Explore Map Size

[SkyggeEngel 11]

Currently playing cooperatively with my wife and the explore map size is very disappointing. We had 4 islands, a polar region and a starter island. We finished building a boat and exploring in the span of an hour.
I remember playing this in early access and having tons of awesome locations and islands to explore, is there any way to bring this back to give the game more playability?

[Blind_Hunter02 2]

Hello  I hate to complain. I love this game since day one I started. So much that I payed for the full game. But that was before I realized that map is way to small not enough island not enough resources. When ever I join a map or start my own map it is very limited resources for Iron or copper. On top of that cause there is only 6-8 islands it is hard to enjoy the game for being a open sandbox. I don't play the Mini games and dont like them they are very limited and really no one is ever on. The other problem i have with this game is lack of Animals, farming, NPC, and mutated creatures and lack of different kinds of mutated creatures. Now i say all this not to put this game down. I have played 255Hours since i stated playing this game. I have make so many Small towns and Boats. I love the fact of crafting and exploring. Here is some photo of my town. I really hope you guys plan on expanding more with the exploration of this game instead of just mini games. Cause i know for a fact that if you only go for mini games I will just start looking for another game. then spend my time playing this game. 

[Adam Snellgrove 1451]

2 hours ago, Blind_Hunter02 said:

Hello  I hate to complain. I love this game since day one I started. So much that I payed for the full game. But that was before I realized that map is way to small not enough island not enough resources. When ever I join a map or start my own map it is very limited resources for Iron or copper. On top of that cause there is only 6-8 islands it is hard to enjoy the game for being a open sandbox. I don't play the Mini games and dont like them they are very limited and really no one is ever on. The other problem i have with this game is lack of Animals, farming, NPC, and mutated creatures and lack of different kinds of mutated creatures. Now i say all this not to put this game down. I have played 255Hours since i stated playing this game. I have make so many Small towns and Boats. I love the fact of crafting and exploring. Here is some photo of my town. I really hope you guys plan on expanding more with the exploration of this game instead of just mini games. Cause i know for a fact that if you only go for mini games I will just start looking for another game. then spend my time playing this game. 

We have some neat features prepared for Exploration and also we will be tweaking different aspects of Exploration, that you might appreciate in the future. 

[Blind_Hunter02 2]

Adam Thank you for the quick reply 

[Skychrew 1]

Hello I am a early access user and yesterday finally returned to the game and saw that the map size was reduced dramatically can you please increase it at least 2 times bigger 

I am not asking to return the old maps for the survival mode was the most interesting for me and most of my friends who play this game and the amount of exploration can only take about 2 hours to complete unlike the old version map where it could have taken several days 

I used to stream this game and have a passion about Ylands in general and I am mostly speaking with most of the community that could agree that old maps were way much interesting much respect for all you do but just put this into consideration for future updates most people can agree upon this and repeated this topic multiple times

Thank you 

[bojo2736 1016]

I miss the navigation birds.

[Indomitus 388]

On 12/8/2019 at 1:24 PM, Indomitus said:

In addition, Editor scenarios don't have the map (M) functionality, which is a pretty significant shortcoming. 

Just to dig this one back up and keep people aware of it...

Are the Devs working on a solution to this serious missing feature?  There's no good reason for it to be absent from maps we generate in the Editor.  There might be reasons to limit it to PC-only games, but not for it to be completely missing.

[jchob 354]

13 hours ago, Indomitus said:

Just to dig this one back up and keep people aware of it...

Are the Devs working on a solution to this serious missing feature?  There's no good reason for it to be absent from maps we generate in the Editor.  There might be reasons to limit it to PC-only games, but not for it to be completely missing.

Yes, you are probably right. 

Let me tell a vision from a player that is not good at building (me): as we know, at least for the last 1 year and some months I have been playing, exploration maps died to soon. It started from 1 month until it dropped to 2 days. So, when the map size was reduced I thought it would improve the map longevity. But it didn't. There might be reasons for that and we know they are still working in the game... so here I'm waiting, but very disappointed. 

Let me tell you what was my passion in ylands... (and I'm literally crying as I write this.. Yeah I'm a sensitive person) 

What I always did on servers (mostly P1) was having a cube to repair what players would have broken and help new players.

What I enjoyed most was getting on my awfull ship and telling new people "oh wait, I'll be there in like 10 minutes (and I was only 2 ylands far from them). 

When I arrived they looked to me and was like - "oooh nice ship. Can you get me to other yland, I need find some stuff. Oh, and can you drop me back here in my home?"

And I quickly dropped some benches for they to enjoy the ride or they would ride my ship while I was sat enjoying the view and map ready or we would be lost) 

- hey jchobs I'm starving, got any food? I forgot to bring some

oh noo, stop the ship - I said. Let's get some fishing. It getting dark anyway and we don't want to wreck the ship into the land. I have the beers and the stove is right there to cook our fish"... Yes, back then we would starve to death if we haven't any food. 

- oh, where are we going? we are sailing for ages. 

Don't worry, we are not lost. 

- are you sure? We haven't seen any land. 

Yes, don't worry I have the map with me, let's keep sailing. 

Oh, look, we arrived, finally (ship with 4 engines, or a ship with 6 large masts). 

When in a new yland we would be lost from each other. I needed to pick my lantern and search for them in the scaring night while they were running away from hienas ?

