens have too much specular lighting on leaves.
* In the northeast root den, ground behind the den doesn't quite meet the terrain.
* Terrain texturing issues
___________________


* Multiplayer: Season is now indicated in preview panel for Pack Life and Territory Quest games.

* Game freezes if player goes to sleep just as a popup window appears.
* In Wolf Customization, the genetic coat color readout is displayed on all panels.
* Short Tail modification isn't visible on wolves inside den.
* Multiplayer: Wolf bio in Pack Info doesn't reliably update when switching among wolves.
* Sometimes game will duplicate wolves when syncing with the server.
* Move to New Den subquest is indented below wrong quest.
* Black smear on left edge of 870M's mouth
* Hole in the rocky outcrop of Lake McBride;
* Terrain edge visible in one den entrance.
___________________


* Adjusted odds of elk stumble to reduce effect of slope (since Amethyst has much more sloping terrain than Slough Creek, thus stumbling was more common in AM than in SC). This might have altered overall odds some, please send feedback.
* Adjusted some odds for competitor den raids to try to balance out variety of attackers.
* When pup is sick, companionship (boosting the pup's odds of recovery) now won't have any effect when the player-wolf's wakefulness drops to zero. (Put on your oxygen mask first, parents!) Companionship effect increased a bit to compensate.
* Added an Undo Edits button on the Wolf bio in Pack Info, in case of accidental edits or deletions.

* Elk sometimes get confused and stop running when the run into a steep slope or wall. (Partial fix, more refined improvements to come in the future.)
* Blind Eye visual glitch when wolf is panting.
* Grizzly bears chase too slowly.
* Mate sometimes get stuck walking into a rock when it's trying to find some privacy.
* Terrain and water issues.

___________________


* Increased odds of elk stumbling a bit.

* Multiplayer: Client players cannot move after joining a game.
___________________


* Wolf's turning radius is too large.
* Problems ensue when a pup somehow gets an injury, when that isn't allowed.
* Regression with Blind Eye mod and wolf panting.
* Wolf preview in Family Tree doesn't show Blind Eye when it should.
* Bug with controller and the Undo Edits button on Pack Info Bio.
* Terrain tweaks.
___________________


* Increased odds of carcass spawning when player-wolf is very hungry.
* Multiplayer: When a player-wolf is killed by large prey, the prey is now more likely to wander some distance away from the player, so the player can revive themselves safely.

* Scent view breaks if you switch into it the instant you wake up.
_______________________________________

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.

* Building Character DLC: You can now assign eye customizations to grown-up playable pups.
* Adjusted mate behavior so they won't eat small carcasses at the den if they are already full (Hunger meter is 100% or higher).
* Reduced major injury stamina penalty to -5, to avoid infinite stamina issue on wolf with all possible negative stamina modifers.
* Reduced volume of eating audio a bit.
* Reduced rim lighting on wolf fur (looks a bit velvety in some areas).
* Modest increase in odds of coyote raids on den.

* Building Character DLC: When Short Tail and Cut Off Tail are selected, tail movement is a bit slinky, especially in the main menu.
* In non-Story multiplayer games, problems ensue if a player with Good Memory joins the game.
* Some coats have thin white lines when viewed at certain angles and distances.
* Corneal Edema effect disappears when wolf is panting.
* Wolves don't close their eyes when they die.
* Game can lock up in rare situations where multiple tutorial tips are triggered simultaneously.

The next patch, v1.0.8m, is now in public beta! Available on Steam for Windows and MacOS. Instructions for opting into public beta at bottom of this post.

This beta IS compatible with the last patch, 1.0.8l. You can do multiplayer games with players who have 1.0.8l, and you can switch back to 1.0.8l anytime and your game files will not break.


* Adjusted mate behavior so they won't eat small carcasses at the den if they are already full (Hunger meter is 100% or higher).
* Reduced major injury stamina penalty to -5, to avoid infinite stamina issue on wolf with all possible negative stamina modifers.
* Reduced volume of eating audio a bit.
* Reduced rim lighting on wolf fur (looks a bit velvety in some areas).

