Aleš Ulm

Hi guys, I'm sorry but there's so little time these days to chat with you (it should be better in about one week) - I'll try to get here later this week and answer whatever needs answering . In the meantime just a few quick notes: * PvP vs PvE - it's exactly why we're adding this - to let the people have a game where those who are not into fighting won't get attacked etc. * new programmers - you're right that it takes time before a new programmer starts contributing - actually we've learned this the hard way but that it's why in the past months we've been looking for very senior programmers only. Those who can deliver results pretty fast and won't slow other seniors down because of need of guidance. It took quite long to find the right people, but we got really lucky in the last few weeks... "i just don't understand why fixing issues isn't the priority" - after 0.10 is released there will a time when there almost no new features will be added and pretty much everyone will be just fixing stuff. Things will improve even before that, though, since the new programmers I mentioned are coming to help with the bug-fixing and optimizations.

Hey there, fellow ylanders! Something very important happened a few days ago. The gaming company Tencent Games has announced that they will be publishing Ylands in China. Even though from the perspective of "western" Ylands players this may seem just like a somewhat interesting fact, it is a very important news for them as well. In today's Dev Diary I would like to explain why and also answer some questions you might want to ask. Because many are not aware of who Tencent is, let me start by introducing our new partner. Tencent Games is the largest gaming company in the world by revenue and market value. With Ylands being more than a simple game, but also a platform for making games, a truly strong and experienced partner is needed to enter such a large market as China. With a focus on multiplayer and community, it's not enough just to have the game translated - a solid, reliable infrastructure and excellent support is a must, and we think we couldn't have found a better partner to help us with that. Even though the game itself will be the same, the whole "ecosystem" related to the game (the publishing platform, servers, workshop, payment gates etc.) will be completely separated from the Steam Ylands version. Those familiar with some games that Tencent has published so far (or with how the Chinese game market works in general) probably know that their business model is more oriented towards free-to-play games. Some of you have already asked what this means for Ylands. The answer is very simple - Ylands in China will be published by Tencent as part of their WeGame platform, and as such, it will have a different monetization system than the one we have in the Steam version - one that Chinese players are more used to. We feel it's important to stress that we are not planning to make any changes to how the Steam version monetization is set up - it will stay as it is, just the way we've been discussing it for months with our players. Marek Španěl, Bohemia Interactive CEO, introduces Ylands to Chinese players Another question is if the current content will somehow be adjusted to fit more with the Chinese market specifics. Once again, the answer is quite simple. No. Actually quite on the contrary - some objects that have been removed from Ylands in the past (like bones) will return to the Steam version. And that leads us to the most important question - how will the Steam version players benefit from this cooperation? Quite obviously this partnership is an amazing opportunity for Ylands to keep growing and getting better in the upcoming years... and that's definitely something every single Ylands player will benefit from. But you will feel the positive outcome of this much sooner. As a result of this partnership the team growth has accelerated even more. This will allow us to deal with issues like optimization and MP issues much faster, which, as I believe we all agree, is sorely needed. I can say that the whole team is extremely excited about this opportunity - we consider it yet another important step towards the game we all envisioned. And that's it for this Dev Diary. We'll be back in a week - so have a great time until then, ylanders, and stay classy!

Hi! Sorry about the delay - yes, players shouldn't be able to edit anything energy-related inside other players' barriers. It's a bug and will be fixed. Thanks for letting us know!

Good Monday morning, everyone! @bojo2736 It really depends on what you mean by "in the works" since a partnership like this is preceded by lot of talks. Without going into any further details let me say that this isn't something one could achieve in matter of few weeks @TinyMonkey As a result of this the team has already grown some more and in the upcoming months (weeks, actually) will grow even more with most of the newly coming people focus especially on the problematic parts (optimizations, MP etc.) @Miguel Preguisa Ylands coming to other platforms in 2019 is not a thing specific for the Chinese market - there will never be two different games and you don't have to worry about the Chinese getting something you wouldn't. For many reasons the "western" (Steam) version will always our top priority. I think since mobile phones have been mentioned some clarification is required: Yes, even the mobile version is planned for 2019 (to make sure there's no misunderstanding or unreasonable expectations - definitely not early 2019 ) . There's a still a huge amount of work to be done before that happens but I can already tell you which is obvious - there's no point in even trying to implement the mobile version before PC version doesn't run much better than it does now if anything these plan actually create even more pressure that we make sure the game runs better asap. We are not saying that there will be a mobile Ylands version 100% identical with the PC version. We have some plans and things to test but we won't be discussing those before Ylands comes out of EA later this year because that's an absolute priority for us and that's the only thing we need to focus on right now. For the same reason we won't be commenting on other possible platforms. And one last thing that should probably go without saying - but I'll say it anyway - Bohemia Interactive devs have a reputation of being avid PC gamers in the first place, of PC being our flagship platform... and, at least as far as Ylands is concerned, that's not going to change any time soon so don't worry that PC version wouldn't be getting enough love or suffer in any way because of other potential future platforms.

