[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Red October1984

There is a degree of complexity to hunting though. You can't just get a gun, camo, tree stand and go shoot a deer.

You gotta watch the wind, terrain, eating habits, trails, what kind of food is in the area, how the animal avoids predators and how it can detect you.

These variables are represented in the sim. They all have a perceivable effect, which can be big or small depending on your behaviour. One could argue whether or not they are correctly matching the real things. I say: they don't. They made it all easier a bit, to not threaten their own customer basis. While the herds of species forming them are of realistic size and composition, they have too many such herds in the given piece of land, I think. But they had to make that concenssion to the gaming market, I assume, most players would not be satisfied like me by just walking around and never see any animal at all.

The species' behavior at different times of the day also is individually tialored and changes. Some species form groups, some even mixed ones, others don'T and stroll as nomands. Others do both. Some species prefer dense woods over the day, and seek open meadows and water only ad dusk and dawn. Some are easy to approach and are not suspecting, others are almost impossible to sneak on wiothout using aids like blinds, lures, and baits. Some species even can turn against you: feral hogs, wild boars, mooses.

Depending on how well you aimed and hit, the animals drops dead in place, or flees, wounded, and you have to trail it. If the wound is severe, it gets only some hundred meters, crisscrossing maybe. If the wound is not so severe - well, two days ago I was spending on hour ingame-time (gametime runs and double speed) to find my first elk I shot. It was almost one and a half kilometer away, still living, but tired, it just stood while I approached. Lesson of the day: for arrows, an elk definitely is too big a prey.

I do not shoot at female deer. That turns the game into a subsim, almost. Avoiding the escorts and not avoiding them while going for the heavy target that might be around. So there you are, sneaking and hiding, being aware of the wind, listening to footsteps and watching out to avoid being detected by the females, which then would flee, alarm the whole group and the antler getting away, too.

I am probbaly sooner or later wil not use scent blockers, special cloathing and blin dsatands, to just make it all more difficult, in parts it is like you say: the functionality you ask for is there, but it is tailored to be too easy, to adress the demands of the game market. But it is like with a lfightsim: you gte what you put into a sim. Plan your flights semiprofessionally, fly realsic routines even if tghe sim doe snot demand them, and the game that FSX by default is suddenly turns into a simulation, and when using a high quality aircraft addon, it turns in to a simnulation with stunning system depth that leaves you clueless at first. Same with many sims, same with The Hunter. The way you approach it definings the experience you get from it.

And do not underestimate the tremendous beauty and sound envrionment that you get! It beats everything I have seen in this rehgard, easily, hands down. On White island, there are forest with so dense underwoods that you are wondering that a PC still can handle that enormnous volume of graphical detail. The chnage of light, mist and fog, sunset and dawning - stunning, simply stunning.

I was in the "German" reserve, trying to go for some red deer. I laid in wait on a hill, looking down on some fields separated with some ditches and bush/treelines. When sun had set, some roes came out from the nearby forest indeed, all females, somewhere a male was calling. I realised that I was too far away, my shooting skill is still low, so breathing still have my sights moving a lot. I started to crawl down, the wind was constantly changing on that day, which had me needing to check it several times, and crisscrossing a bit. While it got darker and darker, I got more and more exposed in the open , crawling from bush to bush, since little embakement lines, maybe 1-2 meters high, blocked vision between the fields, but when climbing on them, would expose my silhouette against the empty sky. I just heared the deer tranmpling around, roaming, and I had no clue what was going on around, and where the boss might be. I finally jumped the time window, and ended up being all alone. But when then cray<wling on a little hill, I saw in my bionos some round, dark spots starting to emerge against the darkness of the forestline on the other side, 200 meters or so away. Wild boars, a while groups, using the protection of almost darkness to check the fields for eatable stuff. I got the buckshot out of the shotgun, and stuffed slugs in. I waited, observed. It was a big family. And finally I got a shot, a good one at around 40 meters. the rest of the group went on stampede, racing as dark, round shadows over the fields and back to the forest. The one I aimed at dropped dead where it was hit.

