Ask Me Anything with Andrés & Danny

Collection of useful resources, including forum info and functionality, Dev AMAs and everything else you want to have a quick access to.
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ronMctube
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Re: Ask Me Anything with Andrés & Danny

Post by ronMctube »

would you be able to use the updated engine when available from say just cause 3 and mad max.



also when will we see maybe running water.
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foresterjoe
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Re: Ask Me Anything with Andrés & Danny

Post by foresterjoe »

1. would a new engine mean a new game such as a the hunter two version is needed. Is this something that may be a viable option towards future longevity and expansion for the long run.

2. Will there be any changes to the game option settings to allow more refined tweaks to users such as grass, trees distance, blood on and off sliders, graphics optimizations and others that can be set by automatic detection or manual imputs before each start session.

keep up the good work, cheers.
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volpuz
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Re: Ask Me Anything with Andrés & Danny

Post by volpuz »

Hi I'm the moderator of of thehunteritaly.com and i'd like to report some questions posed for this specially thread from our italian comunity.

Is there any chance that the frequencie of how many and every how raining in Val-des-Bois can be rivisited? Because is point of view of many that for as it is now it makes ibex hunting a bit frustrating (too difficult to spot far ibex)

Another point of view regards updates, especially new stuff/bug fixing ratio. It is known that there are different teams that have different tasks in EW but we think it could be a good and accettable idea to stop developing new stuff for a bit longer and try to focus more people on finding and fixing bugs, is it something feasible?

Will be ever introduced non huntable animals like today's rats or birds (but not so low res)? This could convey more reality to the gameplay...

With the mountain nature of Val-des-bois, when the avatar is crouching, the visual degrees which can be used to aiming at underlying or overhanging animals it becomes a problem, often is just not possible to shoot because the prey is out of visual only for that few centimeters...it something that can be fixed or improved?

The noise emitted by walking or running in water compared to the noise emitted by the same action on hard surfaces makes any difference to spooking animals?

Improving the effect time of scents lures it will make this items something more useful a more realistic (and more buyable for your side...) don't you think?

Crouching with a bow in your hand it would be a nice thing for silent hunting (i don't intend for shoot...only for fast hiding) is it something will be implemented in future?

Can you activate fast switching between binoculars ad other items when binoculars is raised?
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XtaZiiy
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Re: Ask Me Anything with Andrés & Danny

Post by XtaZiiy »

Hi, i'm french sorry for my really bad english. I'm using a translator..

- The system of gravity is a good addition, but it prevents from now on from reaching in place a logical access of which we had before on other map. Will it be fixed ?

- Missions for ibexes are planned ?

- You had already said that you would like to add dogs to the game, but that this one would be a technical challenge to be added. This project moves forward ?

- The wolf would be a logical addition on a map as Val-Des-Bois, is it planned ?

- Plan to add you a heart to the ibexes ?

- Ibexes are often very hard to harvest, an idea to remedy it ?

- Why we cant buy .300 Carbon ? Shall can we buy it bought one day? How for .12 luxury and others ?

- The packs of tents are a very good idea. Do you think of adding them in a definitive way ?

- For the players having a good pc and playing it ultra, the clipping is very annoying, especially with the animal species. Plan to increase you the distance of display of this one ?

Thanks for this "Ask Me Anything", and for this wonderful game ! ;)
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Pretty_Boy
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Re: Ask Me Anything with Andrés & Danny

Post by Pretty_Boy »

Very good and interesting questions everyone, but when do we get some answers... Im a little exited to hear the feedback... :D :D :D

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Knut
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Re: Ask Me Anything with Andrés & Danny

Post by Knut »

  • There are quite some complex systems in the game, e.g. the weather system, the skill system etc. Recent systems (e.g. the migration system) have been more simple, at least in their appearance. Du you think that this is a general trend in this game and if, do you regret that you can't go all bananas on putting some complex stuff in?
  • The tracking skill XP gain seems do be very complex and not possible to understand in all depth for us players. Do you think that there is a chance that this system will be explained to us?
  • When a bug manages to sneak past you piggibacking on a new update, do you bite into your keyboard?
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'" ― Isaac Asimov
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Andres Hansson
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Ask Me Anything with Andrés & Danny: Answers

Post by Andres Hansson »

Here are our answers to the AMA, sorry it took us so long to reply to your questions. But better later than never.

