MHWiki:Current events

Let's Put Dev Updates and Everything Else Here (up to one month, archive anything older). We'll include the newest update into the main page, and we can exclude the others using the NOINCLUDE Tag.

For older updates, visit the Archive.

Notes for Editors

• Please always put the newest news post first (if there are two from the same day, use the timestamp).
• Keep dates in DD Month YYYY format; this is an internationally recognized date format.
• The MHP Template, User Template, and Trade Template are god-like.

News

Unknown Mouse Appearance

26 February 2009

This evening while implementing a utility to import catch statistics an error temporarily caused an additional mouse silhouette to appear on the "All Mice" page. The error has since been corrected and the catches removed. Please note however that some references to these catches may still appear for a short while until the game refreshes these stats from the database.

These catches were mistakingly added while removing excess gold from a fake account, in order to restore the gold to legitimate players.

We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience.

-- Dave Vanderburg

Scammer Alert

26 February 2009

We have a problem with a scammer now promising SB+ or Gold if you go to his / her site. The site will attempt to solicit your facebook user id and password.

THIS IS A SCAM. If you see his posts report him to facebook immediately and make sure you do not click on the link he / she provides.

-- Bryan Freeman

Game Interruption

23 February 2009

Hello MouseHunters. Our apologizes for the recent 15-20 minutes of downtime. We had experienced some unexpected technical difficulties which we have now resolved.

Thanks for your patience and understanding. Now on with the hunt!

-- Dave Vanderburg

Stale Cheese, New Blueprints, Maki and More!

19 February 2009

Due to how long this week's update has turned out we're trying a different approach and organizing the update into sections. Let us know what you think!

Stale Cheese:

This week's update lets hunters keep a stock of stale cheese in their inventory under the Crafting tab, when their equipped cheese turns stale. We plan to release a few new crafted items that require stale cheese and thought it would be beneficial to let players start stashing away their stale cheese now. Due to this increase of accessibility, stale cheese is no longer available as loot from a mouse.

Stale cheese is somewhat fragile and can prove tricky to remove from a trap, therefore hunters will need to achieve the title of Apprentice before they will be experienced enough to be able to collect stale cheese.

Boards Layout Change:

As you have most likely already noticed we have tweaked the layout of the discussion boards to hopefully make keeping tabs on threads a little easier. We welcome your feedback on the new two-column layout!

New Stock at the Catacombs General Store

The General Store in the Catacombs is now selling a Bead of Slumber for the low, low price of 2,000 gold! Hunters who were a little over-zealous with their hammers and smashed the Obelisk of Slumber trap before obtaining a piece of coal will be able to combine their Obelisk Parts with this bead to restore the Obelisk of Slumber. On a slightly related note, the Obelisk of Incineration can now be smashed should a hunter wish to convert it back to an Obelisk of Slumber.

Hunters who have managed to obtain the Onyx stone from a Master of the Dojo mouse may also be interested in a new item stocked at the Catacombs General Store. The creepy shop keep of the Catacombs has managed to obtain blueprints shrouded in mystery. Digby scientists warn that the power of the Onyx stone is far too dangerous to meddle with and urge hunters not to purchase these blueprints!

Granite Mouse Mischief in Digby

It seems a pack of Granite mice broke into Digby's super secret supply room making off with large quantities of highly sought after meteorite pieces. These cheese-like rocks are rumoured to be small fragments that occasionally chip off from the moon and crash into the planet's surface. The scientists of Digby are still negotiating with insurance...

Maki Cheese:

There has been some confusion surrounding last week's released Maki cheese. For hunting in the Dojo, Swiss, regular Brie, SUPER|brie+ and Maki are all valid options where one is not necessarily better than the other. Each option presents different pros and cons in terms of net gold, points and how quickly you can accumulate tokens.

Maki boosts the encounter rate for student mice in the Dojo by a rather large margin; however, it has a lower attraction rate for non-student mice. Maki is suitable for hunters who like to think "long-term" and are interested in getting tokens quicker. If, however, you are more interested in accumulating gold or points, sticking to more conventional bait may be a better choice. Rest assured the cheese is functioning as intended for proper game balance. Remember that there is no one "best way to hunt". As a MouseHunter, it's your role to figure out what works best for you.

We have allowed Maki cheese to be "smashed", yielding one magic essence for hunters who wish to convert their stocks of Maki back into SUPER|brie+.

