Aleš Ulm

Hey there, fellow ylanders! Today we'll talk about what we're currently working on. We'll be mostly covering the new painting system but before we get to that let's mention one other feature. In one of the previous Dev Diaries, we mentioned several tips and smaller features that will be implemented rather soon to help you deal with griefers. We also said that those were not everything we're planning in this area, so today we'd like to mention yet another feature that we're currently designing. For some time now we've been looking into the possibility of players being able to claim smaller land areas where other players' actions would be limited in a certain way. Having a feature like this needs enough research and testing, because if it's something easily obtainable very early in the game and can be used to a large extent, then it can actually become yet another tool for griefers to use. If, on the other hand, it becomes available too late in the game and/or is difficult to obtain, it becomes useless for players. Also, we would like players to use something that is not really "superficial" but something that actually exists in the world - we would like this feature to take advantage of the energy system. It's still quite early to give you more specifics or any estimates as to when this feature might become available, but we'll update you about this real soon. The painting (or coloring) system is shaping up rather nicely so it's time we gave you some details. When it comes out you will be able to change the color of most of the game objects (at this point we are not sure if the first iteration will support coloring of plants and trees). In the upcoming update, you will be able to paint objects in two ways - through the dyeing station and with paint gun. The paint gun will be available both in games as well as in the Editor - the major difference being that in the Editor you won't have to care about getting dyes. The days of the limited color palette are gone, now you will be able to pick any color in any shade you like and use it. In many objects that are made out of more colors than one (obvious ones are clothes and armors) you'll find up to three different segments which you'll be able to recolor. Imagine an elaborate chest armor. There may be some metal parts you won't be able to recolor, but there could also be a chest piece, separate shoulders and, say, an ornament on top of it - for these three segments, you will be able to choose three custom colors. Remember these? What about having them in colors that you like more? But there's more! Some of you probably know that we're not using textures at all in Ylands. All the details you see are basically made out of colored polygons. Even things like paintings, ornate vases, rugs and such are made in this way, and therefore you will be able to recolor some segments of them as well! So if you like an image of a lady in a red dress but think that lady in blue would suit your living room better - go ahead and change it! There's obviously more to the painting system than this (we haven't even touched things like picking and storing colors from the object in the world and such) but we'll keep something for later :). So until we see each other again - have a great time ylanders and stay classy!