First of all we’d like to explain a bit what kind of roles we have at EW:
  • Community manager: Communication channel between EW and the community
  • Game designer: Designs the game and future features.
  • Artist: Does 3D and 2D Art
  • Client programmer: Implements the functionallity for the game, for example AI.
  • Server programmer: Creates functions that the game can use, for example save statistics and users etc.
  • Frontend programmer: Works with the Web site, Launcher interface and in game menu interface
  • Animator: Makes our animals and characters move
  • Producer: Post-it master
  • Support: Handles support questions


Q: Answer honestly, How many alcoholic beverages do you think you could consume before you where physically unable to perform your job?
A [Andrés]: I think I can handle quite a few beers and still do my job physically (sit by the computer). But, it’s a much more mental job to be a programmer. I can tell you that just one beer is too much.

Q: Being called the "Mr. fixit" Guys...how do you fell about the mood of the community regarding bugs "like please no more new stuff fix the old first"...in my HUMBLE opinion, i really seldom encounter major/gamebreaking bugs…
A: Bugs are tricky things. Some are quite obvious and easy to reproduce and some are very random and need a lot of testing to happen. One of the big problems with developing PC games is that there are countless different configurations of hardware and software the game can be running on.

Another big problem is that the version of the game you run is not exactly the same as we run when developing the game. We have a version with debugging information. Some bugs you experience do not happen in our version. For example, a few months ago we had a bug where the camera could spin around or move far away when firing. It was a bug that randomly happend on the “released” version of the game and not in our debugging version. So all we could do was to take a guess at what was happening. It took about 4 months until we found out what was wrong, but it only took about 15 seconds to fix.

We definitely prioritize bugs that are easy to reproduce. We feel it’s better to fix some bugs than put several days / weeks on a bug we can’t get to happen. Crash bugs and show stoppers are also top priority.

I can understand players feel that we should fix old stuff before doing new content, but many of the bugs we get reported are so difficult or time consuming to reproduce that we can not invest the time required to fix them. You must remember that we may be a team of about 17 developers, but we are only 2 - 3 client programmers. Almost all features (except clothes) need more or less involvement of the client programmers. If we (client programmers) would put all our time into trying to fix bugs, almost all the client side development of the game would stall, so we would have 15 other developers not being able to get their stuff implemented in the game. It just wouldn’t work.

Q: f you could change one major thing in the game or the client just by thinking...what would it be?
A [Andrés]: I would change the game from being Client - Server to Peer to peer with host migration so multiplayer games can continue even if the host leaves.

Q: Being some of EW and the Hunters Vets, how do you feel about the development of the hunter and its community looking back over the years?
A [Andrés]: I’m pretty proud of what our team has achieved over the years. We have grown from a team of five and just a few thousand players to a team almost four times the size and a much much bigger community. I [Andres] was personally much more active on the forums in the beginning, nowadays I just don’t have the time.

Q: Will there be made a way to dress up in a "reserve required" set of clothes with 1 click, - beside the individual choices ? The current system is very good fore individual choice of clothing but "reserve" buttons will make it much easier to quickly change the whole reserve set.
A: We have a similar task in our backlog. It’s something we have been talking about for a long time, but due to the amount of work our front end guys have had on other stuff we have not had time to implement it.

Q: Will there be a colour choice fore the blinking indicator/cone on the Huntermate ? The way it is now it is very hard to see the clues on the HM, especially on VdB.
A: Yes the indicators are a bit too dark from some backgrounds. It sounds like a good idea. I will see if we can add it to our backlog.

