CRYPTIDS - New entry in the Codex

[candid axle]

With the Wild Haggis introducing cryptids to call of the wild, I believe many will agree with me that they need their own category in the codex, separate from wildlife.
The reason for this is that the current Wild Haggis entry in codex under wildlife looks out of place and doesn't make sense because they are not "real" animals, so giving them separate entry in the codex will make more sense and it opens the door to add more creatures there in the future. 👀

I will also add a personal request:
Please let us mount the Haggis as it is, they look really cool and I would love to have them displayed in the lodge. "The Scottish Dish" as it is now in the lodge can remain one of the poses to choose when displayed.

Thank you!

[pine shard]

Or at least add a plaque on one of the tables for the haggis lol

[tranquil frigate]

Cryptids and fantasy animals are being added, and COTW is losing its original identity. COTW is corrupted. 😒

[lean raptor]

Tbh this is just mainly played off as a joke and probably is going to be a one time thing

[tranquil frigate]

The Great One started as a unique red deer variant and ended up becoming predominant in YouTube videos and among players who want them. Now people are even starting to ask for cryptids to be included as lodge trophies.

[tranquil frigate]

Out of the hundreds of realistic species that exist in the world, EW started focusing on fantasy animals for the Great One, and now even cryptids.

[young lodge]

There are no fantasy animals in COTW that are Great Ones lol

EW has done an amazing job at the game, and COTW has become better and better through the years

[tranquil frigate]

The Great Ones are mainly fantasy animals.

[young lodge]

lol, is a whitetail deer a fantasy animal? Is a moose a fantasy animal? Is a wild boar a fantasy animal?

[high goblet]

No Whitetail Deer, Moose and Wild Boar are not fantasy animals they are VERY real however in what world do you live in that there are creatures like this? The GO Whitetail is probably the only realistic or near realistic species otherwise anything following that is impossible.

[young lodge]

I’ve seen a boar like the one in the top right, and a moose much like the one in the bottom left, irl

[high goblet]

Do you have any images that you could provide? I find it rather hard to believe that you have seen a Moose and Wild Boar like that.

[young lodge]

Although I agree that many of the G1s in COTW are more fantasized that realistic, some animals can be found, that look like a G1 in COTW

And no I have no pictures to prove what i have seen
You could probably find one on google or something idk
I’ve also seen a rare one (this time of a fallow deer) in a museum

[ruby path]

pretty sure the boar you are talking about was actually a feral hog, as wild boars show little coat variations

would you guys consider using other species as GOs be too fantasizing? like these i made a post about #1449974902307160064 message

[tough ginkgo]

This is the first cryptid in the game there are also no fantasy animals and tbh the cryptids are cool they could do something like the hunter classic with Bigfoot or something aswell

[high goblet]

But there are fantasy animals though. Those being Great Ones.
They do belong to existing species but the Great Ones themselves are fictional and fantasy.

[tough ginkgo]

Most of the great ones imo could happen irl like whitetail some of the moose variants and maybe even pheasant but that’s just my opinion

[high goblet]

Whitetail are probably the only realistic ones, However moose is quite unlikely except for maybe the antlers but I don't think the furs and then Pheasants it depends.

[last comet]

The great one foxes are almost all variations that exist irl

[last comet]

I really hope they don’t do the events like in classic, that’s the main reason I don’t play it

[tough ginkgo]

I mean if they did it really wouldn’t change much maybe 1 or 2 maps with the Halloween creatures would be different but the game is still the exact same and it would only last through October prob

[last comet]

Im fine with cryptids if they are like the haggis, extremely rare and more of a joke animal than an actual species, but I think its just weird to have them everywhere like the events in classic

[pine shard]

Just to be clear, the moose antlers without any palmation are a naturally occurring condition. Its exceedingly rare, more so than melanism or piebaldism but it can happen. I still won't defend the goofy looking mule deer GO that things a crack fueled trip of a design choice.

They could have gone with palmation for them and been more realistic while still looking incredible

[tranquil frigate]

Image Credit: Good Bull Guided Tours

[merry basin]

The wolves are also extremely unrealistic unless you want to claim they’re hybrid dogs then 6 of them might just barely be feasible, outside that only 2 of the coats are somewhat realistic those being the frostbite and battlehorn.