Hi there, fellow ylanders! We received a lot of feedback based on the last week’s Dev Diary. You told us about your concerns, about various aspects of the game, about things you didn’t like and those you want us to improve. Firstly let me thank you for that - well structured and voiced criticism is a very precious thing and we do appreciate it a lot. Ylands is a very ambitious and in many ways unique project (that will become even more apparent in the features planned for 2018) that started really small and only in the last few months gained larger momentum. We’re learning a lot as we progress and yes, we make mistakes. But there are two main reasons why I believe we’ll end up having a great game - we try not to repeat our mistakes and we listen to you very carefully, reading everything you post pretty much immediately, discussing it every day. And when we see something isn’t working, we change it. So far we have thoroughly discussed two topics you brought up. Bug reports and your feedback There are several things we believe are not working as they should and need to be improved on our side. Firstly there’s a rather unfortunate thing with issues' “states.” Whenever you report an issue, Ane, our Community Manager, places it in JIRA, our bug tracker system, and marks the issue as “Under review.” As soon as the issue is resolved, she changes it to “Resolved” etc. Some of you probably remember that some time ago the states of the issues were shown next to the issues in forums (some relicts of that can still be seen here and there). Unfortunately, at some point, we upgraded our forum system and the plugin that does that turned out to be incompatible with the new forum in some places. The issues are still being marked by us as they were in the past but their current state is no longer obvious. We decided that starting right now, whenever an issue is reported in the forum, we will edit its name so that it contains the number it has assigned in our system. When the issue is resolved in any way, it will be stated there as well. So if you report something under “Annihilator doesn’t work” in the appropriate section of the forum, it will change to something like “[YLN-2156] Annihilator doesn’t work” and eventually to “FIXED [YLN-2156] Annihilator doesn’t work”. The fixed issues in the changelog will be stated along with their numbers. We will start checking regularly for any issues that have been reported for a long time without being fixed, and whenever we find one we will reply to it, explaining why it’s taking so long. However, at the same time, we would like to ask you to be patient whenever you report something rather vague or difficult to reproduce. From now on issues reported by players will have automatically higher than the standard priority for fixing. Dedicated servers The first version of Dedicated servers was, based on numerous requests from the community, released a long time ago... which turned out to be a bad decision, since the version was quite buggy and feature-wise rather incomplete. While the importance of having Dedicated servers (DS) was (and still is) obvious, we were the in position where we suddenly had far too many things to fix, tweak and improve - many of those arguably more important than DS - like “basic” multiplayer, optimizations, fixing game crashes, memory leaks or issues with online launcher and others, so the improvements to DS came rather slowly. We are still improving DS but we understand your frustration because it’s not fast enough. Also, while the current state is sufficient for our internal needs, it has become obvious that you need more tools at your disposal. Unfortunately there’s no way how we can have this in the upcoming update - the one that is coming shortly before the game becomes available on Steam - because there are still even more important things to fix (just to be clear - it isn’t and never has been that we put higher priority on having new features over improving DS. DS is something that isn’t developed by gameplay programmers so it's quite unrelated). Since we don’t want for the newly coming players to feel like we consider the current version of DS "good enough" we decided to take a rather radical step and do the following: in the next update (the one to become available on Steam), DS will be removed from the official game distribution and will become a separately distributed “closed beta” those interested in helping us improve it will get access to it and will be able to host games just like until now we will create a new, specific thread where we plan to gather your feedback and post a description of what our plans are as soon as the next update is released we will start working on DS improvements intensively, regularly sharing our progress with you in that thread. Our obvious goal will be for the DS to become good enough to once again become a part of the official Ylands distribution... and we want this to happen as soon as possible along with the game being released on Steam we will start several dedicated servers, which we will use to test things on our own I can see how this may not make you very happy. Unfortunately, right now there’s no magical way how we can improve DS right away to fit all your needs, and yes, we’re saying that it will take some more time to get where we all want it to be - and that we plan to start working on that fully in what is weeks from now. But it is a plan set in reality. If having better DS tools is what you are after, you will get the chance to work with us more closely on its implementation and have immediate info on how we’re progressing. I do hope you'll understand our reasons and maybe even volunteer to help us once again. In any case, I'd like to thank you for your patience. It does take longer than expected but we hope it will be worth it. You can expect us to address other issues you brought up in the future Dev Diaries - until then have a great time and stay classy!

Excellent! We'll be very grateful for any feedback you guys can provide us with!

Thanks for your understanding, everyone! @WijkagentAdrie We set priority ourselves based on how severe it is - but also based on other things (for example an issue considered normally critical may not be treated as such if the part of the code it comes from is already being reworked etc.) Having said that we always appreciate whenever an issue comes with any additional info. If you take your time explaining why you believe something to be more severe than it appears it can be really helpful because, for example, at first it may not be obvious that a seemingly unimportant issue might be something you run into very often or it prevents you from doing something else. So if you yourself tell us why you think something is critical (or trivial) it will be a welcome addition. As for how you can help us with DS - there's definitely more to be done than just playing In about two weeks (since the next one will probably be quite hectic - that's when the migration of players to Steam is planned to begin) I'd like to create a thread about DS and put there a rough list of features we'd like to add to DS, known issues etc. At that point, it would be great if you could also contribute to that list. Then we can discuss those features, talk about priorities etc. Ideally, this thread wouldn't die when the updated DS comes out but it would be used to discuss any potential future improvements.

