Ask Us Anything with theHunter Classic Team - Replies

[Alena Rybik]

Hello everyone, below you can find (slightly delayed ) replies to your from our previous Ask Us Anything. Replies to duplicate questions were combined. Pure suggestions were not commented on and opinionated questions were not replied to, otherwise everything was answered. I've tried to organize the questions by the craft and forwarded them to people who would be best to answer them, some personal questions were answered by all team members.

Hope you will find some replies that you were looking for, happy reading!

Discussion here

Alena - Production, Vision & General plans

Q: Do you have any plans to add a item load-out like system to the inventory menu?
Eg.: Save one load-out for small game shooting, and another load-out for big game, so as to quickly change loud-outs and get back into the hunt.

Yes, we’ve talked about this feature a lot and in details and it might happen sooner than you think.


Q: Do you have plans to add squirrels in the future? Since we have coonhounds in the game now, will raccoon ever be added? Maybe a coon hunting option added to the dog as well?

Q: Will we ever see team competitions and a trophy room?

Q: Will we ever get a motion predator decoy?IRL ambush hunting small predators is really the only viable option they're just to elusive to be stalk hunted.

To all of this I can only say - maybe We don’t disclose our development plans until we are 100% sure about what we can promise you, not to raise expectations and avoid frustrations in case we fail to deliver on those.
But, some of the things mentioned have been discussed and will happen.


Q: Will you ever be able to create red dot sights for the pistols? I know the Aimpoints have their restrictions due to licensing reasons, but you would sell a ton if you created your own specifically for the pistols. Edit: Shotguns too deserve a red dot sight unlike the current one that blacks out the view around it.

We’ll think about it!


Q: Will we ever see Africa? Is there a reason why it hasn't been implemented yet? It's easily one of the most popular selections in the polls and would provide tons of really great realistic hunting opportunities.

Africa has been discussed for years and years and has been (almost) brought into the roadmap a couple of times. There are a lot of reasons why it hasn’t happened yet, one of them is because it’s a huge risk production-wise for such a small team as ours, it would take a hell lot of development time and resources. It’s not cheap to develop a game. Then there is an ethical aspect which is one of our main pillars in theHunter Classic that we treat extremely seriously, and we won’t be adding Africa until we feel that our game design in that respect is 100% bulletproof.
I don’t want to rule out the possibility of Africa completely though. It might happen one day but there are a lot of question marks that we would need to tackle first.


Q: Last but not least....... Bigfoot?

… is extraterrestrial (I think).


Q: Have you ever considered 'recruiting' (a small and select number of) trustworthy players to consult with and possibly get some advice from behind closed doors before you start working on new features and content? Of course the forum and annual surveys are great assets for you, and your communication with the community is already pretty amazing, but 1) discussing possible future content in public inevitably leads to rumors and unrealistic hopes and expectations, and 2) you can't read everything that gets posted on the forum.

We actually do have a similar group of external “experts”. Have had them since the beginning of theHunter. They are amazing and theHunter wouldn’t be the same without them.


Q: Currently, people who spend more time playing have higher skill levels (and thus more accurate information available to them) than someone who still enjoys playing, but because of other real life commitments, can only play a few hours a week, if that. Are there any plans to increase skill rate for players who don't have a lot of time, or perhaps rework the skill/xp system overall to make hunting more about skill than simply about time spent?

I hear this complaint a lot but to be honest I don’t agree. It’s like in real life - if you want to become great at something, you’ve got to spend time doing it. The more time you spend the better you are. In this respect our skills system simulate real life perfectly. We are thinking about adding competitions with time limitations to cater to people with real life commitments, but this is as long as we would probably go.


Q: Primal has achievements on Steam. Will we see theHunter get Steam achievements, even if they are simply a copy of what is on the webpage (animal and weapon kills), as well as other Steam benefits like trading cards, emoticons, custom backgrounds, etc?

Yes, you most likely will!


Q: Currently, completing mission packs seem to offer no real reward other than a congratulatory message. Are there any plans to create trophies for completing mission packs, which not only would give a player something to earn, but also encourage players to purchase weapons to complete those packs because they want the trophies to show off?

Nice idea, we shall think about it.


Q: A shopping cart would make purchasing items much easier and would provide the company with opportunities to sell extra items to impulse buyers. It also might be nice - especially for weapons - to have the actual 3D model of the item in the store which could spin, zoom, pan, and inspect prior to buying it. Has any consideration been given to overhauling how we shop and buy items in the store, making it not only easier to purchase multiple items at once, but also more clearly inspect them using actual models instead of 2D images?

Q: Is there any plans in the works to improve the way the store works? Such as a cart with discounts based on the total em$ cost in the cart. Or 1 week memberships purchasable with em$ in the store?

We’ve discussed all these things, and I agree that our store needs an overhaul. We don’t have it planned for the immediate future, but it doesn’t mean it won’t happen at some point.


Q: Can we expect in the future the ability to delete images from our galleries? Not only would this make players such as myself quite happy, but it would also free up a LOT of storage space for the website and reduce the amount of data pulled when a player opens that page.

Yes!


Q: Will double barrel rifles be implemented in the future or at least considered?

We’ve played with this idea for quite some time, and this is definitely a dream for some of us. The problem we are running into is the way our weapons are set up in the code, and this would be a huge undertaking to change. In short, we are not sure that the return on investment from developing such a rifle will be positive. It might change if we find a silver bullet one day.


Q: Will the current license system stay as it is or is there a possibility you might tweaked it in the future?

We have no plans but are always open to suggestions.


Q: Is there a chance that we will see more animal species added to the Bushrangers Run reserve?

Yes, there is always a chance. We love Bushrangers Run and want it to become more attractive for hunters and get all the credit it deserves.


Q: Do you have any future plans or ideas for theHunter: Primal?

Nothing I can answer. unfortunately. Please check the official theHunter Primal community for news and updates.


Q: Are you planning to transfer theHunter on a new engine?

This would be an undertaking of colossal scale, for a game like theHunter with the amount of content we have. We don’t have plans to do that right now, but never say never. Things change in game development with the speed of light, so who knows what the future will bring


Q: I know bears are being revamped right now. Do you have more animals that you plan on improving in the future?

We’re working on polishing deer animations right now, other than we have no immediate plans but all suggestions are welcomed.


Q: By the way, why Doc was not invited for a photo session?

He was sick and grumpy.


Q: Are there any plans to improve HunterMate?

Not right now.


Q: How often, and for how long do you play the game? This means like we play, not with dev tools altering the actual game for testing specific features.