* In non-Story multiplayer games, problems ensue if a player with Good Memory joins the game.
* DLC wolf 1091 "Mouse" has thin white line on cheek.
* Corneal Edema effect disappears when wolf is panting.
_________________________


* Building Character DLC: You can now assign eye customizations to grown-up playable pups. (Sorry about that, was an oversight.)
* Modest increase in odds of coyote raids on den. Please F11 and send reports about it.

* Building Character DLC: When Short Tail and Cut Off Tail are selected, tail movement is a bit slinky, especially in the main menu.
* Wolves don't close their eyes when they die.
* Thin white lines on some wolf coats.
* Game can lock up in rare situations where multiple tutorial tips are triggered simultaneously.
_________________________

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 next patch, v1.0.8l (The "l" is for limpy and the new injury system) is out now! And that means that the new DLC pack is also available for purchase from the game. After downloading the patch, you can go into the wolf customizer and see what all is included in the DLC. We're calling this the "Building Character" pack, because with it, you have more options to create your own character, but especially because adversity builds character, and the body customizations in the pack will show that your wolf has faced adversity -- and survived.



The DLC costs US$6. What's in it?
* Ten new coats, five black and five gray, and all based on real Yellowstone wolves.
* Body modifications: Short tail, cut off tail, crooked tail, and snaggletooth.
* Eye modifications: Blind eye and Corneal Edema (caused by injury or disease).

We think the new coats, created by our wolf artist Steve Adamson, are the best yet, and the body mods give you some...interesting options for your wolf's life experiences. The corneal edema is admittedly a rather weird one, but it is based on an actual wolf that the researchers at the Voyageurs Wolf Project came across. Choose it with discretion! Our Knowledge Base has all the details about these coats and customizations, including short biographies of each wolf that inspired the new coats.

This patch also includes:
* New in-game injury system.
* Three new dens under the roots of Douglas-fir trees.
* Five new NPC-only coats (which will appear on dispersal wolves and sometimes on pups when you grow them up into adults in the Family Tree).
* New options in multiplayer to start games in more seasons.
* Several new ear injuries in Wolf Customization.
* Lots of small quality-of-life improvements, along with many, many bug fixes.


This new DLC pack costs US$6 and includes the following, which you can preview in Wolf Customization before purchasing:
* Ten new coats, five black and five gray, and all based on real Yellowstone wolves.
* Body modifications: Short tail, cut off tail, crooked tail, and snaggletooth.
* Eye modifications: Blind eye and Corneal Edema (caused by injury or disease).

* Player wolf and mate can get injured when taking damage from NPCs. Wolves can suffer a minor injury anytime, but can get a major injury only when they currently have a minor injury, and health is below 60% so it's prudent to avoid danger when you have a minor injury.
* Minor injuries reduce one attribute (Speed, Strength, or Stamina) by 1 and last 1-2 days (healing is faster when health is above 90%).
* Major injuries reduce one attribute by 7 and have one other effect: Slower eating with jaw injury, faster stamina drain when sprinting with torso or leg injury. They last 2-4 days (healing is faster when health is high).
* Major injuries to jaw and torso have no visual manifestation.
* Major injuries to the legs cause the wolf to limp until the injury is healed. Note that the wolf does not treat the limpy leg differently when laying down or doing some actions (it's not horribly painful, it's just sensitive to bearing weight, though there are moments, especially during intense action, when the wolf will put weight on it).
* Mates can suffer injuries (indicated with slash marks on mate's health meter in the wolf badge). They won't carry pups or other things with a major jaw injury, and they lag behind if they have a major leg injury. NPCs can also suffer injuries, but it's unlikely to occur.

* Three new dens underneath tree roots in central and eastern Slough Creek.