Hey there fellow ylanders, We would like for this post to be the first one where we‘ll try to address a rather specific kind of multiplayer issues. With the MP becoming more stable and fun, increasing number of players are joining online games, and because of that, we (as well as many of you) are beginning to see even some problematic behaviors. Some of these are clearly hostile or mean-spirited actions. This, which is commonly called griefing, is something that we will be focusing on the most, but it should be noted that there are many other ways how one player can irritate or anger others - many times actually either unknowingly or even with a good intent. It‘s important to understand that even if we managed to totally eradicate griefers in Ylands (which would be great, but is quite unlikely), there would still be many potential conflict situations that we can‘t prevent, and that is why you, the players, need to be proactive in these matters and take measures to prevent as many of these moments as possible. To help you do that, we'll provide you with some basic safety tips (these mostly apply to Explore game): * if you‘re planning on spending a lot of time building/exploring/leaving your mark in the world, you should think twice before hosting/joining a public game unprotected by a password, open to complete strangers * if you‘re in a game freely accessible by anyone, consider building your epic mansion (or any other creation that takes a lot of effort) on one of the more distant ylands. Since many griefers join games to do as much damage in as little time as possible, being somewhere where they can‘t get unless they first build a boat and locate your yland, can make a big difference Having nice sturdy doors is a way to go (Courtesy of blancket ) * if you build a house, make sure the main entrance is fitted with a lockable door (which you keep locked). Protecting other possible points of entry (such as the roof) might also be a good idea * we plan on introducing a feature that will prevent players from placing building blocks in the vicinity of doors placed by other players. While not a perfect solution, this should prevent ugly issues where some players have used hardened blocks to prevent others from entering their buildings * in the upcoming update you will also be able to duplicate keys - that way you will be able to keep your house locked while giving your friends a way of getting inside * don‘t forget to build a solid floor in your house - it is really easy to dig one‘s way inside through the dirt from the outside * use lockable containers where possible * we plan on adding padlocks (lockable by keys or codes/passwords) in the game, and we would like them to be used to lock most of the interactive objects (locks, levers, workstations). This should add yet another level of protection - especially for your boats and cars So that‘s it for now. Please make sure to let us know about anything that you don‘t like or annoys you in the multiplayer games (or anywhere else). We‘ll return to this topic in the near future - until then you have a great time and stay classy!

Just to keep you in the loop - we started discussing all the concerns you posted and we are coming up with solutions how to address those and improve whatever isn't working as it should be. In order for this discussion not to become too fragmented we decided to first discuss everything, then post all we plan to change (some changes you'll see already within the next few days) as a new Dev Diary (probably on Wednesday). Once it's out we'd like to ask you to read it and tell us what you think. Thanks again for talking to us, we appreciate it!

No problem and thanks for getting involved - this is exactly what we hoped for. Anyway - later today I will discuss the MP concerns with our programmers so that we can discuss it in detail here (that might not be today, but you'll definitely get your answers in this thread - actually feel free to voice any other concerns you might have right here).

Alright, I will try to quickly address some of the issues as possible (in no specific order) - I will add some more info once I have more time and after I've talked with our programmers (about things related to Dedicated Servers). Testing With the game being still an early alpha there are indeed lots of bugs, especially in the new features - but I'd say that we are, in general, getting better in handling this - for example the cars and weather system were really difficult to implement and yet they are among the least problematic updates. It is true that lots of bugs are found and reported by you, the players, but putting it as if we are doing minimal testing and let you "do the job" can't be further from the truth. For dozens of bugs reported on forums (and via ingame tracker - I must not forget about that because we do receive a lot of great feedback that way!) we found and fixed literally several thousands of issues. Also the feeling that things that you report just end up forgotten or ignored is wrong. I already discussed this in one of the previous Dev Diaries: The suggestions you make are discussed during our daily "design talks." All the issues you report are put in our internal system - even if you don‘t get an update about the state of the issue you‘ve reported after some time, it didn‘t disappear. We still know about it, and if it‘s not fixed in the upcoming update, it can be because of several reasons. Even though more people are coming to our team, there are still hundreds of bugs and design issues to take care of, and that takes time. Also, some of your bugs can be related to systems that we know we‘re going to rework soon(TM), in which case we don‘t fix them - we just wait before the new system is in place and then test if the issue is still there. And, unfortunately, sometimes our QA/programmers are unable to reproduce the issue you reported (even after we ask for logs, etc.) - in that case we just leave it in our system and wait if someone else doesn‘t report it as well, hopefully with some additional information. We've been already thinking about using a public tracker where you could check the state of the issue you reported, see/ask about its progress, easily find duplicates etc. However, from what we see in other games (Arma etc.) people prefer reporting issues over forum and only small portion use trackers even when available. Using a tracker at this moment would very likely end up in it being used by only several players while creating unnecessary overhead for us. We do, however, plan to use it sometime in future, when there are more players. Translations "I have the feeling that the translations were 100% made out of the game and the translations haven't been tested [speaking about the Dutch translation]". I'm not sure if I fully understand. Dutch translation is one of the community-made translations and because it hasn't been approved by at least some other players it's available only to those who explicitly run the game with -translator parameter (so that they can check it). It will remain in this stage until the community lets us know it's good enough so this is really up to the community to test it. We just make the tools for those who want to translated the game into their language. If you found some problems with it it's basically a proof that the system works - you should report it to us as an issue or in the localization thread and if you feel proactive you can take part in improving it and fix those yourself Griefing Maybe this is a misunderstanding but as I said in the post - here we just presented few quick tips (and features we know are gonna make it to the next update) that might make your experience more safe and pleasant. I even said that there will be more post like this coming so don't think that what we presented is everything that we are planning to do. Just like the quick fix with doorway I mentioned - we are designing a more robust solution which will very likely replace it but we're not sure when it becomes available (obviously we would like it to be asap). ( I will definitely address even the other concerns you have once I'm at the office on Monday)

