John - NEXFER
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Posts posted by John - NEXFER
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I am writing this because I've become clearly disgruntled, I feel that I aught to explain this, though it is possible it will simply fall on death ears, or result in down-voting.
Regardless, I am sorry if it comes across as rude, please understand that I feel the following points have merit, and my intent is to help, not hinder.Again, I feel fairly terrible about this because you are all such truly lovely people, and if it were just a matter of personal, I wouldn't say a bad thing against any of you, however, this post is a matter of professional, and it aims to offer some of what in my view, is well needed constructive criticism.
- The dedicated server was introduced in January 2017 (0.21), it is now September 2017 (0.5) - almost 9 months later, and the dedicated server is still unusable for any practical sense or purpose.
- Co-op is just fine, you can lock a server and have your friends log in without issue, however, if I choose to host a public dedicated server, and some child can log in 5 minutes later, and not only grief my self, but grief any and all players that choose to join the server, without even really trying hard (walling in the starting spawn or plenty of more examples), then a public dedicated server is completely pointless and unusable in its current state.
- 9 months is not an acceptable time frame to address these issues, by any means. They are relatively simple issues to address, and examples of how these can be addressed are plentiful (Ylands is not the first multiplayer game made with Unity). They have many possible solutions that while not being "perfect", will address the issues accurately and in a timely manner and are all, far better than nothing.
- So, Ylands is currently a Single-Player / Co-op game, and if I wanted that, I wouldn't be here! Yes it can be quite fun in single-player (explore mode is its best feature by far), and even with a couple of friends, but I and also most Steam(ers), are interested in multiplayer, or massively-multiplayer, and as Ylands was advertised as such, this is the only reason I am here.
- Bug reporting is apparently a shambles as well, fairly often and consistently I will spend my own time locating the causes and sources of bugs after an update (along with others), and report them on the forums in the hope of assisting the development team, to release a fix and speed up the process, and often, these bugs are not addressed for weeks, months or at all. Numerous times I've had to re-post the same bugs, in different threads, or watched as others do the same, because they simply were not addressed in their originals, or even acknowledged (I was still waiting on the bugs I've posted regarding 0.5 to even be acknowledged, so I had to re-link to it when the bug came back up, and these are serious game-breaking bugs). Currently, Explore mode in multiplayer has been made obsolete (possibly single player too), because ships are bugged. There is no "explore" without "ships".
- Testers and bug hunters are a prerequisite for any game developer, however, apparently WE are the testers and bug hunters! To release an update for the game, that has not been through any sufficient testing or bug hunting process, is not a good idea, and will result in some serious negative ratings if this approach continues post-Steam release. Bohemia Interactive is not some indie-developer, working solo in their basement, to pass off the job of testing and bug hunting, to the players whom have paid for your game, is fairly inappropriate. At the very least, some professional testers aught to be hired by your team, and set up to thoroughly test any updates, prior to releasing them to the community who in turn, pays your bills. If I can log in to a fresh server after a new update, and within 5 minutes find numerous bugs... if I can log in, spawn a boat and stand on it, and it bugs out to an unplayable state... then either there is no testers / bug hunters, or they are incompetent (sorry to be harsh but accurate) and aught to be replaced by competent people. As I said, if I can locate even a single "unknown" bug, within 5 minutes of playing after an update, any "testers" that exist - have failed miserably, and aren't worth their pay-cheque. Considering this is not just now and then, but so far consistently for every update that has been released since I purchased the game. This disgruntles me a lot, because it is not an overly difficult task, and I've been doing it for many years to a far higher standard.- Presuming that your customers would be happy to fill this role for free, will result in this game being made "free" on Steam, because quite quickly, nobody will buy it (after reading reviews to this regard).
