Dev Diary #13

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

Hey there, fellow ylanders!

This Dev Diary will be a bit difficult - it’s always fun to tell you good news and announce cool new features, but there are also times when less exciting news have to be told, and when such time comes it's best to just tell things as they are.

And the thing is that originally we planned on releasing the Rainy Roads sometime next week. We have fixed as many issues as possible in the given time. The new weather system is working great. We are building both cool and weird vehicles and driving them (we’ve actually done that for many weeks now), and final tests are about to be finished... but despite this all, we decided to step back, delay the update release further and take some more time working on the cars.

We kept adjusting the controls and cars' behavior heavily for weeks now - there was a new build with major changes every few days and we believed we were “almost there.” Right now we have a solid version that is fully working - but many of us who have tested this week's "final" iteration feel that the controls and cars' behavior still deserve further tuning. That even though these cars, just as the update name suggests, are meant mostly for roads (specific off-road cars will be added in the future), driving them in rougher terrain could work better.

Honestly - if this happened 6 months ago we would have probably just released it anyway. The game is still early alpha and it wouldn’t be the first time we released something knowing that it required more improvements in the future. Right now, however, when we plan to enter Steam and the team is getting bigger, we need to start tying loose ends instead of creating new ones. We need to stop thinking of the game as of something that can handle anything we throw at it just because there’s “alpha” written next to it.

It goes without saying that I take the full responsibility and apologize for us feeding the expectations that the update “is almost out of the door” when talking to you here on forums. We genuinely believed that the final tuning would be way easier to do and some of the issues that still make the controls less than ideal required just a small fixes, that everything would click and fall in place to create a very good experience like it did in the past - and we were wrong. Lesson learned.

 

Just another day for our test drivers...

 

Exactly because of this, we're not going to give you any new ETA, because we’re not going to do the same mistake twice - but we’ll be telling you about our progress regularly and as long as necessary. Right now we just know that we decided not to release it next week, we'll take a good look at it and see how it can be improved.

As a side note - this doesn’t affect other features or updates. Only a few people will keep working on tweaking cars as the rest of the team continues working on other features and fixes, so delaying this update some more doesn’t really mean delaying the subsequent ones.

Also speaking of delays and time estimates - since I’ve already pointed out this elephant in the room, let’s talk about him some more. 

We want to give you as much information about our plans as possible. We'd like you to have at least a rough idea when some features and updates are coming in the game so that you don’t have to keep asking on the forums every single week. The problem is that we’re treading an unknown territory here - a totally open sandbox world with fully destructible terrain, lots of simulations going on, seamlessly switching between single and multiplayer and using 3rd party game engine, various unexpected issues appear all the time. Also sometimes even when a feature has already been implemented and we test it we find it’s really missing something and we decide to improve it - and even small changes and additions take time (especially since everything needs to work properly in MP which doesn’t just “happen” by implementing it in SP and requires a lot of work).

Because of that we decided to hold back a bit when talking about estimates and deadlines - we don’t really want to go full “it’s done when it’s done”, but at the same time, we need to avoid situations like this one. So if at some point you ask about a future update ETA and receive an answer that’s rather vague - it’s not because we don’t care. It’s because we do and because I honestly don’t feel like writing another post like this anytime soon :).

Thank you for your understanding and as always we're ready to answer any questions you might have below this post.

I will see you in the next Dev Diary. Until then - have a great summer and stay classy!

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

PS: Also, we kind of put discussing the monetization plans on hold because of finalizing this update - with most of the features in places and tested I believe I will finally find time later next week to return to that. I will continue working on that FAQ so that our plans are explained in detail and our discussion may continue. Thank you for your patience!

[Miguel Preguisa 443]

I'm honestly glad that you didn't give us another release date. This way it can be a pleasant surprise. Every delay actually means another hours and days of you working on the game to be even better. So I'm absolutely okay with this (who wouldn't ) and I wish you as few bugs as can be possible. 

PS: How "strong" are those cars? Would it be possible to do something like jumps or even loops with them? 

Edited August 4, 2017 by Miguel Preguisa

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

Good question because making jumps with cars is actually one of the things we think should work better than it does in the current iteration (so yes, we believe the cars should be able to jump :)). As for loops - it is not possible at this moment. As to whether it will become possible at some point - that depends on how much additional work we're going to put into cars.

[Hurricane43 36]

Thanks for the information @Aleš Ulm, take the time you need to ensure that the team is happy with the tuning of the cars. No need to rush anything out the door just to have it out, its summer, enjoy the sun, and family. The game has tons and tons of content already to enjoy and play around with... I haven't even started on a ship or the energy system... The game has a huge amount of content, so take your time and we appreciate the team being upfront and telling us how things are going at the studio... 