Q: Is it possible to make a number system fore spawn tents? It would be much easier to explain where my guests should start from in a MP game if I could say: "You start from tent 3 an RFF map", and it would be easier to guide a guest to: "Climbing rope 5." Numbers would also be helpful with other world items, in the same way.
A: The tents are in a list on the left side of the map when joining the game, even though they are not numbered. In game you could draw on the full screen map to explain where your guests should go.

Q: Lower the sound of heavy rain (and how often it rains) in the game?The sound of heavy rain is not a problem when I have the game sound on speakers. But it is a really annoying loud sound when I use headphones, and I do that in MP and when I am talking to people in game.
A: It would be possible to decrease the volume of the rain sound. How often it rains is a more difficult tweak than it sounds. Our weather system is something we have inherited from the Just Cause 2 game. We have tried to tweak it before without success.

Q: Why the climbing gear just why? If not for realism for what, because it isn't realistic to be able to haul climbing gear, a gun and other hunting equipment along with an ibex up and down a mountain certainly not while climbing. Also I just really don't like it and I know I'm not the only one.
A: One can never please all. You will have to ask our Game designers about the “why”. We're just humble programmers.

Q: Why does it rain so much on Hirschfelden? Were it not for the rain it would've been my favourite reserve…
A: There are no specific weather settings per reserve. Even though it would be quite logic that it rains more on an Autumn reserve?

Q: if you could create a reserve based on a real world location (Africa/Australia/etc.) what would it be?
A [Andrés]: I guess it would be an African reserve.

Q: What does the near future look like, do we get a new Game Engine? (DirectX 11-12)
A: Currently we have no plans of changing Graphics engine. It would require many months of work to convert the game and everything around it to the latest Avalanche Engine. And the game does not automatically get a lot prettier just because you change rendering system. It will still be the same models, animations and effects as before. The lighting may look nicer though.

Q: If someone on the team (not necessarily your team, could be the art or animation team) has an idea, e.g. a new weapon or world item, how easy would it be for them to make that idea a reality and how often does it happen? In other words, are all new releases community-inspired, or does a lot of the inspiration for new items come from people within the organisation?
A: We come up with ideas all the time, but we always need to think about if the community would want the feature, if we can squeeze it into our schedule and if the effort in creating it is worthwhile.

Q: Having poured so much love and attention into building this incredible game, can you enjoy playing it as much as you enjoyed making it?
A [Andrés]: I can enjoy playing the game now and then. Especially when we play all together at the office. I am probably the one at the office who plays the game most.

Q: Have you ever had to sacrifice a feature you really didn't want to exclude in order to keep the game within budget, to meet a deadline, or perhaps due to limitations with the game engine?
A: We have a lot of cool ideas for the game that unfortunately cannot be implemented within reasonable time. Now and then we have to exclude ideas because of deadlines. We don’t recall having to sacrifice anything too important.

Q: Does it frustrate you that theHunter is a product of a business (with the ultimate goal of generating revenue and profit) which has overheads and financial responsibilities, and that the game cannot always head in the direction that the team (and often the community) would like?
A [Andrés]: Yes, I would sometimes like to implement features that would be more “cool” than economically viable. But we have plans that require a certain amount of profit.

Q: If someone offered you unlimited funding and the chance to go it alone in the games industry, what sort of game would you develop (question goes to both of you separately)?
A [Andrés]: I’ve always liked fantasy games. I would like to create an old school top down view RPG set in the Tolkien world after the Lord of the Rings books.
A [Danny]: Easy one. I would love to do a game with the Dino-Riders ip or something similar (for those who do not know what it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dino-Riders). Best thing ever. I'm not sure how the game would be like, but with unlimited funding and dinosaurs with weapons, how can it go wrong?