@Energritz_ I'll say it in another words because it's really important that our players understand this fully and do not worry . Steam version will really be completely separated from WeGame (Chinese platform). They will be connecting to their servers hosted in completely different (local) datacenters, they won't be joining your MP sessions, they will use their own workshop and the game itself won't change in any way because of this partnership. We understand that there are significant cultural differences and our plan is for both communities to thrive separately while experiencing the same game. Let me put it this way - if we didn't tell you about its existence you probably wouldn't even realize there's a separate Chinese WeGame platform running alongside Steam version. On the other hand we will be getting feedback from Chinese players as well which is a good thing, because although it may not be that known in our part of the world, they are very creative when it comes to sandbox games which are become very popular there so this really is a win-win scenario. If you have any other questions or concerns, I'll gladly answer those

Actually one thing I saw someone ask on Steam forums - you don't have to start a new game or anything. As long as your creation is inside your barrier you will be able to capture it into a blueprint not matter whether you've built pre-0.9 or not.

Alright, so here are answers (it's quite a lot of questions, sorry if I overlook any) in no particular order * anyone can contribute when build a BP, only the author can cancel it * you can't build where there's already BP being built, but there will be several limitations to make sure no one claims a huge area (or lot of smaller ones) and block other players from using them space * the idea of BP is exactly (well, with other things) to makes sure you can rather easily build a "copy" if you move to a different yland, if your game is wiped and you're starting a new one etc. * with every BP you're building you will see exactly what you need to get and moving it from the inventory to the workstation is super quick and intuitive (one way is simply clicking RMB over whatever you want to use for building and you see the required ingredients amount lower while at the same time the building is gradually appearing based on what you've put in it so far - it looks pretty cool, if you ask me ) * upgradable barriers - actually this is something that we've already planned, improved/larger barriers that will require energy, but since the current one needs a lot of love as it is (cooperative building etc.) it didn't felt right to promise things that are even farther in the future * trading blueprints among players is not planned at this moment because of several reasons. The most important is that we really want to have total control over this until we know the system works as it should and isn't exploited in some way - we don't want some BPs to spread uncontrollably, before we have some relevant feedback (even we will be releasing BP into the game rather slowly). * editing Explore games in the Editor won't be possible anymore when the game comes out of the Early Access (it wouldn't make much sense then - there will be two worlds already with some "story-like" progression, a boss fight etc. - whoever will want to get far, will have to really earn it ) * Compositions can't be part of BP since BP can contain (at least now) only building materials.

I see you're asking questions already, great! Please ask anything you want to know - even though some things haven't been completely finalized, I'll do my best to answer everything I can (but I'll probably do it first thing Monday morning as I may not be able to get here during the weekend ).

Nice! Please make sure you let us know about any potential improvements we could make you can think of!

