Flock Around the Clock

Find out what we're doing and thinking as we develop WolfQuest 3: Anniversary Edition and the Tower Fall expansion!

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DaniBeez
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Re: Flock Around the Clock

Post by DaniBeez » Mon Dec 04, 2017 5:52 pm

Wolverine
  • Another potential carcass NPC encounter animal. Wolves can kill wolverines when encountered, and it could be another aggressive NPC carcass encounter animal that can do damage to a player.


Skunk
  • This animal would be the most fun/novel experience for players, in my opinion. Skunks would be a seasonal animal: spring/summer/fall, as they hibernate in winter. If a player gets too close to a skunk or bites a skunk, they will be sprayed. The player's scent view could be temporarily rendered useless or partially working for a set period of time. Also, skunk spray is known to cause temporary blindness in dogs, so do what you will with that fact, lol :wink: !


Ravens
  • Currently, raven NPCs help WQ wolves visually find carcasses from a distance, before flying away as the player approaches. It would be interesting to see some ravens still remain by the carcasses upon player approach, and still cause the available food at a carcass to slowly and steadily decrease as they feed alongside the player. Maybe players could have the option to actively scare the more pesky ravens away, but the efforts would be largely futile (they fly right back to the carcass). Landing a bite would cause one to fly away permanently though. Killing (if possible) or biting a raven would slightly damage the player's health, to represent peck damage.


I still like the skunk one best, though :squirrel: !

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loboLoco
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Re: Flock Around the Clock

Post by loboLoco » Mon Dec 04, 2017 6:53 pm

DaniBeez wrote:
Skunk
  • This animal would be the most fun/novel experience for players, in my opinion. Skunks would be a seasonal animal: spring/summer/fall, as they hibernate in winter. If a player gets too close to a skunk or bites a skunk, they will be sprayed. The player's scent view could be temporarily rendered useless or partially working for a set period of time. Also, skunk spray is known to cause temporary blindness in dogs, so do what you will with that fact, lol :wink: !
We almost did this for 2.7.2, but it got tricky with multiplayer and so we set it aside. And it is sort of a one-time gag (at least for most players.) Definitely a fun idea, though.
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DaniBeez
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Re: Flock Around the Clock

Post by DaniBeez » Mon Dec 04, 2017 7:03 pm

loboLoco wrote:
DaniBeez wrote:
Skunk
  • This animal would be the most fun/novel experience for players, in my opinion. Skunks would be a seasonal animal: spring/summer/fall, as they hibernate in winter. If a player gets too close to a skunk or bites a skunk, they will be sprayed. The player's scent view could be temporarily rendered useless or partially working for a set period of time. Also, skunk spray is known to cause temporary blindness in dogs, so do what you will with that fact, lol :wink: !
We almost did this for 2.7.2, but it got tricky with multiplayer and so we set it aside. And it is sort of a one-time gag (at least for most players.) Definitely a fun idea, though.
Ah, I didn't know that! Oh well :P. Agreed with the gag aspect too, now that you mention it.

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Re: Flock Around the Clock

Post by Northings » Mon Dec 04, 2017 8:48 pm

This is awesome! Loving the new model on everything. Would you possibly be able to show the new models of the coyotes and cougars up close?

Fish - Preferably salmon. Wolves hunt these as well as the bears. Maybe have salmon shown jumping up river and occasionally seeing the bears hunt? If it was no trouble, even make it possible to feed of the bears fish left overs for a snack.

Rodents - Mice/Ground hogs etc. They take shelter in bushes. Maybe when passing bushes wolves can attempted to hunt? It could also be a introduction to pups learning to hunt even if not successful.

Skunks - This could be one of the challenges. If sprayed it could be possible for it to effect the scent view for some time.

Porcupines - If getting to close it could damage health. Pups could as well get to curious and adults would have to defend the pups against these if they were to come across them.


I'm honestly content with the animals we have now, a few these few little additions would make it even more realistic and a challenge.

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Re: Flock Around the Clock

Post by resanfray » Tue Dec 05, 2017 9:19 am

- I personally have removed my comment -
Last edited by resanfray on Wed Dec 06, 2017 8:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Flock Around the Clock

Post by Loach » Tue Dec 05, 2017 10:16 am

Smaller Mammals - Such as mice, vole, shrew, and pocket gopher, primarily to hunt and eat. It'd be nice to have a prey item that both a) is not an ungulate and b) requires a different kind of tactic to catch than the usual pursuit. Hares are fairly lonely in WQ's current prey pool as a non-hoofed prey item, and while wolves in the park would likely prioritize on the steady supply of elk present in the park, letting players have the choice of where their wolf expends their energy would be interesting. It'd be a nice nod to another range of animal that could fill a wolf's diet in an educational sense, as well.