I play a couple of hours per week on average, there are periods when I play every day for a few hours, and there are times when I don’t play on the live environment at all. But I keep coming to the game, even though I suck big time


Q: If you could pick one thing to improve, what would it be?

Rewrite our frontend code and then redo the website completely by adding tons of cool features, stats and what not. Adding anything to the website is a nightmare even for the most experienced developers because of the old and messy legacy code.


Q: On a scale from 1 to 5, 5 being the same, and 1 being nothing like it, how would you rate the game compared to what was actually intended?

4, on average. When we start working on a new feature, we always have this pretty amazing thing in mind, smooth gameplay, all that. Then we start developing and running into issues. Corners being cut, things get messy because of the legacy code and past game design decisions, compromises have to be made, bugs and issues start popping up. Fun times! Our goal is to always deliver the best possible result with the tools we have, but if you compare it with the initial plans it’s usually 3.5 - 4 out of 5.


Q: Who in your group takes it the best .... Who is the dev that keeps the spirit high when times are tough. Who is the one or two who always put a smile on the others’ face. If I can guess, I would say its the guy behind the skull.

We have a lot of them, but Greg and Robin fit the description the best in my opinion.


Q: Which is the reserve you think is worst developed?

Bushrangers Run


Q: Do you think that TH has come to the final point or do you believe you are still hungry of more features (we hope for just one answer!!!! ?

No doubt, we are hungry as hell and are bursting with ideas and energy. I don’t see theHunter Classic coming to a final point in years to come, otherwise I wouldn’t have taken this job


Q: Can we expect regular teams comps as showdown model in the daily comps?

Maybe, we’ll think about it.


Q: Which internal process improvement projects do you have currently?

We are currently in the process of improving our project management tool and its usage, which makes it easier for us to track who is working on what and what development stage the feature is in. Another project on my to do list is to create a better documentation for content delivery, especially art assets.


Q: I always wanted to know how many members there are in the player base?

We don’t disclose those numbers, sorry. But we have a very strong support among our player-base.


Q: What animals and reserve locations not in the game would the dev team want the most to be implemented (survey results aside)? Why?

I would love a water buffalo and a capercaillie. My dream reserve to work on would be the one based in Eastern Europe, inspired by Poland and Belarus, with European bison, capercaillie and other animals of my home country.


Q: Will EW ever go back and build upon stuff we already have making it more in depth and engaging? Eg. an overhaul of the call system. 1 call bringing animals to the exact spot in a straight line 100% of the time. This is highly unrealistic and kinda takes the anticipation and suspense of the hunt out of it. Once you hear the call of an animal it’s almost a forgone conclusion of the outcome.

We don’t have plans to overhaul the call system right now, but this might change is we see enough requests for it.


Q: What happened to ideas such as saved load-outs and filling bait sights from the homepage, user made comps, and the overhaul and adoption of CSS into comps?

Nothing happened to them, they are sitting in our magic box called “community suggestions” and waiting for their time.


Q: Can someone work with you guys in his country or he must travel to Avalanche Studio?!

Guys from our support team work on a remote basis. Otherwise we only have in-house employees. Avalanche Studios, as any other gaming company, has strict security and confidentiality policies which make it difficult if not impossible to work out of office.


Q: Do you have pets? If yes, what and what is its/their name(s)?

Yes, I have a cat girl, she is adorable and I love her to bits.


Q: How long it takes you to create new weapon (including animations, sounds etc) and how long it takes to make just new skin for it? As example how long it took to create Pulsar and how long to create two new skins which been released yesterday?

To create a completely new weapon from scratch - around 35 days (from design to the backend set-up). A reskin - around 13 days. That’s all included. Pulsar took more of that, mostly because of the completely new animations and their code implementation.


Q: Can you explain why it is impossible to apply reindeer on WRR? I guess it's about the migration, but can we hear a little more about the exact cause please?

Indeed. The problem is the shape of Whiterime Ridge, it’s too irregular to allow reindeer migrate from border to border as they are used to on Hemmeldal.


Q: Do you plan to add young animal models into the game?

This would be a very low priority.


Q: Does anybody of the team play theHunter game in free time (not for work purpose)?

Yes, quite a few of us.


Q: Does anybody of the team occasionally or regularly hunt in real life?

Our support manager David Lucas is probably the most avid hunter amongst us. Our CEO Pim does it too, as well as our previous animator Hampus.


Q: Are you going to make changes in the inventory and membership weapons?

I mean, I have 7 single shot shotguns and if a buy a new membership I'll get another one ... won't be better to take off the repeated weapons for users that actually have those ones and give some EM$ or choose new equipment?

We are planning to implement a solution for duplicates not to mess up the inventory, but no plans beyond that right now.


Q: What language are you using to communicate with each other? You couldn't all have learned Swedish, have you?

The official language in the whole company is English, we have a lot of people coming from other countries than Sweden, plus our community is very international. You do hear Swedish speech quite often though.


Q: Can i ask why you sell re-skinned (paint) weapons separately? Why you don’t sell on every weapons various skins (paint) but weapon stay same? For example Snakebite... paint in one color (red, black...) for 75em$, skin with winter camo, arid camo,... for 150 em$ and special or maybe also reward skins with flags, signed or just special event inspired for 250 em$ or free for special hard core mission. There is wrong way sold copy-paste weapons... With skin system you have empty hands to do it multiple version of Weapons. Hunters will have chance to personalize your weaponry.

It’s a really nice idea, but we would need to develop a separate complex system for handling that.


Q: Will we ever see a B&C and/or an Army scarf?

Let’s do it.

[EW_Stefan]

Sacha, Johanna, Stefan - Community & marketing

Q: How often, and for how long do you play the game? This means like we play, not with dev tools altering the actual game for testing specific features.
Sacha: I play maybe twice a week for an hour so a total of two hours.

Johanna: I play at least two hours a week. Apart from the streams we have a pretty intense dev rumble every Friday.

Stefan: I try and get at least 2 hours of game time in per week, which sometimes can be tricky since I’m also active in a guild in Star Wars: ToR and run a Minecraft server.


Q: If you could pick one thing to improve, what would it be?

Sacha: Maybe it’s because it’s related to my responsibilities but I would really like to improve our interface so that it becomes more user-friendly especially to first-time players.

Johanna: Just like Sacha, I’d really like if the first steps in theHunter were a little easier to understand for new players.

Stefan: I think that the initial ‘on-boarding’, so the first player experience can be improved. When I first played theHunter I went through the tutorials which helped me but in my opinion it did not go far enough. Players can become frustrated or maybe think that the game does not offer enough because it was never explained to them.


