Aleš Ulm

Hi, thanks for the report, we're looking into it.

I think there are actually several different things mixed up together in your post so let me go over those one by one * bones and skeletons, as we stated earlier, had indeed been removed because of specific cultural aspects of some countries but we are planning to return those once we implement system to handle game assets differently in game versions meant for various markets (unfortunately there's more to it than just disabling models under some circumstances). * paint kit became sort of obsolete with the introduction of painting system (it is true that it could be used to craft some painting which is not possible now, but that will very likely change) * drying rack was removed after we analyzed how many steps it took to craft some objects and as a result decided to remove some of the workstations that felt unnecessary and/or were used to craft single specific thing only. It is true that 5 year old toddlers won't be playing Ylands - but a lot of older kids already do (not only we're receiving a lot of feedback from parents but it has become apparent at conventions like Gamescom) and we're actually very excited about that. Ylands has always meant to be a family-friendly game (that's why we currently have a provisional PEGI 7+ rating), that is very important to us. So this really has nothing to do with being "politically correct". It has to do with a vision we have for "vanilla" Ylands - and where we think it doesn't fit this vision, we change it. We believe, though, that it can still be even dark and full of suspense (some parts of the upcoming new world will hopefully prove that) even without having to see animals die or being able to gut them That being said, our plans are to eventually introduce a parental lock which by default won't let kids access mods/games containing mods so once we introduce modding support modders will be able to come up even with things suited for more adult audience.

"fix the Servers before you bring us new items": I understand that what you're experiencing is frustrating but you should know that all the new features and items are made by artists and gameplay programmers who are not primarily working on DS/MP, which is handled by other guys (and, unfortunately, you can't just reassign programmers dynamically - not everyone has enough experience with that particular system to be able to contribute and it usually takes weeks before they become familiar enough with the code to start fixing/improving). We hired someone to help us with this at the end of 2017 (and keep hiring) so I'm positive that things will get better. If you feel like giving us a hand with this, please report your issues in the bug section of this forum. Even if you report something we are already aware of it helps us to see what are the most annoying/frequently occurring issues and assign priority to those based on your reports. You might also like to hear that once 0.7 is deployed our public DS servers progress should be reset less often. Questions related to DS that players are running: I would suggest discussing this in the DS forum section - people there (both our admin and other players) are more suited to answer those. However, as for your DS needing a reset - patches don't require you to reset your DS. The fact that we do it with ours has to do with the way we're deploying those patches (and that will change soon). Corpses: yeah, that's an interesting issue We'll discuss that - thanks! W7/W10: don't worry - we have no plans of making Ylands run on Windows 10 only

