Dev Diary #95

[Adam Snellgrove 1451]

Hey there Ylanders!

We had a very busy few weeks with update 0.14 but now it’s out and we’re happy, that you’re enjoying the new Editor improvements, Playlands and the new Animals. But you have also been asking about Explore and what the future holds for Ylands. And that is going to be the topic of today’s Dev Diary.

In the past few updates, we have heavily focused on the Editor. This is because we wanted to create a tool, that will give Creators nearly unlimited options to build games, maps and worlds. We want Ylands to be a creative space for as many people as possible, where every day you’ll be able to find something new and original. In this regard, we feel Ylands has great potential. But now after we have added most of the features into the Editor we wanted, we’re going to focus on another aspect of Ylands, that is very dear to us: Explore. It is the game, that has made Ylands in the first place and the entry point for most players. That is why we want to make it even better and more fun to play.

Even the Major General is ready for a bit of Exploring

Explore is an integral part of Ylands and one we have always planned to support. In fact, every change and feature we made or added has always been tested first in Explore. We have already started working on several improvements. In the future, we’re planning on making the Explore map slightly smaller with a smaller number of Ylands, but while now the Ylands are a bit generic, we want to make every Yland you find unique and worth exploring. We want to give players the motivation to visit them and to travel more.

We are also working on ways to prolong the gameplay of an Explore server. Give players more things to do and more challenges to overcome. Part of this are the new animals. With their new AI, they are more challenging to encounter and in the future, their difficulty will be scalable. While at the beginning you might be fending off a few angry Honey Badgers (because they are cuddly and harmless, right? At least the Major General told me so and is getting me one for Christmas apparently...), toward the end you might be fighting off an angry pack of Tigers. Also with the uniqueness of the Ylands, there will be more secrets to uncover.

As for changes in gameplay, we want to make a lot of features more user-friendly and intuitive. Such as crafting and using the workshop will get an overhaul, so even new players can quickly get a feel for the game and find out, what they’re supposed to be doing. Another feature, that will get remade is the durability system. Right now we feel it isn’t very well implemented and because players can progress through the tech tree rather fast, there isn’t really a need to fix old items. So in the next update, we’ll remove durability from items, so we can figure out a new way of dealing with this aspect of the game. This will be the last feature to get axed before 1.0, everything else is a fixed part of Ylands moving forward. And to outweigh the loss of durability, we'll be adding one feature back in ? But in other news, we’re also coming up with ways to make repairing ships and cars possible, so that is another feature to look forward to before the release of 1.0 ☺️

And that’s it for now. But if you have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to ask us and we’ll be more than happy to answer you (or I’ll find the answer here somewhere, someone always knows ?)

So have fun and stay classy Ylanders!

P.S. Tune in next week, when we’ll be talking about the future of water and other updates from the world of Ylands.

[Marci Magyar 160]

[RedEagle_P1. 905]

Good to hear explore will get some love

 

[bojo2736 1016]

I'm more interested in durability of maps.  My three day old map had more than 9 restarts yesterday to keep it playable. 

[zarwil 392]

1 hour ago, Adam Snellgrove said:

In the future, we’re planning on making the Explore map slightly smaller with a smaller number of Ylands, but while now the Ylands are a bit generic, we want to make every Yland you find unique and worth exploring.

Man this is sad to hear... 

I have gotten at least 6 people to buy this game and they all said the same thing; the maps have to be bigger. While you might not need an infiniately large map like Minecraft, the current map is still far too small. The islands are relatively tiny and there are at most 12 (about to be fewer...) in any given map? This is very, very disappointing news imo.

The fun part of Explore is Exploring... How can you be excited about exploring when you know there is nothing more to find after you've discovered a few islands? I remember playing Minecraft for countless hours back in Beta when there was so much stuff to find, purely driven by the sense of exploration. Even if the actual generated content wasn't super crazy, just trying to find the perfect spot to build a new base was enough to get you going for hours on end. When you find a new island in this game, it takes what, 30 minutes to map out the whole thing? I was really holding out on explore becoming bigger in the future but it seems you've hit a wall with what the game can handle

[RedEagle_P1. 905]

38 minutes ago, zarwil said:

Man this is sad to hear... 

I have gotten at least 6 people to buy this game and they all said the same thing; the maps have to be bigger. While you might not need an infiniately large map like Minecraft, the current map is still far too small. The islands are relatively tiny and there are at most 12 (about to be fewer...) in any given map? This is very, very disappointing news imo.

The fun part of Explore is Exploring... How can you be excited about exploring when you know there is nothing more to find after you've discovered a few islands? I remember playing Minecraft for countless hours back in Beta when there was so much stuff to find, purely driven by the sense of exploration. Even if the actual generated content wasn't super crazy, just trying to find the perfect spot to build a new base was enough to get you going for hours on end. When you find a new island in this game, it takes what, 30 minutes to map out the whole thing? I was really holding out on explore becoming bigger in the future but it seems you've hit a wall with what the game can handle

I was hoping for the same. Us long-time players find all the islands in a day. 

