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Hunt Hardcore works for beginning and experienced hunters
Hunt Hardcore offers a variety of social media type features that allows hunters with all levels of experience to share their adventures and seek help to become better hunters. The free universal app requires iOS 7.0 or later and requires users to register an account or use their Facebook account to login. The app contains a lot of the same information as the hunthardcore1.com web site. As with most social media apps, Hunt Hardcore allows users to make friends through the app and follow the new friends' postings. As users submit comments, trip stories, photos and video they receive activity points and the app then ranks users based on their point totals. You can also search users by name or get a listing of all members. Users will find a section devoted to photos posted by other users. The section contains lots of photos showing hunters in a variety of locations. Some show the hunters' kill while others show the animals the hunters were stalking. The one issue I had with this section was that none of the photos had any details about the photo such as when and where the kill took place or any other specifics about the actual hunt. The most information users will find is in the app's forum. Here the section is broken down into six different sections: Big Game Hunting, Bird and Small Game, Weapon Specific posts, State Hunting regulations, Taxidermy, and Hunting Products. Each of these segments contain numerous posts from users dealing with those specific areas. For example under the Big Game Forum you will find sub headings for Elk, Whitetail Deer, Bears, Wolves and other predators, and more. As you move deeper into the forum you can get details of hunting trips including some with photos and videos. Another section is devoted to classified listings where hunters can sell all types of weapons, tents and other camping gear, GPS devices, and a few listings for hunting trips posted by outfitters who specialize in putting hunters in a position to take down a particular species such as a New Mexico cougar, or Wyoming elk. Hunt Hardcore has some other features posted but these did not include a lot of information. One labeled Quizzes had no content, another had a blog but it had not been updated since December of 2012, and a third for polls had just three or four polls listed and just one of those dealt with a hunting issue. The others sought input from users on site logos and features. Overall if users stick to the forums and utilize the apps huge member list I think they will find Hunt Hardcore useful. Making friends with other hunters in different parts of the country or state you live in can be especially helpful. The photos and videos make interesting viewing but I wish they offered more specifics about the hunting trips.
Fist of Awesome punches bears on PC and Mac
The game best described as a "bear fighter," Fist of Awesome, is now available on PC and Mac. The game is currently discounted on the Humble Store to $3.99 (originally $7.99). Fist of Awesome is a beat-em-up in which players assume the role of a time-traveling lumberjack that must "punch bears to save humanity." Developer I Fight Bears is seeking community approval via Greenlight to bring the game to Steam. It launched on Ouya, iOS and Android in October following a successful Kickstarter campaign that raised £11,808 ($19,919) in December 2012. The UK-based developer was founded by Nicoll Hunt, a former Realtime Worlds (Crackdown) developer that also worked on Hard Lines for iOS. [Image: I Fight Bears]
Neverwinter's companions are real bears (and cats)
Have you ever found yourself playing Neverwinter and thinking, "This is great, but it'd be way better with an enormous bear mauling things while I cast spells"? Or perhaps you'd prefer a panther, or a hawk, or an enormous spider? Whatever your preferred flavor, the game probably has a companion to match your tastes, and each of them is on display in the new companion trailer embedded just past the cut. Although the idea of a spider companion is kind of really creepy. This trailer comes along with the addition of a new companion to the cash shop, the Cave Bear. Your ursine companion will obligingly maul your opponents while stealing health and comes with a max rank of 20. There's also a new dye pack, which has very little to do with companions but might help you coordinate your outfit with your feral chums. So check out the full trailer past the break for an idea of what you can do with an animal buddy.