- The Server Monitor is still using the GPU to display itself, due to the language in which it has been written I presume, I can only hope that this is remade in to a simple console version for Steam, there is simply no valid reason to have a graphically demanding (GUI) as the server application. Servers are generally run in server environments, which do not meet the requirements of the GUI, and thus is harnessing the CPU instead, which should be reserved for processing the server itself. I am more than happy to outline how a good dedicated server should be designed and implemented, but I doubt this will be heard (as I have already done this and it was seemingly ignored)... put simply, the allocation of resources in this current setup is not efficient, a simple console, that can take commands, output what is going on in the server, and that logs who did what and when, is all I need for this, however, what I have currently, is a GUI that allows me to do that which a simple command would suffice for, does not show me any goings-on within the server, and just spams me with "has connected", "has disconnected" and shows me the current chat, heck I can't even see how many people are online, if any, I could be chatting through the server monitor to nobody for all I know! What good is having a GUI, if the GUI shows you nothing of use? It may as well be just a few buttons. The server "monitor" should allow you to "monitor" the server, don't you agree? Well, what does it monitor currently? Server Chat? Server Logged in / Logged out? Server is On or Off? So it's a Server Chat Monitor, with an attached on/off switch, and a healthy dose of spammed messages. The server monitor should be showing - incoming / outgoing network usage, total online players, players connecting and disconnecting, in-game chat, which actions are being taken by the server with time-stamps, which actions are being taken by the players with names, user codes or IP's and time-stamps, and most crucially - any errors that the server experiences (for identifying cause and effect bugs), aught to be displayed in the monitor, else we don't know any of these things and are left blind, looking at a "monitor", that monitors nothing of use, while taking up additional server resources, for no good reason.
- Server administration by server hosts is a joke, I'm sorry to say it. If a troll or a 'griefer' comes on to cause havoc, unless I happen to be online, on the same Yland as they are, within the same area, and close enough to physically watch them do it (so highly unlikely), I have nothing in the form of evidence, I only have hearsay, he said she said rubbish, which frankly, I am not prepared to ban or kick someone over. If I cannot prove who did what and when, then I cannot administrate my own server, and a 5 year old child could log in, grief it all, and there would be nothing reasonable I could do. This is a shambles, and is in no way any form of administration, I may as well just be the server on/off switch. Or on the other hand, I could be the kind of abusive admin that simply bans people without evidence, something that would result in my server having no players. Lose-lose for me.
- I am just about ready to abandon this game, and check back in once it hits Steam officially, to see if anything has been addressed, or to be further disappointed if nothing really has. Ylands has huge potential as a multiplayer, or even a massively-multiplayer game, however, releasing more content, should not be a priority over fixing the issues that it currently has. I could only recommend postponing current plans to add more content, and take this time to address the long-overdue issues, that effectively ruin the game and game-play.- As a rule-of-thumb, if you have content that is not yet finished, don't go adding more. If you have systems that are still not in working order, don't go adding additional systems!
Sorry that I couldn't be more positive about this, I hope some of it can be of use.
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15 hours ago, Ane said:Have you tried the /unstuck command when you got yourself in any of those situations? It might be able to prevent you from falling.
I think this sounds highly related to another bug (specifically with boats in general since 0.5)
More info about it can be found here -
One way we found of fixing(ish) the issue, was to completely destroy the boat (not just sink it but hit it till it vanishes or delete it in the editor). However, as pointed out in the above post, there are several 'floating' bugs that all seem related at the moment.
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Looks like good fun!, which tool did you use to carve out the tunnel with lights on its roof?
Those buggies actually look like buggies! You're very talented at this.
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On 06/09/2017 at 2:59 PM, WijkagentAdrie said:Heya!
I've found a wetsuit, so I decided to mine some sand/stone from the sea bottom to make an artificial island
But what happens is that whenever you mine underwater, "air pockets" get created on the place where you mine, and as soon as you get into one of those pockets, you automaticaly get teleported to the watersurface again.
Adrie
I swam down and dug a hole, then the water stopped seeping in to the hole, so I dug a tunnel, now I have an underwater house!
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I see it's not just ships then! It made my system freeze up.
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You build ships like a pro!
I will be downloading that one if it gets on the workshop for sure.
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12 hours ago, kimbuck said:How about more female clothing for female players? ..keeping it family rated. Maybe some cotton skirts and some nicer female tops ..perhaps a swimsuit ..including a bikini ... business dress .. perhaps some casual shoes... or low heels?
We do like to look our best when fighting those mutants in the caves
Oh..and do those mutants reproduce? i encountered a group of 6 in a cave .. two were co-joined in what appeared to be a natural act...i managed to shoot one .. and then ran out of ammo defending against the others ( got 2 of them, then ran for my life!
