Music and Herd Names and Trees, Oh My!

[loboLoco]

[youtube]q5pwF3H9U2E[/youtube]
Video link:https://youtu.be/q5pwF3H9U2E

This week’s devblog is a variety pack of things we’ve been working on:

ELK HERD NAMES
A huge thank you to everyone who suggested names for the elk herds! We loved reading all your suggestions and appreciate the thoughtful comments (and sometimes humorous…e.g. hostile elf'‘s "the buck street boys") comments. In review, choosing a theme for elk herd names presented some challenges:

• There are 18+ herds just on the Amethyst map, so the theme needed a good variety of names.
• Names need to be short enough to fit in the GUI and each distinctive enough that you can read them at a glance and remember them.
• Since elk roam around quite a bit, place names wouldn’t be meaningful for long.
• Herd size and composition shifts over the seasons so herd names can’t meaningfully capture that info.
• As fun as it may sound, having the player name the herds in-game would get annoying – constantly interrupting your game to type in names (and we also imagine some…umm… inappropriate names).
• Most importantly, we do want names that fit our theme — the life and ecology of Yellowstone wolves.

So after much discussion, we decided to go with the popular suggestion of (drumroll….) Yellowstone vegetation names. Because:

• Elk love vegetation! They will be so pleased.
• There are lots and lots of kinds of plants in Yellowstone so we won’t run out of names.
• We can even vary the names thematically by map and season.
• Using plant names for elk herds best fits our theme — the life and ecology of Yellowstone wolves. And we love that players will get familiar with names of plants that grow in the park.

Amethyst Mountain elk herds will be named after bushes and grasses such as willow, gooseberry, ninebark, bitterbrush, sweetgrass, fescue, and pinegrass. Slough Creek and Tower Fall can include flowers in bloom.

We have now added the new elk herd names to WolfQuest 3: Anniversary Edition and, as we hoped, they really are helpful in tracking the various groups of elk, especially when scents mingle and the elk roam.

NEW MUSIC!
Today’s video features some of the new music by Ben Woolman, whose fingerstyle guitar playing builds on WolfQuest composer Tim Buzza’s themes. Ben worked with Tim on some tracks in the original Slough Creek soundtrack, and we’re delighted to have him back to create music for WolfQuest 3. Hear Ben’s other music at http://benwoolman.net/

NEW TREE!
Check out the new whitebark pine trees that we are adding to WolfQuest 3! These ghostly dead trees are remnants of a once thriving subalpine tree that have been decimated by a fungus and beetles.  See more work by talented 3D artist Toby Fredson at https://www.artstation.com/tobyfredson

[poncho0287]

It feels like your right in the game with all if this realistic stuff. Oof I'm gonna be so hyper when it comes out. XD

[Zawki]

May I just say the new music is beautiful, I love the theme of the herd names and it's great to see another tree. I'm loving pretty much everything about this blog post, haha.

[DinoDogDude209]

Wow! The new soundtrack sounds amazing! It seems perfect for the game's setting and almost gives me a "home on the range" sort of feel, conveying the vast expanses of the American West. It has some sadder underlying tones too in some parts, almost like the music of Lost River, and I'm sure a remix of it would work well in that map. The new Whitebark Pines look pretty nice too, and the plant models look very realistic. The story of why most of the Whitebark Pines in the map are dead is pretty sad, but it surely will add some good variety to the plant species in the game. I also like the theme used for naming the elk herds, because plant species seem to fit the theme of Yellowstone National Park very well. I wonder if a herd on Amethyst would be called the Whitebark herd as a homage to the Whitebark Pines that grow there. However, I think that the less serious elk herd name suggestions could be used for Lost River, just like the music. After all, with all the Easter eggs (team members' names, floppy moose, etc) in that map, it isn't that far out that the scrapped names of elk herds could show up in that map. Now that I think about it, maybe that should instead go under my LR suggestions in the appropriate thread. Anyway, WolfQuest 3 is looking great so far, and I think I'm going to have a lot of fun finding all that it has to offer. I'll also probably end up buying the music extras pack when WolfQuest 3 is released so I can listen to that beautiful soundtrack! I think it would be fitting to listen to it when me and my family go on our trip to Yellowstone this summer.

[LamarWolf]

Wow it all looks really good the story of the whitebark pines is sad. The think that was what I really liked was the night sky the stars are just beautiful and I hope there is a good place to view them in the game.

[elkhunter123456]

The mountains and trees are beautiful! The names will teach me a lot about vegetation in Yellowstone! Love how there are almost always scents to track!

[Bushmeat]

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As a plant nerd in training, this update is great! I was totally rooting ( ) for this naming scheme.

• Elk love vegetation! They will be so pleased.

(:

[paperpaws]

The new music complements Tim Buzza's work so nicely, though I suppose that's unsurprising given Ben Woolman's prior work on Slough Creek.

I love that you settled for a nature theme for the elk herds as well, though I'm slightly disappointed that means Buck Street Boys won't make the cut :P

The pines as well as the rest of the vegetation look fantastic!

[x1103]

So glad you chose vegetation theme for the herd names! It fits the game and is an opportunity to learn as well like you said.

As a more visual person I don't know much about music (nothing) so commenting it intelligently is impossible but I'll just say this, the uh faster guitar thing going on there is nice, my ears enjoy it very much and the "feel" of the music. Don't get me wrong, the slower paced guitar in the current game's Amethyst mountain is cool too, but in a different way.

Also checked out Toby Fredson's work and it's simply beautiful. I've always struggled drawing ground and textures of rocks etc (though really wanting to draw them) so his stuff seems to me like work of a god.

[YellowstoneWolves1]

This game is just beautiful. I keep saying it, I know, but it's true! The music and the pawsteps of the wolf are both amazing sounding. This game is so worth the wait.

[Koa]

Aside from the new visuals, one of the things I love the most about WolfQuest 3 is the music, so it's great to have Woolman more involved!

The new trees look amazing, too!

[Zoopal55]

I like the ideas of the names involved with nature, plants seem like a good naming guide to go by, still wish we could have had a fossil herd for the fossil trees. But I think this idea might be better! Nice music too, sounds pleasant to the ears.

-StarBender2000

[Zawki]

Is it just me or is that a new coat with scars I see? I'm loving seeing all these new wolf pelts being revealed over the different blog posts.

[Arcturus221B]

It's great you guys brought Ben back in! SC has always had my favourite tracks and it's nice to hear some more similar ones in the new game. The new trees are looking great as well. Too bad the species is not doing so well in the park though. Fortunately, the trees in-game won't be bothered by fungus, beetles and climate change

[Phasoli]

I'm definitely in love with the light and airy sound of Ben Woolman's style. It's so serene!

The game footage looks so beautiful as well! Using Yellowstone Vegetation names as elk herd names was a good choice. I'm loving how this game is coming along.