Q: What animals and reserve locations not in the game would you want the most to be implemented (survey results aside)? Why?

Sacha: An abandoned city such as Pripyat, where animals and nature basically took over what is man-made. I do not know what animals to add as there are already so many species but I like predator hunting the most so any new predator would be fun.

Johanna: I would love to have an East Asian environment just because of the beauty. Not sure how good this would be from a hunting perspective

Stefan: All the areas I like are in the game already. I am a big fan of mountains and snow, so I’m sorted But I really would like fishing to be a thing, too.


Q: Do you have pets? If yes, what and what is its/their name(s)?

Sacha: No but I really want a dog.

Stefan: I have 2 little kittens, their names are Lykke and Lovis. I never thought I’d be a cat person before, I had a dog for 18 years before that, but the two of them took my heart by storm.


Q: (For Sacha) Sacha, given the niche genre that theHunter falls within, I suspect the customer acquisition strategy for this product differs somewhat to any others you've designed or executed in the past. That being the case, what aspects of the strategy have required "outside the box" thinking? Has any thought been given to targeting real life hunters through retail channels such as gun stores, hunting magazines, roadshows etc? I would imagine that a few visits to hunting roadshows stateside might garner as much attention if not more than several expeditions at the larger gaming conventions. What are your thoughts on this?

Once you have a strategy in place and you execute it, do you have adequate tools to monitor and gauge the effectiveness of the campaign? Other than the new player funnel, are there any other plans for conversion rate optimisation in the pipeline? The current website is often subjected to harsh critique on the forum, but are there any analytics in place to highlight problem areas of the website? If not, is this something you are pushing for? Has the impact of new player funnel been assessed yet and if so, are you able to share any feedback regarding its return?

If you were given unlimited resources for one week, from any department(s) you required, what would you add to make your life and your job easier?

Sacha: Well your questions tackle most of what I think or work on everyday so it will be hard to answer in as much detail as I want to but hopefully you will understand the idea.

When it comes to theHunter being a niche games it does require outside the box thinking but before working for theHunter I used to work for an App company (not at all related to games). Working with this gave me a good basis on finding ways to reach people using unconventional means because unlike games there weren’t specialized sites and platforms such as Steam to advertise your game. So, I try with the help of the community to find these “locations” to find users. In the end we have worked with hunters and hunting retailers. Generally, speaking I would say we have not found the magic recipe yet, it has often been quite costly in both time and money with not that much result but there is something there as the quality of users is there! I would say finding the key to this for a game like theHunter will definitely be more beneficial in the long term, large gaming conventions often gives you a quick peak of low quality users because they are interested in games but not necessarily in games like theHunter.

We are currently using a mix of tools which help us reach certain conclusions. They are not optimal but we get a rough idea on how campaigns have performed. The new player funnel has actually been a success and significantly helped us improve onboarding users. We are now measuring all the steps and looking to iterate to make it perform even better. The site is a tough one because we (and definitely myself) want to change and test new things but we are sitting on a legacy of code which makes it hard to change swiftly without potentially disrupting a lot of things that are working, also the resources we have for making such changes are limited.

I don’t know if a week would be enough… But the main things would be to have unlimited backend and frontend support. To make my life and job easier would be to have optimal tracking tools as well as testing tools to make quick changes to the site, between images copy and page disposition. If I can track perfectly and test easily the possibilities become endless

[Mattias Nordin]

Mattias, Johan, Frederik - Art

Q: How often, and for how long do you play the game? This means like we play, not with dev tools altering the actual game for testing specific features.

Frederik: I used to play it more than I do today. There was a period during Mad Max development when I played during the lunch hour every day. Now I play at least once a week.

Mattias: I played it during the beta, and then tested it a couple of years later, but now I only play to test. That could add up to 1 hour a week.

Johan: I can’t really say I played that much before joining the team, maybe a couple of times. Now I tend to play a few hours a week though, mostly for fun!


Q: If you could pick one thing to improve, what would it be?

Frederik: The playable characters. I'd like to see more customization on the way your character looks. Edit the face, hair, skin color, complexity and so on. Even if you don't see it that often, it should still add a lot to the multiplayer and the trophy shot aspects of the game.

Mattias: The doll faces of our characters. Together with their animations.

Johan: Customization of the characters would definitely be cool but it would also be fun to able to personalize the HunterMate, since I look at it all the time.


Q: Which is the reserve you think it's worse developed?

Frederik: I haven't played in all the reserves so I wouldn't know

Mattias: There are probably several reserves, but some have the roads clipping like mad, and that just breaks the immersion. There are other reserves where the trees are black viewing from a certain angle, that’s also a bad one.

Johan: I couldn’t say. I haven’t explored all the reserves nearly enough.


Q: What animals and reserve locations not in the game would you want the most to be implemented(survey results aside)? Why?

Frederik: A Bamboo forest of asia. Tigers, Pandas and what not. But since they are endangered it might be frowned upon. So maybe just hunt the poachers instead.

Mattias: Tiger, with a growl that sends chills down the spine. An overgrown, deserted urban city. I would like to see how our engine handles larger structures and do something like in the Last of us (game). Tiger is the coolest animal on Earth.

Johan: Savannah themed reserve probably, with elephants, rhinos and other BIG animals.


Q: Do you have pets? If yes, what and what is its/their name(s)?

Frederik: No. But I used to have Boa constrictor. It's name was "Snurre".

Mattias: No, would like to have a cat though (and I would name it spitfire).

Johan: Nope, not anymore. Had a cowardly golden retriever called Caesar though.


Q: (For Mattias) Does your Rockies map draw more inspiration from the Canadian side of the mountains, the American side, or a bit of both?

The American side, the Canadian side seem to have more glacial teal water. The general terrain is a bit dryer in the American side as well.


Q: My question to each of you is which area would you say is your passion, e.g. environment art, character art? Is there a weakness in the team, or an area which none of you are passionate about? If management approached each of you and asked whether you thought another artist was needed to progress theHunter at a more favourable pace, what would your answer be? If you answered yes, that another artist would be beneficial, what area would you foresee them focusing on?

Mattias: I’d say we got everyone we need. My own focus is environment and props. But I like to do everything, being a generalist.

Johan: As I’ve just started I can only comment on my passion, which I would say leans more towards props. But i do love anything art-related to be honest, dull as it may sound.


Q: If the management team allowed you one day per week, month or year, to be creative and design anything you wanted for the game, what would each of you create for theHunter and why?