I think sometimes the animals get stuck on each other!
Two Ostriches, a Pig and a Penguin having some private time...
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One possible work-around (not a fix but a temp solution), could be for the server owner to spawn a bunch of small boats around the starting yland, this would encourage new players to simply collect some food and move on to another yland elsewhere, where they can be free to collect resources etc.
I have a feeling though I could be wrong, that the intent is to have players go out to other ylands in search of resources, bringing them back home etc. Resources thus have a real value attached, consider with a large population multiplayer experience, that someone might come to trade from you, by bringing you raw resources that you can use for other things, the fact that these resources are finite in the world, and once the close-to-hand resources run out, the value on them only increases, as the distance to travel to obtain them becomes greater, and you have a system that quite accurately mimics a working economy in the real world!
This in itself would likely lead to players becoming merchant traders, using their ships to carry cargo between places, and likewise, other players becoming pirates, seeking to steal that booty for their own! As it did in real life as well!
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3 hours ago, WijkagentAdrie said:Killing the boat fixes the problem as well! I will report the rest tonight.
Yes, I had to do that with the large ship, so it might have been that in connection with my relog, I'm not sure.
On a side note, the raft has an included bug, whereby you keep the Oar in your hand after this bug occurs, not sure if it will stay in your hand even after destroying the raft, but it stays in your hand currently even after you get off the raft etc.
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5 minutes ago, BigBoss87 said:No, I will join your to triy it once more... but its protected by a pasword.
Thanks
The password is in the server thread here -
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9 minutes ago, BigBoss87 said:Hi there,
Playing in various multiplayer games I can see the experience will be the same as many other games. We work just for those who host the game.
Dosn't matter if the game is great or fun, we always will have this kind of things.
Its impossible when you have almost everything to build a ship, amost all cottom farmed, and the owners pick my stuff, and left no resources behind...
As I can see, Iron, Clay, Cooper etc dont respawn and make impossible to go away for another island.That is just what I think, I will stay in Single player
Did hours of play for the host, too bad....
Dont get me wrong, I love this game. It might be interesting if resources respawn...
Tnks
I tend to collect some food and build a raft, then follow the birds to another island almost straight away. Getting away from where there is competition and finding a shady cove somewhere to build up a small camp, where I construct a ship etc. I've just launched my server on a fresh map, feel free to join! Or Adrie has a nice group of helpful people to join with?
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Hi all,
So due to the fact that there is currently no real way to administer a server (other than kicking / banning etc), and no real way to log who has done what, or when, etc...
There is thus no real way to hinder a troll, or otherwise disgruntled person, who seeks to cause havoc and annoy decent players having fun on Ylands.
This may all change (hopefully) as we loom closer to the official Steam release, but for now however, passwords on servers are our best option for defence against this maliciousness.
So, I host a server / website which will now be online 24/7 (thanks to the excellent work of the Ylands devs for making this possible!).
This server will be running an unedited explore mode, and we will only wipe the map if it becomes somehow necessary (unplayable without a wipe).
A password has been added to the server, if you would like to play on it, please connect with the pass phrase "ylanders2017".
Please note, by using this password to log in to our dedicated server (ylanders.com), you agree to the following rules:
(1) "Griefing" / "trolling" that can be proved or witnessed, will result in a ban from the server, and your credentials passed on to other server owners / the community to prevent these actions from happening elsewhere.
(2) Item stealing is frowned upon, though as it is vanilla, and nothing is stopping you... you will simply end up with no friends! People should lock or hide things they consider valuable until such time as a land / item protection system is implemented.
(3) Killing offline players is frowned upon, though again, nothing is stopping you but the lack of friends that will result.
(4) Exploiting a bug can be helpful, so long as you report the exploit to myself, or here on the forums, and stop exploiting it once you have narrowed down the cause of it.
(5) Be friendly and polite to other players!
If you do not agree with the above rules, please do not log in to our server!
If this is not an effective deterrent to the malicious, I may be forced to only pass out the password via Private Messages. If this happens and you can not log in with the current password, please PM me and I will send you the updated password.
Any support to this regard from the development team, giving admins the tools to administrate their servers, will be highly appreciated!