NEW: OTHER
* In Slough Creek Endless Summer, a new button on Pack Info to jump ahead to next year, carrying over your current territory to Establish Territory quest.
* In multiplayer, you can choose an initial season when starting a new Territory Quest or Pack Life game in Amethyst or Slough Creek.
* Several new ear injuries in Wolf Customization.
* Five new NPC-only coats (which will appear on dispersal wolves and sometimes on pups when you grow them up into adults in the Family Tree).
* "Favorite" toggle on My Wolves, and filtering option to show only Favorites.
* Wolf bio moved to its own tab on Pack Info, with readout of coat name and K locus at bottom.

* Modified the spinaround actions so if NPC animal is fleeing, it must first decelerate before spinning around. (This is intended to help the "turn on a dime spinaround" issue when attacking fleeing animals.
* Boar grizzly roars at start of charging attack.
* Most major body customizations (like ears) are visible in scent view.
* Multiplayer: Increased marking power in Story games with two players.
* Improvements to wind sound effects.
* Wolf now has its own barks, none shared with coyotes.
* Added a delay before mate regurgitates after sleeping.
* Amethyst cliff rocks now have nice blending between mesh and terrain.
* New notification text if grizzly kills a pup but then is chased away.
* Dispersal wolves now have a small chance of having a body customization.
* Grizzly fights: Variety of tweaks and refinements.
* Competitor and prey NPCs now look at you (follow your movements) during confrontations.
* Increased maximum food points on moose carcasses.
* Added scent gland mark on wolf tails.
* During den raids, the Enter Den button is disabled so you cannot enter the den (either accidentally when you meant to bite an attacker, or intentionally to hide from the fight).
* Improved colliders around northwest rock den (with the steep vertical rock over the den entrance) to reduce glitchiness when wolf runs into rock wall.
* Autosave icon now respects Hide HUD.
* Hide HUD alert appears for two seconds now instead of three.
* Added an alert if player tries to save a game with a name (such as "con") reserved by Windows file system.
* Controls: Added entries for beaver ambush actions to Controls Remapper.
* Pup sickness: Reduced maximum duration a bit.
* Reduced the maximum effect of bent and flat ears (which didn't work well with some animations like howling).
* Bigger teeth on wolves, the better to eat you with.
* Some improved wind audio.
* Declining pup hunger will prompt mates to go hunting sooner than previously.
* Pups get hungry a bit faster.
* Better Douglas-fir bark texture.
* In Pack Info, readouts turn red when they become concerning.
* Hunger meter on wolf badge has yellow tinted area indicating extra food storage for pups.

BUGS FIXED:
* Options menu doesn't stay open on newborn pups screen.
* On Load Game and Saved Game panels, multi-select deletion doesn't work.
* Some international letters don't appear properly in Saved Game naming field.
* Activating Photo Mode just as a quest is completed will freeze the game.
* World Map is low opacity, and missing rival pack names, if opened in a certain sequence.
* Lost River music stops playing after sleeping.
* Music stops at certain point during Loaf at Rendezvous Site.
* Multiplayer: Danger at Den music plays during rival wolf territorial fight if traveling to new homesite.
* Multiplayer den fights get out of whack after the first player dies or otherwise disengages from the fight.
* Multiplayer: Various glitches where the game gets stuck waiting for a player to respond.
* Multiplayer: If one player has Good Memory perk, other players don't see those dens on World Map in many circumstances.
* Mate teleports around a lot in Hank's Ditch in Lost River (and possibly other odd pathfinding bugs).
* When traveling, pups can get lost while pretty close to parents.
* Mule deer freeze when fleeing.
* Controller not detected if it's active before launching the game.
* Controller not detected if plugged in while game scene is loading.
* Controller: Custom control mappings are not loading when controller is connected but not used at game start.
* Controller glyphs missing on certain Game Help entries.
* Coat gene odds rerolled when player clicks Modify Wolf, rather than only if coat or tint is changed.
* At start of new game, player-wolf often has minimal fur effect (until player clicks button on intro panel).
* Beaver scent trails don't get cleared during season transitions, so they can be very very old.
* Eagle continues attacking after getting bored.
* Multiplayer: In certain circumstances, Good Memory perk doesn't display dens to all players.
* Player gets stuck if sleeping in the den when Raise Pups quest ends, and then sleeps again before exiting den.
* Wolf carousel breaks after certain sequence of actions
* Mate starts to return to den when it has regurgitant but immediately stops some distance away.
* Mate hangs out far from den when it has food to regurgitate.
* Flea Load notification won't go away in certain circumstances.
* When game resolution is low, targeting arrow covers up target animal.
* Some runts are not smaller than other pups.
* Sometimes pup blocks player from digging out a new den.
* Occasional issues when logging into account.
* Icons for newer coats on Wolf Customization don't have rounded corners.
* Can't earn Second Timers achievement.
* Eagle attack on den never ends.
* Wolf gets duplicated if two wolves have the same ID when player pulls from server.
* Stray tuft of fur on wolf's right ear.
* Added names for coats without them.
* Tree issues with lighting and snow.
* Text errors.
* Terrain and water issues.