Hey there, fellow ylanders! Let’s start with the fixes - yesterday we released a hotfix addressing two issues. The first one was time slowing down after sleeping in MP (please note that there can still be a short time after waking up when times are slightly desynced among the clients). The second issue was a truly critical one, though. Some of you have noticed that at the end of one of our new tracks, someone (that someone being the composer/conductor) can be heard saying “super”. Let me assure those of you who wondered if they’d gone insane that it was really there - we located and fixed it. We’ve already mentioned one of the features coming with the update 0.9 “Comfortable Cooperation” - our specific implementation of the cloud saving. We are still discussing a lot of its aspects, so I expect to tell you some more details in a week or two. In the meantime, we can take a look at some other features you can expect in this update. Massive GUI Overhaul Those that have been with us longer, know that we keep experimenting a lot with the GUI. Now that we’re tying the loose ends, making sure what’s in the game works and looks well... GUI isn't going to be an exception - especially since many of the GUI panels are closer to placeholders than to actual polished GUI elements. The main menu will change a lot - it will be visually nicer and easier to navigate. The in-game character panel that contains the inventory, crafting and such, will become a full-screen panel - the newly gained space will allow us to make some elements bigger, but we won’t stop there. The new look will be cleaner, slicker and look less like a spreadsheet table and more like a something very different from a spreadsheet table. Even though the overhaul will bring a lot of good on its own, there were other even more significant reasons we had to do this. Namely, two features that resulted in some GUI-related changes. Single Character Avatar We realized that most players start all their games with one specific character, and that once they find an avatar they like, they tend to stick with it. Starting with 0.9 you will be able to set your avatar visuals in the main menu, and whenever you start a new game, this character will be used. Some games will add clothes or equipment to your character based on the role you pick to play, but the character visuals themselves won’t be affected. You will be able to change your avatar’s visuals any time, as many times as you see fit (for free, obviously ). Having troubles with building nice structures? Feeling bad about leaving them behind when starting a new game? Stay tuned... Workshop Integration The second feature that made us do some GUI-related changes was a tighter Workshop integration with the game. We are already seeing some very interesting creations making their way to our Workshop, and we can only imagine what will happen when we introduce a vastly improved and more intuitive visual scripting in a few months. Because of that, we want players to be able to have a much easier access to those creations (both games and compositions), and so with 0.9 we’ll be waving bye-bye to subscribing to assets via the Workshop website. From that moment, you will be able to see ( and filter or search) even “Custom games” right in Ylands’ main menu. You’ll find one that you like, select it, hit play... and that’s it. So these are some more cool features coming with 0.9 - but there’s still much more to tell. Have a great time, ylanders, and stay classy!

Thanks for the feedback, guys! We're already looking into it.

Let me just quickly comment on one topic that has been brought up - the fact that the game is in the Early Access stage means that we are aware of the bugs it has and optimizations that need to be done. It doesn't, though, in any way at all, mean that players don't have the right to / shouldn't criticize. We are very well aware that you didn't get the game for free and so not only you have every right to say what you think and point out what you don't like - we do expect you to say it. Actually, given how toxic some other game communities are, we are extremely pleased and grateful that the absolute majority of the criticism is constructive and civil. So please keep letting us know what you think and stay classy!

Hey there, fellow ylanders! Earlier this week we have released the update 0.8 "Meaningful Music" and along with it a dev diary video you can watch here This video was shortly followed by yet another one where we're answering some of the questions you sent us. If you're interested in learning a bit more about Ylands (and meeting several Ylands devs), here you go Since we had received a lot of questions from you and the time we had was rather limited, those that didn't make it into the video I will be answering here, starting next Friday. That's also when we'll talk some more about the new features coming with 0.9... which is already shaping up to be one of the most important updates so far. Until then you have a great time, ylanders, and stay classy!

True - the dead bodies found left and right all over the ylands is something we're already looking into.

The reason behind leaving the avatars in the world even when players log off (actually Ylands isn't really the only game that does that) is that we want the players to consider where they log out of the game - to make sure their character is sage. It makes building (and using) houses and safe places in general much more important. This is one of the things (and the "realism" settings in general) we would like let players set when we give more control over newly created games. As for people being just mean and doing awful stuff in the world - while we're trying to address some things with every update, with game this open it's not really possible to predict everything. As soon as we get rid of some of the major issues we're still having in the game, we plan to focus much more on preventing people from doing all kinds of wrong things (but as I said - in a sandbox game people will always find a way of, at least, annoying each other )

Hey guys, I hope everyone is well and had a great time! As for the old music - we like it as well and so we might put it back into to the game in some form at some point... which is probably the most vague answer I've ever posted, but that's all I have . T-shirts - I believe some Ylands t-shirts can be bought here https://store.bistudio.com/category/merchandise (their price plus the shipping make them a bit costly, though).

