Dev Diary #42

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

Hey there, fellow Ylanders!

Today I’d like to talk about two things that people asked us, either publicly or through private messages.

You asked us how Ylands getting published in China will affect the Steam version. We’ve already talked about that a bit when the deal was announced, but some probably missed that, and also, this is a place where we can discuss it in more detail.

You asked about the monetization scheme, and well, it’s really quite simple. The Chinese version will have a different monetization scheme, one which will reflect the specifics of their market. Nothing is changing about how the Steam version is monetized, we plan to keep things as they are right now. So, there you have it

The second topic of today’s Dev Diary is the answer to a question that usually goes like “How is a new feature implemented” or “Can you describe how things work in your office”. Eventually we want to create a video that will show you, but today I’ll just do a quick summary of what happens before you get your hands on a new feature (like the upcoming update's pets).

Obviously, at first there’s a discussion about what features would fit in our game, based on an internal list we have and on your feedback and ideas that our Community Manager @Ane gathers for the team. Once we agree on something, a designer (or designers if it’s a bigger task) is chosen to be responsible for this feature. They come up with an initial design - they go over various possible solutions, look at how other games do it, and eventually create a design document. At that point, we (all the designers and me) sit down and discuss the particular aspects of it while trying to find weak spots and improve them. If the design is found solid enough, the rest of the feature “task team” gets to work on that. There is a programmer (or more) who implements the designed feature, artists, animators, and audio designer who contribute with the assets.

 

Having a good team is everything...especially if part of it are witches... (Sun castle courtesy of @Christalle)
 

Up until now we were interested in getting all the “core” features into the game as fast as possible to make sure we quickly to the point we could see the big picture worked, and left polishing the game for later.
We reached that stage, and so now we’re also doing a really thorough final feature review. Every feature that is considered “finished” by the task team and the designer in charge, undergoes a review made by people who are not directly invested in it (Project Lead, Producer, Creative Director and possibly other Leads - artist, programmer etc.). We look at how it plays and how it feels, and point out all shortcomings, everything that feels not polished enough. If the result wouldn’t work at all (gameplay-wise) it would be returned for redesign and complete rework, but a much likelier result is that we return it with a suggested list of improvements. After those are taken care of ,our QA checks it for technical issues and those they find get fixed the feature is ready to be released.

To some degree we have obviously done this in the past as well - that is, for example, the reason why we keep delaying the new combat over and over again. Now, however, we set the bar much higher, and we will try to make sure features that get released are only the ones that really deserve to be released.

That’s it for this week. Thanks again and, until we talk again, have a great time and stay classy!

[RedEagle_P1. 905]

Good work on getting featured @Christalle

Edited July 27, 2018 by RedEagle_P1.

[StoutCrusher 37]

Just curious. My Server went down for a day, though nothing was changed on my end. Logic Servers said that it was no longer registering to the host on Ylands, as the name of my server was 6 characters too long. But I see no mention anywhere of 30 characters being mentioned. Much less, I've had it at 40 characters on your last update and had no problem. So, I'm wondering if they are blowing smoke.

Also, we have had a problem occur on my server that I have never seen before. Any reason that you can determine as to why this happened? He is next to the Ship, but this is all he could see, so shouldn't be a render problem.

Posted by Indian Chief:

Posted yesterday at 03:53 PM

Hi Dev's just a quick question and 1 bug report. 

My ship hull has disappeared twice and makes me relog.

And, have the desk wooden blocks ( I can't remember the updated name you gave them) been removed or renamed again? Wanted to use them.

 

Cheers

 

[Ane 1213]

11 hours ago, StoutCrusher said:

Just curious. My Server went down for a day, though nothing was changed on my end. Logic Servers said that it was no longer registering to the host on Ylands, as the name of my server was 6 characters too long. But I see no mention anywhere of 30 characters being mentioned. Much less, I've had it at 40 characters on your last update and had no problem. So, I'm wondering if they are blowing smoke.

It seems there are some restrictions active,  but there is no UI that would let you correct the name. We will change these restrictions before the new UI arrives in 0.10.

Thanks for pointing it out!