Dev Diary #35

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

Hey there, fellow ylanders!

I have some good news and some (well, actually one) bad news - so let‘s start with the bad one. Internally we planned to release the update 0.9 early this month, but it has become obvious that it will happen sometime in the second half of May instead. There are several reasons for that - the most important being, as usual, that some feature requires more testing - in this case, blueprints. Also, what started as gradual GUI tweaking ended up as a complete GUI / main menu / in-game menu overhaul, which is also taking more time than expected.

So let‘s move to the good news. To make up for the delay, we‘re adding one of the first options players will be able to set when starting a new game. In 0.9 you can set if in your game players can hurt each other. This means damage done by melee and ranged weapons, but even catapults and such machines. There is, unfortunately, one area where deciding whether what players do should hurt others is not always trivial - explosions. What we're very likely to do is make the option allowing you to set if players get hurt by explosions a separate one, and leave it up to you to decide what works the best for your game. We hope that this (along with many other game customization options that will come in the future) will improve your Ylands experience, since many of you have been asking for this for a long time.

Also, we‘re all aware that there are still the two elephants in the room, so let‘s talk about them. MP issues and optimizations. Another good news I have is that recently we have been able to acquire several new senior programmers, and more will be joining us in the next two months. So far, every single new programmer has made quite a difference, so we‘re very excited about this. And now, after we announced our partnership with Tencent, things seem to have accelerated even more.

 

Blueprints will be great... but they need a bit more time  

 

Because we‘re quite busy with testing the upcoming update 0.9, let me mention just one last thing. For some time, we have been working on the new visual scripting that is planned to be introduced in 0.10. We will start discussing with you some of it as soon as 0.9 is released, but at this point I have to say that I can't remember the last time I got so excited about some new Ylands feature. Not only is the new scripting truly fun, but along with that, we will be giving players much more control over various aspects of the game world (remember how some time ago - not that long ago, really -  we talked about being able to chose if players can hurt each other? Well, things like that you will be able to affect during the game with your scripts...)

So that‘s it for today. In the next Dev Diary, we will be discussing dedicated servers - we are aware that we promised you we‘d do that quite a long a time ago. Until then you have a great time, ylanders, and stay classy!

[Eujen 29]

Thank you for an amazing diary
As always, awesome job guys!
Keep up the good work, looking forward towards the things to come!

[Expancion 1]

Awesome job.
Love the game.
Hope you will add something like trains and stuff to have it quite great. Also, some nice tracks for cars would be nice. 
Anyway, love the game even more.

Edited May 4, 2018 by Expancion

[Energritz_ 107]

This dev dairy is news to my ears...

Would like to say that hiring new developers is nice and all but in reality it's more time the new developers have to catch up the existing ones... to be on a single track mind as a whole.

I understand adding content to game to keep interest is the main point here, but i think the majority of the existing user base just wants fixes and a working product at this point.

I'm not ranting i just don't understand why fixing issues isn't the priority, once those are pretty much fixed then additional features should come in.

Also will the game go into any kind of beta in the future, since this is still technically "alpha" quality in it's current state, instead of Alpha > Release, to me i think beta's are rather important.

 

Another thing as a whole, with 0.9 rolling around with the "cloud" feature, my concerns are, will anyone bother with Dedicated servers anymore? in their current state no, if they worked then probably.

I am really on the fence about this update and how it will turn out... I really enjoy MP because i like to meet new people, i feel like 0.9 will make it like a closed group, where only friends and big communities will thrive,

because it will be a better product than servers and everyone that's trying to get one running (no joke), will probably just use this "cloud" service and it will become the replacement for servers.

well at least until DS is fixed to point it has interest without as many issues and with features... which i will ask the question, why should i bother to host a server then?

 

Anyway, looking forward to the Dedicated discussion coming up, the UI change, and potential scripting enticed my interest.

Maybe  i can finally make configuration script for base settings on the server, such as time length, pvpve option, rates, etc etc.

 

Edited May 4, 2018 by Energritz_

[RedEagle_P1. 905]

Glad the team is growing! Keep up the good work. 

[bojo2736 1016]

So will there be dedicated servers that are specifically PvE? This will be a welcome addition.

[WijkagentAdrie 384]

The new scripting sounds very good, would be awesome if we could set pvp/nopvp zones. It's definitely a big step in the direction of functioning community servers.

Maybe another nice feature would be no build zones?

I've also got a few other ideas:

Can we have an option to have barrier maintenance, which would require players to pay a maintenance fee. If unpaid for X time (server selectable) the barrier will despawn and all the blocks will be pickable. This will keep space available on servers and help remove inactive unfinished builds.