A quick post about the K locus in the game, now that it's exposed in the Pack Info wolf bio in the public beta for 1.0.8l. If you don't know what the K locus is, watch this devblog before reading the rest of this post.

Research by Yellowstone biologists (including one of our advisors, Dan Stahler) into wolf genetics revealed that wolves with KK alleles were greatly underrepresented in the Yellowstone wolf population, presumably because KK wolves are more vulnerable to disease. Biologists don't really know when KK mortality happens -- is it mostly in utero, or when the pups are young, or sometime later before adulthood? So in the game, we spread it out, with some KK pups dying in utero (leading to smaller litters), and some being born but quite vulnerable to sickness and thus most are likely to die.

However, there is some chance of KK pups surviving. In their survey of Yellowstone wolves between 1998 and 2009, biologists found this distribution:

kk: 54%
Kk: 41%
KK: 5%

The game reproduces this (somewhat roughly) with pups, but also with adult wolves. We use this distribution to set the odds of dispersal wolves being kk, Kk, or KK. Furthermore, if you create a wolf with a black coat, it will have the same odds: 90% chance of being Kk and 10% chance of being KK. So your wolf can (unknowingly until now) be KK.

There was a quirk in the Wolf Customization functionality: Each time you click the Modify Wolf button, these kK/KK odds were rerolled, even if you didn't change the coat or tint. We've now fixed that (in 1.0.8l beta 41), so the odds are rerolled only if you change either of those things.

The next patch, v1.0.8l, is now in public beta! Available on Steam for Windows and MacOS. Instructions for opting into public beta at bottom of this post.

This features the new in-game injury system plus a whole lot more. But first: this patch is not backward-compatible with the last patch, 1.0.8k, so if you get this beta, then switch back to 1.0.8k, the game will break. We recommend making a backup of your User Files folder if you think you might want to switch back to it. You'll find that on Windows here: Documents\My Games\Wolf Quest Anniversary. And on MacOS, in your User directory/Wolf Quest Anniversary. (If you're not sure what's involved with that, you might just wait until this patch is out in general release. It shouldn't be too long.)



The new injury system has two tiers of injuries: major and minor. (Watch the devblog linked below for more info.) We're looking for feedback about the frequency of both types of injuries. Our goal is for players to typically get several minor injuries over the course of the game-year (from fall through Endless Summer), and perhaps one or two major injuries in that time, depending on how cautious or reckless they are. We'd like feedback about that goal, and then especially detailed feedback about how frequently you get injuries. One of our beta testers, Rowan, created a Google spreadsheet to track this data, noting each hunt, each competitor fight, etc., and everyone is welcome to make a copy of it and use it. If you use this, then share it with us by sending the link to info@wolfquest.org. You can also keep notes on a scratchpad and submit a Feedback Report (F11 in game) with your notes. Thanks!

What else is new? We've added three new dens, nestled underneath the roots of old Douglas-fir trees. And lots more! Browse the notes below for details.

We hope to release this patch next week -- along with the new DLC pack!

