Consider turning this ship around

[RedEagle_P1. 905]

When Ylands released there was a palpable sense of hope and optimism about what this amazing game could become. However, new features kept getting added without the original dream being made a reality, 

I know that the response generally speaking on this forum to the game is positive but I feel as though a bubble has been created. 

Player sentiment is overwhelmingly changing for the negative with each update that leads away from the the original dream. I think the real potential exists for a shipwreck unless a focus is decided within the Ylands team to make the basics work before moving on. 

Ylands has the most-amazing, least-toxic community of any game I have ever played. The people are awesome but such people don't like to complain and they are. 

Take a look: 

41-0. 

I sometimes wonder if you guys realized how excited we were about the vision originally pitched to us. 

People fundamentally love the idea of Ylands, the adventure of exploring an open ocean with unique Islands together with their friends. We understood that making games as a process and it takes time and we were willing to bear with the many issues but we found that much of the energy and focus was spent on developing the editor rather than accomplishing the original goal. 

I love this game so much and I really want to see it succeed but I think looking at how people are responding to things currently it would be good to take a step back and see how things could be improved. 

Here are some possible ideas and suggestions: 

1) Choose a focus and direction & do a great job of that while playing down the rest. If you try to please everyone you will probably raise the expectations of many people and disappoint everyone. "A man of too many friends comes to ruin." Proverbs 18:24 -- Why does he come to ruin? Because he raises the hopes of many friends and can never satisfy those hopes. 

Taking decisive action and not trying to please everyone I think will give you crowd that will support you. 

2) Better marketing: 

The marketing for this game in my mind reflects the lack of focus: 

The first thing in the new marketing video is combat. Most people in Ylands hate combat, specifically the flood of kids coming in now hitting everything they can hit in the servers. 

This here is what people LOVE about this game, however, it cannot be done at all on mobile so why advertise it? 

The mobile page is utterly confusing, what is this game really about? Is it a social simulator? Is it a mini-game creator? Is it a mini-game player? 

Let's look at the first slides from the mobile page: 

This incredible opportunity to show off the game as wasted by so many scenes of things you cannot do on mobile. 

If this is a game creation platform then you should be featuring the best creations from your creators on the marketing home page and let people know "this was made in YLANDS."

If this is a social simulator, double down on that. 

If this is that game we all fell in love with, make this something all of us can play, even on mobile: 

This original vision had so much charm and brought so many great people to this cause. It feels like you've moved on from that without making it clear to what people are moving on to. 

My personal opinion is that if you do a great job of creating an amazing exploration game you will develop a passion in the players that will go far beyond that exploration and will encourage them to make other games also but I think that in doing the editor before finishing the explore, you may be putting the cart before the horse. 

 

3) Pop the bubble: 

When I first started doing YouTube videos I got so much ridiculous criticism and it really hurt at times but I noticed that even the toxic comments required people to go the extra mile you find what was wrong and to correct it and they helped me improve so much. Now I LOVE and ASK for critical feedback. 

Here in the Ylands forum you live in a bubble. Many of the people here are not willing to rock the boat, it feels too close and too personal. However, I talk with the same people off the forum and they reveal how heart broken they are. 

Start welcoming critical feedback, don't take it personally but embrace it. 

 

4) Celebrate those who are still here: 

The people who don't care about this project, and about you guys, have already left quietly. Those who do create, submit bugs etc. are either new or they really love you guys and want to see this project succeed. It's pretty impractical to cater to these people forever but while you have them you desperately need more bug reports, people trying things. 1.4 had so many issues imo because no one bothers to go into the experimental branch and test. When I ask people why they are not submitting bug reports with logs it's because they don't see the changes they are hoping for. 

I myself as a community creator here I never felt celebrated, I felt like every day I am trying to hold eggs rolling out of a basket hoping the basket will be fixed but rather seeing new holes added. I expressed this over and over and asked for help but none came (this is before Adam was appointed). 

Celebrate your creators, bug fixers, community managers etc. They are on your team. 

 

Edited September 11, 2020 by RedEagle_P1.

[RedEagle_P1. 905]

5) Actions speak louder than words: 

I think we all noticed the issues Hello Games (No Mans Sky) faced and how through hard work and being quite they fixed a ton. I think it's really important to establish credibility by doing things rather than promising them. 
 

If you want to make explore great, focus on that. I think much of the community will still come back and get hyped about this game if you do. 

 

Edited September 11, 2020 by RedEagle_P1.

[belrathius 27]

RedEagle, your original post was well said, and thank you.  It gets frustrating every time I see something that worked gets broken or a new feature implemented that doesn't do what was needed or contribute to the game.

Ylands team, I'll be honest, I haven't played in quite a while because Explore just seems like the same old grind, nothing that enticing.  Would I come back if it was improved?  You bet.  Would I spend real money?  If and only if you provide value for my payments.  No offense to anyone who does, but why would I ever spend money on renting a server when the player limit is so low and there is no real longevity?  Any community has to be built outside of the game because the server can't support a community on its own.  Longevity is important even at a personal level.  I despise starting over, losing all of my hard work and time invested, which drives me (and likely others) away from community-based games.  If you want people to stay, then give them continuity.  If a server goes down and can't be turned back on, it can only reset, then that becomes a compelling point to move on to something else, which I have done.  I come to the forums only out of hope and seemingly unfounded optimism.  Please, listen to what is being said here by RedEagle and restore our faith in the game.