Q: I want to ask you first, lets assume that you guys are completely free with no bug fixing or a projects on your hand, just one mission to create A global Chat System with some basic features "nothing fancy" that makes it a little more useful than what we used to have, how much time do you think such project may take you to finish? a weak or two, or a month or two? again assuming you have nothing else to do.
A: Not sure what you mean with a “Global chat system”. But before the game went multiplayer, we had a chat system that could chat with players in other theHunter games and with players on the web. We did not have time to implement this when we worked on multiplayer and redesigned the whole web and launcher. We have such a system in our back log.

Q: Have you guys tried outsourcing "Freelancers" before for little projects that you don't have the time to do it your self? If i understand the priority of the "To-Do-List" correctly, then features which generate profit will naturally take the place of other features that has no profit attached to it. and thus you guys will always be busy with such projects, and the little ones will have very low chance of seeing the light at the current pace.
A: It is very very difficult for an outside source to create features for the game. The code is very complicated and it takes several months to learn how to work it effectively. Easiest would be to outsource graphics content only. We did this once about five years ago. We had to redo all the work that was outsourced. It was bad.

Q: Who of EW would you guys hunt down?
A [Andrés]: I would definitely hunt Pim with a paint gun. Oh wait, I’ve already done that ;)

Q: Do you change a chance of trophy animal spawning during new season? Let's say there is 1% chance for trophy roosevelt elk (400+) to spawn in RFF. Can it change to 0.9 or 1.1% in next season. Do you adjust (if adjust) such numbers every season?
A: No we do not change such numbers.

Q: Is it true that if you hunt for a long time in 1 reserve the chances to meet trophy animal gets lower and it is better to look for that animal in other reserves.
A: There is a set amount of animals in each reserve. You can kill all of them during a game session. But at the end of the day (7 pm) the game starts over at 5am and all the animals are randomized again and the chances are the same as before.

Q: Is it true that high scoring animal will go away from feeder/barrel first?
A: The higher scoring an animal is, the more easy it is too spook it.

Q: How do you decide it is good time to make a new season?
A: This is a bit random, but usually we do it when we release a new animal or when we do changes that will affect the scoring.

Q: Who is the most serious person at the office and why?
A: Señor Emilio is pretty serious without the pretty.

Q: Who is the funniest person at the office and why?
A: Nobody here is funny. We are all serious business here.

Q: If you were forced to live in another country, what would it be and why?
A [Danny]: I would like to live in Svalbard, Norway. Why? Because polar bears, that’s why. No, but I love cold weather and snow, and they have it there pretty much all year long. Otherwise Canada seems like a nice place to live in.

Q: Are there technical constraints that prohibit expanding the Avatar creation process to provide more options? (Tired of everybody looking the same)
A: Not really, it’s a question of how much time we want to invest in it.

Q: The issue of multiple players carrying and deploying large equipment in a MP game has been discussed before, are we just dreaming to hope that will be corrected in the next year?
A [Danny]: I really hope we find the time to do it. It is a bit tricky to handle, but far from impossible.

Q: Could the game start times be expanded to have an option to just enter a 24hr start time? I like to do long hunts, but because of my real life they must be spread over several days. Allowing a "to the minute" start would allow those like me to continue right where we left off. Eg. end hunt A at 1148 then two rl days later start hunt B at 1148.
A: It is possible, absolutely. But it needs to be implemented on the server side of things (not only the client), and they are always pretty busy. But we may add it to the wants-list.

Q: Are you exploring the concept of dynamic content changes? Eg. earthquake changes part of RFF, new buildings added etc.
A: Nothing we’ve talked about, no.

Q: Do you have any on-going work to adapt Occulus Rift to be used in TheHunter?
A: Can’t really answer that, but we would love to have Occulus Rift functionality.

Q: The addition of Reindeer in Hemmeldal was a stroke of genius and absolutely revitalized the map. Are there any plans, or ideas being thrown about, for new species in any other of the existing maps, in particular Rougarou Bayou? I know absolutely nothing about hunting gators, but anything new there would be an improvement.
A [Danny]: I agree with you. I personally would love to do the alligators, but we’ll see what we can do about that.