[high goblet]

I'd say only these four look realistic, Fabled Cherry Blossom is probably the most unrealistic of them but yeah these four do look pretty accurate in terms of possibilities.

[high goblet]

Yeah that's what I said in my other message

[lean raptor]

Cherry blossom(yes Cherry blossom), mystic snowdrop and rosebud are possible too one being a champagne fox the other two being basically morphs of piebalds

[pine shard]

Gonna be honest, if the guns worked properly I'd happily ignore cryptids the same way I ignore GO's

[strong mirage]

Red deer was not the first 😭

[broken knoll]

People don’t know their cotw history

[strong mirage]

In response to the deleted message. Red deer g1s were not the first fantasy fur. EW has always been creative and free with their furs and designs. Look at melanistic mountain lions, a thing that does not exist irl and is genetically impossible

Even albino lions in the wild is unrealistic

[lean raptor]

Iirc leusistic lions exist not TRUE albinos

[broken knoll]

Red deer also isn’t fantasy lmfao, it’s just a form of piebald leucism

[ruby path]

why are melanistic mountain lions impossible?

[broken knoll]

Genetics

Same with tigers

[sweet token]

Same with mela tigers🤞

[strong mirage]

The simple fact is. Everything that is “unrealistic” is optional. Don’t want a g1 or a haggis then don’t hunt or grind for one. This is an arcade hunting game, even ones that get pointed to for realism like classic, have fantasy elements and animals

[broken knoll]

Copy cat

[strong mirage]

Oh no! The game is ruined because someone decided to kill something completely optional and put it in their own lodge.

[broken knoll]

At the end of the day no one makes you shoot thousands of bears for a over exaggerated color morph that exists irl

[lean raptor]

Bears are somewhat realistic too, look at spirit for example

[ruby path]

Do you have a source for that? Many other Felinae species can be melanistic. Sure, this condition has never been documented on Puma concolor but saying it's outright impossible would be wrong afaik.

[sweet token]

Jealousy highkey

[broken knoll]

I fear it’s also not taking away development time, no g1 doesn’t mean lodges or anything else because different people have different jobs

[broken knoll]

I’ll look for it in a bit when I leave the house, trying to multitask already

[strong mirage]

It’s because they’re straight up missing the genetic marker in their dna to have Melanism show up. They have a the genetic marker for albinism hence why albinos can show up even though unbelievably rare

[broken knoll]

Thanks Bman

Also I genuinely think of it this way. Are cryptids in the game meant for me? No. I know a lot of the community likes it though so cool! I’m not gonna get mad at their inclusion

[raven egret]

I 10000000% AGREE!! Especially with the fantasy great ones, granted i think bigfoot would be cool, but they need to get back into reality

[ruby path]

Again, can i see the source? There are 4 forms of melanism in Felidae afaik, do we have confirmation NONE of them are possible?

[lean raptor]

Fantasy g1s have been in the game since the whitetail Most of those whitetail are farm whitetail you'll possibly never find in the wild coming naturally, Its all fun OPTIONAL AND RARE furs you can find or see. Remember at the end of the day its a video game that hasn't been "realistic" for a while

At least most of the furs are grounded in realism and or have perks of realism and not rainbow or neon colored

Ill just quit here because this realism argument is going nowhere

[merry basin]

It definitely takes resources away from other new species or remodels, I’d be shocked if they had separate modeling teams when they have a max of 50 developers at this point.

[broken knoll]

https://tenor.com/view/shrug-dexter-morgan-idk-gif-2440520923239485215

[balmy viper]

Seeing as how long humans have documented and encountered Mountain Lions, on top of how long we have kept them and bred them in captivity, the likelihood of mountain lions being able to have melanism is slim to none. People have been documenting encounters since Cabeza De Vaca encountered them in Florida in the 1500’s, and the first settlers in California in the 1600’s claimed that there were absolutely insane numbers of cougars in the state. Seeing as we’ve got nearly 500 years of encounters with no melanistic cougar ever documented, it’s pretty likely that they just don’t exist irl.