 

[WijkagentAdrie 384]

Hey Ales, thanks for another update! I'm really happy getting new features right from the start instead of getting more "placeholders", which I feel has delayed DayZ development more than it should have. Regarding the ETA's: please continue giving rough ETA's. There is absolutely nothing wrong with revising ETA's every now and then, as it clearly is an ESTIMATE and is therefor only a rough guess 

Some lovely cars in the picture, compliments tho whoever has built the yellow one  Also, does adding more engines make your car faster/consume double fuel? And is weight taken into account when building on the chassis?

I've been working on some more sketchups for a nice suggestion I'm about to make, hope to get enough done to show it to you guys this weekend.

 

[Dirtyefenhairy 3]

Thanks for the info, I also feel that at the moment the game is in need of some updates, multiplayer games with friends are not working all that great, we have built all things in survival and while the game is fun, I think we will give it a short break until some updates with content come out and some fixes concerning multiplayer stability are fixed.

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

Thanks, guys - it's always nice to see how classy you ylanders are  

@WijkagentAdrie Yes, adding more than one engine does make your car go faster (but only to a certain point - once the maximum speed for that vehicle (car but also ship) has been reached, adding more engines doesn't make any difference). Every engine has its own fuel, so when one runs out of it, the others keep going usually resulting just in slowing down). The weight is not taken into account, but as with the ships, there's an imaginary box on the chassis which limits you so that you don't build something huge.

@Dirtyefenhairy You're right - we are aware of existing MP issues (as well as the fact that the game needs further optimizing). We're doing our best so that those issues are fixed before we officially enter Steam Early Access in November. Two updates are planned before that (0.5 and 0.6) - many existing issues should be fixed in those.

[WijkagentAdrie 384]

@Aleš Ulm On the screenshot, what seat does the yellow car actually use?

[John - NEXFER 111]

The picture you posted reminds me so much of this -

Good times ahead!

Edited August 4, 2017 by John - Ylanders

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

@WijkagentAdrie It's a driver seat - that's actually a new asset, 2x2 tiles object containing steering wheel and a seat.

@John - Ylanders  Players creating cars like those is definitely something we look forward to very much  

[WijkagentAdrie 384]

@Aleš Ulm I'm curious now, got a screenshot of that seat + steering wheel? And will there also be seats without steering wheel so I can take my friends on a ride?  

Adrie

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

That seat can be seen, for example, in the rightmost car in the picture. On its right side (I guess it's made in Britain  ) there's a variant of driver's seat with a steering wheel - and right next to it, there's a simple passenger seat so yes, you're more than welcome to take your friends for a ride! Before anyone asks, though - currently it's not possible for the driver nor passengers to shoot from the car.  That may be added in the future, but not in this update. 

[WijkagentAdrie 384]

8 minutes ago, Aleš Ulm said:

That seat can be seen, for example, in the rightmost car in the picture. On its right side (I guess it's made in Britain  ) there's a variant of driver's seat with a steering wheel - and right next to it, there's a simple passenger seat so yes, you're more than welcome to take your friends for a ride! Before anyone asks, though - currently it's not possible for the driver nor passengers to shoot from the car.  That may be added in the future, but not in this update. 

Heh, so what I believed to be 1 new "cockpit" with 2 seats is actually 2 pieces then? Does it come with the sidewalls? And are there both left hand/right hand driving and passenger versions? Are there also versions which are symmetrical so you can sit in a tandem configuration? Very interesting stuff, thanks for sharing/answering! I'm currently modeling something vaguely similar in sketchup  

edit: or wait, are the seats 2x2 and is the steering wheel 1x2?

Adrie

Edited August 4, 2017 by WijkagentAdrie

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

@WijkagentAdrie Sorry for the late reply! :) The steering wheel block comes always with both the seat and the steering wheel. There are several variants - some are made in the way that they complement other pre-made car-specific blocks because of the side/back walls they contain, but there will be also ones that consisting only of the seat with the steering wheel.

[silentghoust 15]

I'm glad you are taking your time with this, even in early alpha. Many sandbox games have fallen to the idea that early access means you can just leave problems behind. Which of course makes them bigger problems when you have a mountain of code on top of it. 

Any chance some networking and dedicated server tweaks will be coming out with this update as well?

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

@silentghoust Yes, some MP/dedicated fixes are coming with the upcoming update - we're quite excited about new "diagnostics" system that will send us any problems dedicated servers encounter right away so that should help us locate and fix even the remaining issues rather quickly.