Stuffed Toys Alive! replaces mechanical limbs with strings for a much softer feel (hands-on)
It worked just fine for Pinocchio, so why not animatronic stuffed bears? A group of researchers from the Tokyo University of Technology are on hand at SIGGRAPH's Emerging Technologies section this week to demonstrate "Stuffed Toys Alive!," a new type of interactive toy that replaces the rigid plastic infrastructure used today with a seemingly simple string pulley-based solution. Several strings are installed at different points within each of the cuddly gadget's limbs, then attached to a motor that pulls the strings to move the fuzzy guy's arms while also registering feedback, letting it respond to touch as well. There's not much more to it than that -- the project is ingenious but also quite simple, and it's certain to be a hit amongst youngsters. The obligatory creepy hands-on video is waiting just past the break.%Gallery-162161%
New WoW ad airing during Sunday football
The official Warcraft Twitter account has teased a new World of Warcraft advertisement that will be airing during the Bears vs. Chargers game on Sunday. While we do not know the content of the advertisement yet, we know that it will potentially involve a foot, a hunter, someone's face, and a new Warcraft master. In the past, WoW commercials have featured celebrities attesting to their in-game personas, spelling out the awesomeness of their abilities. Who will be the newest WoW spokesperson? Not to be disrespectful to our European audiences, I've translated the post above for you below: Europeans, you'll be able to watch a new WoW commercial that aired during an American Gridiron game on YouTube this Sunday. We'll have a video of the commercial as soon as it is available. Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
Blizzard responds to feral druid Savage Defense concerns
Savage Defense, the tanking feral druid's absorption mechanic, is undergoing some changes in patch 4.1 to ramp up its effectiveness to be on par with the mitigation mechanics of other tanks. Forum blue Daxxarri responded to one player's concern that the new implementation of Savage Defense isn't working out so hot. The response discusses client latency, the appearance of shields working or not, and how the combat log displays certain types of information.
ArenaNet reveals the wisdom and power of the Kodan in Guild Wars 2
Guild Wars 2 still seems achingly far away if you're one of the many players hotly anticipating the game, but we can take comfort in the fact that ArenaNet has continued to share more of the lore of the world via regular blog entries. The Kodan, previously known in only the barest terms, have been revealed in full with the latest writeup. A mighty and proud race from the northern lands, these powerful ursine warriors have begun moving south, at once seeking refuge and judging the other races of Tyria. "Judging" is to put it mildly, really -- the kodan view themselves as the arbiters of spiritual purity within the world, even as they flee from the elder ice dragon Jormag. Some norn and kodan alike believe that the norn are descended from the bear-men, which the kodan view as a great failing of the norn, hence why the other race has been stripped of its natural form. Learn more about this new addition to Guild Wars 2 in the full entry, complete with a few pieces of the game's signature beautiful concept art.
Polar bears destroy robot spy cams, show no remorse (video)
Iceberg Cam, Snowball Cam, Blizzard Cam and Drift Cam were the arctic photographer's best friends -- high-tech spy robot cameras designed to resist cold and traverse sub-zero terrain. Then they got crushed to death by giant polar bears while attempting to make friends. Seriously, that's the basic gist of Polar Bear: Spy on the Ice, a new BBC documentary which began airing last week, and which just so happens to be narrated by David Tennant. Hope he's got a screwdriver handy, if you know what we mean. Watch the bears play a spirited match of robot football after the break, then see all the lovely mechanical carnage in a third video at our source link.