I've only seen wolves with vole in photos, but I figure they might catch them through mousing or something similar to foxes. If so, it'd be a nice break from the usual task of tracking and pursuing prey targets long distances, since catching it can be an entirely different activity altogether (though in my mind, the best thought for them to work is for the camera angle to change and have the wolf's hearing and smell act as a radar in a grassy game of 'whack a mole' LOL).

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Re: Flock Around the Clock

Post by roguemoon » Tue Dec 05, 2017 10:20 am

Are there plans to improve the behaviour of hares in the game? I would like to see them spawn more often, i feel like wolves would encounter them more frequently. It would be really cool to see groups of hares too.
A lot of people have suggested making them a bit more difficult to catch, and I agree. There should be a few seconds of chase at least to keep it realistic.

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Re: Flock Around the Clock

Post by Frodo1 » Tue Dec 05, 2017 2:47 pm

Holy cow, this looks incredible! Every week I end up absolutely blown away by how amazing 3.0 is looking-- and it just keeps getting better!
I did a bit of looking up as to what wildlife actually lives in Yellowstone-- and it seems like a fair amount of the species that actually interact with wolves are already present in-game.
Probably the biggest new one (besides bison of course) in my mind would be bighorn sheep, but I'm not sure if they reside in the current areas of the game. It seems there's some interaction between them and wolves, though not as much as elk, deer, etc., so if they are in range of the maps, they could make an interesting new challenge because the player would have to navigate steep terrain to catch their prey.
It also sounds like there are bobcats and lynx in the park, though there seems to be less information that I can find at least about how they actually interact. There is this video about a wolf that confronted a mother lynx (the wolf seemed to be playing!), but that's about all I've found. I don't know how much of a threat they'd actually pose, but it could be interesting to have to deal with a defensive lynx or bobcat that's guarding the carcass you want to eat, or that's in your path with its kittens when you're out on the journey. I imagine they could be pretty feisty and temperamental, but would run when their health got low (how low might depend on what they were protecting, maybe?). Desperate ones might even try to snatch a pup, and maybe could have more stealth than most predators (stalking/trying to stay out of sight?). It would add an interesting bit to the game. And we may not have much evidence of these guys interacting in the wild, but I can definitely attest that, on a domestic level at least, my German Shepherd will refuse to walk past my cat on the stairs for fear of being swatted :P

Northings wrote:Porcupines - If getting to close it could damage health. Pups could as well get to curious and adults would have to defend the pups against these if they were to come across them.
I really like this idea! Can't find much info on wolves interacting with porcupines, but I did find some videos of porcupines taking on bears-- and they're pretty feisty little things! I could see a situation unfolding where Mr. Porcupine wants to go where Mr. Porcupine wants, but that happens to be straight through the densite, heh. I wonder if getting quilled could cause health to drain faster over time, maybe?

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Re: Flock Around the Clock

Post by DaniBeez » Wed Dec 06, 2017 9:19 pm

What about an animal one can't easily see: mites? Mange could introduce a (temporary) disease state to the player's character and spread to family NPCs via contact. The condition could last for a season or up to a year, and put a permanent health decrease on the player for the duration of the condition. Would require new skins for affected animals though.

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Re: Flock Around the Clock

Post by Sycona » Wed Dec 06, 2017 11:37 pm

I Love it so far! I think you should be able to select what part of the prey you're eating, and make the transitions between the stages of the preys' carcasses smoother. Another thing you may be able to add (I know you said it'd be rare to snack on the smaller animals, but there seem to be a lot of birds wandering around in wolf quest. Maybe add in birds? Also, note, you can't see the shrews that the foxes catch when they are mousing, so maybe add that?

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Re: Flock Around the Clock

Post by Wolvencall » Thu Dec 07, 2017 10:24 am

Wolves seem to snack on a lot of ground squirrels when they can catch them. That would be good for the journey mission. There would be villages of them but they would be fast and can dissapear into their holes. Another suggestion would be beaver, big Horn sheep, and voles. Especially for the yearlings as wolves are opportunists

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Re: Flock Around the Clock

Post by resanfray » Thu Dec 07, 2017 10:41 am

Frodo1 wrote:
Northings wrote:Porcupines - If getting to close it could damage health. Pups could as well get to curious and adults would have to defend the pups against these if they were to come across them.