Hey there, fellow ylanders! Today we’ll talk about some of the features and changes that you can expect in the upcoming update 0.7 “Cheerful Characters” - but before we do, let me just quickly share with you information about some of the issues. Issues Yesterday we released a patch fixing an ugly issue where sometimes players whose character died in the game couldn’t respawn and continue playing. Also on Thursday, we were able to locate and fix another very annoying issue that has only recently made it to our “Most pressing unresolved issues” list - the one where creating energy circuits could, under some circumstances, lead to the game freezing. You, the community, made fixing this much easier by providing us with the saved game and repro steps (thanks, @spliff (DayZ)). We are currently testing the fix and hope to release it sometime next week. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to conclude our analysis of the remaining causes of “Host unreachable” issues, but we should be able to do so next week as well (I will keep you posted). Now let’s talk about some of those sweet, sweet 0.7 features. Trading First thing is the trading. Gone are the days when you had to drop objects to the ground for your friends to take. Now all you have to do is - with their character focused - initiate the trade via the Radial menu and a trading window opens. There you can place what you want to give them and when both sides are happy with the deal the exchange can be made. Since 0.7 introduces NPCs, it’s only logical that you can do this with them as well. NPCs ranging from lumberjacks or smiths to painting or curiosity vendors will have objects you might be interested in and will be able to buy items from you as well. When trading with other players and NPCs you’ll be performing a barter. However, for some reason - in both the game and in real life - people tend to be rather unhappy when, for a perfect steel sword, they get something like one hundred coconuts in return. They may want something that they won’t have problems selling to someone else at a later time. Some commodity that is widely recognized for its value. That commodity in Ylands is gold. When you trade with an NPC, next to items in the trade window there is a number. It tells you how many golden pebbles the vendor is willing to give for that item (if it’s yours) or how much they are willing to sell it for (if it’s one of theirs). If, for example, the total price of the items you're after is 150 golden pebbles, you can pay with exactly that amount of golden pebbles or any combination of other items to match that. Sailing to new ylands (just like @Whane The Whip in his catamaran) in 0.7 can result in meeting some rather interesting NPCs A golden pebble is a stackable item just like any other. It can be crafted from gold ore or golden objects. You can, obviously, decide to store your wealth even in gold ingots, statues, chalices (or coconuts or anything else, for that matter) but their high value makes them less than ideal to be traded for cheap items. The fact that golden pebbles are solid items that occupy inventory slots introduces an interesting gameplay element. When you die you drop the gold along with other items and may lose it that way if someone else is around... You will have to think about how much you carry with you, how much to leave at home locked away ... and possibly even how much to bury or hide somewhere just in case. Please note that it is the first iteration of this feature and we will be closely watching how it works and will be ready to make any changes necessary, so any feedback will be welcome. Also, this has nothing to do with Coyns. And what are some other things you can expect in 0.7 ? * Based on your feedback we’ve replaced the aggressive blinking activated when player received damage with some more eyes-friendly indicator * Improvements in the crafting panel: you can now see right away how many units of the selected item can be crafted with the ingredients available and how many you already possess. Clicking an ingredient shows you its own crafting recipe. You can see what recipes you have learned recently... and more! * Some of you complained that the energy streams are ruining their beautiful houses and ships. In 0.7 those will be, by default, less obvious and become more visible once you have the Energy linker in your hand. There’s actually much more we could talk about when it comes to 0.7 features, but let’s leave something for the next Sneak Peek. Until then you have a great time, ylanders, and stay classy!

Unfortunately, we live in times when people make really weird and extreme posts and mean every word they say in those so it can get sometimes difficult to tell what is real and what is intentionally absurd - especially when it comes out of nowhere, without smilies or any context. Even though in this case it's obviously meant as a joke I would strongly suggest not going in this direction. Bear in mind that in here there are people from various cultures, with various beliefs who might not share your sense of humor and I've seen a lot of post like this turn into heated arguments (fortunately not on our forums ). Thanks!

Hi, to be completely honest this was given a lower priority than it should have by mistake (my bad) and because of it was put aside in favor of some other fixes. I'll discuss this with our programmers and let you know in here (but most likely early next week).

Unfortunately, when playing Exploration game it really is overpowered at this moment when compared to the rest of the objects and it also creates a problem for us when expanding the gameplay so we'll have to fix that. However, when playing in the Create mode you'll still have infinite fuel. Camels: sure, that would be cool (...and I'm off to google what a bactrian is )

plans to add seasons: yes, we would like to have that. That being said it will be a lot of work and we first need to get Ylands to a better state so if this is added it won't very likely be this year. animal AI issues: we'll look into it, thanks! until you have hit your 10-12 then you need to start a new game: in a few months we'll be releasing a whole new world you'll be able to enter once you progress enough in the first one so you will have a lot more to explore. This is also an answer to the question if new animals are planned - yes, they are Hostile NPCs: in the upcoming 0.7 there will be only friendly NPCs (we are redesigning the combat system so hostile ones will appear sometime after that is finished). When they are added you will be able to find some at those random encounter places and if you kill those, they will be gone. We are planning to create things like occasional pirate raids so there will always be someone to fight @raurio I'm sorry to hear that Don't worry about finding the logs - we'll contact you over PM, tell you what to do and answer any questions you might have.

Editor and water: oh, I see. Thanks for the explanation, guys. I'll discuss it with our designers sometime this week. @Whane The Whip You're right, that makes sense we'll look into it as well. @arkaeldren No problem!

@~Chris~ I probably missed your suggestion thread - can you point me towards it or tell me what are you trying to do exactly (just one example) where the current water behavior becomes annoying or gets in the way so that we can take a look at it? thanks!

