The Hunter

[Skybird]

Rockies with new bear models.





And some moving footage:


Looks good to me.

[Skybird]

New species, Bighorn Sheep:





There are 30 huntable species now.

With the upcoming Timbergold Trail reserve, there will be 11 reserves now. When I started with The Hunter in late 2012, there were just 5 reserves.

Havent played since some months, but now the year is in that part of the time cycle again when games like this are to be played more again.

[Skybird]

New species for the new reserve revealed: the Rocky Mountain Elk.





I like the looks of this new reserve already now.

[Skybird]

It indeed looks stunning, breathtaking, beautiful:

[Skybird]

Timbergold Trails has been released some days ago. Its easily one of their visually most beautiful reserves, and it also is huge, must be one of the two biggest in the game. The colours of autumn are more vivid and warm and friendly and - well, more colourful than on the Hirschfelden map, which is a bit too brownish, for my taste, autumn in Germany does not look that brownish at all. Currently the map has some sound issues and some problems with some of the animals' behaviour (at least in some people's opinion who think the snow ptarmigans are too difficult to hunt, but I just welcome that difficulty). Still, already now a very beautifu reserve - one of my favourites from immediately on. I also already had a first encounter with a grizzly, and as to be expected, the beast did not like to be disturbed, I ran into it in thick woods and bushes and could put it down just at last second after it rolled over my dog and now was charging me.

Really, I like this reserve. A mix of Hirschfelden, Redfeather Falls, Settler's Creek and Valle-de-Bois. The far distance panoramas can be breathtaking.

Graphics also have been beefed up, the lowest texture level previously in use no longer is there, and it seems the rendering distances of animals seems to have been slightly increased, maybe by 20-30 meters (220 or 230 meters before, now 250-260m).

[Skybird]

Oh look who is coming:



No, that is no coyote.

[Skybird]

Finally, it will happen: The Hunter moves to Next Generation: called "Call of the Wild", a new Hunter game with new gfx engine is currently mulled to be released.




Featuring the core play elements of The Hunter Classics, the new game is said to also add new elements. It will be a one-time purchase, so they said. Which can mean everything and nothing.

More news on it here: http://callofthewild.thehunter.com/en/



And here: http://news.thehunter.com/introducin...l-of-the-wild/

[Skybird]

A newer, more in-depoth trailer of Call of the Wild, 3.5 minutes long, with explanations of game elements.

Say what you want - their new forests and landscapes look most beautiful.



There are also Let's-Plays available at youtube, from the public beta currently running.

[NeonSamurai]

It might be more interesting if they got rid of their unbelievably awful and greedy pricing scheme.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by NeonSamurai

It might be more interesting if they got rid of their unbelievably awful and greedy pricing scheme.

While I like the game, I too do not like the company too much. They gave me troubles and downtimes too often. On the question, my thoughts:

http://forum.thehunter.com/viewtopic...art=40#p840494

The part where I quote from the original announcement.

[NeonSamurai]

Watch them pull something like railsim/trainsim, with torrents of over-priced dlc, and yearly releases.

[Skybird]

I am not aware they are doing a train sim. Some of their developers did that Primal The Hunter thing in their free time,w ith limited work only, and that was said from beginning on: that it would be a small distraction only, no main project. I never tried it, though. Sauriers do not interest me.

As long as a company acts transparent with its business model and pricing, I am okay with it - I can know the facts then, and can make my choice for or against them. What is worth it for Peter, must not be worth it for Paul.

My big quarrel with them is that for a subscription model with yearly fees I had too many occasions and long times when playing when I wanted to play was not possible because their damn server or patching routine once again messed it up for me, took endless ammounts of times, or did not work until another couple of days or - in the worst example - months has passed. If you milk coins from people for subscription, you have to make sure your product to which people subscribe works 99.9% of the time - not just 60% or so. I know that I am a drastic exmaple and that for most players it never became so bad - but alone with it I am not, there are others with less patience than me who for this reason have given up the game completely.

So, their pricing never was the issue for me. Nobody forced me to pay what I paid. That often their service did not deliver the intended gaming experience due to technical issues on their side, broken patching routines - that is what pisses me about Expansive Worlds. Plus that I got ignored one time too often, and too long.