[Indomitus 388]

If the islands are going to be more diverse and interesting, that might compensate for it a little.  A current map might have 12 islands, but they're basically identical except for the shape.  If you've seen one Taiga, you've seen them all.

Still, though, it is disappointing to hear.

[RedEagle_P1. 905]

54 minutes ago, Indomitus said:

If the islands are going to be more diverse and interesting, that might compensate for it a little.  A current map might have 12 islands, but they're basically identical except for the shape.  If you've seen one Taiga, you've seen them all.

Still, though, it is disappointing to hear.

I heard something about multiple worlds connected. Is that still a thing @Adam Snellgrove @Aleš Ulm? 

[Adam Snellgrove 1451]

Well that's precisely the idea. There will only be let's say 8 Ylands, but they will be worth exploring properly, not kust take on look and say "ah, Taiga. On we go". There will be secrets, caves, unique things to find and exploit. You will not want to leave in an hour or two. Thus we think that while the number of Ylands might get smaller, the things to explore will multiply by...a lot. And the size of the islands will also maybe vary more (though that I have to make sure on Monday ?). 

[Brbrmensch 32]

On 9/13/2019 at 5:32 PM, Adam Snellgrove said:

will give Creators nearly unlimited options to build games, maps and worlds

water physics to play with is considered very entertaining for many people, just saying

even the one that was previously in game was fun

Edited September 15, 2019 by Brbrmensch

[Adam Snellgrove 1451]

On 9/13/2019 at 7:02 PM, RedEagle_P1. said:

I heard something about multiple worlds connected. Is that still a thing

Yep, still a thing and I'll talk about it in greater detail in the upcoming Dev Diary ?

[Brbrmensch 32]

guys, i'm stumbled upon a question: so people say that mobile ylands won't have explore mode, but uhm, do we have explore mode on pc? i don't have one, only mode with one island (and no water physics), did i miss something or we can't even use new raft now? i saw patch before that removed birds, is explore as it used to be removed now?

[Indomitus 388]

1 hour ago, Brbrmensch said:

guys, i'm stumbled upon a question: so people say that mobile ylands won't have explore mode, but uhm, do we have explore mode on pc? i don't have one, only mode with one island (and no water physics), did i miss something or we can't even use new raft now? i saw patch before that removed birds, is explore as it used to be removed now?

Explore is still there and just fine for the PC.  It's not going anywhere, even though it sounds like it's getting an overhaul.

On the main screen, look for this button on the left side.

[bojo2736 1016]

Birds are still gone. Sharks are turned off. But explore still is available. Maybe reload your game?

[Indomitus 388]

2 minutes ago, bojo2736 said:

Birds are still gone. Sharks are turned off. But explore still is available. Maybe reload your game?

Whose birds are gone?  Mine are just fine.  Local SP (literally just checked) and just the other day on P1's NA server, I used them to find islands.

[bojo2736 1016]

Not those birds. The navigation birds are fine.  But would it kill them to glow faintly? For storm, fog and night navigation.

The ground birds, the seagulls that used to end up in piles in the water. 

[Brbrmensch 32]

On 9/17/2019 at 3:27 AM, Indomitus said:

(literally just checked)

 

On 9/17/2019 at 5:02 AM, bojo2736 said:

The navigation birds are fine.

just created a fresh new "explore" and no birds around, what could i do wrong?

[Adam Snellgrove 1451]

No birds? Or just seagulls and parrots? Birds that tell you where other Islands are should still be in the game ?

[Brbrmensch 32]

12 minutes ago, Adam Snellgrove said:

No birds? Or just seagulls and parrots? Birds that tell you where other Islands are should still be in the game ?

no seagulls, no parrots, nothing flying around high or low

[Adam Snellgrove 1451]

Well that is weird. I'll ask about it tomorrow in the office.

[bojo2736 1016]

Sometimes the navigation birds on a new map dont actually show up till you try to sail. And they can be hard to find. I used to go to the high ground in the center of the island to try to spot them. I don't know if they still spawn from the island center. But it's usually easier to spot the outbound bird by looking inland.

[Brbrmensch 32]

On 9/18/2019 at 11:10 PM, bojo2736 said:

Sometimes the navigation birds on a new map dont actually show up till you try to sail. And they can be hard to find. I used to go to the high ground in the center of the island to try to spot them. I don't know if they still spawn from the island center. But it's usually easier to spot the outbound bird by looking inland.

well i just tried and here's what i found: i hear different birds really close to me (as i walk around them it seems), but i don't see any of them, i tried to make a raft and use it, restarting my game and checking integrity, as well as using different detail setting, still only sounds

Edited September 21, 2019 by Brbrmensch

[bojo2736 1016]

The ground birds are disabled. The navigation birds are very high in the sky. Are your settings on low?