Hey there, fellow ylanders! The new year 2018 has just started, and we're all again fully focused on fixing issues and bringing you new content. In this Dev Diary, I'd like to summarize what issues are troubling you the most and what is that we plan to do about those. But first, let me start by telling you what you can expect in the upcoming weeks. UPCOMING UPDATES The next major update is 0.7 "Cheerful Characters", will introduce NPCs into the game and will be released in the first half of February. Initially our idea was to have, right from the beginning, even rather advanced hostile NPCs patrolling ylands, "factions" that could fight each other with you taking a part in that fight, but the truth is that the current state of combat is plagued with many problems and needs to be fixed - there is really no point in introducing feature B, which relies heavily on feature A, until we're happy with how the feature A works - and we're definitely not. So the first iteration of NPCs will bring you mostly friendly NPCs. You will be able to meet those randomly during your travels. Some will talk to you or even ask you to do things for them for which you might be rewarded. You will be able to trade with them - be it a lonely farmer that offers cheap vegetables or a vendor selling objects that you would have a hard time getting elsewhere. You will be able to trade with other players as well. With all this (the initial support of very simple dialogue-branching and "quests") accessible in the Editor it's only a matter of time before some of you come up with cool games for others to play. We will, as usual, have something ready for you as well - something to show you what's possible to do. Just to be clear - when we talk about vendors and trading, this doesn't have anything to do with the monetization. Speaking of monetization though, in 0.7 we wanted to introduce Decorations, armor skins, and some other things as well but we decided to delay those. Working on monetization-related features while the game still has a rather high number of critical bugs would be unfair and would make no sense. We hope that those of you who were looking forward to those features will understand. We hope you had a great Christmas holidays...wherever you decided to spend them! (Courtesy of @Frank16Gr) MOST PRESSING ISSUES I already mentioned bug-fixing. Fixing the critical game issues is of the utmost importance to us. There are issues small and big fixed every day - most of them will be present in update 0.7, but because that is still weeks away, in a week or two we will be releasing bug-fixing update 0.6.3. Every day we go through both Steam and Ylands.com forums (and through what you send via the in-game feedback tracker) and take notes about what issues are critical and which ones happen to a lot of players. We have an internal list called "Most pressing unresolved issues" which has around ten entries that are both critical (game crashes, players are prevented from doing something with no workaround or the issues result in some very annoying behavior) and widespread. Even though programmers fix other features as well, those are the ones that haunt us, the ones that we're trying to fix asap (which, unfortunately, may not always be possible due to various reasons). Let me tell you what is currently on our list: * Character starving to death while being offline This has just been fixed and will be released as a part of the upcoming 0.6.3 * Game crashes during rainstorms We are currently looking into this * Crashes when using crafting panel So far we have been able to confirm, that it is happening with older AMD (ATI) video cards on drivers/unity engine level. If all goes well 0.7 will be released on the latest Unity engine version, and there is a chance that it might help resolve the issue. In the meantime, we're still looking into it. * Host Unreachable This is a rather unfortunate issue. If you're among those experiencing it, first take a look here http://steamcommunity.com/app/298610/discussions/2/1620599015865077154/. The thing is that the absolute majority of possible causes resulting in this issue have nothing to do with Ylands itself (we're using Steam networking). The sad truth is that with pretty much every MP game there are some players who are experiencing this behavior because it may be caused by anything from an antivirus or firewall setting, their network topology or it can be related to their provider and as much as we would love for everyone to be able to play Ylands, these issues are something we can do nothing about. That being said we are still looking into this to make sure that there's absolutely nothing on our side which could be a reason for this as well. * Inventory items disappearing or getting stuck between inventory slots/ outside the inventory panel etc. We are aware of this issue and understand that it is rather annoying, but at least this gets "fixed" by restarting the game. We are planning to do some GUI-related changes, and this will get fixed along with some other issues. * Items being invisible when placing them [MP] We are looking into this * Ladders teleporting players to odd places This has just been fixed and will be released as a part of the upcoming 0.6.3 * Map not saving in MP for clients This is a known issue - map doesn't work correctly outside of SP. It needs more than one simple fix. We understand, though, that it is a crucial tool and needs to work in MP as well. As soon as it is fixed, we can start working on one of the most requested features - putting notes or symbols on the map. * Player with current account in session This one is probably the most critical one on the list. There's nothing worse than not being able to play the game you bought. We're looking into this right now. * Rain/snow getting through buildings/caves Not really a critical one, but very annoying nevertheless since the last thing you want is to create a house to keep you warm and then see rain falling on your bed or carpet through the roof. This doesn't happen always so we are now gathering save files from those who are experiencing it so that we can fix all the possible causes. * Ship won't turn after placing certain items on it We are looking into this * Stuck at loading MP screen Another very nasty issue. There were several causes for this and we've already fixed some - but obviously at least one remains unfixed. * When logging back in, new character creation panel is prompted Again, a very serious issue - players not being able to continue playing with their character. This has, for some reason, started happening lately and we're already looking into it. (please note, that while two of these issues are marked as fixed in the upcoming 0.6.3, there may be more) DEDICATED SERVERS The last thing I will mention today is Dedicated servers. Shortly before the Christmas holidays, we started distributing DS beta among those of you who asked for it. The number of those interested was enormous - way more than we expected. Because so many of you are using it these days, in 0.6.3 we will be releasing a fix for the basic admin tools so that you can add and remove admins, kick or ban players and know who's currently online. Speaking of DS - everywhere you look we say that it is buggy, not optimized, with a very little support and shouldn't be used for anything "serious"... and yet we are already seeing some companies renting Ylands DS on a commercial basis. Given what I just said we consider this very irresponsible and not a good idea. And that's it for this week. The next Dev Diary will be about features that you request the most (two of which are already in the works ). Until then, you have a great time, ylanders, and stay classy!