John, there's absolutely no need for you to be "positive" about things that you don't like about the game and I definitely don't see your post as "rude". I see well-articulated concerns of someone who's not happy with the current state of things and telling us about it - which is exactly what this forum is for. While it's nice to read when you guys like something, we welcome critical posts as well. So - and this is meant for everyone - don't hold back! As long as you voice your concerns in a civil manner, we'll be more than grateful for it. In fact, I'm glad you posted this because it gives us a chance to address concerns that even others may have. Unfortunately, right now I don't have enough time to post a detailed enough answer, but I will definitely do so later this weekend - I just wanted you to know we've read this and we will discuss it with you. In the meantime enjoy your weekend!

Hi there, fellow ylanders! With two major events - Gamescom and the release of Rainy Roads - behind us we can now once again focus fully on the development of new features and fixing and polishing of the existing ones. However, before I get to talk about the features we’re working on right now, let me quickly mention some general topics. Based on what we learned from implementing the cars we decided to move NPCs into a later update (the one released sometime after the game becomes publicly available on Steam) so that we can give it all the time such a sophisticated feature deserves. Because of that, the next update 0.6 is now called Countless Colors and will contain - you guessed it - a new way of colorizing objects in the game that we believe especially those creative among you will love. There will be other cool features there (read further) but the important thing about 0.6 is that it will be a build we plan to release publicly a few weeks later, so it will also contain a lot of fixes and improvements. Also, the moment when you'll be able to play the game via Steam is already very close (it shouldn't take more than two weeks). When that day comes, we will inform you both via forums and email and tell you how to proceed. And the last thing before we dive into the beautiful sea of new features - at the beginning of the next week we will post a FAQ about our monetization plans. We decided to structure it in a way that would let us discuss features that are about to be implemented/introduced in detail while leaving the ones that are planned for distant future (which can be even more than a year from now) for later discussion, because a lot of things can change in the meantime and going into details now wouldn't make much sense. Also, to make sure the discussion stays easy to read, we'll move some of the topics into separate threads. The first of those, the one that we plan to add sometime after releasing the Monetization FAQ, will be used to discuss how we plan to protect your creations - since you are already sharing your games and compositions via Workshop, we feel having a discussion about IP/Copyright protection makes sense. So, getting back to the cool stuff - what are some of the things we’re working on right now that you will get your hands on in 0.6? Obviously, the system where you can colorize lots of game assets. Gone are the days where we limited you by letting you work only with assets existing in a predefined color palette. Now you'll decide which of the Countless Colors you’ll pick for your house bricks. Not happy about some clothing and armor? Then change its color... no, change its colors - many pieces of clothing will let you color their various parts with up to three different colors. And did I mention Paint Gun? No? Well... I have to keep something for later, don’t I? We believe you'll welcome the option to lock your precious vehicles (Courtesy of Adrie's Shipyard ) For some reason, some people steal. Both in real life and in Ylands. In real life, you just lock what you don’t want them to take - while in Ylands... you will be able to do exactly the same! Right now we’re designing padlocks that players should be able to use with a lot of interactable objects - ship helms, car steering wheels, workstations, otherwise unlockable containers, levers... To use those locked objects you’ll have to have a key (we’re also adding a way to quickly make key duplicates so that even your friends can access your stuff). We would also like to provide you with locks that can be opened with codes or passwords, but those may be introduced at a later date. We know that for many (especially early in the game, before they get used to containers) inventory space is a big issue. In 0.6 we’ll bring you special containers (herb bag, key chain etc.) that you can have in the inventory and to which items of a specific type will be put automatically - effectively enlarging your inventory space while making things more organized at the same time. One of our programmers is working on a new environment audio system. Right now we can’t tell if it will be released with 0.6 or 0.7, but what we know for sure is that for Ylands this will make a really big difference. And that's not all we're working on... There's improved respawning of animals, more interesting (and dangerous) nights and more - but that is something we'll discuss in some future Sneak Peek. Until then have a great time and stay classy!