I play this game carefully, and in a sneaking fashion. I took very long to get there^. And there were surprising twists in the action. And visual beauty all around me, and a great sound environment.

So just nobody should compare this to any other hunting game he happens to know. Ten years ago, I played Deer Hunter 2003, which before Hunter came out as considered the best there is, for years. But it does not compare, it just does not compare. It was simplistic, with smaller places, visually hopelessly inferior. It does not compare.

the Hunter also seems to have a very active and vivid community. The game'S design links every game session automatically to the online leaderboard system and statistics board. Become good enough (will take you much time, promised, for the number's way is a long one), and you will become a known name automatically. Since the game is to be started online exclusively, you cannot avoid being included in this system.

Another detail: stuff you leave in the wilderness, will stay there if you end a session. All equipement like tents and stands, will stay. Sometimes, like any good sim should and must do, things have a abstracted function. Tents for example allow you to not start a new session in one ressort at one of the two lodges only, but at the place where oyu have left your tent last time. Camoping equiment are taking less place in your Rucksack, but allow you to add additional time to your session nwhen yoiu git "tired" (after 10 km or 4 ingame hours), or use one of the twop or three camping sites in the reserves to start from ther next time. And then there are bear barrels. You leave them in a place that looks promising,l and you have to fill them with bait. The bait gets consummed over time, and it will take the animals around several days of real time (!) to realsie the presence of it, to memorize it, and to develope a pattern of frequently chekcing the barrel. You have to check it yourself, too, for the bait gets consummed and can run empty - then you have to fill in new one. Maybe you have also left a high stand or a blind stand close by. So you left a barrel, and four days real time later you start another session, make your way to the place, climb in your stand you left, and hope the place you have choosen for the trap was a good one. Nice, eh?

In Deer Hunter 2003, I recall they even had camera traps.

The five reserves in the game can have a maximum size on either axis of around 6 km. Some are islands.

The game can be tried for free. You have to log an account, and download it (~900 MB). You then have access to one or two reserves, you have one basic rifle and ammo, and the licence to hunt whitetail exclusively. You can already exchange real money for virtual money to buy additional equipment. But for getting access to all reserves, you either by licences for single species in single reserves for 1 day or up to one week, or you buy a membership for up to 1 year. Then you have full access. After that membership ended, you are back to basic visitor mode. But if you buy another emmbership time, you then still have all your bought equipment back, you do not need to buy it again (except items that get consumed: scent sprays, certain special arrows - default ammunition is unlimited and free), but ten shots will take one slot in your rucksack.) Stands and tents and such stay where they are when you left.

I admit the business model of theirs seem to make this an expensive game. But you get quality delivered, really, and you must admit that the constant small cash flow allows them to stay in business and continue ongoing developement, which they do since several years how. There seems to be a constant stream of patches and updates and tweaks and upgrades. Well, people pay 100 dollars these days for SBP, and every 12-18 mouth another 25 for the new upgrade. Compared to that, The Hunter needs several years to reach to that level.

Full access license for all and everything costed me 20 dollars for 6 months. The DVD I got is a Germany-exclusive deal which gave me an equipement costing roughly 20 dollars again (I have not precisely calculated it) - and I do not mean the free equipment you get by default. This is an almost complete package of things, plus half a dozen weapons additional to the default rifle. Needing to buy that in game would cost you an additional 20 dollars or more. So everybody thinking to buy himself into the game: order the DVD via German Amazon. It's a very nice deal within their system.

12 months membership costs I think 45 dollars.

I admit this and the online thing has kept me away for long years. Big mistake of mine. They are also not the only ones doing this model either. iRacing for example plays by comparable rules - and is considered to be the best racing simulation out there, by many.

P.S. the most exotic weapon they have must not be the simple recurve bow, but the civil war style front muzzle loader. Big punch, short reach, miserable precision, one shot only but a long reloading procedure, and plenty of smoke hindering your sight for seconds.