Feeling Territorial

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

Moderators: Neamara, Koa

User avatar
loboLoco
WolfQuest Team Member
WolfQuest Team Member
Posts: 2885
Joined: Thu Jul 19, 2007 4:51 pm
Gender: Male
Contact:

Feeling Territorial

Post by loboLoco » Thu Mar 29, 2018 1:40 pm

[youtube]SD-O75-jVKU[/youtube]
Video link:

The strength of the wolf is the pack — but a nice big chunk of territory helps too. When designing the original game, we intentionally made the player’s territory quite small, because we worried that the tedium of maintaining a large territory would discourage people from playing the game. In the years since then, we’ve (hopefully) learned a bit more about gameplay design, and we’ve also learned how devoted players can be to WolfQuest. So in WolfQuest 3, we’re amping up the territories.

But how, exactly? We had long discussions about accuracy, complexity, usability, and fun. We definitely wanted to model the dynamic nature of wolf territories — they change over time as packs grow and shrink, expand and contract. (This will be especially important in Tower Fall, when we add pack vs. pack.) We also want to vary the territory configurations, so it’s not always the same each time you play the game. So, taking a cue from how strategy games handle territory, we’ve created a hex-grid system which covers the entire map, with most if not all hexes being claimed by a wolf pack. Wolves (both players and NPCs) must maintain their territory by visiting, marking, and howling. The opacity of each hex tile indicates the territory strength. With this system, the world is divided into small chunks of turf, and ownership of each one depends on the pack’s effort. The weaker their claim, the more likely another pack will try to take it over.

As a lone dispersal wolf in Amethyst, you’ll have only a small area of unclaimed turf which you can explore safely. But unlike in WQ 2.7, you’ll be able to venture into stranger wolf territories — at your own risk. While you can minimize the risk by paying attention to their scent markings, you never know when you’ll encounter strangers, who won’t look kindly on your intrusion. Yet entering stranger pack territory will often be necessary in order to find a mate, who might be a dispersal or might be part of another pack but open to persuasion to leave it and start a new pack with you.Then, once you reach Slough Creek, you’ll have to establish and maintain your own territory, with all the trade-offs of size vs security that come with real territory management.

We still worry that these territories will be too big and sprawling for players to happily maintain and we expect to tweak and tune them once we get into playtesting. We also may tweak the visual style of these hexes. But we do believe that this new territory system will change the game experience in exciting ways — even in simple setups like Amethyst, but especially as we look ahead to subsequent episodes.

One note about the map: It’s rotated 90 degrees so north is to the right. Got to fix that.
Dave/loboLoco
WolfQuest Game Producer

User avatar
Jeames
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 4154
Joined: Thu Aug 14, 2008 10:43 am
Name: Jeames, Jea
Gender: Nonbinary
Location: The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Feeling Territorial

Post by Jeames » Thu Mar 29, 2018 1:45 pm

I'm in love with this game, ahhhhhhh!

Wolvesarelife994
Newborn Wolf
Newborn Wolf
Posts: 18
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2018 11:01 am

Re: Feeling Territorial

Post by Wolvesarelife994 » Thu Mar 29, 2018 1:51 pm

OMG! OMG! OMG! I am so in love with the new episode! I’m so excited for it to come out it’s breathtaking to me, I love it so much you guys are doing the best job in the world, this is going to be my new favorite game. Besides fortnite. I’m kidding I’m kidding I’m kidding! I love wolfquest so much I think I would sue fortnite I don’t know why but I love it so much! :D :o :wolf:
Last edited by Frodo1 on Thu Mar 29, 2018 2:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Adding edits from double post

User avatar
Phasoli
Sub-adult Wolf
Sub-adult Wolf
Posts: 664
Joined: Sat Jun 20, 2015 5:23 pm
Name: EMK
Gender: Gender neutral
Location: Photosynthesizing with the beans in the backyard
Contact:

Re: Feeling Territorial

Post by Phasoli » Thu Mar 29, 2018 1:57 pm

Wow! This is amazing! Interactions with other packs will never be the same.

User avatar
Frodo1
WolfQuest Moderator
WolfQuest Moderator
Posts: 2275
Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2010 4:35 pm
Name: Frodo/Jay
Gender: Female
Location: Being a hermit hobgoblin in the dark in my room XD
Contact:

Re: Feeling Territorial

Post by Frodo1 » Thu Mar 29, 2018 2:04 pm

Wolvesarelife994 wrote:OMG! OMG! OMG! I am so in love with the new episode! I’m so excited for it to come out it’s breathtaking to me, I love it so much you guys are doing the best job in the world, this is going to be my new favorite game. Besides fortnite. I’m kidding I’m kidding I’m kidding! I love wolfquest so much I think I would sue fortnite I don’t know why but I love it so much! :D :o :wolf:
Wolvesarelife994, please make sure to edit your posts instead of double-posting. In addition, please make sure that your posts contain more than 3 words, otherwise they can be considered spam.