Mattias: Try to make better looking mountains. I would like to have better tech, but as an artist that’s hard to improve.

Johan: Maybe creating small random camps or other signs around the reserves that other people have been there. I find that stuff like that increase my own immersion.

[Carl.Oscar]

Roberto, Carl-Oscar, Kristoffer - Client Code & Tools

Q: Is it possible for any of the devs to start a game, then "fly" around the area and observe all the animals without spooking them? Can they "see" where all the animals are even when they are beyond normal viewing distance?

Kristoffer: Yes. Most game studios, us included, have separate “dev” versions of the game that help us with our everyday tasks, eg observing AI behaviour, matching sounds to animations, flying from A to B quickly, spawning more animals etc. We also activate texts in the game window that show us where the animal is and what it’s doing without the need to find them and look at them.



Q: Is there any chance that we are able to place world items on maps hosted by another player?

Carl-Oscar: We have experimented with this before with some success. But issues with multiplayer and server make it a daunting task.



Q: Did you ever consider changing/enhancing animal behavior and A.I. - I'm especially talking about more animal-animal interaction (rutting, fighting, predator/prey etc.) and changing the luring system (making it a little more variable and realistic like animals not coming in a straight line to the exact spot you called from). If you do consider it, what priority does it have - and if you do not, what is the reason?

Q: Do you have any plan to improve AI of animals? They really need to improve, especially moose!

Roberto: Reworking and enhancing animal AI is something we considered many times at different levels but it is a really delicate matter. It would take a long time to design and make changes that improve the behaviour without breaking all the fine balancing we already have in game, so for the moment is not on the plate, but in the future - who knows


Q: Am I the only one that has problems in BRR? I have a very decent computer but still get FPS drops when I'm in the thick bush. Is there any plans to address this? I don't hardly ever hunt there anymore because of this. I mean I consistently get anywhere from 60-120 FPS on absolute max settings @ 1080p (depending on the area), but when in the bushy areas of bushrangers it drops to like 25-30. It shouldn't be that demanding. My specs: i5 3570k @ 3.4Ghz<< Due for an upgrade soon, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, GTX980 OC'd.

Carl-Oscar: We are aware that some users experience performance issues on BRR but we haven’t looked into this on a deeper level as we can not reproduce it ourselves and it would currently have a lower priority. This might change though.

Roberto: Those things are always important for us, as poor performance can really impact the immersion and experience. We haven’t investigated specifically BRR but is something we have in our pipeline along with a wider check on general performance, so hopefully we can have you back on BRR one day!


Q: A long standing rumor goes that if duck hunting is running dry, firing a pistol in the air causes more ducks to spawn. Is this rumor true?

Carl-Oscar: A magician never spoils his tricks


Q: And I know the Rockies can’t operate on low quality settings but will there be something else implemented for somebody like me who has a very low end computer to help with lag?

Carl-Oscar: The problem with lower settings is that they decrease foliage which leads to improved sight. So, people playing on low would have an advantage over those playing on high settings and that’s something we don’t want.

Roberto: With the lowest setting the foliage disappears breaking the immersion and the hunting experience and it is something we want like to avoid for all the reserve starting from Rockies. We understand that our players with low-end machines may suffer from this decision, but we have to cut the line.


Q: Do you plan to port any other feature from theHunter: Primal to theHunter, like non physical visual cover, magnetic avoidance between certain animal species and others?

Carl-Oscar: There is a possibility that it might happen in the future


Q: Will you ever address the bows regarding reloading. Turning off auto reloading has no effect at bows. My question is why? Why can’t I decide when to nock an arrow similar to how we can decide when to load new cartridge to our rifle or shotti? So again, will this issue ever be addressed? If this was implemented, I guess we could finally be able to go prone with bows (not shoot).


Carl-Oscar: It’s because because our bows are based on rifles and use the same system. To fix this issue we would need to introduce a new feature for handling bows.This might happen in the future but is something we aren’t prioritizing right now.

Roberto: The bows system is more complex than what firearms have and we are aware there is room for improvements. Addressing those issue is something we are considering for the future.


Q: How often, and for how long do you play the game? This means like we play, not with dev tools altering the actual game for testing specific features.

Carl-Oscar: One hour each week

Roberto: We have weekly sessions where we play all together for at least one hour and also more when new big features are on the way.


Q: If you could pick one thing to improve, what would it be?

Carl-Oscar: Bushrangers Run needs some loving

Roberto: Improving the grass system


Q: Which is the reserve you think is the worst developed?

Carl-Oscar: Bushrangers Run, feels empty and not enough unique animals

Roberto: Every reserve has its own beauty and weaknesses, but if we have to choose we’d like to focus a bit more on Bushrangers Run, adding some animals and more variety.


Q: What animals and reserve locations not in the game would you want the most to be implemented (survey results aside)? Why?

Carl-Oscar: We need Mountain Lions, climbing in trees and attacking players from above. As for an reserve I would like to do Africa, awesome animals and environments.

Roberto: I’d like to add Africa Reserve, would be a totally new environment with great new animals, and as for an animal just pick one from Savanna!


Q: Do you have pets? If yes, what and what is its/their name(s)?

Carl-Oscar: Sadly have no pets. Had some fishes when I was younger but they were very “active”, so couldn’t handle them after awhile.


Q: Have you ever thought about doing regular events that require harvesting a "unique" animal, like the Beast Brown Bear or the Ghost Kangaroo from the past Halloween events, but more real-life inspired (e.g a diseased animal or a deer with a unique set of antlers)?

Carl-Oscar: Would love to do this. But due to how our system works it’s something that becomes very complex, which is why it’s a rare occurrence.


Q: Do you plan to change the brightness on winter maps?

Carl-Oscar: We might have something in the plans for this.


Q: Rabbits scare the foxes in the game. Is it normal?

Carl-Oscar: Rabbits are very very scary. Sharp tooth and jumping around, it’s like a worse than a cockroach.


Q: Will we ever be able to jump, even a little bit. theHunter is the only FPS game I've played where the pawn can't jump. This would solve several navigation issues like having movement blocked by a small rock or not being able to clear a 1 foot gap in the ice on WRR.

Carl-Oscar: The game is built based on the player not being able to jump.
If we introduce jumping it could break the game play. So it comes more to design philosophy than technical problems.


Q: What software versioning and revision control system is in place for theHunter client? Given the frequency at which some previously resolved issues make their way back onto the production / live server, is this something which you believe could be attributed to poor version control? Are changes required to be documented? If not, do you ever offer comments when committing a change to the repository? These are often aspects of development which developers loathe and resent, but their importance in such a constantly evolving product is undisputable. Which member of the management team oversees these types of procedures?