Thanks for bringing this up, guys - it's definitely something worth discussing (and thanks for the ideas as well! ) Since both Friday and Monday are Easter holiday here, I'll be ready to discuss this more in detail starting next Tuesday (everyone's getting some rest these days since many of us have been working both on features/fixes for 0.8 and 0.9 at the same time to make sure both are released asap). That being said there are two things I just want to say right now. First thing is - there are indeed various things that we can do but so far we've mostly done things focused on our current community only (like the videos we're making are mostly seen by our player base) for a simple reason - the game is not in a good enough shape yet for us to put a lot of effort into bringing in new players. We could bring more people by advertising the game but doing anything bigger right now wouldn't make much sense (we might do that to some lesser extent just to bring enough "new blood" to the game to get some "first hands on experience" feedback ). And secondly there's a thing that also needs to be said - the one thing you don't have to worry about is that Ylands would shut down anytime soon because of number of active players dropping. Ylands is a long term project and even though we would love to see our community grow strong right now we know that we have a lot to fix before we things change. It surely is a bit frustrating but that's how it is. Objectively things are getting better though and the big picture hasn't a bit (actually, if anything, the Ylands team will probably grow more in 2018 than we originally thought). I'll be ready to talk to you more on Tuesday - in the meantime have a great weekend and Easter holiday

@Ricktor The offline version is still planned, but as we said two weeks ago (Dev Diary #29) it will take some time before it comes - while we know there are people who would welcome the offline version (we ourselves like games to have an offline mode) there are currently far more pressing issues to take care of. As for the new items that players can purchase - those have been made by our artists alone and required pretty much zero effort on the programming side so I can assure you that those are not delaying the offline version in any way.

Alright, let's talk about the performance: I totally understand your frustration. We do know that players are unhappy about that. We see them leave and wait if things get better. We see our Steam ratings dive because of MP bugs and game not optimized enough with absolute majority of the negative reviews saying something like "The game would be great if it wasn't for...". We are not living in some kind of our own reality bubble where everything is fine and the more new features we put in the happier everyone gets. What's going on is actually pretty simple: There are gameplay programmers and there are "core" programmers. Gameplay programmers add features, fix feature-related issues and so on. Core programmers get their hands dirty by making the game run in MP, by optimizing game etc. Both groups have somewhat different skillsets and area of expertise. You can't simply take a gameplay programmer and tell him to "fix this MP issue" or "optimize the game". Not only it literally takes months to become familiar enough with the relevant code to be of any help, but during that time the new programmer usually needs a lot of support from those who would otherwise work exactly on that - MP issues or optimizations. So we have several gameplay programmers who are good at adding new features and there's no reason for them to sit idle just because there are issues with MP or game doesn't run as good as it should. Fixing everything in MP and making the game run better is not something that can be done quickly - I commented on this several times and said that it would take months. We are trying to make this "period of chaos" (any Foundation fans out there?) as short as possible and keep hiring new people, but finding the right people for the job isn't easy and, as I said, then it takes so more time before they can become useful. In another words - there's no need for the game to stagnate for months before it runs as it should. It might result in impression that everyone is working just on fixing the issues - but it simply wouldn't be true. I really wish there was an easy, quick solution - but there isn't one. Most of the things the players seem to enjoy about the game - the freedom to destroy everything, to terraform, the water simulation (even though far from being perfect), being able to build everything and not only blocks like in Minecraft and thousands of its clones come at a high cost. In many ways we are in the dark, looking to solve things that are not very commonly all combined in other games (and, quite obviously, using 3rd party game engine has a great number of pros but also some major cons as well). I'm not going to sugar-coat it especially since it's rather obvious - we are still several months away from offering a great MP-experience (which will come sooner) and nicely optimized game (which we be finished - if there's even such a thing as finished - later). Things will be (and have been) improving with every update - this 0.8 comes with some really nice MP-related issues, 0.9 will bring improved saving which will remove a lot of SP games lag etc. I don't want to play the Early Access card as something that lets us get away with pretty much anything - but it needs to be said. The game is in EA and as such is still buggy and needs to be optimized. We expected to fix those much faster but things are what they are and so we're just bracing ourselves for more (deserved) negative feedback and continue fixing stuff as fast as we can. You know we really like you guys so please don't take this as us being arrogant or anything, but if you feel like we're letting you down with how the game is right now, put it aside for a few months and come back later. As much as I hate to say this I think it's better than making empty promises about something miraculous happening in a week or two. And as always - we'll still be here reading your posts, talking to you... We're not going to hide or stop communicating just because things are not going exactly as we want them to

Alright - here's some additional info about the cloud save (we will be posting more info over the course of next few weeks) First of all it should be noted that this is an experimental feature so pretty much anything can still change * there will always be only one save game version available to players - those who will want to play this game will have to be online in order to do so so that it is always clear if the game is already hosted by anyone or is "offline" waiting for someone to start it * you will have full control over your data with possibility of removing any games from the cloud save at any time * in the first iteration there won't be any automated way for the current host to have someone host the game when they log off. First they will have to log off and as soon as they do and the game quits, any player with an active avatar in the world will be able to start it again as the new host.

