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.
• Use Template:Date so that if we ever change the date format, it'll auto-update.

Template

=== News Title ===
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-- {{MHP|ID_OF_POSTER|Name o'Poster}}
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News

New Boku Page and Feedback Changes

2 September 2009

Hello MouseHunters! We have made the $1 and $7.50 donation packages available via Boku in addition to implementing a more streamlined checkout page. If you're interested in using your mobile phone to get SUPER|brie+ check out the Boku tab on the donate page. We have also made a few minor changes based on player feedback. The strength of a few mice in Tribal Isles has been adjusted. Gladiator, Guardian and all three Chieftain mice have all had their power lowered slightly. The encounter rate for Elder, Grandfather and Aged has been increased slightly when using their appropriate bait in Cape Clawed. In the interest of making the Ancient Box Trap accessible to most hunters with the title of Knight, the points requirement has been lowered to 17,000,000. Nibbler mice have crossed the Rodentia ocean and have been seeing reporting in the Tribal Isles region. Finally, a few typos, spelling and grammar errors have been corrected in various crafting ingredients and mouse descriptions. We always welcome player ideas and suggestions, so be sure to make your voice heard on the Ideas and Suggestions discussion board located toward the bottom-left of the forums page. By discussing ideas on the forums, we can quickly see which ones the community is enjoying. Remember to post in the correct discussion board section and focus on making constructive suggestions. If you spot any typos, spelling or grammar errors please contact us directly by using the contact link found at the very bottom of each MouseHunt page. Until next time, happy hunting and don't forget to sound the horn!

-- Dave Vanderburg

Crafting in Tribal Isles

27 August 2009

Based on player feedback, we've made a few changes to existing crafting combinations within the Tribal Isles region. Hunters may now add five Magic Essence while making Shell, Gumbo and Crunchy cheese to produce five additional pieces of cheese.

The previously crafted drop down menu no longer displays crafting combinations that hunters are likely never to craft more than once. Items such as the Dehydration base, Ambush trap, Navigation Kit and other traps and map pieces will no longer appear in the drop down. The MouseHunt Wiki is a good resource to make use of should you have need to craft any of these items again.

Hunting Tips by Larry have been added to Cape Clawed, Elub Shore, Nerg Plains and Derr Dunes. If you're confused about what type of trap or cheese to use where, Larry hopes he can guide you in the right direction. He may have quite a bit to say, but the Tribal Isles are a fairly complex place to hunt!

Finally, the power and luck of the RhinoBot has been slightly boosted. The increase is only slight, but every little bit counts. Remember that power and luck effect the chance of catching a mouse, but not attracting one to begin with. If you need to boost the attraction of your bait perhaps experiment with a base yielding a high attraction bonus.

More experienced hunters will no doubt be interested in a new base that is now being stocked by the Trapsmith in Cape Clawed. Its large power bonus is sure to come in handy when using a weapon with a higher power value. Its power bonus comes with a sacrifice of luck, so consider your options and try to find a hunting strategy that best suits you.

Here’s what we're working on next...

The uses for Tournament Tokens and Champion's Chests have dramatically expanded since their initial design. Based on player suggestions on the discussion boards as well as those voiced during Feedback Friday, new bases, as well as a new type of cheese will be able to be crafted using Tournament Tokens. We wanted to create a special use for this cheese, one that will give good motivation to those who compete in tournaments but also allow a way for those who choose not to compete to achieve the same objectives at a slight disadvantage.

It may still be a bit too early to go into more detail but we wanted to give an update to tournament players who have been eagerly awaiting an update.

Reports from the Jungle of Dread indicate that more Chieftain mice than normal have been making the journey to Dracano to make offerings of cheese to their so-called deity mouse. It seems all the new hunting activity in the Tribal Isles has angered the powerful resident of Dracano. Oddly, reports have also been coming in from the far and distant Acolyte Realm of the mice acting even stranger than normal, as if preparing a massive defence. Acolytes are guarding their Mysterious Boxes even more so than usual. Whatever secrets may be locked away in those boxes are sure to be plentiful, so start stocking up! Everyone needs more mystery in their lives.