What We're Working on Next:

For future updates, we're working on areas and other content for both new players and veterans alike!

We are working on expanding crafting and the Hunter's Hammer to help make crafting more useful for lower-level hunters. Do you have a great idea for a new type of cheese or trap that could be crafted and useful in Gnawnia? Let us know on the ideas and suggestions board!

For our more experienced hunters, we are working on a new region that will tie in with the Catacombs. The new areas of this region will provide a unique twist on gameplay and pose a worthy challenge to Legendary MouseHunters!

-- Dave Vanderburg

Cupid Mice and a New Crafting Tool

10 February 2009

Hello MouseHunt CommuniTAY! (Sorry Bryan)

Today's update has revealed a cheeky little mouse seen flying above most hunting grounds. Cupid mice have their sights set on spreading a little love around the Kingdom with their heart-tipped arrows. Careful not to get caught in the crossfire!

We will also be running a Valentine's Day Giveaway event soon, so keep your eyes peeled for a banner to appear at the top of the game.

Hunters will also notice a new tool on in the Crafting tab of their Inventory called the Hunter's Hammer. This all-purpose hammer can be used to smash or dissemble various items to make more crafting components. For the moment there are only two items that you can use the hammer on but we plan on adding more in the next update. Ideas for future updates include being able to take apart your old traps and apply new parts to them to make some interesting upgrades to your old hunting gear.

We have also tweaked how confirm boxes work in several of the shops. No longer will the page reload to show a confirm box. Instead, a small confirm button will appear in place of the buy button. This small change should help you buy items a little quicker and relieve a little strain on our servers. We hope you enjoy!

Next week we'll be continuing our updates to the Catacombs branch of hunting locations. Expect a couple new traps and new foes to use them upon!

-- Dave Vanderburg

Catacombs Update

5 February 2009

Based on player feedback, we have made a few adjustments to the newly released Catacombs. We have slightly lowered the strength of Forgotten mice and have doubled the amount of regular brie a player can imbue using potions.

Keep in mind that the Catacombs are only the first phase of a new branch of areas. We have plans to release new Arcane traps, new mice, new crafting items and new types of cheese that are more effective than Radioactive Brie in the Catacombs and elsewhere. The Catacombs were balanced with these future developments in mind.

The Catacombs are much like the Mousoleum; high-risk, high-reward. We strive to introduce varying types of themed environments where each offer different "comfort levels", requiring varying levels of risk-assessment. The Catacombs contrast other locations such as the Training Grounds which are low-risk, decent reward. Things would indeed get boring if there was always one "best place to hunt". Keep an eye on your summary journal logs to see how your net gains are over time.

We are continuing to read your feedback so keep the suggestions and ideas coming!

-- Dave Vanderburg

New Legendary Area

4 February 2009

Today introduces a new hunting location for hunters who have achieved the title of Legendary! To acquire access to this new area known as the Catacombs hunters will have to have the Cartographer in the Burroughs Bazaar repair their Tattered Mousoleum map piece.

The Catacombs are 'phase one' of a new group of areas that will reveal what forces might be responsible for unleashing the more 'sinister' breeds of mice into Gnawnia. This area has a few different strategies that may pose varying levels of success, a suited challenge for hunters with Legendary experience.

Based on player response, elements of this new area may change over the next week or two. Be warned that mice values such as gold, points, difficulties, attraction rates and other behaviour may need to be fine-tuned. We also plan on adding a few more mice once they are ready for release. If you prefer more stable and predictable hunting, perhaps refrain from hunting in the Catacombs for a week or two. Please feel free to post your suggestions and opinions on the boards!

On a related note, this branch of new areas will be the last of the "dark and creepy" themed areas for a while. The areas we are currently planning to release after this branch are less "spooky".

Good luck to our Legendary hunters! You may just need it down there...

-- Dave Vanderburg

News from the Bazaar Cartographer!

30 January 2009

After over a month of research the cartographers of the Burroughs Bazaar have finally found a way to successfully mend the delicate cloth of the tattered Mousoleum map!

Equally exciting, the cartographers discovered a much cheaper supplier for their repair materials and are passing the savings onto you! The map piece will cost players 160,000 gold to repair instead of the originally projected cost of 250,000 gold.

Once your tattered map is repaired you will be able to travel to a much darker place than the Mousoleum where some truly suspicious activity is taking place. The King is concerned for the safety of the Kingdom and fears that a force much greater than the Furoma mice armies could me organizing an attack of epic proportions.