Links:
* New Injury System devblog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZo_-JEtO2g
* Google Spreadsheet for tracking injuries: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18leDMXZ4KizQ-h5xbFOG6Yn7GFGIB0EvjxIsvt7Thp8/edit#gid=0.
Our email address: info@wolfquest.org


* Player wolf and mate can get injured when taking damage from NPCs. Wolves can suffer a minor injury anytime, but can get a major injury only when they currently have a minor injury, and health is below 60% so it's prudent to avoid danger when you have a minor injury.
* Minor injuries reduce one attribute (Speed, Strength, or Stamina) by 1 and last 1-2 days (healing is faster when health is above 90%).
* Major injuries reduce one attribute by 7 and have one other effect: Slower eating with jaw injury, faster stamina drain when sprinting with torso or leg injury. They last 2-4 days (healing is faster when health is high).
* Major injuries to jaw and torso have no visual manifestation.
* Major injuries to the legs cause the wolf to limp until the injury is healed. Note that the wolf does not treat the limpy leg differently when laying down or doing some actions (it's not horribly painful, it's just sensitive to bearing weight, though there are moments, especially during intense action, when the wolf will put weight on it).
* Mates can suffer injuries (indicated with slash marks on mate's health meter in the wolf badge). They won't carry pups or other things with a major jaw injury, and they lag behind if they have a major leg injury. NPCs can also suffer injuries, but it's unlikely to occur.

* Three new dens underneath tree roots in central and eastern Slough Creek.

* In Slough Creek Endless Summer, a new button on Pack Info to jump ahead to next year, carrying over your current territory to Establish Territory quest.
* In multiplayer, you can choose an initial season when starting a new Territory Quest or Pack Life game in Amethyst or Slough Creek.
* "Favorite" toggle on My Wolves, and filtering option to show only Favorites.
* Wolf bio moved to its own tab on Pack Info, with readout of coat name and K locus at bottom.

* Modified the spinaround actions so if NPC animal is fleeing, it must first decelerate before spinning around. (This is intended to help the "turn on a dime spinaround" issue when attacking fleeing animals.
* Boar grizzly roars at start of charging attack.
* Most major body customizations (like ears) are visible in scent view.
* Wolf now has its own barks, none shared with coyotes.
* Added a delay before mate regurgitates after sleeping.
* Amethyst cliff rocks now have nice blending between mesh and terrain.
* New notification text if grizzly kills a pup but then is chased away.
* Dispersal wolves now have a small chance of having a body customization.
* Grizzly fights: Variety of tweaks and refinements.
* Competitor and prey NPCs now look at you (follow your movements) during confrontations.
* Increased maximum food points on moose carcasses.
* Added scent gland mark on wolf tails.
* Autosave icon now respects Hide HUD.
* Hide HUD alert appears for two seconds now instead of three.
* Added an alert if player tries to save a game with a name (such as "con") reserved by Windows file system.
* Controls: Added entries for beaver ambush actions to Controls Remapper.
* Pup sickness: Reduced maximum duration a bit.
* Reduced the maximum effect of bent and flat ears (which didn't work well with some animations like howling).
* Bigger teeth on wolves, the better to eat you with.
* Some improved wind audio.
* Declining pup hunger will prompt mates to go hunting sooner than previously.
* Pups get hungry a bit faster.
* Better Douglas-fir bark texture.
* In Pack Info, readouts turn red when they become concerning.
* Hunger meter on wolf badge has yellow tinted area indicating extra food storage for pups.