-- Dave Vanderburg

Jungle of Dread

11 August 2009

While diligent hunters have been setting their traps in the various villages of the Tribal Isles, some have noticed movements through the thick foliage of the Jungle of Dread. Occasionally, menacing snarls and the intimidating sound of heavy footsteps can be heard. What heroic MouseHunters will have the courage to venture into this dangerous jungle?

The Jungle of Dread is the first area with a Hero title requirement and gives home to some of the most powerful, hard-to-catch mice released to date. The mice dwelling within the Jungle of Dread all share a love of Havarti cheese, each preferring theirs with a slightly different flavour. The Elub, Nerg and Derr long ago discovered these preferences, learning to grow peppers that can be used to spice Havarti. So, fine-tune your farming skills, hunters, and let the harvest begin!

The General Store and Trapsmith in Cape Clawed have some new stock to aid hunters with their exploration of the Jungle of Dread.

For all you avid Tournament players, an update that will reveal a use for Tournament Tokens and Champion's Chests is still in the works. We have been working on both the Jungle of Dread and Tournament updates in teams simultaneously. The Tournament update still needs a little more art and development to be where we want it to be before release. Some teams have been doing an excellent job of hoarding tokens, many with over 150 tokens and one team with an amazing 332! Chests seem a little harder to come by with most active teams having somewhere between three and five chests, the lead goes to one competitive hunter who has managed to obtain 33 Champion's Chests!

We have also added a surprisingly often requested feature to the crafting section of the inventory. Beside any item that cannot be sold back to a shop is a "discard item" button that will permanently remove the item from a hunter's inventory. Although being able to clean out a cluttered inventory will sooth craicompulsively organized hunters, we realize this is something not many hunters will wish to do, so please take care when choosing to discard an item as it cannot be undone!

-- Dave Vanderburg

Breeds Caught Statistic

5 August 2009

Today's update is a small, yet frequently requested, statistic: "Breeds Caught".

You can view this statistic on any hunter's profile page. It will appear near the top underneath the hunter's name. Breeds caught does not include any rare, prize or special event mice. Instead, these mice are listed under "Rare Breeds Caught". If you're looking for an easy way to view your own profile, click the MouseHunt logo in the top left corner of the game.

The rare breeds are: Black Widow, Cupid, Hollowhead, Elf, Birthday, Glitchpaw, iTunes, Mobster, Master Burglar and Leprechaun.

For those concerned that the iTunes and Master Burglar mice are no longer available we have plans to make these mice once again available in the future. However, the iTunes mouse will most likely be renamed.

Should a hunter's total number of breeds caught plus rare breeds caught exceed the number of normal breeds, they will earn the "Bonus mice badge" which is displayed on their profile. Right now the badge only stands as an achievement but this week's Feedback Friday will ask players if they think it should have an in-game use.

Another small change to the profile page are the breeds listed at the bottom. They are now listed by generic difficulty, from most power to least.

We hope everyone enjoys the new additions to the profile page and good luck catching those mice!

-- Dave Vanderburg

Scoreboard Returns

4 August 2009

We have optimized how the scoreboard works so that it will run quicker and more efficiently.

To do so we had to clear the scoreboard. The scoreboard updates once an hour to include players that were active in that hour. This means that until the scoreboard is fully updated, some players may be missing from the scoreboard until up to an hour after they return to the game. You may notice your position shift slightly until the majority of frequent players return to the game. After this, you will remain on the scoreboard and your stats will update periodically.

We are still working on further improvements to the scoreboard for the future.

Thanks for your patience while the scoreboard was unavailable.

Good luck and happy hunting!

-- Dave Vanderburg

Today's Downtime

28 July 2009

Hello MouseHunters.

Today we had a problem where the amount of mice caught became too great for our records to keep track of. The solution required the game to be unavailable while we increased the size allocated to these records. We have now made the necessary changes to allow the game to continue to grow as we add more new mice and areas.

Due to the unexpected downtime, Glitchpaw mice have been released. You will also find that this time they are carrying a small surprise.

We are aware that some hunters may be missing thumbnail images in their journal. The changes we made this evening will fix this problem going forward, however it will not fix the problem retroactively.

We are discussing our options and will give everyone another update tomorrow.

Thanks once again for your patience and understanding. It was truly amazing to see just how many mice hunters have caught and how far the game has come. As always thanks for playing MouseHunt, happy hunting and good luck catching the Glitchpaws!