I really like this idea! Can't find much info on wolves interacting with porcupines, but I did find some videos of porcupines taking on bears-- and they're pretty feisty little things! I could see a situation unfolding where Mr. Porcupine wants to go where Mr. Porcupine wants, but that happens to be straight through the densite, heh. I wonder if getting quilled could cause health to drain faster over time, maybe?
    • I have to agree this is a really fun idea! But I wouldn't want to be constantly hindered by the porcupine's quills.

      So here is my thinking... You guys have no doubtably heard of Sims right?

      Well what if wolves had emotions similar to sims emotions. Or the sims medieval emotions which results in "Poor Focus" Or "High Focus"
      Effecting how efficiently we can do things.

      We can have mood outlets that show what they are effecting like... "puppy" We got quilled and it will take four in game hours to heal.

      Anyways.. that's all I can think of on that.
      Things I'd love to see in WQ:
      Big horn sheep
      Pine martin (Just ambiance)
      Magpies (I read somewhere that magpies follow wolves because of food so maybe while we hunt there can be a presence of magpies)
      And lastly... Geese

      But with all these noises, I'm hoping we could have an option to be able to mute the animal sounds so people who listen to their own music aren't irked/startled by the birds/etc.

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Re: Flock Around the Clock

Post by Noala » Thu Dec 07, 2017 12:39 pm

Wow, there are so many good suggestions that y’all are gonna have to make a vote based on the most requested animals to see which ones are actually the most popular.

Personally I really would like to see bobcats, bighorn sheep and raccoons.
Also some ambiance animals would be nice. Such as around water: fish, Fisher birds, ducks, swans, geese, and frogs.
Putting beavers in lost river just make sense because you can see where they’ve been and you can hear them.
Forest and meadow animals: squirrels, chipmunks, mice, birds such as flocks of quail, grouse, pheasants flying out of clumps of grass? I actually believe, if I’m not wrong, that you already have that in lost river so why not expand it to other parts of the game. Also wood peckers, simply because I think they’re cool and there seems to be lots of trees in tower falls.

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Re: Flock Around the Clock

Post by Shiranuiii » Thu Dec 07, 2017 4:54 pm

  • Ahh this looks amazing, I can't wait, you guys are going above and beyond for this new game !! cx

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Re: Flock Around the Clock

Post by Polynesia » Sat Dec 09, 2017 7:29 pm

Mountain goats? I don't know how common they are or if wolves can catch them at all, but bighorn sheep would be the alternative:

They could introduce a new platform/level of hunting to the game, i.e, mountain hunting. It would make use of the new jump function because your wolf would have to navigate the cliffs and jump from rock to rock, chasing the goat/sheep. Maybe mountain hunting could have an introductory mission, with a pop-up that gives you advice on how to hunt on the cliffs. It would be very fun because the current prey we have (elk, moose, etc) don't jump at all, and instead just run across flat ground. Mountain hunting would be a whole new skill for people to master ("mastery" is one of the gamer motivations you were talking about in the PvP thread). It would be essentially be a cool activity for people who have already mastered regular hunting and are looking for a new challenge, and it would add variety to the game to fit different preferences.

The jump action would have to be refined a lot for it to be fun though. It isn't very good right now because it forces you to stop while running, uses up a whole lot of stamina, and the animation isn't very smooth or naturalistic. But you did mention that it was being improved, so yay. :)

Edit:
loboLoco wrote:We've got a new and improved grizzly model, and a cub, in the works. Fighting competitors will be an (even) bigger part of WQ 3 than previously.
That's really cute, I can't wait to see them in Slough Creek! It would still prefer that the bear cub not be kill-able though, not just because of the little kids. According to this article grizzly cubs being killed by wolves is rare; only two dead cubs have been found in Yellowstone with evidence that they may have been killed by wolves, and even then, the evidence was circumstantial, and the cubs' mothers may not have been around to protect them at the time. The article is "Interactions between wolves and female grizzly bears with cubs in Yellowstone National Park" by Kerry A. Gunther and Douglas W. Smith. (http://www.bearbiology.com/fileadmin/tp ... _15_2_.pdf)

Bear cubs could just be an ambience type of animal, for the sake of the atmosphere that spring is supposed to have. If you get too close the cub will retreat under his mother and the mother bear will become very aggressive and dangerous, more so than a normal bear. Even if the cub is not itself kill-able, chasing away the mother bear would be enough of a challenge on its own, and could be a new achievement in WQ 3. Maybe, unlike other bears in the game, the mother bear could be more explosive and have the ability to actually lurch forward and attack your wolf, instead of your wolf coming to the bear. Combined with the dodging action it would make the bear dangerous but fun to tackle.

Anyway, I think that bear cubs will make springtime really immersive. :)

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