* Options menu doesn't stay open on newborn pups screen.
* On Load Game and Saved Game panels, multi-select deletion doesn't work.
* Some international letters don't appear properly in Saved Game naming field.
* Activating Photo Mode just as a quest is completed will freeze the game.
* World Map is low opacity, and missing rival pack names, if opened in a certain sequence.
* Lost River music stops playing after sleeping.
* Music stops at certain point during Loaf at Rendezvous Site.
* Multiplayer: Danger at Den music plays during rival wolf territorial fight if traveling to new homesite.
* Multiplayer den fights get out of whack after the first player dies or otherwise disengages from the fight.
* Multiplayer: Various glitches where the game gets stuck waiting for a player to respond.
* Controller not detected if it's active before launching the game.
* Controller not detected if plugged in while game scene is loading.
* Controller: Custom control mappings are not loading when controller is connected but not used at game start.
* Controller glyphs missing on certain Game Help entries.
* Beaver scent trails don't get cleared during season transitions, so they can be very very old.
* Player gets stuck if sleeping in the den when Raise Pups quest ends, and then sleeps again before exiting den.
* Wolf carousel breaks after certain sequence of actions
* Mate starts to return to den when it has regurgitant but immediately stops some distance away.
* Mate hangs out far from den when it has food to regurgitate.
* Flea Load notification won't go away in certain circumstances.
* When game resolution is low, targeting arrow covers up target animal.
* Some runts are not smaller than other pups.
* Sometimes pup blocks player from digging out a new den.
* Occasional issues when logging into account.
* Icons for newer coats on Wolf Customization don't have rounded corners.
* Can't earn Second Timers achievement.
* Eagle attack on den never ends.
* Wolf gets duplicated if two wolves have the same ID when player pulls from server.
* Stray tuft of fur on wolf's right ear.
* Added names for coats without them.
* Tree issues with lighting and snow.
* Text errors.
* Terrain and water issues.
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* Reduced odds of a jaw injury and increased odds of foreleg injury.

* In multiplayer, injury tutorial tips cannot be closed with anything but mouse.
* Wolf has fur in game scenes even when disabled in Game Settings.
* One of the new tree root dens has rock den icon.
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* Multiplayer: In certain circumstances, Good Memory perk doesn't display dens to all players.
* Controller: Emote subpanel selection doesn't work.
* Lost River: Hank's Ditch is missing a few sections of concrete.
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* Reduced odds of minor injury a bit.
* Changed threshold for red text in Hunger from 50% to 30%.
* Adjusted position of radio collar.

* Eagle continues attacking after getting bored. (Please test how den / rendezvous site fights end, both victories and defeats, as well as putting pups in the den when the eagle is attacking, and report back if anything weird happens.)
* Game pauses for awhile when NPC wolf dies.
* Sometimes limpy leg effect doesn't go away when injury heals.
* Wolves walk above the ground on some Amethyst cliff spots.
* Grass growing at entrance to one of the new tree dens.
* Reduced volume of injured-jaw eating sound.
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NOTE: This has extra debug logging about injuries in multiplayer, so please submit a bug report if you notice that the injury display in Pack Info shows incorrect status for another player.

* During den raids, the Enter Den button is disabled so you cannot enter the den (either accidentally when you meant to bite an attacker, or intentionally to hide from the fight).
* Raised the terrain at the rocky outcrop behind the new tree den near Gravel Fan, to make it easier for animals to navigate.
* Snowprints now match limpy status.
* Improved colliders around northwest rock den (with the steep vertical rock over the den entrance) to reduce glitchiness when wolf runs into rock wall.
* Reduced durations of injuries in Accelerated Time multiplayer games. Probably needs tuning, please submit feedback with comments.

* Game freezes when NPC wolf dies (really fixed this time).
* Flickering on ground at the new tree dens.
* When fur is disabled, textures on pups at start of Raise Pups quest is messed up.

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NOTE: This has extra debug logging about injuries in multiplayer, so please submit a bug report if you notice that the injury display in Pack Info shows incorrect status for another player.

* Slough Creek Multiplayer, Accelerated Time: Adjusted pup hunger rate to rebalance it after recent change to increase pup hunger rate in general.

* Coat gene odds rerolled when player clicks Modify Wolf, rather than only if coat or tint is changed. (For more about this, see new devblog post.
* In Pack Info: Bio readout, some black coats are labeled Gray.
* Coats from International Wolf Center wolves don't have names in Pack Info Bio.
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* Increased odds of major injury a bit.