Carl-Oscar: We are using Perforce. No documentation, just a comment with each commit.
We don’t have any specific person that handles these procedures but it’s up to each individual. Most issues that come and go are because of our patching pipeline which is unfortunately not the best.

Roberto: We are using Perforce for version control, and try to have commits with really specific changes and comments. It is up to every content creator to take care of the commit and proper comments, but usually the person in charge of making a patch checks that the commits are clear and safe to be integrated. We are working to improve our patching system to reduce issues arising here and there if they has been already fixed before.

Q: Roberto, as lead client programmer, and being relatively new to the company and the game, what are your initial concerns about the development procedures in place, if any? What changes would you like to make to the way your team operates on a day to day basis? How satisfied are you with the balance of resources between the client team and other teams within the company? By that I mean do you ever hit a bottleneck because of backend issues or lack of resources in the backend department (an example)? Or conversely is your team ever causing a bottleneck in the development process?

Roberto: My first concern was about me being good enough to be able to help this amazing crew!
The patch process is something I’d like to improve as much as possible, and that is what we are already working on, to try to avoid players having issues with old bugs returning or new and not expected coming in with new features.
I think that the way our team operate is already really good, but we can always get better and the way to do this is improving communication and closer collaboration.
I think the resources are well balanced and the way we collaborate with the backend department is really good and none of us or them have been a bottleneck so far.

Q: If the management team allowed you one day per week, month or year, to be creative and develop anything you wanted for the game, what would each of you create in theHunter and why?

Carl-Oscar: Animal to animal interaction. This is because I love working with animal behaviour and I think it brings a lot to the game.


Q: Could it ever be possible that birds would sit on the trees? If not in all trees, maybe in some selected trees?

Carl-Oscar: Should be possible. Would love to have some birds or other animals in trees.

[Patrick Enz]

Patrick - Game Design

Q: Could you please specify the individual camo effect of a garment made of 5 pieces?
Boone and Crockett set, for example ..
Shirt: 20% camo effect?
Pants: 20% camo effect?
Gloves: 20% camo effect?
Boots: 20% camo effect?
Hat: 20% camo effect?

The camo effect is varied depending on the different clothing variants meaning for example the Boone & Crockett camo effect is slightly different compared to the Sneaky 3D Fall Forest Camo set. But in general, shirts give the most amount of camo, pants give an average amount, and gloves, boots and hats give smaller amounts.


The whole fast travel system to tents and lodges. When we fast travel to a tent the spook radius is 50m I think and not 150m as when we spawn there. But is it the same for lodges? If I fast travel to a lodge is the radius still 50m or 150m

We've done some code-digging and there hasn’t been a spook radius for either since a really long time ago.


When using all the pieces of a clothing set like ByC do you get a bonus in camo by wear the whole set or just the individual bonus from pieces?

No. There is no whole set bonus. The reason behind is that we want the player to be free to customize their character as they see fit.


Would you consider revamping one or two of the North American maps (Settler Creeks especially) to a late autumn hunting environment that more closely reflects RL hunting seasons?

Personally, I would enjoy seeing a late autumn version of Settler Creeks or even a winter version of TGT. But it of course depends on time required for such adaptations and whether it would make sense in terms of game design.


Q: Why ptarmigan were added to Timbergold Trails instead of Blue Grouse, Ruffed Grouse, or even a Dusky or Spruce Grouse?

Ptarmigan felt like a good choice, especially since we already have had something to work with with Rock and Willow Ptarmigans. But grouse is definitely an idea for the future perhaps.


Q: Also, to go along with it, with the increasing bird numbers in theHunter, will there ever be a pointing dog?

Not planned at the moment but there is a possibility for this to happen in the future.


Q: Does Sound Reduction on clothing reduce the spook chance when firing a bow?
Example: when firing any bow does the Doc Outfit reduce spook chance against deer?

No. Weapon fire is treated separately from movement generated sounds. Movement generated sounds are modified by things like clothing & stance. Weapon fire sounds are not modified by these factors.


Q: Does Visual Reduction only apply when standing still and Sound Reduction only apply when moving?

Sound is all about movement. Visiual has a movement and still component and both are affected by camo.


Q. If you're wearing a Ghillie Suit in a Treestand do you go past Legendary Visual Reduction or doesn't the Treestand give you any bonus to Visual Reduction since you already have max Visual Reduction from the Ghillie Suit?

Yes. Based on those conditions you should go over Legendary Visual Reduction but you will never truly become invisible. Just extremely hard to spot from an animal’s perspective.


Q: Dogs currently gain experience slower and slower the higher level they get. This is counter-intuitive to how training a dog should be - the better trained a dog gets the faster it should "pick up" new tricks. This problem is especially pronounced with scent hounds. Scent hounds are only effectively used when an animal is shot poorly and or with a weak weapon. One would assume that the more you use a weapon or shoot a species, you'd get better at it. Thus, in order to train your scent hounds at higher levels players are basically forced to take shots that are worse than their abilities. Will this be re-worked somehow in the future?

True, in real life this would be the case, but we mustn't forget that theHunter is still a video game and like in most video games there exists some form of challenge or experience curve. In most traditional XP systems, XP gain is slowed down based on the level of the player or in this case the dog. In terms of the Scent Hound, by design you wouldn’t have an immediate need for one if you have high enough shooting skills to kill animals with one shot. The scent hound exists in the first place for those who have a hard time with precise shots and need a bit of a helping hand, or in this case a helping paw.


Q: Similar to the previous question, it seems that "good tracking" for a hunter should be the ability to find a trail and then stay on the trail even if the animal is trying to lose the hunter (for example, in flee state). The old strategy for gaining skill quickly was to find the first three tracks, then ignore the rest and jump to a new trail. Why not continuously reward players who can follow a trail - especially one of a fleeing animal - and remain on that trail for a long time, instead of a counter intuitive system which would suggest players should track animals by skipping around between animals and not really tracking them?

I like your idea. I believe such a change would be a good improvement to tracking but it all comes down to how well balanced it is.


Q: Retrievers currently level up much slower than the scent hounds. The level of experience gain on the scent hounds feels good right now, because you always feel like you're making progress and they don't tire out very quickly. Will you be looking into and re-balancing retrievers to make their experience gain and stamina more along the lines of the scent hounds?

Yes. It’s on my to-do list.