Q: With the introduction of multiplayer (another great addition) the animations had to be redone. One animation that's been hard to get used to is the Parkinson's disease afflicted player, most noticeable when holding the Huntermate. The animation moves very quickly 5 individual steps in each direction to simulate sway, but it's way too obvious. Are there plans for smoother sway, or is this a function that will not or cannot be fixed in the current format?
A: We tried to fix that. It’s not an animation issue, it’s a “flaw” within the game. We will try to find time to fix that since it is pretty annoying as you say.

Q: How come you guys get to share an AMA and everyone else had to go it alone?
A: Because we are the busiest ones here and because we are pretty slow ;)

Q: I was wondering if there were any collectables put into the new VB reserve? So far I haven't stumbled upon any.
A: We guess we will add stuff there too, it’s the design team that handles that.

Q: Is it in your plans to put Non-typical md, wt, and bt in the game? If so when, and if not why?
A: We can’t answer this question, all the new stuff that will be released is mentioned in the status updates. But it would be cool, wouldn’t it?

Q: Is there plans to put Sheds, (horns the male animals have dropped) in the game? You now have mushrooms, pots, gems, etc, so why not Sheds?
A: We’ve discussed this several times. The difference with sheds is that we want to add gameplay value, so the player can use them as callers. And due to that new functionality we haven’t found the time for it. But hopefully in the near future!

Q: Now that we have male Ibex fighting, will this be added to md, wt, and bts? If so, finish the fighting animations with the winner chasing the loser away.
A: It is possible yes. We need time to implement it though, it need animations and such. But it is possible. It’s a matter of priorities.

Q: Is it technically possible to remodel the turkey? And if it is, will this happen at some point in the future?
A: They are a bit tricky since the have all these feathers, but sure it is possible. It is a matter of time and priorities.

Q: Would alligators ever be a consideration in theHunter?
A [Danny]: I would love to have them in game, so I really hope so!

Q: For both of you: We all have our little annoyances in game, and I'm sure you guys as programmers have them as well, albeit in a different light. What is the single most annoying and maddening aspect of the game that drives you guys to wanna devour interns?
A [Danny]: We devour them anyway. But if you mean gameplay I would say the render distance is a bit annoying. And if you mean code wise, implementing new weapons that have special mechanics, that is a pain due to how our weapon system is built.
A [Andrés]: I would say it is the weapon handling. It’s a bit slow and stiff.

Q: For both of you: What reserve would you say is your absolute favorite, and what species is also your favorite (doesn't have to be on the same reserve)?
A [Danny]: I love Hirschfelden. I like the possibility to hunt all the different species there, with different gameplay. I just love it. And the reserve itself I believe is one of the best looking ones.
My favorite species… I’m not sure actually. I like mallards and geese a lot, foxes, deers,... it just depends on the mood I’m in. But I guess the one I’ve had the most fun hunting has been the mallards and geese.
A [Andrés]: My favorite is usually the newest reserve. It’s always nice with something new. We definitely had the most fun developing the Mallard and Goose, but I like the bigger animals.

Q: Andrés: as the longest tenured developer at EW (side note: hasn't Peter been there just as long? Can't remember..), you've seen the game grow tremendously into what it is now. If you could go back and do something differently, what would you do and how do you think it would alter the game?
A [Andrés]: I would have liked to have updated the game to a newer version of the Avalanche engine back in the begging of EW. It would have allowed us to use newer and more effective tools to create our games.

Q: Danny: Danny G! Last one is for you. What is the one thing that you personally want to see in the game, something that you would absolutely jump at the opportunity to create? Could be a reserve, weapon, animal, ...tree LOL.
And one last question. Remember that pencil I let you borrow a couple of years back? Well..can I have it back?

A [Danny]: Well, right now I enjoy the most working with AI and animations, so I guess a new animal would be the answer. And if possible, something completely new, like a feline or aligator or something like that.
And no.