* Wolves float above a couple Amethyst cliff rocks.
* Mate sometimes stops and wants to regurgitate during den/rendezous trips (but can't since pups are too far away, so appears to be stuck).
* No footstep audio when limping wolves move.
* Mate teleports around a lot in Hank's Ditch in Lost River (and possibly other odd pathfinding bugs).
* When traveling, pups can get lost while pretty close to parents.
* Mule deer freeze when fleeing.
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NOTE: This has even more debug logging about injuries in multiplayer, so please submit a bug report if you notice that the injury display in Pack Info shows incorrect status for another player.

* Updated Loaf at Rendezvous Site completion text with info about Jump Ahead button.

* No footstep sounds when wolf is cantoring (between trot and gallop, usually when carrying something which slows them down).
* Terrain texturing issues.
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* Several new ear injuries in Wolf Customization.

* Multiplayer: If one player has Good Memory perk, other players don't see those dens on World Map in many circumstances.
* Multiplayer: Pack Info shows erroneous injury status for other players in game.
* Injury Healed notification says wrong body part was healed.
* Lost River: Some missing objects.
* Slough Creek: Sometimes wind audio sounds odd (multiple audio playing simultaneously).

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* Multiplayer: Increased marking power in Story games with two players.
* More improvements to wind sound effects.
* Hid the Jump Ahead to Next Year button in Endless Summer if the player-wolf has no mate.
* Set terrain blending to be disabled by default on Fastest quality level.

* Multiplayer: If you start or join a game with a wolf that does not have Good Memory perk, then leave and reload or rejoin with a wolf that does have that perk, your remembered dens do not show on the World Map.
* Wolf Customization: Some customizations with sliders have slider at 100% initially.
* Wolf Customization: Sometimes Ear slider position is not retained correctly later.
* Several limping animations are truncated, causing visual glitches.
* Mate Injured tutorial tip appears (and pauses the game) every time the mate is injured.
* Half Black coat texture has a thin white line along the right cheek.
* Wolves and pups inside den don't respect Fur quality setting.
* Wolf rendering in wolf badge and Perks panel don't have fur.

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* Play an audio cue when player heals from injury.
* If mate died during Endless Summer and player gets a new mate, jumping ahead to next year will revive the former mate, so the confirmation popup about jumping ahead now has a note about regenerating the family snapshot in that situation.
* Reduced stamina penalty for major torso injuries from -7 to -6, to avoid a total potential penalty of -10 (with -2 wolf and -1 minor injury), which would give wolf infinite stamina.

* Multiplayer: In certain situations, if you initially host with a wolf that does not have Good Memory perk, then leave and load the save with a wolf that does have that perk, your remembered dens do not show on the World Map.
* Multiplayer: In Pack Info, sometimes the readout showing total attribute penalty from an injury doesn't update reliably when tabbing among wolves in the game.
* If multiple injuries heal while sleeping, notification only shows for one of them upon waking.
* At start of new game, player-wolf often has minimal fur effect (until player clicks button on intro panel).
* In Setup New Game, the wolf search field doesn't work.
* Big cracks in Amethyst terrain.
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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.

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).

If you prefer, you can choose the new Yellowstone Wolf Coat DLC (only for WolfQuest: AE for PC/Mac) or the WolfQuest Soundtrack and Music Extras.

How to Enter
Email your username, preferred email address, and your answer to the question: "What are three interesting facts about wolves?" to contest1@wolfquest.org. Winners are selected randomly from complete entries. Please enter only once in each contest.

Deadline
All entries must be received before midnight (Eastern Daylight Time) on Monday, May 9, 2022.

Random Drawing
Each complete entry will be assigned a number. We will then use a random-number generator to generate four numbers. The entries bearing those numbers will each win a free copy of the game.

First of all: WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition is 25% off as part of the Earth Appreciation Festival! That brings the price down to US$14.99. The WolfQuest Soundtrack is also on sale! So, if you've got WolfQuest on your wish list, this is a rare opportunity to save a few bucks. Or, if you already own the game, you might take advantage of the sale to buy it for a friend who'd enjoy it. Lots of other great Earth-themed games are on sale too. Sale ends April 26.

Today's devblog looks at a few common questions about the upcoming injuries system, and gives a sneak peek at one of the new DLC wolf coats coming soon:



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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.