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Hi all,
So I love the updates, they are great fun, but sadly I must post the bugs as usual and bring down the mood
If anyone else has something that I've missed, feel free to contribute to this thread.
- Ship compositions
All ship / boat compositions that I had saved, and all those from the workshop (I've tried deleting them and re-downloading etc), are bugged beyond belief, they appear to be over layering hundreds of ships on top of each other. This causes them to create immense system lag while hovering over them in the editor, and if you attempt to spawn one, the system overloads and freezes up completely (requiring a reboot). You can see the attached picture for an example, or simply try download any ship compositions from the workshop and spawn the composition in the editor to see it first hand.
- Ships / Boats in multiplayer (dedicated server)
As soon as you step foot on a ship in multiplayer, the screen starts doing a weird shaking thing that does not stop until you relog, and even still then persists if you go back to your ship, I spawned these ships using the cube, so it is possible this is related. I first noticed this while using an anchor on a ship, however, since then it has happened just by landing on a ship. Further, it seems that there is an issue with the interaction between the new waves system and the ship floating, as the ships with these issues, are not moving with the waves. After this bug happens, moving around and trying to walk or swim all bugs out. I can record a video of it if needed, it happened while I was streaming so it can be observed there as well. Most recently, I fell under the map when this bug occurred, and became unable to log back in until I rebooted the server, as it was becoming stuck on "raising oceans 33%". Also, whenever using an anchor, it says "failed", though this bug seems trivial in comparison. Also worth noting, is that as soon as you spawn a ship with the cube, it tends to fall down, land in the water and start floating - this however is not the case since the update, the ship spawns static and does not start floating, this seems highly related to the issue.
I've just tested rafts - getting on a raft is just fine, operating a raft works fine (though the waves are a bit odd!), as soon as you get off the raft, the screen shaking starts. This issue persists through a relog, it requires a new character to fix it (/killme).
- Energy switches in multiplayer (dedicated server)
This is still bugged, though I heard talk of updating the energy system, so perhaps this isn't going to be a bug in the future anyway, but as it stands, if a guest tries to operate an energy switch, on the guest's screen, nothing happens, on the host's screen however, you can see the actions happening from the switching.
- Logged out deaths in multiplayer (dedicated server)
Are players still able to starve / freeze while offline? If so, they can die inside a locked house while logged off, then have no way to get back inside (as their key is inside). Simple solutions could be to have players disappear while offline (taken out of the game world), or simply stop the effects of hunger etc applying to them while offline.
On a positive note, the dedicated server seems pretty stable, good job devs!
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Added a new track to the workshop, which I'll be hosting on my dedicated server shortly, and which I'll be streaming live some racing in about an hour! Anyone is welcome to join in, the game mode gives new players a creator cube to build cars etc.
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The dedicated server with a modified explore mode (starting yland has a track) is online! There is some creator cubes sat there waiting for those that want them!
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6 minutes ago, Karel Lejska said:Thanks for your quick answer, John. I just wonder - how can a newcomer find this link on the official website? And googling "ylands download" also doesn't reveal this link...
I think it has purposely been removed from access, as the client that it downloads, is to be discontinued, once the Steam version of the client is released. I just happened to have it linked on a website.
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Hi all,
I am currently engaging in a fair amount of daily live streaming, and have added Ylands to my schedule.
Once the dedicated server is up and running again, you can find information regarding it on my Ylands website at Ylanders.com
I also have a few other websites, one of them being Nexfer Gaming, where you can find my stream schedules and links to all my associated networks. You can visit this site at Nexfer.com
I'm about to go live building a new race track in to the starter island of an Explore mode game, the Ylanders Racing & Resort one was "okay", but due to the large amount of spawns on the "resort" part, it got a bit laggy when coming to or leaving from the starting line!
Also, without the Explore mode part, the boats were kinda "meh", so, I've stripped an island bare and am getting to work on this perhaps future game-mode (depends if I can export and explore mode as a game mode)!
On a side note, I can whip up a basic website pretty quickly, if anyone requires some assistance with their own for something Ylands related, hit me up!
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23 minutes ago, Karel Lejska said:I swear I downloaded Ylands_setup.exe three times in the past from the official web site. I want to recommend this game to my friend but I just can't find the download link again. Is it intentional or I'm just blind?