Q: What was the reasoning behind not having scent reduction on deployable towers?
A [Danny]: I don’t know actually. It is a game design thing.

Q: Are you considering modifying that aspect?
A [Danny]: Again, this should be answered by the design team.

Q: Deployable towers are built on site. Why is it so hard to find a place to put them? They are custom built, so should be able to put them anywhere.
A: We have some rules when placing deployable towers, like it cannot be too close to stones or trees, in the water, or on steep terrain.

Q: We we always fall out of our tree stands when we are standing in them not crouching?
A: We believe that is an old bug we already fixed.

Q: What was your greatest challenge ever in theHunter
A: Multiplayer without a doubt. It took a lot of time, late nights, weekends,... That was a [insert insult]. But we are very happy with the results. It was a big challenge but we made it. Really happy about it.

Q: Do your work on weekends?
A: Not usually no, only when we have too. And this far it was only when working on multiplayer that we can remember.

Q. What is your favourite animal you believe should be in theHunter (if can't answer, what your favourite animal?)
A [Danny]: I would like some big felines! That can hunt you back…

Q: What is the biggest fish you have caught and what type (if you have gone fishing)?
A [Danny]: I have my story of the monster pike I caught… almost. We were out fishing (Peter, Andrés, Robert and me) and I caught a pike as big as a bear, with teeth sharp as razors, a mean one. But at the last second it got away, but I will always have my story.

Q: Will you ever add collectables to Rougarou Bayou and Val des Bois and make then more efficient and a fun new experience?
A [Danny]: I hope so, yes.

Q: Not sure if you deal with this sort of stuff but why isn't there any red deer scent?!
A: That’s a question for our game designers.

Q: Do you guys have already plans to make the engine or graphics more efficient of this game? For it being such an old engine and all that, it is quite demanding on hardware and also quite limiting (render distance). Do you guys have plans to optimize performance or are you satisfied with how it is?
A [Danny]: It’s possible we upgrade, possible we don’t. I just don’t know. You should ask those in charge. We create the best game possible with the current tools we have.

Q: The game started in 2009 or so... At that time you set the minimum specifications for the game, but did you also specify any maximum specifications into the game script as well, like a dummy variable or so...? I feel this game do not utilize the power of my computer at all…
A: The are no maximum specs, but you must understand that today's computers are far greater than those that are now five years old, when theHunter came out, so it’s not that stage that theHunter doesn’t utilize your computers “maximum power”.

Q: Is the minimum requirements for the game going to be set higher in the future...?
A: We believe we upgraded them when we released multiplayer, and yes, it is possible we need to increase them in the future. It depends on what kind of things we implement. But we always try to make it possible for low-end computers to run the game since a big part of our community doesn’t have the latest model, It is a balance in the end.

Q: Do you have a deal with nvidia/amd...? Have they created and added a proper game profile into their drivers that utilizes the display adapters at maximum, both sli and crossfire...?
A: Not that we know of.

Q: Are you thinking about, or are you planing to include more detailed options to the graphic settings in the game...? I have for example G-sync and would like to see it in the options…
A: We haven’t really worked on those aspects of the game, the come with the engine so to speak. We could invest time on it, but we believe people would be happier with us working on bugs and such instead.

Q: Is the game using 1 core and 1 thread of the cpu, or is the game optimized for utilizing the latest 2011/2011-3 mainboards and 8 core cpus at maximum...? If it uses only 1 core, is it difficult for you to do some changes to the game settings...?
A: The game uses several cores and threads.

Q: This game engine may be fine or may not be fine... I do not know if it has any limitations... Is there any other game engines you easily can switch to, or do this include a lot of programming and time...?
A [Danny]: It has its limitations, like any other game engine out there. We use our in-house engine, created by Avalanche Studios, and I find it really hard to believe we would ever change to another one since we know how to work with ours, we can get help with ours when we need it, and because we believe it’s the best one suited for our need. Another thing is to upgrade it since there are newer versions of it, like the ones Mad Max and Just Cause 3 are using. And that is a possibility, but it is a very expensive and time consuming thing so we’ll see if or when that happens.