Q: Tanngnjostr's duck missions have been approved for future implementation. Mission #5 specifically calls for (3) of each of the four duck species during the same hunt. Will we be seeing a re-balancing of how many non-mallard species both spawn in and break from flocks to make missions like this (and simply varied hunting of ducks in general) more accessible?

Definitely, after creating the missions and trying them out myself, I noticed that we need to improve the spawn rate of all non-mallard species since they were hardly showing up anywhere. The American Black Ducks seemed fine but the Gadwall and the Northern Pintail will need to have their populations tweaked.


Q: When you start thinking about new reserves, animals, equipment etc., what does the process from the first rough ideas to the final decision usually look like in practice? Brainstorming sessions? Just throwing ideas out there? Staff meetings? Order from the boss to "come up with something already" ? Are there sources and resources you use on a regular basis, such as specific websites, books, magazines? Which brings me to the next question…

From what I’ve analysed while working here the ideas seem to come mostly from the players and what they want as the next big thing in theHunter. From there we hold brainstorming meetings surrounding this new feature then go from there. Design documents are then created by myself, art mockups if needed, and coders start doing their thing. After a design is nailed down we hold a meeting around it and do reiterations if needed then it becomes a final first iteration of the supposed feature. Google is our best friend when it comes to sources and resources but we of course also have some go-to sources we can trust, eg. Boone and Crockett site. We also have a vast collection of hunting videos and magazines we turn to from time to time.


Q: I really like the new ptarmigan flock behaviour, can it be transported to the pheasants as well?

If the pheasants were to react similar to ptarmigans when they flock in real life then it could be transported over but based on research they are not very similar in their flock behaviors.


Q: How often, and for how long do you play the game? This means like we play, not with dev tools altering the actual game for testing specific features.

Every week we have team competitions on live which go on for about an hour. Other than that every now and then during weekends.


Q: If you could pick one thing to improve, what would it be?

A shorter and easier process when it comes to localisations (=adding text to the game and website).


Q: Have you thought about bringing in the non-typical system in for elk? It is just weird that all the other American deer species beside moose and Sitka have the NT system but elk don't. Google the Spyder bull which was a world record NT elk for an example

We will investigate it for moose and sitka.


Q: Which is the reserve you think is worst developed?

I’m not a particular fan of Rougarou Bayou. It’s not because I think it was poorly developed but rather I’m not too keen on the looks. I suppose Bushrangers Run could also do well with some improvements. It may have some hidden potential.


Q: Did you ever think about moving species (already created species) from one reserve to another to achieve maximum reality adherence?

If there is room for more animals in a particular reserve and if it supposedly exists there IRL then the option exists.


Q: Why still no cats or wolves? The Rockies would have been a good map to introduce them. Can we expect them in the future or are they not considered on ethical grounds?

The Rocky Mountains now have wolves. I would like to see lynx in theHunter some day but there are some technical things we would need to figure out first.


Q: What animals and reserve locations not in the game would the dev team want the most to be implemented(survey results aside)? Why?

I would want to see more Asian predatory animals like tigers, crocodiles and komodo dragons mostly because I find it to be a more exciting form of hunting.


Q: I am in the processes of building Native american style Longbows. Do you think this style of bow could be implemented?

I can’t see why not. I have quite an interest in historical weaponry and wouldn’t mind seeing a Native American Longbow in game one day.


Q: Do you have pets? If yes, what and what is its/their name(s)?

Yes, a half nordic forest, half persian cat named Champagne. I named him out of the love I have for the smaller things in life.


Q: Hello. I want to ask whether it would be possible in the future to embed games predators such as the eagle ??? I think it would be wonderful stroll around the reserve with an eagle on his arm. He seemed to give orders than dog. Helped by an eagle could neat way for hunting small game such as rabbits, foxes. In Mongolia and other countries, this type of hunting common.

Using animals to hunt animals, brilliant! We have a dog who helps out with the trivial parts of hunting so having an eagle to aid you in finding smaller critters sounds pretty cool. But of course it depends on player demand for it and if it truly fits in well with theHunter.


Q: Who in your group takes it the best .... Who is the dev that keeps the spirit high when times are tough. Who is the one or two who always put a smile on the others’ face. If I can guess, I would say its the guy behind the skull.

This is a tough one. I believe as a whole group we lift our spirits together (as cheesy as that may sound). But if I were to pick a particular person I’d probably go with Robin since he can be hilariously witty sometimes. Then again, Mattias is a bit of a yes man which always brings a smile to my face when I propose a new idea. Alena is also a cool leader who finds ways to bring us together. Like I said, this is a hard one! I’ll just go with our whole team.

[Luna Duclos]

Luna, David - Backend

Q: Why are there different degrees of precision on the scores for the animals that use their weight as a score? i.e. a Cottontail that weighs 1.281 kg gets a 1281.000 score, whereas a Northern Pintail that weighs 0.848 kg gets a score of 848.335.

David: There is no difference there. They are scored using the same conversion ratio


Q: How often, and for how long do you play the game? This means like we play, not with dev tools altering the actual game for testing specific features.

David: I’ve never been a hardcore player like some, but I would say I play more often than anyone else on the team. I think I’m at around 1300 hours so far, and have no plans to stop playing. My usual hunting sessions last anywhere from half an hour, to a few hours.

Luna: I unfortunately don’t play the game, I’ve been meaning to get into it when I joined the team, but between the bureaucracy of moving between countries, Swedish lessons and work, I don’t have much free time left.


Q: If you could pick one thing to improve, what would it be?

Luna: I am quite unhappy with the current state of our yearly events, managing them right now is very manual and error prone.

David: The store. I would add a cart, implement options for promotional discounts, loyalty savings and so on. It would make it easier for players to buy bundles of items that meet their needs and still save money, and a loyalty points system would most likely encourage sales!


Q: Will we ever get the ability back to view more than the top score/range in our personal bests?

Luna: This would require some backend improvements to be done, hopefully we have the time to look at it … no promises!


Q: Which is the reserve you think is worst developed?

David: I would say Bushranger’s Run. It could definitely do with some love and attention.


Q: I would like to see 2 player comps: "Hunterbuddycomp", like me and my best friend competing. Are you doing work on that being implemented?

David: This is not something that is currently being worked on. However, technically you can already compete with your hunting buddies if you both join the same competition. Alternatively, you can use CSS in multiplayer to compete for the highest score.


Q: Will a better Personal Bests page ever return? One that can also show rares only and can be sorted throughout all seasons?

Luna: This would require significant backend optimizations and a good deal of frontend work .. no promises.