-- Dave Vanderburg

New Format for Recent News and Updates

27 July 2009

As you have no doubt noticed both the Recent News and Updates and Nibbler discussion boards have been re-vamped. At the top of both discussion boards is the newest post which cannot be replied to. These changes are necessary due to various bugs and security flaws with the Facebook discussion board system that allows others to post within boards that are restricted.

The flaws have been reported to Facebook as bugs for several months and are still being worked on. Should these errors be resolved by Facebook we will consider re-organizing the discussion boards once again. One benefit of this new format is that we will now be able to post richer format for our updates such as embedded images, different font sizes and colours, and embedded videos, among other things.

We understand that this new format may take some getting used to and that getting used to change may create some frustration. Unfortunately due to the extremely high traffic of the forums we are unable to afford the hardware required to host our own forum system at this time. We are certainly open to suggestions on how to improve this system within our own technical limitations.

-- Dave Vanderburg

Banner ads, toolbar, trap checks

23 July 2009

Hey everyone!

I just wanted to clear up some things!

---

Banner ads:
We are aware that some of the Google Ads have been less than tasteful as of late. We're looking into disabling some of these because we like to keep it clean around here. =)

Toolbar:
First of all, please be aware that we do NOT sell user info to ANYONE! This is completely against the Facebook ToS AND our morals! There was speculation of this and I just wanted to clear that up. Some players believed this was how we made money from the toolbar, but that's achieved from the sponsored searches that appear in the results (which is how you get free SB+ in return!). Our users' privacy is one of our TOP priorities and we would never compromise that.

Secondly, the warning messages about "fraud" have been intimidating some users, and we were surprised when we saw them as well. It seems our affiliate has chosen some rather strong vocabulary in "warning" users. I wanted to make it clear that your MouseHunt account is in NO RISK whatsoever. What the message is trying to say is that searches should be valid and wholesome, not just gibberish, but it seems the filter for picking this pattern up is a little sensitive.

Again, your MouseHunt account is NOT at risk. The wording used in the warning message is confusing and can lead you to believe this, but it is not the case. We are speaking with our affiliate to have this cleared up.

Trap checks:
We've been looking into the "missing" trap checks and it might just be a case of the journal entries not showing up, but the trap checks are still actually happening. We'll see what we can do to get this sorted out.

---

Thanks for reading, and I hope this answers some questions! =)

-- Giorgio Sintichakis

A Very Gouda Update

21 July 2009

Hello MouseHunters!

Today's release adds more features and content than you can shake a DrillBot at!

As you have no doubt noticed, a new section has been added to the Camp page called Hunting Tips from Larry. You may remember Larry from the beginning tutorial of the game or perhaps seen him on a few of the help pages. These tips are designed to provide hunters with the "need-to-know" information for each area in the game. Previously, there was no straight-forward way to know essential information, such as the bait to use in special areas, which led to many confused and angry emails and forum posts. We hope Larry will help hunters avoid frustrations like wasting SUPER|brie+ in the Mousoleum.

Some hunters have also noticed the mice of the S.S. Huntington II carrying a compass and other navigation tools. If a hunter is able to collect all three tools they will be able to assemble a kit that will allow them to safely navigate their boat further into the open ocean. The journey will no doubt be dangerous, but with great risk comes great reward!

Four traps are now able to be dismantled with your Hunter's Hammer: the Digby DrillBot, Venus Mouse Trap, Harpoon Gun and Net Cannon. If you smash these traps and then decide you want them back, you may reassemble them by entering their parts alone in the crafting menu and pressing "combine items". An exception is the Net Cannon which requires one coil of rope to be used should you wish to reconstruct it.

This is by far the largest update we have ever applied to the game and this is only phase one of the new storyline. Due to the massive amount of content, we decided to break up the release into three smaller parts. This update is part one and includes four new areas, 36 new mice, new types of cheese and traps, new crafting combinations and more!

Look forward to the next two updates, each adding one additional area, along with new cheese, mice, and traps!

-- Dave Vanderburg

Dev Q&A

17 July 2009

This week's feedback video covered five questions we asked players. At the end of the video we also answered three questions asked by players.

