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I shared Blowin’ Cool by Swervedriver with Alasdair a few months back. He now tells me that he’s been listening to a lot of other tracks by them 🙂 If you are of a ‘no loud music’ disposition, don’t play the track. If you want to hear some interesting lyrics then you’ve come to the right place… I think the words ‘Without a watch you get to know the time – is right for crime…’ are so telling – an excellent track – Enjoy 🙂

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In this issue…

Actually, I’m not sure what’s in this issue as I’m going to adlib as I go along.

I spent the last 2 weeks testing out possible loadouts for my new profile in The Hunter – Call of the Wild as I wait with many other players for the new scoring system release date. In the course of that wait I’ve photographed lots of Fallow Deer as I’ve re-run the early challenges time and again. They’re still spotty and the males have horns…

I’ve also experienced the missing tracks / corpse issue a number of times. For those playing the game regularly, this has been an issue for a very long time. What happens is… You shoot an animal and you know where you shot it. You go to the spot where you shot the animal and find the blood splatter then, because you saw which way the animal ran after you shot it, you follow where the tracks should be… Guess what – there are no tracks. You circle around because you know they have to be there but… Nothing! I point-blanked a female Red Deer with my shotgun – in self defense I should add (she would have mowed me down otherwise) and this was the blood splatter at the site where I shot her……That looks a pretty major lung wound to me and the little lady should go down within a few yards. In fact, that pink you can see on the hand held device means she’s dead. But – no tracks and no body 😦 Like the rest of the community I’m just glad that consecutive harvests no longer affect your score when you subsequently shoot another animal and actually find the body!

So what happens to the tracks? Sometimes they appear suspended in mid-air – I have seen this myself at night and I’ve seen daytime shots of the same issue from fellow members of the community. Other times they may appear a distance from the actual kill point and the lateral shift seems to also apply to where the body will eventually be found in those cases. And then there will be the no tracks at all variant. In the latter case I have found that moving away from the area where you made the kill and wandering around for a while (10 mins or so) will result in the blood from your victim miraculously appearing for you to track and find the body. This is an ongoing issue that the developers are working hard to resolve and I’m sure they will get there eventually.

It would be wrong to think that only The Hunter – COTW has these issues. I’ve experienced a similar ongoing problem with the fish in The Fisherman – Fishing Planet. Most of the time you sling your hook, suitably baited, and wait for a bite. You hope your choice of tackle, hook size and bait will entice the fish you are seeking. 95% of the time the bite will be a fish that you would expect to take the bait – maybe not the one you wanted but that’s what fishing is about. Then you get the big one… The Really Big one! You find yourself fighting a fish that you tire out… and then it regains its strength and goes on another run… time and time again. You’ve just hooked the Glitch-Fish. How do you know that this is what’s on the end of your line? You check the wear and tear of the line, rod and reel – If they haven’t moved from where they were before then you have a spooky fish and can probably set up a clothing brand 😉 There is only one way out of this. You have to put your line into the red like this……guess what – it won’t snap like it should and after a bit more fight you’ll bring the Glitch-Fish in. At which point you’ll discover another amazing thing about the Glitch-Fish – it then metamorphoses into a run of the mill Bass (for example) that should never have troubled your equipment in the first place!

These are the joys of playing simulation games that do their best to mimic real life – sometimes the behaviour algorithms for wild animals prove to be beyond what the processing can reliably produce. And as for the Truck Simulator games… You can rely on the AI to do some very un-human behaviours – except in France where everybody knows that Cedez le Passage means that some drivers won’t Cedez le Passage 😉 I know the dev’s of all these games are doing their best to get the AI to behave as true to life as possible – my thanks for their efforts.

Earlier this pm, Expansive Worlds tweeted that there will be an important announcement tomorrow – hopefully that signals the release of the new scoring system for The hunter – COTW. I’m looking forward to that release and I’ll then start afresh with my chosen beginners loadout 🙂

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I didn’t have any suitable material for the second week of Cee’s On the Hunt for Joy challenge where we needed to Jump… I don’t jump very well these days ;-( But last Saturday I had the chance to catch a couple of suitable images at our the Wingate & Finchley vs East Thurrock match. Here’s a young mascot jumping for joy as he leaves the pitch after leading out the teams…

It was a day of joy all round as the team recorded a second league win in a row! Here’s Kane jumping over the other players during the celebration of Tage scoring an equalising goal……after which Charlie would go on to get the winner.