Q: What animals and reserve locations not in the game would the dev team want the most to be implemented (survey results aside)? Why?

Luna: I would personally love to see more critters, I think they add a lot of flavour to the environment, and are a lot less work than full featured hunting animals.

David: If I had to choose another hunting location for the game I would probably pick a North American desert reserve. I think if done properly, it could look stunning. Alternatively, an Eastern European map could be interesting, maybe somewhere like Bulgaria or Romania. I would like to see pronghorn antelope in the game some day. I think they’ve got really great markings, would look good in the game, and would be fun to hunt.


Q: Some time ago there was introduced functionality : "server controlled populations" which suppose to open new nice functionality of the game - can we expect that one day (in 2017) we can see effect of this feature, like unexpected spot of Moose in Hirsfelden ? or Black bear in Loggers Point?

David: There are currently no plans to use server based populations to tweak animal spawning in this way. This change was implemented so that Expansive Worlds can modify animal populations without having to release a patch. Who knows what the future holds for this functionality.


Q: Do you have pets? If yes, what and what is its/their name(s)?

Luna: I currently don’t own pets due to having recently moved countries, I used to own a lovely black cat named Darwin however, I intend to get cats again (hopefully two!) in a few months.

David: I have a lovely 2 year old cat called Molly. She behaves more like a dog than a cat most of the time. She’s very affectionate and likes to play fetch with her toy mice. She also likes to nibble on headphone cables and has already rendered 2 good pairs of headphones useless.


Q: Do you have any plans to take a closer look at how bait sites are functioning? I know you have said they are "fixed", but they aren't.

Luna: We are hoping to do some tweaking here and there.

David: The bait sites currently work as intended. That means they work exactly as outlined in the game design documentation. Whether the game design is reviewed at some point is another matter.


Q: This is a question to each of you in the backend team. Given that theHunter is a backend-heavy beast, how happy are you on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being completely unhappy and 10 being ecstatic) with the current backend infrastructure? Which aspect of the backend is most resource hungry and what part of the infrastructure gives you most cause for concern in terms of uptime and stability? What aspect of your day to day job frustrates you the most? If you could start all over again and build the backend from scratch, what would you do differently second time around?

Luna: The current backend is big, unwieldy and mostly poorly (or not) documented. My main gripe is the use of a weakly typed language and a very low amount of tests. If I could start over and magically finish everything quickly, I’d switch over to a strongly typed language, which would make large refactorings much easier, and make sure we have good unit test coverage as well as documentation. I’d also move away from AppEngine and use Kubernetes, but this was not an option that existed back then.

David: This was actually my question from before I started working on theHunter, and before I had the pleasure of peeking behind the scenes. I can only really echo Luna’s comments. Someone created a monster when they built the backend of theHunter, and pretty much all of the assumptions I had made as an outsider were wrong. It is what it is though, and bit by bit it will be improved.


Q: What projects that you have worked on in your spare time are you most proud of?

Luna: I maintain a few open source libraries I’m quite happy with, the main one would be https://github.com/PalmStoneGames/kube-cert-manager


Q: Since with the introduction of the server-based population you can modify the amount of animals easier, will we ever see event(s) where you increase an animal's population and we have to take down as many of that species as possible (something like a population control), and at the end we get a reward depending of the number of harvested animals?

David: There are no plans for anything like this at the moment.


Q: Who in your group takes it the best .... Who is the dev that keeps the spirit high when times are tough. Who is the one or two who always put a smile on the others’ face. If I can guess, I would say its the guy behind the skull.

David: I don’t spend a whole lot of time in the office, but being a grumpy pessimistic Scot, I’m pretty sure I’m not the guy who puts smiles on faces. Out of everyone on the team I would say Mattias is probably the funniest. He just has one of those faces, and a cool sense of humour.

[Gregoire Iwaniec]

Greg - Sound

Q: Why do the traditional bows creak? None of my bows do that IRL, not even my takedown bow.

In order to keep the player immersed, we try to give as much feedback as possible to what action is being triggered in game. In that case we had to sacrifice the realistic aspect of bow not cracking in real life for the feeling of stretching the string and triggering the bow.


Q: How often, and for how long do you play the game? This means like we play, not with dev tools altering the actual game for testing specific features.

I play every week for a couple of hours, usually before big releases.


Q: If you could pick one thing to improve, what would it be?

That would be amazing to improve our reverb system, make things sounding much more integrated with their environment.


Q: Which is the reserve you think is worst developed?

For some reason I don’t like Redfeather Falls. I think it lacks personality.


Q: What animals and reserve locations not in the game would you want the most to be implemented(survey results aside)? Why?

I would love to work on a jungle environment, to be able to play with the forest density, different kind of reverbs, so much wildlife that can’t be seen but heard. I like to work on big animals, that can be heard in different ways, footsteps, grunts, roars...In that case Buffalos would be awesome.


Q: Do you have pets? If yes, what and what is its/their name(s)?

I don’t. I used to have a goldfish called Willy.


Q: Are you planing to adjust volume levels for some sounds? For example scent hounds are too loud also when they run on rocks that sound is very odd. Some guns could be bit louder for example new .243 rifle.

We always try to keep an eye on the mix when working or playing.


Q: Who in your group takes it the best .... Who is the dev that keeps the spirit high when times are tough. Who is the one or two who always put a smile on the others’ face. If I can guess, I would say its the guy behind the skull.

Mattias, he’s always positive.

[Dennis Borg]

Dennis - QA

Q: How often, and for how long do you play the game? This means like we play, not with dev tools altering the actual game for testing specific features.

I must be one of the Developers that play the game most but it is difficult to say exactly how much time I spend in game. It depends on what kind of tests or investigations I need to do but of course I sometimes play to just get an overall feeling how the game performs at the given time. I do not use the tools when playing regularly since I always want to be aware of how everything performs, the only time I use them is when I really need to do specific testing that otherwise would take a day or much longer. But I would like to have more time to play on Live but for that everything needs work just fine.


Q: If you could pick one thing to improve, what would it be?

It is quite difficult to just choose one thing I would like to improve as I dig through the entire game at a daily basis. But if I really have to choose something then it would be the time it takes me to raise my weapon.


Q: Which is the reserve you think is worst developed?

I think that the reserves have been developed good in the time they have been in development but yes, some might need some more love. If I would choose which one that could use some more love then it would be Bushrangers Run.


Q: What animals and reserve locations not in the game would the dev team want the most to be implemented(survey results aside)? Why?