Q: What about direct-x, any plans for upgrades in the near future...?
A: Not at the moment, no.

Q: When I play on a clean map my FPS can go up to 180 and down to 130 minimum. When I host, maps are full of equipment, and 4 people joining, specially Hirschefelden, I get down to about 7 FPS sometimes... Where is the bottleneck in your systems, and what is the work in progress to fix this issue...? I do not feel this has anything to do with a bug somewhere. My internet line is 100/10Mbit btw.
A: We are working all the time on fixing issues, and we are optimizing stuff all the time. So this may already be fix, and if it’s not we hope we’re able to fix it soon.

Q. Do you have any plans to develop any new type of equipments in the near future...? Like a zipline to use in VDB...? This can also be used in other maps as well...
A: That’s something the design team should answer.

Q: How likely are we to see an overhaul in graphics or engine in the next 12 months?
A: You never know what can happen between now and 12 months from now, but we have no plans on doing it right now. We'll see in the future.

Q: In hunting stealth plays a major part. theHunter has a very basic stealth system. Will bushes, shadow, ground surface and silhouette ever be implemented to factor into stealth?
A: Perhaps, it's not something we have discussed though.

Q: Many reload animations are off. for instance if you don't fire off every round in the pump action shotguns magazine before reloading the player will cycle the action needlessly and eject the live round from the chamber this would also mean 1 less round is in the gun and not the full 6. Also the semi-auto shotgun doesn't cycle the action to put a round into the chamber from empty.
A: Yes, some reloads are a bit off. We’ve been improving and fixing them when we have found the time. And we will continue to do so.

Q: Are there any plans to re evaluate the tracking and spotting skills info?. its pretty useless information until you get to level 15 on non antlered/horned animals. a bear that is spotted and is between 17-21 score and 170-280 pounds isn't very helpful and that's all you get up until you spot 1575 animals. its even worse for coyote and fox
A [Danny]: I don't know, you should ask design. But I don't think that's something we have discussed.

Q: Would you be able to use the updated engine when available from say just cause 3 and mad max.
A: Unfortunately, it is a really big task to try to upgrade the engine to the latest one, very time consuming, and right now we don’t have that time. But it’s possible we decide to do it in the future.

Q: When will we see maybe running water?
A: The implementation wasn't good enough so we chose not to use it. We don't know since at the moment we are not working on fixing it or on a new implementation.

Q: Would a new engine mean a new game such as a the hunter two version is needed. Is this something that may be a viable option towards future longevity and expansion for the long run.
A [Danny]: It’s possible to both upgrade the current engine and to do a new game on a newer engine. It just depends on what we want to do. And personally I don't know. You should ask those in charge.

Q: Will there be any changes to the game option settings to allow more refined tweaks to users such as grass, trees distance, blood on and off sliders, graphics optimizations and others that can be set by automatic detection or manual imputs before each start session.
A: That would be cool, but at the moment we don't think those things are as high prio as other things.

Q: Is there any chance that the frequency of how many and every how raining in Val-des-Bois can be revisited? Because is point of view of many that for as it is now it makes ibex hunting a bit frustrating (too difficult to spot far ibex).
A: The weather system is pretty complex to work with since it simulates the weather and can't really be controlled. It can be tweaked here and there and we've done that in the past to try to lower the frequency in which it rains. But it's possible that we may need to take a look at it again when we have the time.

Q: Another point of view regards updates, especially new stuff/bug fixing ratio. It is known that there are different teams that have different tasks in EW but we think it could be a good and acceptable idea to stop developing new stuff for a bit longer and try to focus more people on finding and fixing bugs, is it something feasible?
A: We do that from time to time, specially the client programmers. We try not telling about that since if we would say that for the upcoming week we will only focus in fixing bugs that would create high expectations that we may not be able to reach, which is bad for both you and us.