[NoNoNumGum 55]

If only they would just listen to their community. We bought the game for exploration. Not for some Chinese ripoff of Roblox.  There are cool puzzles and dungeons in the trailer. But in the real game?? No where to be found. They keep making excuses that the next update will be better, and they keep hyping their updates up just to release a update that focuses on creator features and map making. I miss old ylands soooo much.

[RedEagle_P1. 905]

@Miguel Preguisa @jchob  @kimbuck  Love to hear what you think. 

[Brbrmensch 32]

hey redeagle, i'm happy that you spoke up about how much devs screwed up with the game. (and by devs i mean leading team, cuz although the game itself was janky at all times, it's the direction the game was led to failed the most)

however i do think that it's severely late. players may come to game at any time, but they won't stay and leave because this is a unity mobile game

[bojo2736 1016]

Just trying to host is problematic.  I have several posts out there explaining why.   It all goes unacknowledged much less fixed. And now today, after the drop of 1.4 Creator Club, I can't log in to the workshop. I can't buy the creator club membership. I can't host on Nitrado.  And to host on the BI servers is just too hard.  I have suggested fixes.  They are ignored.

We had a game about exploring a world.  But the devs think adding stickers is what we want.  I want the navigation birds back. I want to NOT see the next island over.  I want ships to be fundamental to the game.  Now, you never ever need to build one. 

It is so far from what I want, I only check in because I have a lot of hours and money invested.  I can't even imaging being able to spend hours in the new game. @Aleš Ulm take a fresh look at the early days.  Look at the Kirales videos. That's the game I fell in love with.  Now add stability.

[JohnMFSteel 93]

I'm pretty new to the game and I can honestly say I like the current direction I see. They just need to expand on it further as they have already stated and shown they are doing. it would be cool if there were more sets of archipelagos across great distances of ocean though.

I get how them building out the editor and working on exploration at the same time might seem like one thing would detract from the other but they are already making the assets for themselves to make the maps in the first place there is no reason not to add to the in-game editor as they go even before there's a finished and polished game map for them to show us

On combat, I have to say that combat is a very important aspect of the game to me, and while I really like the current combat style. fighting co-op is kinda clunky and you tend to end up hitting friendlies(nothing worse than hitting a new friend? (That said nothing better than demolishing an enemy player with any friend?)). The AI is also in need of a big tune-up I have an S20 to test my mobile games on and let me tell you it can handle fast-paced combat smoothly so bring on the intelligent AI

as far as not reporting bugs during the experimental branch the only reason I didn't is that I asked where to put them and got no answer I did begin compiling a list though. When I received no answer I reverted to standard and ditched my list

not to say I have no complaints though. 

Some of these editor bugs are ridiculous and hot-fixes don't seem to be a thing here (which I might understand. Putting a band-aid can create a bigger issue than just stitching the wound, but it's still very frustrating putting up with bugs)

the current ore system is a bit too simple it might be better if ore veins dynamically generated under the world surface at various depths corresponding to density things like clay can obviously remain on the surface. it just makes 0 sense to dig continuously into a solid lump most materials also the game has amazing capabilities for building underground but there is nothing to lead the player down

the animals bi-products need to be given significantly more consideration animal tendons could be a thing for rope, intestines for tubed meat foods, various bone parts for various things sadly when I think of bone I think fertilizer but that is quite wrong bone is basically null space when it comes to farming uses same as putting rocks in a pot to help drainage. maybe it's lame but I feel like even if you are just going to simulate the killing of an animal it is important to then also simulate that animals are so much more than just meat and leather

I feel like this is probably already on this list but durability/fuel consumption the whole super helicopter backpack thing ruins the game when you get it because you no longer need your boat or even legs it needs to be using fuel like no tomorrow I mean think about what it is. switching to a better tool just cause it looks nicer feels bad I need my tools to break so I have to replace them. I strongly recommend backtracking on all the tools and taking a peek at tinkers' construct and seeing if something like that might be possible because that is a way better tool system and makes a lot of sense for this game to be honest

I need lava as soon as possible making infinite stone appear with no cause feels bad.

Edited September 13, 2020 by JohnMFSteel

[kimbuck 746]

For the last few months i have  been on Red's P1 servers...because his modded games are close to what we expected  Ylands to become.

A lot of hard work  has been put in by him and  soem dedicated  workers  testing and adding improvements that  the game really needs.

On these servers  we have some form of control over visiting  "kidiots" whose only  knowledge of  crafting is "punch anything".... and the simple  entry procedure was an excellent  simple intelligence test which  saw 90% fail to understand ... ?

On red's servers there's portability between them, and you did not lose your progress after  wipes were needed.... and there were mods who  tried to ensure  ores etc  were replenished and  lag producing abandoned structures  could be cleaned  up.  