Here you go
- http://download.ylands.com/Ylands_setup.exe
Regarding removal of the link, it is because you can no longer buy Ylands, until it is officially released on Steam that is. You and your friends will be fine if you already have multiple accounts, however, I don't think a new account can be obtained now until release.
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I've just been live streaming / testing out the updates and I must say, it's all very impressive! I'm now in the process of having some creative time in the editor with these new additions and I'm having a grand time. There is a couple of bugs remaining but I won't bring down the good mood today, I will likely post them after testing and collecting more. Regarding the car physics, wow it is good fun! The only thing I would change would be the weight distribution while in the air, the cars feel very front heavy and a large jump might result in a nose-dive! Perhaps if the engine could be the center of gravity? Could have it lean more towards where the engine(s) are placed, allowing for / requiring some balancing of weight while designing the cars. Ships are great fun with a bunch of engines on them too! Speed boat for sure.
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A happy day with many new things to explore! Thank you very much guys and girls... you've made my day!
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8 minutes ago, Khanecz said:Engines have a set number of generated power, just like generators. Generated power (green lines) and power to propel cars are separate values.
Yes, you can do the whole perpetuum mobile thing with power cells and charging station - this will not be in the game for long, because we're redoing the energy system to make more sense at the moment.
You can use coal and ylandium engines to power anything, even lights in your house etc.
We'll see about the smaller switch, we don't have it yet, but it's definitely a good idea. However you will able to fit a lot of things on the larger car chassis so I wouldn't worry about that
Thanks for the info! I won't make anything too complex with energy till later on then! Good to know we can use engines like a generator, very handy.
Larger chassis? Sounds ideal!
Any clue about dimensions for building on them? We can pre-make compositions to place on top of chassis if we have a rough idea!
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2 minutes ago, WijkagentAdrie said:Yeah that last one with the switch is a good one, I see that most engines have 2 outputs, maybe put toggle buttons on keyboard 1 and 2? And for the generator I actually meant using an ylandium engine, but the way you say it is also a way to get infinite power. It's gonna be a little bit too big to put on a car but on ships this would be feasible. Which makes me wonder if we should have normal ylandium generators in survival mode since it's quite OP, having an infinite energy source.
Adrie
Yeah the charging station is big and bulky! I edited my post with a side note but your reply was fast and it didn't get included!
"On a side note, does anyone know the width and height you can extend out from a car base? Similarly a boat has a perimeter that you can build out to that far extends the boat's base. I am curious how wide and high you could build, because things like mobile homes would or would not be a possibility, depending on this."
If you can build high and wide enough to get a charging station included, without making it look terrible! Could have a small generator hooked up to it?
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38 minutes ago, WijkagentAdrie said:Sweet! I'm still trying to find a perpetuum mobile, so in that case: how is power consumption influenced by having heaters/ylandium chargers/lights powered by engines? Could I use an engine on my boat to power a generator, that will charge batteries that will run the engine and so on?
Also, can we use coal engines in our bases/houses to power our light network as generators?
And last but not least, can we get a switch that is just a little bit smaller/more compact? So we can have a switch on the car to turn lights/heaters on/off
Thanks for answering!
Adrie
I have no clue about a lot of it, however, I seemingly have charged Ylandium power cells, via a charging station, that was attached to a generator. The charging stations takes a while after "charging anything nearby", before it becomes active again to do the same, so I figure a generator on your boat with a charging station should work just fine. I also added two charging stations to the race track I made on the workshop, as I presumed this would be the case! Glad it worked out.
Regarding the switch on the car for the lights, perhaps an even smaller way would be to not have a switch at all? Have a button on the keyboard that turns them on and off, while you are sat in the driver's seat maybe.
On a side note, does anyone know the width and height you can extend out from a car base? Similarly a boat has a perimeter that you can build out to that far extends the boat's base. I am curious how wide and high you could build, because things like mobile homes would or would not be a possibility, depending on this.
Ylands on Steam
in General Discussion
Posted
Hi Ane, thanks for the information!
I have a quick query - I have two BI accounts, each with a copy of Ylands attached to it. I have activated my main account to my Steam account, and migrated successfully, however, do I have any options for the second BI account? Can I use the code in the email for it, as a give-away prize or something? I only have a single Steam account you see!