Game & Status Updates 9th February 2017

[BuiuRei]

Do you have Q (auto walk) engaged?

[Rantanrave]

Look, I know this post will make me seem like an ungrateful player, but i feel like it has to be said: I am seriously doubting how committed Expansive Worlds will remain to either of these games.

Before you fetch the pitchforks and torches, let me explain:

About 2 years ago, EW released a new game: "TheHunter Primal." This game was announced as a new and exciting way to play TheHunter, without ruining the experience of the standard hunting experience. The game was released as a standalone game, and garned some mixed reviews. The general conclusion seemed to be "This game can become really amazing, but only if the devs put some work into it," and the devs quickly assured us that they would be working hard on making the game good. 1 year after release, the game had recieved several updates: 2 new predator species, some new weapons and of course the ingame store. However, the devs never implemented what players were actually asking for: A more balanced mix of herbivores vs carnivores (really, no ecosystem would function with 4 carnivores and only 1 herbivore), more areas (maps) to explore, more things to do after reaching max lvl, more interaction with other players (base building anyone?), a way to access the shop without being dead (seriously, primal is a game about SURVIVAL, and having to be dead to access the shop, really works against the purpose, since you have to kill yourself to buy more ammo) and, of course, simply fixing the enourmous amounts of bugs/glitches the game was plagued by.
However, despite the players waiting patiently, Primal never seemed like anything close to a priority for EW, after the transition from early access to full release. When asked, players were mostly met with silence, or "we are working on stuff behind the scenes" or "TheHunter is our main focus."

Alright, I get it. EW is a small studio and dont have a lot of manpower, so its only natural they have to prioritize. They released a fun little "side-project" and didnt give it too much thought after release. Thats fair enough, to an extend. However, now I suddenly see this "Call of the Wild" announcement, telling about a new standalone release from EW, and the first thing that pops into my mind is: "Working on 2 games simultaniously didnt turn out well at all last time...."
For a bit of fun i checked on "TheHunter Primal", to see when the last patch was released, which turned out to be about a year prior. Clearly, Primal was out in the cold and forgotten.
Therefore, imagine my surprise when Thehunter Primal suddenly gets a patch, litterally out of no-where. Oh boy! A patch after a year of waiting! Must be something exciting, right? Nope. Carry weight restrictions has been lifted. Great..... I didnt ask for this at any time. More space was appreciated, albeit not really needed. But there was definately no logical reason to remove it alltogether. It just removes a tactical element from the game. It was one of the last things I had to worry about as lvl 50, and now thats gone as well.
More troubling though, is the "support" for offline gameplay. For me this just means the end of the Primals servers is here. EW is preparing to pull the plug on this game for good.

I also found it funny how this patch for Primal, just happened to get released a week before "Call of the Wild" had its release date announced. Now this could of course be a pure coincidence, but I have a hard time believing that. I kinda see the following scene play out in my head: Dev 1: "Good job guys, the players really seem excited for our new game!" Dev 2: "Umm, yeah. That reminds me; didnt we release another game a while back. With Dinos and sh*t?" Dev 3: "Oh, right. I completely forgot. I think it has been a while since it had any patches or anything." Dev 1: "Damnit, that totally slipped my mind. Well, we dont want our players to think we release games without long-term plans for supports and updates, so I guess you better release a new patch for Primal, so the players can see we care about them." Dev 2: "Alright. What should the feature of this patch be about?" "Dev 1: "Who cares?! Make players able to fly, add a car for them to drive around in, or give them a freaking laser pistol. I really couldnt care less what you do in the patch; this is about PR!" Dev 3: "Alright, you're the boss!" Dev 1: "And we are killing off the servers, as we need the funding for Call of the Wild, so you might as well fix that while you are at it."

Now, this scene obviously is pure fantasy from my part, but I cant help but think something along these lines was going on regarding to the patch for Primal. And that makes me fear for for the future. Call of the wild is going to require a seperate crew to maintain it, which cuts an already small team in half. Also, a standalone game wont generate much profits in the long-term, which is why I suspect Primal met an early end. However, we all know about the wonders of DLC and expansion packs, so i guess the devs have their *sses covered, in case they want to boost their income (of course they wouldnt want that, right?)

In short: unless Expansive worlds has changed a lot in the last 2 years, I dont really want to give them money for a game, which might be abondoned in a year. Primal is currently left to die in a pool of lacking content, bugs and lackluster gameplay. I fear Call of the Wild might end up the same. Or even worse: Call of the wild slowly becomes the main focus of EW, and thus TheHunter Classic ends up getting neglected instead.

I hope the best, but fear the worst.

