Starting the Hunt
The first stage in the Hunting Sequence is actually starting the hunt, there’s three ways to do this, and whichever way this starts doesn’t affect what happens in any of the following stages.
Hourly Hunts
As long as you have been active in MouseHunt in the past 24 hours, you will receive an automatic hunt every hour.
The hourly hunt is also known by hunters as a “Trap Check”, or “Hourly Check”.
You don’t need to take any action to get the hourly hunt, you don’t even need to have your computer switched on, and as long as you’ve visited MouseHunt in the past day it will happen automatically for you, so you’ll still be hunting even when you’re asleep.
Now there’s something useful to know about hourly hunts, they don’t actually happen on the hour… doing so would be a massive drain on the games servers, so instead something clever happens to spread the load.
The hourly check is only generated after the hour has passed and someone checks your MouseHunt profile. This may be when you next change pages within MouseHunt, or it may be when a friend looks at your profile page. This doesn’t really make any difference to you, because the next time you look at your profile or journal all the hunts will be there, but it does lead to two unusual activities in the game.
The first is the missed hourly hunt, this is caused by excess stress on the servers and unfortunately some people end up with their hunt not being generated, it’s unfortunate and it can’t be retrieved, but the chances of it can be minimised.
As this problem is caused by too many people wanting to see what the catches from the hourly hunt are, try to avoid refreshing your page or clicking on a new page as the hour is about to change, leaving it a minute or two will reduce the risk of you missing your hourly hunt.
This problem becomes even more noticeable when something big is about to happen, when the highest ranked hunters are about to reach a new Title that no one has seen before, a number of people start checking their profiles constantly so they know the instant the new Title is reached, at the time of the hourly hunt, this causes the high ranked hunter to miss an awful lot of their hourly hunts at a time when they’re keenly waiting for their new achievement.
So please, avoid doing this when someone is going to get a new Title, if you do this, then not only are you hurting that hunter, but you’re also making it take longer to get the information you want.
The second unusual activity is inactive players catching mice that weren’t released at the time. It’s often been seen that a hunter who hasn’t been active for a few months caught a mouse that was only released a few days ago. This is because the hunter was inactive and didn’t check their profile, and no one else has checked their profile recently either, so their last few hourly hunts aren’t generated until the new mouse has been released, and then they have the same chance of catching it as everyone else. Don’t worry about this too much, it’s just a quirk of how things work.
Sounding your Hunter’s Horn
Every 15 minutes the Hunter’s Horn will appear.
Press it and you may be taken on a Hunt, for being the one to sound the horn you get some bonus points, and if you have any friends in the same location who are waiting to hunt at the moment you press the horn, you’ll take them on a hunt too.
The number of bonus points you receive depends on the number of friends you took along with you. If you get 25 points you didn’t take any friends with you, but for each friend you do take, you’ll get 10 more points, up to a maximum of 250 points.
If you press the horn and you don’t receive any points, then one of two things has happened.
Either a friend sounded the horn before you did (see below), or you have a King’s Reward waiting to be entered.
Complete the King’s Reward correctly and you’ll get either points, gold or cheese given to you, and then you’ll be able to continue hunting, you may have to sound the hunter’s horn again though, so keep an eye out for this.
Until you complete the King’s Reward, you won’t be able to sound the hunter’s horn until you do, nor will any friends be able to take you on a hunt with them.
A Friend Sounding their Hunter’s Horn
If you’re ready to hunt but don’t press the Hunter’s Horn instantly, a friend may sound it for you, you don’t receive any bonus points for this, but they’ll receive 10 more for taking you on a hunt with them.
Friends can sound the horn and take you on a hunt up to an hour after your last activity on MouseHunt, even if your computer is switched off. This is the most useful aspect of having friends in the game, because if you’re away from the computer they can help you hunt.
Myths and Superstitions
There’s plenty of myths and superstitions about starting a hunt, here are some of the more popular ones:
Hourly Hunts Get Better Mice
We haven’t seen any evidence to support this, but it still seems to be a popular myth, from all we know, the method in which you start a hunt has no effect on the type of mouse you see, or whether you catch that mouse or not.
My Friend Always Gets Me Great Mice / Redboxed
Certain friends seem to be either lucky or unlucky when sounding the horn for someone, this is a superstition where it’s believed that the person is a good / bad luck charm when it comes to hunting, unfortunately the blame does not rely with your friend, but with you.
Your friend can only take you on a hunt, it’s up to you to attract and catch the mouse that results from it.
While this is a superstition, it’s one that some people make fun for others, on the forums there is normally a few competitions where people offer gold to someone who sounds the horn that catches a specific mouse they’re after. Normally these are a good way to make friends hunting in the same location, and for the competition organiser, can reduce the stress of waiting for that one mouse they want.
Next Stage: Encountering a Mouse