Then, we would have to go back while singing and dancing while the ship was moving alone straight forward for ages and chests filled up with all we could. Sometimes, they would drop of off the ship and I quickly got my shotgun to kill the sharks while they were swimming for their life ?

"thanks jchobs. Let's split our findings" and I was like - don't worry with me. I just need my ship, my tools and some food, I'm just a nomad that keeps sailing to where someone needs a hand for help, and I keep visiting my friends in other ylands far away. 

And every next day,s I visited all them sailing for hours and I was thrilled because I enjoyed I could help them moving on.

Im not saying I don't like how the game is now, but it took the amusement and the joy I had. Some players like to build, etc, but I loved sailing from here to there sometimes just to go pick some stuff from other ylands for them instead of using the cube power. 

I'm not leaving ylands because I love it and it has a great potential and everyday I keep an eye on what's going on. Maybe that joy will never return, but that's life. Adapt to it even if we don't like. 

And that's it. Sorry 

Edited February 20, 2020 by jchob

[bojo2736 1016]

I miss sailing the open sea. Looking for the navigation bird. The peacefulness as the sun was setting. You would sometimes have to stop when it got dark so as to not lose the bird. Fishing by firelight, cooking up what you has gathered. Waiting for sunrise to continue on.  Comparing maps with everyone, have we found them all?

Sailing to your friends place on a neighboring island, bringing a few necessities for them. 

It was a different game. I miss it.

[jchob 354]

Yes, that's the exact same feeling I have. It was fun getting in a small boat without food, without fur clothes and no place to sleep. And it started : you are freezing, you are starving, it's a stormy night.... C'mon land where are you? .. Oh you died ?

[Oswulf Leowalding 4]

Would definitely second a larger-scale map for exploration. I hear they're working on some kind of extendable map solution. (Doesn't sound like procedural generation, but more like connecting several maps together.)

The navigation birds and open seas are sorely missed. Any idea why they were removed? 
I'm okay with short term solutions to technical problems as long as the long term goal is un-compromised.

[Adam Snellgrove 1451]

It was a technical problem with the engine we're using and its newest update. but we are working on, as you said, to expand the map by other maps or another way of 'expanding' the Exploration experience.

[Oswulf Leowalding 4]

1 hour ago, Adam Snellgrove said:

It was a technical problem with the engine we're using and its newest update. but we are working on, as you said, to expand the map by other maps or another way of 'expanding' the Exploration experience.

Great! That's all I can ask for  Good luck with it!

[Sealing 0]

On 2/25/2020 at 10:21 AM, Adam Snellgrove said:

It was a technical problem with the engine we're using and its newest update. but we are working on, as you said, to expand the map by other maps or another way of 'expanding' the Exploration experience.

Dear Adam, that is great, thank you for that. I cut it straight to the point, we urgently need a bigger map solution, before anything else.

We, the players, don’t want to move on to another game, once we found something, worth sinking our precious leisure time in. First of all, we believe in Ylands. We cherish all the effort put into this gem of a game, we are thankful for your work, Devs, taking us onto wonderful adventures under the blue sky the open seas, the smell of salt water in the nose, screeching seagulls above our heads, or running away from mutated wolves in dimly lit, mossy underground caves for the sake of saving our own hides with that bit of loot we managed to dig up before we were sniffed out. It’s awesome!

Why did I stop playing for a few months now? I tried hard to carry the flag for Ylands, but I’ll need to share, why, at its current stage, I think Exploration is just not…worth it. Sorry, it’s maybe rough to say, it is hard to admit it actually. It all boils down to one thing. Map size.

When I picked up the first flint on the sandy shores of my starter Island, that felt nice. The relaxing pace of the game hooked me from this first moment on. I like to remember chopping wood for my first hut, having trouble storing things, engaging a rabbit chase if I felt to and picking up literally all the colored shells on the island. That was when an awkward feeling arose, began clenching my throat a bit. I could circle my island in a matter of…a minute? That was weirdly unexpected. Anyways, the usual progression kicked in, I guess. Raft, Ship, Base, bigger base, visiting neighbor islands…oh was it wonderful. I sank a dozen of hours into the miniscule details of a massive ship with tons of storage space for awesome loot. Finally I was happy with it and set all sails to great adventures in vastness of the oceans.

What a bummer, I must say.

Only then I did my research on the internet, where I was lured into the promise of maybe 15 islands per map. I was disappointed, to be frank. But I was shocked, when I found out, my map hat 5 islands only. The frustration kicked on, because I build a mighty man-o-war…for the bathtub?

After a small grieving period, when my tears all dried up, I went from playing Ylands to reading about its progress. I loved the idea of introducing an Asian biome, excellent! Seeing new NPC’s ideas getting implemented, jaj!! Having new creatures, most marvelous!!! Rock monsters and Elves?! Blows my mind!!!!

It then again is only astounding cosmetics instead of putting all effort in the core problem of exploration. Tiny, painfully tiny maps.

Here comes my only pledge. My last metaphor for today, it is nice of you to tend to the scratches on the paintwork of the car, care for more comfy seats, adjust the headlights…but first off all and with combined effort, please focus on the engine and, for the pirates sake, put the wheels back on.

Faithfully still, Sealing

Edited February 28, 2020 by Sealing