On the other side, I can afford it, the money demanded does not kill me, and I also have plenty of great memories with the game, and many nice experiences. When it works, its a wonderful game. For many people, it works better than for me. As I said, I seem to belong to that group of extreme examples. But still - our group is not really small.

Maybe their tech issues are related to the game engine, it is known that that old foreign engine is limiting and that it prevents them from doing some things that they wanted to do, but cannot do with it. Mind you, they picked the game up from somebody else who abandoned the game and went bancrupt over it. The new engine and a game now developed by themselves may improve things for the better. I give them a chance again, therefore, but will observe carefully at first.

[Skybird]

Its been a long time.

Early btis year, they released a new hunting game, named Call of the Wild, on PC. It made use of their new and most fomridable Apex graphics engine, an inhouse development. The result was a dramatically improved rendering of the envuironment and nature, used to depict an American and a German hunting reserve of together 128 km2. The game plays partly different, has not as many microtransactions needed, just one or two DLCs, and hunter explore the wild, get ingame money by whcih they ust live to pay for consumables, other equipment, all the kind of stuff that in Classic The Hunter costed real money. Big improvemnt. However, when I watched youtube videos, what I saw was plenty of arcade-like action, adifferent interface, features that appeared to be gimmick-like, and so I was kept away.

However. I noticed that the game has been brought to xbox and playstation 4 meanwhile. And suddenly it all fell into a matching place, the interfce, the gimmick stuff, the lack of real money icrotransactions. The game on PC probbaly was just a test ballon to see how it runs and whether the conepot worsk. I think they had consoles on mind from beginning on. And you know what? I play it on PS4 since tw days, and it works mindblowingly well!

Its a different experience than Classic Hunter, but then, also surprisingly similiar in other ways. The beaut of the word that is laid out before your eyes, is amongst the best looking I have ever seen in any computer generated playworld. The concept to let the player all alone on the wild, playing through full day and night cycle and managing his resources, goals, rest, is right up to my taste, an open sandbox world like I want it, with the flair and fascination of the rough wild to be seen in a film like Stalker. I cannot comment on "realism", since I have not had much oppotunity to assess the behaviour of animals and wepaons, but I mut say the fast-paced action to be seen in video son the PC version earlier this year, simply is not tkaing place for me. The game is not really "playing", its an experience. You. The wild. Time passing. And sometimes you may see an animal, though stly you hear them (in surprisingly high numbers...). Though I really know how to play The Hunter, after so many hundreds and hundres of hours, I still have not killed my first prey.

Games like this are not for everybody, and tis hunting game does not comoare to any other around, whcih all are more action-oriented. But if you have a taste for this kind of thing, try this, and try the console version. It works really well, and the interface with the gamepad also works very well while playing. The menu handling cann be a bit fiddly, I admit, but nothin that really must stop you, or m, from enjoying this to play. Truth is, althogh I do not make money so far becasue I do not mamabge to shoot anything , I enjoy to simply wander around. Whats new: you wonder at night as well, with or without a torchlight.

The consoles versions have the two DLCs that have been there on PC, included, namely the terrain scooter. They work well, but I question the wisdom of using them, due to their noise.

A third reserve, Taiga, is coming this month, it also will hit the consoles later on. See trailer, its utmost beautiful.

If somebody knows where on PS4 photos shot n the game get stored, let me know please. I do not mean the playstation screenshot function by pressing the Share button, i mean the dedicated virtual camera in the game. I can take photos there, but I have no clue where they get stored. Google does not help me at this.













I'm happy. I did not expect this.

P.S.
Different than claimed by some, the save function does work as designed and intended. It autosaves. It sends you back into the game next time at the closest "lodge" or tent of your last playing position.

And again, the console version, different form the upcoming third reserve, has no real money microtransaction. The base package comes with everything aboard, and uses a system of virtual money that you must earn by completing missions (like shooting a photo with two different bears on it), or harvesting prey).

[Skybird]

The Hunter (Classic) is about to get a new reserve.



Tropical jungle. Four new inhabitants: water buffalo, Banteng, Rusa deer, Sambar deer.



New RECOMMENDED specs:

Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.4GHz or Higher
Memory: 8GB RAM
Graphics Card: GeForce GTX760 or Higher

[Skybird]

This is a biggie: they have today increased the rendering distance from 220m to 320m.