Hi guys, I'm sorry, but I will answer your questions about the cloud save tomorrow - we have more work on our hands than expected. Also I have some bad news - we won't be releasing the update today . This morning we finally got logs that we can use to fix one more very nasty MP issue (related to players getting disconnected). We've just had a discussion about whether we should release the update now (especially since we already postponed it once) and release the fix later as a patch - and after talking about it a bit decided against it. Obviously there has to be a moment where the update needs to be released regardless of how close we are to fixing more stuff... ...but releasing it while it still contains a critical issue that leads to players getting disconnected that we know we can now fix feels wrong. Also it we want to have this present in the update since bug fixing (especially with issues related to MP) is something that the community is most unhappy about (and we know that some players return to the game with every new update to see if it got better and so later patches do nothing for them). And lastly - creating a patch always generates some unnecessary overhead. The update will definitely be released this week - but I won't do the same mistake of announcing the exact day again. Let's just say that we think it won't take long. Please accept my apology, we should have known better

Hi everyone! Just a few quick lines - I should be able to explain things in detail on Monday (if necessary). We, indeed, came up with this idea ( or, to be more precise, our CEO Marek Španěl has - so let me thank for your kind words on his behalf ) - or at least we are not aware of anyone else who is using the cloud save the way we intend to use it. As for allowance related questions - we're still finalizing this. I think we should be able to give you some answers in about two weeks.

Hey there, fellow ylanders! If nothing unexpected happens, this should be the last Dev Diary before update 0.8 is released. Things are once again super hectic in here (and because of that some of us may not be that active on forums as usual) so today I’m not going to talk about any details, instead I would like to give you some tips on what you can do with your time before you get your hands on “Meaningful Music” - namely some really nice games that some of you made and shared with the community through the Workshop. Most of them are still work in progress and contain bugs but they are already lot of fun. We check those regularly so I asked our designer @Rudy.cz to pick some he likes and tell you what to expect. Entombed https://ylands.net/asset/211 Find yourself trapped inside an ancient Egyptian pyramid accompanied by a strange cat statue, which is helping you find your way out. Overcome various traps, challenging puzzles and dangerous enemies and discover the story behind this mysterious place. Nice storytelling, clever use of game logics and attention to detail makes this one of the best scenarios currently at the Workshop. PROJECT LOST DHARMA https://ylands.net/asset/306 A lot of passion went to this game which places the player on an yland full of danger and discovery. Through this scenario players will visit several well-thought areas, each with its own challenges and mystery, culminating in the discovery of the true meaning of this enigmatic Project Dharma. Well built world with many original ideas makes this scenario worth a try. Remember that cool Dharma Initiative in "Lost"? Well, Ylands now has a mysterious Dharma of its own... so what are you waiting for? Scenario for the air crash https://ylands.net/asset/148 This short game does not actually provide a long story or any extra challenges, but it's a very cleverly designed "cinematic intro" explaining why you have found yourself lost on a deserted yland. Scavenger Hunt and Survival https://ylands.net/asset/115 Simple, but yet well-made game which adds to your usual survive-on-an-yland business a simple background story and a goal to strive to. Hospital. Scary game (BETA) https://ylands.net/asset/201 A very promising game, still very work-in-progress, but already showing huge potential. The hospital itself is well designed, nicely built and really scary just on its own. Hopefully you will have fun playing these, and before you know it, we’ll be back with the next Sneak Peek, in which we will discuss many cool features coming with the update 0.9. Until then you have a great time, ylanders, and stay classy!

Nice try! Seriously though - until the update is out anything can happen (some of us will keep testing it even beyond the usual QA during the weekend etc.).

To be honest we'd rather not to - it happened to us in the past that we actually had to remove (even though rather small) feature from a build we thought was ready for release or that a critical issue appeared and we had to postpone the release couple more days (that shouldn't happen but really anything is possible in software development). Also presenting it earlier would inevitably lead to discussions which we at this point have no time to pay attention to fully I hope that as a consolation you will accept tomorrows Dev Diary where I will talking about things we are planning for 0.9 and which I think will rather pretty interesting.