Alright, here are some more answers (sorry for not replying to everything, things are quite hectic here at this moment ) * Yes, we've already discussed an option to milk goat and definitely want to have that * Some mentioned the lag - we are looking into it, but trust me that it is not a simple thing to fix. If you see a lot of people complaining about something you can be sure that we can see them as well, it doesn't make us happy and we are doing our best to make that thing go away. * NPCs / quest-givers in the existing games: no, you'll have to create a new game, but we want to at least give you an option to put a vendor into your game through the Editor * Combat - combat is undergoing some serious changes (you should be able to see those first in 0.8). Damages and protections are reevaluated, controls and animations are changed and added etc. We believe it will be _much_ better * Vendors prices varying on where you find them etc. - yes, definitely, although that will probably be a part of vendors' improvements introduced in 0.8

Predators: Not really - at this point, only vehicles and animals that can be mounted (which right now are only horses) are planned. If you had bears sitting on your ship watching you then either it was a bug or the AI is learning cool new tricks (and since we have flying sharks I guess nothing is impossible ). Or they just like you. NPCs: they will stand idle or wander around based on their setting but they won't actively use their environment. That, however, is exactly what we want them to do in the future. Anyway, have a great weekend everyone! I'm not sure I'll be able to check this thread on Saturday or Sunday so if you post any questions, you'll very likely get your answers on Monday.

yes, that's the plan

Flying vehicles: sorry, but you'll have to wait a bit more for that

Vehicle transportation: we know how to do it - it's waiting to be implemented, but we have no capacity to squeeze it in 0.7

Sure thing! You will be also able to turn them into quest givers We will be providing some samples with 0.7 to show you how to do it.

Barrier: it won't be possible for non-owners to do terrain modifications, create or remove energy streams and paint (there will be some additional features coming in 0.8 - we're still discussing how should it work with vehicles and ships) Larger doors: not sure yet, but it's very likely In general, you will be seeing only a few new blocks being added to the game within the couple of next updates - not because we wouldn't be working on some (actually quite on the contrary - some great looking stuff is being created ) but because those blocks will be released with the update featuring the new world

@bb cakesEventually, yes - but not in 0.7. We're currently making some major changes to the combat system to make it more responsive and fun (that will be very likely included in 0.8) - we first want to finish this before adding hostile NPCs.

Hm, interesting! Thanks for the feedback, we'll look into it right away.