I am unsure about what animals I would like to see in the game right now, honestly I need to remember everything and I do mean every little detail about how every animal works so would prefer not to have more haha! When it comes to reserves I would really like to see an Asian inspired one since I think it would be really fun for myself and all of our players.


Q: Do you have pets? If yes, what and what is its/their name(s)?

I have almost always had cats but right now I do not have any, need cats in my life!

[TheMoe]

Moe, D'i'c'k - Animation

Q: Why is it when you spook an Ibex they have no animations at all on the mountain's side, they seem completely frozen without any animations playing till they move, did you forget to program animations for them?

Moe: Oh! I had no idea about that! I will take some time to investigate and figure what's the problem and how we can solve it.


Q: How often, and for how long do you play the game? This means like we play, not with dev tools altering the actual game for testing specific features.

Moe: I used to play the game more often before I joined Avalanche, nowadays I play an hour or two a week.

D'i'c'k: I have not played for a long time actually, but wait I have an excuse! I was home taking care of my own animal...ok son, for 7 months (parental leave) but now I’m back and is was great seeing all the new cool stuff that have been added while I was gone. But usually 1 hour a week I think.


Q: If you could pick one thing to improve, what would it be?

Moe: I would improve transitions between cycles, for example Run to Idle or Walk to Run etc..

D'i'c'k: Oh, I would love if we could improve the 3rd person animations, remaking the whole system and also just make the process of implementing animations a bit smoother.


Q: Which is the reserve you think is worst developed?

D'i'c'k: I think that our reserves have been steadily improved over the years as we have learned a few tricks.

Moe: I think Redfeather Falls could use some improvement.


Q: What animals and reserve locations not in the game would you want the most to be implemented (survey results aside)? Why?

Moe: Jungle! And crocodiles! I would love to animate crocodiles! make them run after the players!

D'i'c'k: As Moe said. Me too! Guess we have to fight for who makes the crock, hu Moe?


Q: Do you have pets? If yes, what and what is its/their name(s)?

Moe : Never had one

D'i'c'k: Im allergic…


Q: Which have been the animal that you liked most/found more challenging or interesting to animate?

Moe: I worked on few of the wolves animation and it was really challenging and interesting to learn how they behave! but the most fun animal is yet to be named

D'i'c'k: Hard to pick...Polar Bear, Bison or Coon hound. They are my darlings. The Moose, not so much as it was my first animal for Expansive Worlds and we had so much stuff to try to figure out how it was supposed to work. Making the polar bear swim and walking on moving icebergs was interesting.


Q: Do you plan to accelerate the raising of the weapons?

Moe: That’s more of a game design question. But if you want my opinion i would say no, theHunter is closer to a simulator of real life hunting than a game, and in real life it takes time to switch between weapons. Perhaps improve the technique and the animation but keep the speed as it is.


Q: If you had to give an approximate answer, what percentage of your education and background in animation do you rely on day to day for your work on theHunter? How would you rate the tools that you work with? Are there any aspects of your craft that you would like to use more as part of your current job, or that you feel you are neglecting in your current role, e.g. mo-cap? What piece of animation in theHunter are you most proud of, and if you could do one job over again, what would it be?

Moe:
- My education is a very important part of my work, I use the principles of animation everyday and on every animation I do.
- Some of the tools we use are new but many are old because the game uses an old game engine.
- I think our animation workflow in theHunter is well thought, for sure it could use some improvements but definitely not mo-cap, don't want to come to work everyday and try to dress a motion capture suit to a Bear or Kangaroo

D'i'c'k: In animation you have to use all your skills and knowledge… you are trying to make something come to life, so you do a lot of research and you study EVERYTHING: books, movies, internet, watching and observing animals and humans and how they think. Most of it you don't learn in school (but school is great too of course). Many things you pick up by just locking at what’s going on around you, I also pick up lots of great and useful information from the community too. So thanks for all the excellent information you have given us over the years!

The Bear attack scene in the movie “Revenant” wow!...I definitely recommend reading how they made that scene, if you are interested on CG animals and animation in general.


Q: If the management team allowed you one day per week, month or year, to be creative and develop anything you wanted for the game, what would each of you create in theHunter and why?

Moe: Probably our character player animation, rig & model!
Currently they look lifeless, but it's a tough and expensive task and it will take time.

D'i'c'k: I would give my days to a programmer so that he would implement a system where we never have to do “left” and “right” mirror animations again. But they are usually crazy busy with more important stuff.
Things that remove work so that we can focus more on the fun stuff is always appreciated! (Personally, I like spending as much time as possible with animals) Some kind of scripted events would have been fun to work on where two or more animals interact and actually touch each other. Maybe you only see it once a month but it could add a lot to the suspension of disbelief. Oh… and my utopian dream would be that the community could make more assets for the game somehow.

Q: Who in your group takes it the best .... Who is the dev that keeps the spirit high when times are tough. Who is the one or two who always put a smile on the others’ face. If I can guess, I would say its the guy behind the skull.

Moe: I love all of our team! They are the best and most fun people ever worked with!
If you want specific names then I think Robin & Mattias are the ones that never fail to make us laugh! And Alena always keeps our spirits high and positive.

D'i'c'k: I can only agree with Moe, but I also consider YOU who play the game as a part of the team and I think you are the best support and put the biggest smile on our face. This game would not be what it is without you. It's very different from working on a big studio game where you have little connection with the players.

[AdamPotts]

Adam - Customer Support

Q: How often, and for how long do you play the game? This means like we play, not with dev tools altering the actual game for testing specific features.

The first three weeks I was playing about 2 hours a day Monday to Friday. I’ve been busy this week, but I aim to pick it up, hopefully at least an hour a day.


Q: If you could pick one thing to improve, what would it be?

I obviously get to see the player’s frustrations and requests. So for me it would be the ability to easily implement those things. Changing the game code for any game is a hard task, but if there was a way for me to add the options that players want I would do it.


Q: What animals and reserve locations not in the game would you want the most to be implemented(survey results aside)? Why?

Like most of the others, an East Asian environment. Preferable a Southeast Asian jungle where it’s pretty dangerous.


Q: Do you have pets? If yes, what and what is its/their name(s)?

I had a hamster called Mocha, but I moved and now my mother takes care of her. I’ve always wanted two wolves called Ghost and Shadow though.


Q: Who in your group takes it the best .... Who is the dev that keeps the spirit high when times are tough. Who is the one or two who always put a smile on the others’ face. If I can guess, I would say its the guy behind the skull.

David and I are a few time zones apart, but I think we keep each other’s lives interesting with trying to work out what day it is where.