Hi there, fellow ylanders! We're back from Gamescom and even though there's plenty of things to be done, it feels right to say at least a few words about the event. We just loved it. With 16 computers occupied almost permanently by those wishing to learn something about the game (as well as by those who kept returning along or with their friends, which was also great) and a great looking large booth our presence was way bigger than at any previous event we went to. Gamescom 2017 was just awesome! We watched hundreds of players play the game and discussed various features with them. Once again the feedback we received was priceless (actually, in the second half of the show we were showing a build where we already made some changes based on that). Those who got their hands on the weather system and the new version of cars seemed to like it a lot - it felt good to see that our decision to give the cars some more time was worth it (thanks again for your patience). We'd like to release that update later this week so even those who couldn't come will be able to play with it. We even met some of our dedicated players and it was really great to actually see the people behind all those nice posts! Adrie is just checking out if our excitement about the new cars has some solid basis or if we're just crazy people I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all our guys who spent the long hours manning the stations, those who helped us from our HQ at Prague and also our friends who came to present Arma and DayZ - we had a lot of fun together. Well, I guess we'll get back to work now and I'll talk to you later. Until then... you stay classy, ylanders!

That is simply amazing! EDIT: seeing how you're locking your ship - you will probably find tomorrow's Sneak Peek rather interesting

Hey Adrie, 1) to be honest animal respawning works real bad right now. We tried to go with kind of a "realistic approach" where the animals procreate are but given how small many ylands are and that it's super easy to kill off all the animals quite quickly that now leaves the ylands empty anyway. We want to change this behavior soon so that animals respawn more often and (at least larger) ylands don't become dead forever anymore. 2) no, that is yet another thing that needs to be implemented 3) not now but we see where this is coming from and we're already thinking about it 4) yes, I hear you. Definitely something we need to remedy 5) good point! We'll discuss that - thanks!

Thanks for your effort! As I stated in another thread - we are perfectly aware that we need to address griefing and trolling in some way before entering Steam in the best way possible (even though there, unfortunately, isn't really a perfect solution to this). In near future, we will discuss with you our plans.

With MP finally becoming a solid experience (technical wise) we are now focusing on issues like griefing and try finding ways of making MP more fun and safer for everyone. We understand that these things, at least in some way, definitely need to be addressed before we enter Steam. In near future, we plan to discuss with you what is it that we have planned to battle this.