Canadian 'Xbox News' dashboard app is devoid of Xbox news [update: It's a Halo ARG]
Update: It turns out the app is actually part of a Halo: Reach ARG in Canada. See our story here for more details. Canadian Xbox users now have a new service on the Dashboard, "Xbox News." Surprisingly, instead of gaming news, the video program offers up "entertainment, human interest, tech, gadget, auto and unique" news stories from Microsoft's MSN. The first episode certainly doesn't offer up hard-hitting news, instead dishing out stories about human dominoes and a paintball facility invaded by bears. ... on second thought, that is hard-hitting news. You can never be too careful with bears. New episodes will be posted to the Canadian Xbox dashboard each evening but, just because it's you, you can watch the first episode after the break. [Thanks, Steve]
Use your iPhone to scare a bear (right before it eats you)
Thanks to Stephen Colbert, we've become acutely aware of the dangers of bears, the "soulless, godless, rampaging killing machines" who patrol the forests of North America and prey on unwary hikers (some potentially not-safe-for-work language on that last site, FYI). Until now, your best defense against these furry terrors has been simply avoiding their killing grounds altogether. But Flying Jalapeño Software has introduced the latest weapon in the arsenal against the ursine menace: ScareBear Trail Companion [iTunes link]. ScareBear Trail Companion is an iPhone app that replicates the sounds of bells, clapping, and rocks in a tin can (yes), all of which are supposedly like kryptonite to bears and will scatter them from your path before you even encounter them. Should you happen to come across a bear immune to these charms and wards, ScareBear Trail Companion still has you covered – in an emergency, you can use the app to sound an emulated air horn, which may terrify the creature and send it scurrying away. There's only three slight weaknesses with this app that I can foresee. First is that it depends on your iPhone having a charge. If your iPhone's battery goes dead in the woods, listen for the spooky soundtrack cues, because that is surely the very instant a bear will charge you from the undergrowth. Second, it takes a lot of concentration on your part to find and launch the app, wait for it to load, and then press the button to make noise; even if you can keep your wits about you when half a ton of teeth and fur is rearing up before you, anything slower than an iPhone 3GS will probably cost you critical seconds. By the time the app launches, you may already be halfway down the bear's esophagus. Third, and most damaging to the utility of this app, the iPhone's speaker simply isn't all that loud. I've generally found that even at the highest volume, I'll often miss hearing my iPhone's ringtone in a noisy environment – and environments don't come much noisier than a roaring, hungry monster like the one pictured above. Bears may or may not have more sensitive hearing than humans; no one knows for sure, as all attempts to scientifically study these brutal creatures have ended in tragedy, with laboratories leveled to dust upon the bears' inevitable escape from their bonds. In any case, ScareBear Trail Companion probably isn't going to save your life from a bear. If anything, it'll probably just irritate it and make it angrier. You'd probably do more damage to the bear with your iPhone if you fed it to him. I haven't been able to test ScareBear Trail Companion myself, as there are no bears in New Zealand outside of zoos. As a matter of fact, that's part of why I moved here. Safe at last.
Breakfast Topic: Awesome Animations
So hot on the heels of the best mob noise in game discussion, I thought I'd ask another question: What about the animations? We probably don't think about it too much, but the sounds and animations of PCs and NPCs alike probably end up making a lot of atmosphere we take for granted. It fills out the world and makes it feel more immersive, more real.With that in mind, the noise topic got me thinking of what animations I really like. There's a lot of them that at least deserve a mention, from the howling of Coyotes to the nervous skittering of the Silithid. In the new animations, we get stuff like Stinker's escapades and the wildlife of Grizzly Hills going on with their every day activities. Beyond that, even PC animations can have their awesome looks, such as a Draenei twirling a Polearm to attack or a male Blood Elf dying with Shakespearean dramatics. Ethereals also have some pretty graceful moves overall, even in the way their bandages move and their energy pulses.What animations and graphics have you encountered in WoW that have made you stop and say, "Hey, that's pretty neat?"
Anti-Aliased: Sometimes, it's the little things in (virtual) life
After playing so many games, there are moments that stick out in my mind that make me smile. Some of them are these really epic stories about boss battles, or hard fought PvP moments, or personal notes of glory and triumph. Yet others are drastically different. They're calm, touching moments, where the game either really affected me on an emotional level or wowed me with some attention to detail.In the frantic picture of game design, balancing, art direction, content, and bug squashing of making a highly complex MMO, development teams begin to miss things. Who cares about how a daisy moves when there's serious issues at hand, like item drop rates not working out the way they should be? Yet some development teams do see these little issues and they do take the time to program them in. Not every user may notice them, but some users will, and appreciate them.This column is dedicated to the little things in our virtual lives. Come with me as we look through some popular and some unpopular MMOs, and highlight some of the things that development teams have done to really hook us into their world.
Shifting Perspectives: So. Um, do bears suck?