Hey there, fellow ylanders! In the last Dev Diary, we discussed the issues that are either really critical or which you find most annoying. In the meantime we managed to fix some of those - those fixes will be a part of the upcoming 0.6.3 that we’re planning to release later next week. Before we get to this Dev Diary's topic, let me just quickly go over what has been fixed so far from that list: * Player getting message about their account already being used in an active session We found at least one of the potential causes and fixed it. Please let us know if this happens to anyone even after 0.6.3 is released. * Characters starving to death while being offline Fixed * Ship won't turn after placing certain items on it Fixed * Ladders teleport players to odd places Fixed * When logging back in, new character creation panel is prompted We found a possible cause and fixed it. Unfortunately, the issue resulted in the character not getting saved in the saved game, so there’s no way to get it back (everything in the game stays intact though). * Inventory items disappearing at the end of the inventory panel We have found and fixed some of the potential causes - we believe that there might be one more and are still looking into it - it has been "partially" fixed so far So now to the topic at hand - the features and improvements you want to see in the game. We have received literally hundreds of messages via our in-game feedback tracker and from those we created a list of the ones you request the most. From that list four entries will already be part of the upcoming update 0.7: * Many of you would like to be able to sleep through the night even when playing the game with your friends in MP * Also many of you seem to be unhappy with how the inventory and crafting UI works (and point out that stacking isn’t working properly in some cases). It is difficult to see what new recipes you have recently learned, there should be some kind of sorting in the inventory etc. * Since you’re using energy in your houses (and on your vehicles) you are wondering if there’s a way of making the energy streams less obvious so that they don’t ruin the overall looks * Blinking that indicates that you are getting hurt can get very annoying when the damage is continuous (like you getting hurt because of being hungry or cold) And which ones were the other ones, that made it into the top list? Here is the rest of the list (please note that these will be fixed at a later time): * Map The current map is very basic and is not working properly in MP. Now the reason why we haven’t fixed it is that we feel it’s not very useful as it is and needs an overhaul. Don't worry though - we do understand that a good, useful map is a must. * Transporting cars/horses on ships We hear you, have already discussed it and have an idea of how to do this, so you can expect this in one of the future updates. Sure thing, Keralis, we hear you! (Courtesy of Keralis, video ) * Being able to attach small boats to a ship This would make getting ashore more fun (and safe). We’re currently looking into it. * Being able to cancel the currently running operation in workstations We are planning to make some improvements to workstations GUI in general - this will be part of those improvements. * Being able to smooth the terrain in Exploration We’ll look into it. * Having a new inventory container - a tool-belt to hold all your tools. That’s definitely possible - chances are this will be already a part of 0.7. * Making hollow ship hulls The reason why we don’t have any at this time is because of several issues we would run into. We understand that it’s difficult (although not impossible as some of you have proved ) to build a lower deck on these hulls and so we leave this topic open. At this time, however, it isn’t a priority for us. * Pausing the game when you alt-tab from it This will be fixed but it also isn’t the top priority for us right now. * Showing stats for armors and weapons Actually, we’ve been working on this for some time already. It will be introduced in 0.7 or 0.8. * Adding more ship hulls and car parts Sure thing, we’re definitely not done with cars nor ships If you haven’t found your idea or request among these (which, considering how many we received, is very likely), don’t worry - everything is noted and after we resolve those, we’ll discuss some new ones. We’ll talk to you again next Friday - until then you have a great time, ylanders, and stay classy!

Feel free to send me the link via PM thanks a lot!

Funnily enough, this is something we have discussed earlier today during our daily design talk. We would definitely like to add something like that rather soon.

Energy nodes crash: so far we've checked all the logs but we don't see anything that would explain that - we'll probably need a save. Do you think you could provide us with one and short description what we need to do for the game to crash? That would help us very much, thanks!

As always - thanks a lot for your suggestions! I'll just quickly address some of "bigger" ones (but even smaller ones count - actually we already have many of what Krzymuffin suggested in our internal todo list etc.). Putting flying vehicles/hot air balloons int the game: hmm... I think we can do something about that Trains: at some point, we actually considered adding trains before adding cars. Having trains is definitely possible, but when we introduce those, we want them to be more than just means of transportation. Eventually, we would like to start introducing features that would let you automatize some tasks (any Factorio fans out there? ) and trains will play a big role in that. So long story short - trains will be added, but it will take some time. Ships: we will be adding more types and parts in the future Host unreachable issues: no, unfortunatelly I don't have anything new at this point. We are still looking at it and it still remains among our top priority issues. I will keep you updated (if not sooner, then in this Friday's Dev Diary ). Shooting while riding a horse: that was possible several months ago but went away as we reworked the character controller and animations. We definitely want to make it work again soon. Easier picking up of things: we are already working on something, but it will probably be a part of 0.8, not 0.7.