Hi there, fellow ylanders! So what’s going on with Ylands? Quite a few things actually! We’re about to leave for Gamescom... but before we get to that let’s talk a bit about the upcoming update. As some of you know, based on the final tests we decided not to release the Rainy Roads update and take some more time working on the cars. It wasn’t an easy decision, especially given the fact that due to many other reasons this update has already taken WAY longer than our updates normally do. But every single time I sit down behind the wheel in Ylands and take one of the nice (or weird) cars for a ride I feel more and more that it was the best call to make. The cars have been reworked to a great degree and things you can now do with them are just incredibly fun - long jumps, driving inside a U-ramp or doing some pretty cool tricks with the handbrake. The good news is that we’ve been able to get the vehicles to this point rather fast, and while those who come visit us during Gamescom next week will be able to get their hands on them, the smaller part of the team that stays back here in Prague will use the week to do some final touches. If everything goes right, we’d like to release the cars sometime after we return from Gamescom. The new cars went through a lot of intense testing The bad news is - well, actually right now there aren’t really any Also, some time after we return from Gamescom and everything settles down a bit again, we will give you the update info about monetization - we’ll post the FAQ we promised you some time ago. And now to Gamescom - most of the team will spend the whole next week in Cologne, Germany, presenting the game to players. Those of you who will be there make sure to come visit us - talk to any of us, tell us that you are already ylanders (that actually means a lot now, given the fact that the game is not being sold till November! ) and we’ll greet you with all the glory you deserve On the other hand, since Ane, our Community Manager, and pretty much everyone who often replies on forums will be there during that week, it may take longer for you to get replies - we will try to keep you updated about how things are going in Cologne at least from time to time. We’ll be looking forward to meeting some of you in Germany and with the rest, I will get in touch through the next Sneek Peak. Until then - have a great time and stay classy!

Yes, the next time we need to come better prepared with enough goodies even for the younger kids (fun fact: we sort of expected the German authorities to give us 12+ rating which would prevent the younger kids from even entering our booth - in the end though, we were pleasantly surprised we got 6+).

So much joy! This really made my day - thank you

Yes, we actually had a lot of players returning to our booth which felt really good With exception of leaving for a quick lunch or having a short break our guys have been there the whole time - all of them, every day since the early morning till the late evening (plus the extra day when we were setting everything up). It was quite tiresome but totally worth it :). Thanks for the car feedback, we'll see what can be done about it

Hey guys! With Gamescom behind us, the team is heading back home right now. I believe they've done a truly great job there (presenting the game 10 or 11 hours straight for several days both preceded and followed by a 10-hour drive home is no easy task ) and they will be getting a little bit of rest tomorrow after which we will try to get the update out as soon as possible (meaning that unless something very unexpected happens we'd like to release it later next week). Also tomorrow I hope to find a bit of time to write and post at least a short Dev Diary - GC2017 post-mortem, go over forum thoroughly and answer any questions I find. Right now I can already say that it was even better than we anticipated, players were just amazing (thanks again to those of you who came to visit us ) and once again we got a ton of feedback (actually the cars we were showing in the second part of the convention had been already tweaked based on the feedback received during the first day or two of Gamescom). Have a great Sunday and I'll talk to you tomorrow!

Oh boy, this is what happens when you give away all your secrets On some of the PCs we will be showing a newly made racing track but if you'll want to try to drive it through some rougher terrain I'm pretty sure for you guys we can go beyond what's meant to be shown to the general public Please bear in mind that some minor things are still being tweaked so the demo does not represent 100% of what's going to be in the update. In general the maximum car speed is yet to be finalized (based on some MP tests that will be performed while we're at GC; especially cars with just one engine are now rather slow on the racing track - this speed, though, is fine out in the open where due to many obstacles going real fast is not possible anyway ) and proper sounds still need to be put in place.