Q: Will be ever introduced non-huntable animals like today's rats or birds (but not so low res)? This could convey more reality to the gameplay.
A: Perhaps, but they would not have as much animations and complex AI as the current animals since that's too much job for something that may not give that much to the game.

Q: With the mountain nature of Val-des-bois, when the avatar is crouching, the visual degrees which can be used to aiming at underlying or overhanging animals it becomes a problem, often is just not possible to shoot because the prey is out of visual only for that few centimeters...it something that can be fixed or improved?
A: That may be something to look into.

Q: The noise emitted by walking or running in water compared to the noise emitted by the same action on hard surfaces makes any difference to spooking animals?
A: No, just different sounds.

Q: Improving the effect time of scents lures it will make this items something more useful a more realistic (and more buyable for your side...) don't you think?
A: You should ask design about that.

Q: Crouching with a bow in your hand it would be a nice thing for silent hunting (i don't intend for shoot...only for fast hiding) is it something will be implemented in future?
A: Nothing we have discussed.

Q: Can you activate fast switching between binoculars and other items when binoculars is raised?
A: We can think of fixing this if this is important.

Q: The system of gravity is a good addition, but it prevents from now on from reaching in place a logical access of which we had before on other map. Will it be fixed?
A: We may tweak things here and there, but the implementation of player falling will not be remove.

Q: Missions for ibexes are planned ?
A: Already released.

Q: You had already said that you would like to add dogs to the game, but that this one would be a technical challenge to be added. This project moves forward ?
A [Danny]: Dogs would indeed be a very cool addition to the game, and one that would take a while to implement. I can't really comment on if they are being implemented or not since it's not my place to say.

Q: The wolf would be a logical addition on a map as Val-Des-Bois, is it planned?
A [Danny]: Same here, cannot comment on that.

Q: Plan to add you a heart to the ibexes?
A: We believe they already should have a heart. If they don't that's a bug.

Q: Ibexes are often very hard to harvest, an idea to remedy it?
A: Not really sure why they are hard to harvest, but if you are referring to the possibility of them ending up in inaccessible, that's as designed since we want the players to calculate when to shoot so that doesn't happen.

Q: Why we can't buy .300 Carbon ? Shall can we buy it bought one day? How for .12 luxury and others?
A: We have a couple of weapons and items that we choose to make accessible in other ways than the store, like gifts together with memberships or that the players got by logging in a special day and so on. That's just how we chose to release them.

Q: The packs of tents are a very good idea. Do you think of adding them in a definitive way?
A: That would be something for design or production. Can't answer that myself.

Q: For the players having a good pc and playing it ultra, the clipping is very annoying, especially with the animal species. Plan to increase you the distance of display of this one?
A: We've answered this question multiple times. That's a restriction our engine has. We could make it different, but it's not a trivial thing to do at all.

Q: There are quite some complex systems in the game, e.g. the weather system, the skill system etc. Recent systems (e.g. the migration system) have been more simple, at least in their appearance. Du you think that this is a general trend in this game and if, do you regret that you can't go all bananas on putting some complex stuff in?
A [Danny]: The weather system is not something we've done, it was done for Just Cause and we just happen to be using it since it's integrated in the engine so to speak. And I don't believe the skill system is that complex. But it is true that the animal migration (currently used for reindeer only) may not appear to be as complex as other systems in the game. We did what we believed was necessary to make it as good as possible.

Q: The tracking skill XP gain seems do be very complex and not possible to understand in all depth for us players. Do you think that there is a chance that this system will be explained to us?
A: That would be something for one of our designers to explain.

Q: When a bug manages to sneak past you piggybacking on a new update, do you bite into your keyboard?
A [Danny]: It's hard to find all the bugs before we release a new patch, but sure, those more obvious bugs can make me a bit angry.

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