Could we also have resource rate settings? Both for speed, amount of resources gained and impact on the voxels for ores in the ground (lower voxel changes mean more available resources of course).

 

Adrie

[kimbuck 746]

@WijkagentAdrie..... perhaps modify the  barrier so instead of "fixing"  .. you need a  iron ingot to craft a key to switch it on ...and  am meter counts  down the   actual ( not iw) days. Every RL week you  get an alert  and the  barrier light  turned  orange ...as a warning ...and you have  2 days to use that  key to re set the  times, and then it  goes back to glowing   blue. if the barrier is  not attended to  after the two days  it goes red ..and  2 days later  despawn  with the  build.

Another thing  would be able to name your ship  and link that name to your avatar to stop thieves  and  link the ships  name to  your base...     so that if the base despawns, with  inactivity,  so does the ship. Same with rafts  so  they don't  float around after being  discarded

also   how about    introducing  new ores /minerals ... ie   chalk ..  for   making white  bricks,  pigments ...and potion crafting?  ....... and perhaps   silver? ...  for  crafting silverware, plates decorations , or even personalized name plates  ..( to attach to ships..or  house doors) ??

[WijkagentAdrie 384]

18 hours ago, kimbuck said:

@WijkagentAdrie..... perhaps modify the  barrier so instead of "fixing"  .. you need a  iron ingot to craft a key to switch it on ...and  am meter counts  down the   actual ( not iw) days. Every RL week you  get an alert  and the  barrier light  turned  orange ...as a warning ...and you have  2 days to use that  key to re set the  times, and then it  goes back to glowing   blue. if the barrier is  not attended to  after the two days  it goes red ..and  2 days later  despawn  with the  build.

Another thing  would be able to name your ship  and link that name to your avatar to stop thieves  and  link the ships  name to  your base...     so that if the base despawns, with  inactivity,  so does the ship. Same with rafts  so  they don't  float around after being  discarded

also   how about    introducing  new ores /minerals ... ie   chalk ..  for   making white  bricks,  pigments ...and potion crafting?  ....... and perhaps   silver? ...  for  crafting silverware, plates decorations , or even personalized name plates  ..( to attach to ships..or  house doors) ??

I really like your key idea, it's far easier than paying certain items and still helps keep players active. Maybe have this system for barrier #1, and let people pay for any additional barriers so you can't have too much of them. To conserve resources it would be nice if the house/ship could be breakable when the time runs out, so people can loot the house or use the whole ship, without the world losing tons of bricks and other finite materials

[kimbuck 746]

BI already have  our   email address when we  registered etc..perhaps it  could be that when your  account is  inactive a  auto generated warning  be  sent to your  email address...no response after  3 days and   barrier  switches off and  despawns.

Perhaps when a place is  abandoned as such,  a  sign  could appear outside   informing looters  its  abandoned.

[bojo2736 1016]

I wish barriers where moveable.  We get given a broken one, then have to craft to repair.  How about another crafting effort that would make it moveable. Even if it was pretty expensive/ hard to do.  

[V-Alfred 367]

On 04/05/2018 at 9:22 PM, Aleš Ulm said:

For some time, we have been working on the new visual scripting that is planned to be introduced in 0.10. We will start discussing with you some of it as soon as 0.9 is released, but at this point I have to say that I can't remember the last time I got so excited about some new Ylands feature. Not only is the new scripting truly fun, but along with that, we will be giving players much more control over various aspects of the game world (remember how some time ago - not that long ago, really -  we talked about being able to chose if players can hurt each other? Well, things like that you will be able to affect during the game with your scripts...)

OMG, finally! I can't wait for 0.10 update! Even though 0.9 not released yet..  Keep up the awesome work devs! Please don't forget about "permission to place/build things" script.. 

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

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.

[kaorukensi 1]

will the server be wipe when update to 0.9?

[Baz Foobar 102]

33 minutes ago, kaorukensi said:

will the server be wipe when update to 0.9?

Public servers hosted by Bohemia wipe with every update.

Edited May 9, 2018 by Baz Foobar

[kimbuck 746]

So this means  ...all our  work,  and the help  outposts will become  digital history after  the   next update  end  may.

Not very  encouraging to put a lot of effort into creating something  and then its  gone ---,  but then  a new game/start  overcomes the lag and  instability of  a  server after a week...

Edited May 9, 2018 by kimbuck

[bojo2736 1016]

Starting over is a main feature of the game. But when we have blueprints, maybe that will expidite things. 

Nah, I like that they are all different. 

I just don't know how much effort I want to put into building my own home.