Go forth with courage MouseHunters! Your Kingdom needs your help!

-- Dave Vanderburg

Crafting Update

29 January 2009

Today's update has brought forth a new feature for crafting! Ever find yourself struggling to remember exactly how much curd and whey to add to combat cheese? Well fear not! Above your crafting form will appear a drop-down of anything you have crafted in the past.

Selecting an item from this drop down will initialize the crafting form with the correct items and their quantities. Should you not have an item, or not enough of a particular item the related drop-down or text field will turn orange to indicate you are missing something. Should you have all the necessary ingredients the fields will turn green to indicate you're ready to craft!

As a side note we only started recording your previous crafted items about a week ago, so you may need to manually craft something once more in order for it to appear in the previously crafted drop down box. Also keep in mind that the drop-down box will only appear after you have successfully crafted at least one item.

This update has also introduced some optimizations to the game's caching engine to improve performance and some other "behind the scenes" updates to lay the necessary ground work for a new area we've been working on.

During our last communications with the cartographers of the Bazaar we learned that they are closer than ever to finally unlocking what mysteries are within the tattered Mousoleum map! MouseHunters whom conceder themselves legendary enough to take on what dark powers may lurk beneath the Mousoleum should prepare for a quest worthy of their hard-earned skills!

-- Dave Vanderburg

Recent issues

22 January 2009

Hey everyone!

Let's have us a little palaver. I'd like to update all of you on the goings on of MouseHunt.

Lately, we've been seeing some pretty crazy error pages. Some has been a result of Facebook Platform updates, and some of them started the day we released the toolbar. Basically, a lot of people wanted it, and that gave the servers a lot of work to do!

We eventually managed to tweak it to increase its performance and efficiency (so it wasn't hitting our servers as hard). Just yesterday, we changed the way it "grabbed" information, which greatly increased the stability of the servers.

Along with that issue, one of our new servers conked out, but it was replaced within the hour. Our new host is great! We've spent countless hours with them, over the phone and via support tickets, fixing issues and finding more efficient ways to run the servers.

You can trust me when I say we've been losing sleep so that we could ensure the game keeps running smooth to keep all of you hunters hunting!

Another issue arose with the Facebook Platform, which has been going through some changes in the last few days, affecting all apps.

It appears that most of the issues have dissipated, and I can assure you that if any more arise, we will rush to aid immediately.

It may be frustrating when it seems we aren't updating you MouseHunters as soon as issues arise. The truth is, our hands become full when server issues come up because the first thing we do is contact our host and start tracking down the issue. All hands are on deck, and for a small team, it can be a huge undertaking. We have to sometimes decide between addressing the MouseHunters or simply dealing with the problems and getting them fixed as soon as possible.

Please forgive us for the recent downtime, but know that it's been out of our control and we've been doing our everything to keep on top of things.

Keep on hunting, and thanks for playing! :D

-- Giorgio Sintichakis

FREE timer, FREE SB+, FREE Toolbar

13 January 2009

Get your stats!

Get free SuperBrie!

Get a free Hunter's Horn timer!

Global statistics! (No need to be on facebook!)

Yo folks! Check out the "Lore" menu item for access to the new MouseHunt toolbar for Firefox and Internet Explorer!

Or download it here:

http://apps.facebook.com/mousehunt/toolbar.php

The new toolbar allows you to sound the horn (with the bonus of a horn timer), keep track of your stats, and get some FREE Super|brie+ for every 3 searches you do (to a max of 3 pieces per day).

Enjoy!

-- Joel Auge

Toning Down King's Rewards

3 January 2009

Due to popular demand we have toned down the frequency of the King's Rewards appearing. Players will notice they will have to claim rewards less than a dozen times a day (assuming you never sleep that is).

We have also done away with the behaviour of the rewards usually appearing when you first return to sound your horn after a long period of inactivity.

As always any constructive feedback is welcome, we strive to achieve a balance that keeps the game fair and fun for everyone. The "crack down" allowed us to remove several cheaters from the game and keep things fair for those who hunt in the spirit of fun.

As a final note I shall mention that there are still quite a few left over bonus-mobster mice from the New Year's Giveaway. They seem to of gone into hiding, but the King is confident his hunters are up for the challenge!

Happy new year and good luck in the hunt!

-- Dave Vanderburg