User avatar
Shiranuiii
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 308
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2016 1:37 pm
Name: Shiranui
Gender: Female
Location: In my room, complaining about something.
Contact:

Re: Feeling Territorial

Post by Shiranuiii » Thu Mar 29, 2018 2:29 pm

  • Ahhh it's gonna be so different with packs, I can't wait cx

User avatar
Arcturus221B
Pup
Pup
Posts: 98
Joined: Sat Mar 20, 2010 1:36 am
Name: Arcturus
Gender: Gender neutral
Location: A blue box

Re: Feeling Territorial

Post by Arcturus221B » Thu Mar 29, 2018 2:50 pm

This is really exciting! I don't usually bother with keeping track of my territory these days since I find very little enjoyment in it and the worst that could happen is a few strangers coming to say hi (which I don't think is all that bad haha). I really like this new system and it would make things so much more dynamic (and realistic!)

Question though: does this also mean sounds like howls and growls will become more localised? Currently you can hear both from across the map, but it would be nice if you can only hear growls, whines and the like when you're face-to-face, and howls from a greater distance. The volume of the howl could help you figure out how close you are to a pack's territory (or maybe the pack itself) or, in MP, another player.

Anyhow, keep it up! Can't wait to hear more about the new territories!

User avatar
Lebron BMT
Pup
Pup
Posts: 73
Joined: Sun Nov 15, 2009 6:04 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Canada

Re: Feeling Territorial

Post by Lebron BMT » Thu Mar 29, 2018 4:17 pm

This is really great. Having to worry about other wolves makes the game a lot more realistic.

User avatar
Black Burn
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 1113
Joined: Mon Feb 12, 2018 1:55 pm
Name: BB for short
Gender: Male
Location: Chillin like a villain
Contact:

Re: Feeling Territorial

Post by Black Burn » Thu Mar 29, 2018 5:11 pm

Oh WOW! This sound so awesome! A bigger territory to maintain will be a great chalange! I hope the reaches of our territory will go on behind the den. I never understood why it didn't in 2.7... Ha, my wolf might not be so tough when these new strangers come around! I can't wait!
Thank you for everything WolfQuest Team!

Bettagirl150
Newborn Wolf
Newborn Wolf
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Feb 07, 2018 9:50 pm

Re: Feeling Territorial

Post by Bettagirl150 » Thu Mar 29, 2018 5:16 pm

Oooooo. This makes me happy and excited for the new WolfQuest 3. I'm getting giddy every time there is a new update about this game. I can't wait until it's finished so we get to see all of these little pieces of the game together!

User avatar
airbones
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 266
Joined: Fri Feb 08, 2013 7:15 pm
Name: Razza
Gender: Female
Location: MI, USA
Contact:

Re: Feeling Territorial

Post by airbones » Thu Mar 29, 2018 5:17 pm

I think this new system is a great idea, and I’m also still buzzing over the way stranger wolves are going to work in the new game. With each encounter being unpredictable I think it’ll be a nice change from the way things currently are!

It’s also sounding like you can choose where and how big your territory is, which I really like from a new-experience-every-game standpoint. I can’t wait to see what the new Slough Creek map looks like!

User avatar
Sambhur
Former WQ Moderator
Posts: 1922
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2010 7:39 pm
Location: australia

Re: Feeling Territorial

Post by Sambhur » Thu Mar 29, 2018 6:45 pm

I really love these levels of depth you've been adding to the game. Can't wait to see it for myself!

User avatar
Sycona
Newborn Wolf
Newborn Wolf
Posts: 17
Joined: Thu May 18, 2017 12:44 am
Name: Sycona
Gender: Female

Re: Feeling Territorial

Post by Sycona » Thu Mar 29, 2018 7:16 pm

I love this game so much. It looks amazing and I cannot wait for it to come out! The territory feature looks way better and I’m exited that I’ll be able to enter it (instead of always being warned to stay away in WQ 2.7). Keep up the great work :)

thirteen889184
Newborn Wolf
Newborn Wolf
Posts: 16
Joined: Thu Apr 20, 2017 5:46 pm
Gender: Female
Location: Wyoming, USA

Re: Feeling Territorial

Post by thirteen889184 » Thu Mar 29, 2018 9:25 pm

I'm so excited for Wolfquest 3! I can hardly handle it. I look forward to each update. Can't wait to see more!

User avatar
Invar
Pup
Pup
Posts: 57
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2013 9:36 am

Re: Feeling Territorial

Post by Invar » Fri Mar 30, 2018 12:15 am

This is gonna rock. I hope this will be a multi-player pack v pack feature, too. *drool*

Post Reply