[Alena Rybik]

Update about the shooting tripod rest:
Thanks for your feedback about the new equipment, looks like there is love in general for the humble little tripod.
We discovered that the .45-70 rifle doesn't work for the Shooting tripod rest right now, we will fix it as soon as possible.
We are also going to try to smooth out the side movements even more.

@Rantangrave: Your concerns are understandable. I am not the producer nor decision maker for either theHunter: Call of the Wild nor theHunter: Primal, so I can not speak for either one of the games but I think that the company has learned a lot from our past experience with theHunter: Primal and will do what they can for the history not to repeat itself. But you will just have to wait and see for yourself.

One thing worth mentioning though; EW has grown significantly since we started working on theHunter: Call of the Wild and we have two completely separate teams within the EW (with exception of some cross-team specialists, such as sound, tools) working on both games.

[whiteonyx2]

Hi. Thank's for the updates - and for new the shooting stick. I've been wishing for that, for a long time now i will carry it on every hunt - like i do irl

I also very much like the new straight pull .308, great weapon

[Rusty79]

Been waiting forever for the hunting tripod, nice addition. Might actually play the game.

[phil1]

@Rantangrave: Your concerns are understandable. I am not the producer nor decision maker for either theHunter: Call of the Wild nor theHunter: Primal, so I can not speak for either one of the games but I think that the company has learned a lot from our past experience with theHunter: Primal and will do what they can for the history not to repeat itself. But you will just have to wait and see for yourself.

One thing worth mentioning though; EW has grown significantly since we started working on theHunter: Call of the Wild and we have two completely separate teams within the EW (with exception of some cross-team specialists, such as sound, tools) working on both games.

So nobody's working on Primal then, with 'two completely separate teams working on both games' (The Hunter and COTW) and the company learning from the past and ensuring 'history doesn't repeat itself', does that mean that Primal has officially been abandoned? (It would explain the offline mode.)

[Radamus]

R&R, good to see you still keeping an eye on things and still kicking. Been a while
I think a lot of people have had the same thoughts in the back of their mind, it would only be natural out of a fear that "My Game" may be at risk- but those discussions have been through the ringer with every imaginable scenario. I think the value of that discussion as a whole sends a message, that there is a lot of passion for what we have, know and want to protect.
So I see it like this, We are a mama bear and our cubs are TheHunter and EW is leaning in for a hug to which we are reluctant

[Alena Rybik]

@Rantangrave: Your concerns are understandable. I am not the producer nor decision maker for either theHunter: Call of the Wild nor theHunter: Primal, so I can not speak for either one of the games but I think that the company has learned a lot from our past experience with theHunter: Primal and will do what they can for the history not to repeat itself. But you will just have to wait and see for yourself.

One thing worth mentioning though; EW has grown significantly since we started working on theHunter: Call of the Wild and we have two completely separate teams within the EW (with exception of some cross-team specialists, such as sound, tools) working on both games.

So nobody's working on Primal then, with 'two completely separate teams working on both games' (The Hunter and COTW) and the company learning from the past and ensuring 'history doesn't repeat itself', does that mean that Primal has officially been abandoned? (It would explain the offline mode.)

As far as I know there is a patch in the works for theHunter Primal right now, to fix the issue with lost items / stats. But again, I am not the person to answer those questions nor this is the right platform for asking them. All the official communication regarding theHunter: Primal occurs on the game's official community hub.

[phil1]

@Rantangrave: Your concerns are understandable. I am not the producer nor decision maker for either theHunter: Call of the Wild nor theHunter: Primal, so I can not speak for either one of the games but I think that the company has learned a lot from our past experience with theHunter: Primal and will do what they can for the history not to repeat itself. But you will just have to wait and see for yourself.

One thing worth mentioning though; EW has grown significantly since we started working on theHunter: Call of the Wild and we have two completely separate teams within the EW (with exception of some cross-team specialists, such as sound, tools) working on both games.

So nobody's working on Primal then, with 'two completely separate teams working on both games' (The Hunter and COTW) and the company learning from the past and ensuring 'history doesn't repeat itself', does that mean that Primal has officially been abandoned? (It would explain the offline mode.)

As far as I know there is a patch in the works for theHunter Primal right now, to fix the issue with lost items / stats. But again, I am not the person to answer those questions nor this is the right platform for asking them. All the official communication regarding theHunter: Primal occurs on the game's official community hub.

I hope this patch will fix the game crashing intermittently when I open a crate, it may not be the first crate, but it will crash within the first 10 crates opened. This was fixed for me a while ago, but returned after the last patch.

[maros.kuzar]

IMO Primal patch is actually very good news for tH aswell, because now we know EW can make their game offline, and that is probably what is going to happen to tH too. This is a great news to know that eventually we will end up with offline game istead of no game!