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week we shelve the column we originally intended to run due to a rather pressing matter.OK, folks. I have a confession to make. This week's Shifting Perspectives was originally meant to be a full guide to gearing your Restoration Druid at 80, and I'm still going to post that, either this week or next. A lot of people have (correctly, I think) observed that this column has historically paid more attention to Feral than to Restoration or Balance, and it's my aim to balance (har!) that out a bit. Part of it is just that the people who play Druids on staff here at WoW Insider are usually feral, and part of it is that -- at least as of the last numbers we had on it -- most people playing Druids are also feral. I confess I would love to see the demographics on Druids post-Wrath, because I get the sense that Balance in particular has become markedly more popular.But the Resto post is going to have to wait a few days, not least because my eyes are swimming from so much Wowhead. We found out today that Swipe's threat is getting a significant buff, but over the course of reading the pertinent forum thread and some back-channel discussion here, I ran across a few things concerning bear tanking that really made me sit up after the hell of tanking last night's heroic Old Kingdom and go, "Wait. It's not just me?"Personally whenever I encounter serious problems in a dungeon I tend to chalk it up to the fact that I suck. I find this to be an efficient and typically accurate means of pinpointing the source of an issue. However, my fellow Druids, our problems may actually be more wide-ranging than that.
Stephen Colbert's favorite game has to be Disaster: Day of Crisis
We all know the man's stance on bears. He doesn't like them. In fact, he downright despises them. That's why we're sure that Nintendo's latest, Disaster: Day of Crisis, is among Colbert's most treasured games. Why? Well, it features a boss battle against a bear. Aside from teaching us the near indestructible nature of the beast, it also shows us what kind of weapons to use against a bear should it get you in its sights. Also, it teaches us that bears like to stupidly charge back and forth.Check out the video past the break.%Gallery-30942%
'Humans aren't helpless' in Disaster: Day of Crisis
"Humans aren't helpless!" declares Disaster's protagonist and catastrophe magnet, Raymond Bryce. It seems like sage advice coming from the man who, as the game's title candidly suggests, is enduring the most preposterously perilous day in the history of all time. Indeed, judging by the Japanese TV spots for Disaster: Day of Crisis (embedded after the break), humans are far from helpless and quite capable of performing the following, exciting activities: Outrunning tidal waves Kicking down doors Defusing bombs Clinging to railings Dramatically telling someone to "hang on to something" Sliding down ramps Taking cover from gunfire Climbing out elevators Crawling in vents Avoiding incineration Driving through meteor showers Jumping out of airplanes Starting flaming cars Facing down archenemies in the rain Climbing cliffs Shooting at gates Oh, and fighting poorly animated bears.
New bear animations for eating and fishing discovered
Everyone knows that bears are actually pretty good fishermen, but for some reason Ferals have to shift back out of form and use a pole like everyone else. That may be changing, however. Andrige, the same person who bought us the new data-mined Hairstyles, has discovered the animations showcased in the above video, which point to the possibility of more life injected into the old Druid Feral forms. One animation called EmoteEat shows the bear bracing a piece of food against the ground with his paw while tearing off a chunk with his teeth, while another is a fishing animation where the bear looks to be pawing at the water, waiting to slap out a fish. The other exciting thing in the video is the possibility of a closed mouth on my bear! Do you know how many flies he's caught with that constantly open mouth of his? I logged onto my Druid on the Beta servers to check on the status of the animations. While you can now eat, drink and use potions in Feral forms on Beta, there are still no animations associated with the act (You simply sit down while eating). In addition, you can't fish at all in Feral forms (Trying to cast my line put me back in Night Elf form). Unfortunately, the fact that these animations haven't been implemented yet does lead me to a bit of pessimistic thought: They simply be meant for bear mobs, and not for Feral bears at all. Blizzard's been adding a lot of cool little idle animations to mobs, such as mama beasts who flush out critters for their cubs to chase and eat, so this may simply be one more set. Still, since they exist, they could easily be added on to the Feral bear's animation list in a future patch even if they aren't originally meant for Ferals. Here's hoping we see them there!