Hey there, fellow Ylanders! Today we have two important announcements to make. Some of you have probably noticed that Ylands has been released under the Bohemia Incubator label. Let me explain what does it stand for. Bohemia Incubator was introduced as a label under which experimental projects will be born. In addition to our critically acclaimed franchises, we want to keep trying to find new experiences. Something that may even look and feel miles away from what our other games are like but shares the common vision of all our games. Games that are always about creativity, about learning and exploring. Some of the projects end up in early stages because they don’t have what we’re looking for, while others make it far enough so that they are first publicly announced and later released. Ylands is one of the Incubator games. It started with just an idea and for many months we were just experimenting, trying to see what would work and what wouldn’t. At some point, the early prototype actually became fun to play and it was getting obvious that it holds a promise of a possibly interesting game. Now here we are, some three years later. A little bit over a year ago we began a specific stage where we made the early version of the game available throughout our store. We were looking for early adopters, players who would help us shape the game, to find the right direction. And you, who are reading this right now, have answered our call. Those who are with us for a long time know that during this stage many things have changed rather dramatically. And most of that based on your very own feedback. Right now we know exactly what kind of a game Ylands is and we’re planning to expand it both as a platform that lets players make their own games and as a game about exploration. We have a Steam launch date, where we will spend several months in Early Access mostly tweaking the multiplayer experience and issues that will arise from a larger number of people playing the game at once. We’ve matured. We’ve graduated from the Incubator and are now leaving the label as an experiment that became a game. You see that label Project Argo has? We're about to join the club Even though this is mostly a symbolic moment (which, however, feels very important to us) there will be some things happening that we were already planning to do and for which this moment is very fitting. I’ve already told you we’re working on the Steam version of the game and that the current players will get the Steam keys. The moment when this will happen is quite near now (you will be receiving your keys via email and there will be a specific post about this before it happens). The new information is that in a few days we plan to stop selling the non-Steam Ylands version on our online store, meaning that from that moment till November 2017, when Ylands becomes officially available for purchase on Steam, there will be no way to acquire additional copies of the game (with exception of media). For obvious reasons, it is not an easy decision for us to make, but we feel it’s the right thing to do because of several reasons: * since we’re going to Steam anyway we’d rather stop working on/supporting the non-Steam version sooner than later and concentrate more on polishing the Steam version (which we hope you, the current players - soon to be early Steam adopters - will help us with) * continuing selling the non-Steam version through our store when we know that it will be discontinued soon and players will have to move to Steam anyway seems rather unfair and misleading * we don’t have a huge number of players right now, but more than enough for us to work with for the upcoming months so that we enter Steam in a great shape – which right now is our primary goal So yes, for some time you will become the exclusive group of people, the only ones with the access to the game who can brag about it to your friends, who will have to wait before the game comes out on Steam :). Jokes aside though - we value the fact that you are here with us - many of you for a really long time. It’s something we won’t forget. When we get to Steam we will show to every single one of you that we appreciate your help with making Ylands a better game - and we’re talking about way more than just giving you some commemorative ingame item. If you wonder what changes you will experience during this stage (before we come to Steam) – except for you playing the game on Steam pretty much everything will remain the same. You will be getting at least the same amount of support and you will even get a whole new update with NPCs. Come visit us at Gamescom 2017 held at Cologne, Germany, 22. - 26.08.2017 Speaking of coming to Steam – since we’re now ready to tell the world that Ylands will become publicly available through Steam in November, what better place to do so than a huge gaming event – Gamescom 2017? We’ve been to Unite, to PAX, to E3 – but so far only with just a handful of computers and few individuals. Well, times are changing :). At Gamescom we’ll have a great big booth with lots of computers for you to play the latest game build. To make sure that everything runs as smooth as possible and that all your questions are answered, there will be most of the Ylands team present. And if you want to check what’s going on with other Bohemia games, you will find them there as well! It’s going to be BIG and we’re super excited about it! We’re looking forward to both meeting some of you in person as well as to many discussions with you about game features in the upcoming months, and believe that together we’ll make sure our Steam entry is a success. And that's all for now. I'll see you in the next Dev Diary and in the meantime - as always - have a great time and stay classy!

@A3_Melle Don't worry about it - I'll meet you in Netherlands sooner or later and with Ane and most of the team around I'm pretty sure you'll be in good hands even when I'm gone @WijkagentAdrie Cool! Do find me there so that we can chat

@A3_Melle Don't worry - I believe at some point in the future we'll go and pay our Dutch office buddies a visit and when we're in the Netherlands, we'll definitely make time to meet you as well ( Plus as much as I consider Gamescom an important event, I think that being on fire department duty kind of beats that )

Yes! Unfortunately, I have to leave a bit earlier - on 25th - but most of the team will be there the whole time. Everyone stationed at Ylands part of Bohemia Interactive booth will be a 100% pure Yland dev :), at least 10 of us - programmers, artists, internal QA, CM, designers... We will be easily recognizable by our Ylands t-shirts :). If you get the chance - do come visit us - we'd love to see and chat with you (and obviously you'll be leaving with some nice Ylands merchandise ). This goes for everyone here - if any of you guys manage to stop by, please talk to us, tell us you're already a Ylander so that we can thank you personally and take a good care of you! And if Cologne is out of your reach - don't worry, in future, you'll get to talk to us at other events as well