[raven egret]

yeah it will go NOWHERE especially if theres a person like me

[broken knoll]

While simultaneously both white cougars and cougars with vitiligo have been documented in the wild and captivity. Oh and the jaguarmundi and cheetah (same lineage) both have not had melanism documented. Jaguarmundi have had albinism documented while cheetahs have had erthysim and pseudo melanism documented (in addition to the spotted cheetah which I thinkkkkk is a form of leucism) is kinda telling

[royal grove]

the Weird and supernatural are a part of the world of the outdoors, It also goes back as far as Vurhonga, and many maps have unexplained stuff happening in them

[tranquil frigate]

The information about the melanistic Cougar

[broken knoll]

And where is this supposed skin now

[tranquil frigate]

Deteriorated

[broken knoll]

Then we once again, do not have any solid evidence or proof of melanism in cougars 😭

[maiden hamlet]

While i dont agree with cryptids being a bad thing for the game, i do agree that GOs are too fantasy
I miss when they were grounded in reality, the vast majority of their fur variations now look like they came out of a fantasy rpg
Which im not saying is bad, i just wish we had more realistic variations alongside those

[pure egret]

I'd have cryptids and joke animals be holiday events

Like glowing reindeer on Christmas or werewolves on Halloween

[tranquil frigate]

In the mission of Scotland Reserve, they mention that there are very few Wildcats in the reserve (the same situation as with the cougar in Askiy Ridge). I don’t think we’ll discover them (though I really hope I’m completely wrong). In contrast, the Wild Haggis has already been discovered, a cryptid (a specimen that doesn’t exist in real life) that is completely opposite to the realistic Scottish Wildcat (and this species does have a melanistic form). I want to hunt a melanistic Wildcat rather than the Wild Haggis.

[maiden hamlet]

Youre misunderstanding the situation
They arent adding ultra rare animals to maps that act as possibly one of a kind trophies
They added a joke
The haggis is a very elaborate joke that youre taking too seriously

[obsidian drum]

I would like to present my thinking here. I've been a COTW player for a solid number of years (56) and my only GO came after a year of hunting in LL. I don't want the second one (grinding) because I don't have that much time and I don't want to ruin the game by running around killing 5-6000 pieces before a new GO appears. Someone likes it, I like to watch it on Youtube, but I wouldn't do it personally. This story about Cryptids (Haggies) got my pulse racing. Why not, in rare situations, you would have the opportunity to meet some other Cryptides (bigfoot or ...) that you could not catch, but you could take a picture as proof of that exceptional occurrence, and in the Lodge if there is space to insert that photo. I'm not saying that I would like a unicorn in the game 🙂 but something could be done by listening to folklore and stories for specific areas.

[tranquil frigate]

I know it’s meant as a joke, but this is my criticism. Personally, I see the mission’s mention of the Wildcat as a ‘joke,’ since we’ll never see it on the map. The Wild Haggy is supposed to fulfill the role of the true cryptid: it doesn’t physically materialize in the game (having no model) just like in real life, and simply serves to spark curiosity. In the end, from what I can tell, the melanistic wildcat would be the rarest specimen that could exist on the map and almost a cryptid.

[balmy viper]

They were never grounded in reality.

[maiden hamlet]

all of the whitetail rack variations are possible irl, the red deer GO is just a piebald with leaves stuck on the antlers, most of the fallow variants are possible and most of the deer go racks are possible irl
the brown bear was when the fur variations started going downhill and the fallow was a slight and shortlived comeback for the realistic ones

[balmy viper]

The Whitetail might be somewhat grounded, but the Red Deer are what turned it into a fantasy animal. The Bears are sorta grounded too, and the fallow are by no means grounded. It’s been genuinely years since any that could be considered “grounded in reality” came out.

[royal grove]

I don't think this thread is a bad Idea we have cryptids in almost every map, some turn out to be real like the Radioactive mutant and the infernal wolves in Cuatro Colinas, and the ghost Jackal
But really adding to the codex something along the lines of "Unexplained" to add chuchunya, Eloko, Bigfoot etc would be nice, and if more cryptids are added as animals in the future it wouldn't give them up right away

[wooden anchor]

all in all i like the idea of cryptids i also think it might help more people to get the game

and that sucked to read

[runic dune]

I was reading chats and I wanna say dude. A fully melanistic puma concolor is like literally genetically impossible