You can watch the feedback video here: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=107582846253

The three questions we answered at the end of the video were:

* What do we think about more upgradable traps, much like the obelisks?

We definitely plan on adding more upgradable traps! You may just find a few sooner than later...

Would we ever consider a 'Greater Gnarled Cheese Potion'?

If Whisker Woods was expanded further and a greater need for Gnarled cheese was created then, yes, potentially.

* Do we plan on making additional use of fan ideas and submissions, like we did with the Hydra Mouse and NVMRC Forcefield?

Yes. We're always reading the ideas and suggestions forum and love to hear what creative ideas the players come up with.

Once again, thanks goes out to MouseHunter Dane Koster for organizing a list of questions both for us to ask players and for players to ask us!

-- Dave Vanderburg

Answers to Frequent Questions

10 July 2009

At the end of this week's feedback we answered some questions that are frequently asked. Thanks goes out to MouseHunter Dane Koster for organizing this concise list of questions, concerns and curiosities for us to address.

You can watch the feedback Friday video here: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=99248164245

* Radioactive Sludge and Stale SB+

A use for Radioactive Sludge and stale SUPER|brie+ will be available in the next major update.

* Missing MouseHunt 1.0 Stats

Due to the radically different data structure between the old MouseHunt version 1.0 and the current game, old game stats were imported with a 4% margin of error. We apologize for any frustration this may cause. The statistics were imported as best they could with our budget and resources available.

* Hunting parties

The party cork board is currently lacking notifications for when a member posts to it. This was an oversight that is planned to be fixed for the next update. We are also adding additional token rewards for parties finishing in fourth to tenth place. These additional token rewards will not be retroactive.

* Tournaments for specific ranks

Some tournaments are for mice only available in certain areas which has the same effect. We asked this question during feedback Friday and received some mixed response.

* Uses for Champion's Chest and Tournament Tokens

Dev Jeremy is hard at work implementing items for both chests and tokens. The plans for these items include new bases and cheese. We also plan on adding new uses for these items over time.

* Some traps perceived as useful everywhere

Some players have expressed concern that some traps such as the Partybot and ACRONYM are useful against nearly all mice in all locations. The power of a Partybot is often exaggerated by those who own one. As stated in the past, luck is the absolute last stat you should worry about when trying to maximize the odds of catching a mouse. The ACRONYM is an incredibly hard trap to acquire and is meant to be an adequate reward of being able to hunt Physical, Shadow and Forgotten type mice. However, as future updates bring more powerful mice you may find that a more powerful Shadow or Physical trap will become more useful than the ACRONYM.

* Concerns with JavaScript links

Some of the links on the site rely on JavaScript for functionality. We try our best to usually have a non-JS version of the link that will provide the same functionality with a page load. Providing non-JavaScript support is not the most important priority because Facebook itself is very JavaScript-reliant and only a very small portion of players use outdated browsers with poor support for JavaScript.

* How we decide on storylines

What usually happens is one person has a basic idea and if everyone likes the idea it then slowly evolves with the input of the entire team.

-- Dave Vanderburg

Tournament Prizes

22 June 2009

Today marks the release of the much-antipated tournament prizes!

Members of the top 100 teams shall all receive a new unique item called a Tournament Token. This new crafting ingredient will be a multi-purpose ingredient for use in several new and existing recipes. We would love to hear from the community regarding the use of Tournament Tokens in recipes. We have a few ideas of our own but are also looking for fun ideas from MouseHunters! So, put on your thinking caps and swarm to the Ideas & Suggestions forums to have your suggestions heard!

Tokens are awarded to each member of the top 100 teams as follows:

(1st) 5 tokens
(2nd & 3rd) 4 Tokens
(4th - 49th) 2 Tokens
(50th - 100th) 1 Token

In addition, members of the team that finish first will also each receive a "Champion Chest". We would also love to hear from players regarding the contents of this coveted chest!

Prizes will be awarded within 60 minutes of the tournament's end.

We have also added these much asked for tournament features:

Party cork board on the "Organize Party" page
Basic date search function for the Tournament Scoreboard
New streamlined tournament join page
Clearer success and error messages

A big thanks goes out to Dev Jeremy for all his hard work in creating the prize system!

-- Dave Vanderburg