New mounts discovered in Wrath Beta
MMO Champion has dug up more amazing stuff from the Wrath of the Lich King Beta in the form of new mounts! A full gallery of the mount models are up on their site, and they look very interesting. If you don't manage to get your own Amani War Bear before the expansion hits the shelves, it looks like you'll get another shot at an ursine transport in Northrend. Model previews show several versions of a polar bear mount, from what look like ordinary bears (60% speed increase) to armored bears (100% speed increase) to... double passenger armored bears! Don't ask about the goggles, though.Are passenger-ready mounts usable anywhere? Or will they be zone-exclusive, similar to the bug mounts in Ahn'Qiraj? There's no way to tell just yet, but MMO Champion also has pictures of a three-passenger Alliance Wooly Mammoth. This means a Horde version is available, too, and likely to be part of a PvP scenario where the two factions have different mount skins. Speaking of PvP scenarios, there are also pictures of new siege vehicles as well as the previously seen Skeletal Gryphon Mount and an odd Blizzcon-tagged bear.
Hunter pets to have family skills
No, I'm not talking about parenting and honey-do skills. In Wrath of the Lich King, each hunter family will have its own unique skill, just as Warp Stalkers currently have Warp. While we've known this since the release of the Beta patch notes, we now have some of the details, courtesy of Mania of Mania's Arcania and Petopia. In fact, some of the pet skills are so enticing that I'm beginning to think I'm going to need about 8 more stable slots! Here is a look at some of the juicier talents: Bats will be able to stun an opponent for 2 seconds. Bears will be able to Swipe similarly to druids, hitting three enemies in melee range. Birds of Prey will be able to disarm opponents for 6 seconds. Hyenas will reduce movement speed. Moths will be increasing their own attack power, and healing themselves. Nether Rays will have a spellcasting interrupt, preventing any spells from that school for one second. Are you as excited as I am? Don't forget to head over to Petopia to check out the full, detailed list. What pets will you be taming?Tip: Don't confuse pet skills with pet talents! Read up on the new pet talent trees for more information.
Taming Zul'Aman bears (or not)
Mania wants to know (and so do we): can you train the bears in Zul'Aman or not? We at WoW Insider also heard a rumor over the weekend that the bears in Zul'Aman were trainable again (we heard that when the trolls riding bears split up, you had a short period of time to pick up the bear as a Hunter pet). But alas, all reports since then tell us that's not the case -- even if bears were trainable for a short period of time, they aren't now.Which isn't too surprising -- Hunters have a relationship to wild animals, not trained ones, so the fact that you can't steal bears from the trolls falls in line with Hunter lore (although, if you wanted to make the case that the bears were actually pre-trained and that it would make them easier to train, you probably could, even if Blizzard didn't listen). And it's not like there aren't other bears to get in the game. Blizzard should definitely have some fun pets to get like this (as long as there's no huge gameplay bonus to be gained), but apparently Zul'Aman bears aren't one of them.Of course, you can always go get your bear mount -- we've got a guide that tells you exactly how to do it. And hurry -- even those won't be available forever.
Popular hunter pet site Petopia gets a facelift, new informational pages
Here's a nice little bit of news for all leveling Hunters, people looking into starting a hunter alt, or people looking to switch out or tweak out their current pet: the popular depository of all things Hunter pet related in WoW, Petopia, has gotten a facelift and a few handy new reference pages. The quick links and references seem to be a lot more streamlined now, and it should be even easier to find information. Some pages are still making the transition, and some of the pet pictures have not been updated to the new color scheme, but Mania assures us she is working on that. In the meantime, she's also added a few new pages to the library, namely the Retired Pet page and the "Fake" Pet Skills page. The former deals with formerly tamable pets that can no longer be tamed, while the latter deals with pet skills that are present during the newbie hunter taming quests, but not on any permanently tamed pet. I rather like both of the new pages. Not only should the information be helpful (if sad) to any newbie wondering where they can get that awesome ghost wolf, but the pages were a nice walk down memory lane for this old hunter. I remember when I made first Tauren Hunter, I was always disappointed that Swoop wasn't an actual bird pet skill, and I was considering a pet crab for my Dwarf Hunter at one point, and would have loved to have a thorny pet to add a bit more damage and threat power for tanking. Crabs could probably use some love anyway, as they seem to be competing with the likes of Sporebats and Bears for most neglected pet family. But anyway, if you're a Hunter, and you haven't checked out Petopia in a while, it's worth a look, there's some pretty cool stuff going on over there.