It was kind of successful ... servers went for over a month before needing a wipe  ..even though  all the hard work  was often spoiled by   un-announced "server maintenance" shutdowns every  90 or so minutes   that screwed up ones  inventory on re-log ..provided you could avid  "back end  errors"  and  other "unexplained" errors"

We learned to live  with  these mysterious  BI interruptions ...and  used the  enforced  breaks  for  "comfort  stops"?  or to replenish coffee cup contents while we watched the   hamster wheel  slowly    indicate   that we were crawling back into the game..

Servers  appeared to  be "full" - but  discussions in Discord with players in game  indicated only  one or  two players  were on line... and even if the server was vacant  you got into a  "join queue" behind non existent players..!

But  we persisted...  it was "no DLC" so anyone could  join in...  and often  our amusement was watching new arrivals and predicting  with 100% accuracy  which  ship they would  try to steal,  or  animal  to kill,  or  building to try to break into.

There was always the promise  of  " bigger..better...etc   " next update,  so we held our  breath, going blue in the face in anticipation.

And   it arrived ----- and as usual  it  broke  a lot  and undid  all Red's hard  work. 

1.4 added lots of  new things  and   didn't  fix  lots of  old things ..and added " little  kid pleasing" improvements aimed to please  everyone who likes  anime,  kung fu  jumps and such ... ...and  ignored the regular players  who were repeating  over and over  what was  really needed to be fixed  and what the  real players  wanted.... 

1.4 did not  live up to the  hype.

 lets be frank and honest here...  after the  update, Chat was full of  disappointed players  saying  "  stuff this !!!!!!!! .. lets  go elsewhere "

..and again  more  friends   simply walked away from Ylands. 

Old players   who returned  with excitement of the "new updates"   soon did a  U-turn.

 

A couple of us then decided to  go to a new private server of red's  which required  the DLC.

This had the  effect of  weeding out the  "kidiots" with  throwaway  names  full of   random numbers  letters  or  rude words. We had a short   enjoyable  time collaborating  and being creative.

......... But , it was  stock standard  Ylands  explore..and  rapidly became B-o-r-i-n-g!   -    The same   islands in sight of each other,  with resources in the same  area  (yawn) ...been there done that ... nothing to explore, really  ..we knew from previous games where everything was.☹️

Will the  1.5 fixes  heralded  bring people  back?

Well if it  doesn't  show that  BI/Yalnds has listened to the pleading of its   dwindling  base of  supporters  " to  bring  back what the players  have been asking for,"   

                                                                                                    ...then  there's always other games that work!

 

 

 

 

[Miguel Preguisa 443]

Quote

I do not know what The Spirit of Ylands is. Quo Vadis, Ylands? I have a hard time getting to know Ylands. Which is difficult to say considering I've been with Ylands more than four and a half years. At the start, I felt the potential. All was new and buggy, sometimes unbalanced (waiting an hour for nine ingots, if I remember correctly?). As I was slowly getting to know the game, I fell in love. Classy, calm, serene, and charismatic. Top hats, monocles, mustaches and sunsets in the color of industrialization. The game was about being washed ashore on a deserted island and slowly creating your own story (there was even an idea of one survivor dying and another character washing ashore after him to unravel its own story instead of respawning). Ylandium served as a mystical and powerful new element with its distinctive glowing green. The game seemed to be themed around magic meets ylandium steampunk. All of that is lost. Allow me not to phrase it as an opinion. I think the game slowly lost its scope by adding more and more different and most importantly not anyhow framed features. I do not understand the ylands world.

 

Who are we? Why is there a center island surrounded by others? Why are there many different NPCs all eager to trade with us or annihilate us? Why am I here? What am I supposed to do here? Am I a lone survivor or is it just normal that I'm here? Is this fantasy with all the different races? Did this world come through all the historical epochs as ours did? How are we supposed to create our own story in a world that doesn't seem to have its?

 

And why are those questions even important? I'm not immersed and I probably won't be. Most things in-game don't feel like a part of the world. I do not know where is ylands heading. Should I expect a farming update? Or space update? Or smartphone update? I'm lost. The atmosphere of the Ylands is lost for me.

This is a quotation from one of my older posts that sums my feelings about the game. 

Other than that, I can only say -

I'm sad and disappointed of Ylands. Mainly because I still love the game, otherwise I would care no more. 

Edited September 13, 2020 by Miguel Preguisa

[bojo2736 1016]

@Miguel Preguisa you stated it very well.  The game started out as a quiant little game. The graphics were chunky and beautiful.  The music was mesmerizing.  It had issues to be sure.  Sailing on a ship was a clear death sentence.  But there was a reason to sail.  

The early spawn was a little dangerous, but there was reason to explore. You needed the resources you could find there.  The old cave system was so much different.  You had to really work on being able to get in and find your way out.  All along the way there was death and accomplishment.  Now, meh.  

[bojo2736 1016]

I think a fair number of us bought this game from watching Keralis play.  We were not looking for a game creator.  

Check out the early days.  

 

[RedEagle_P1. 905]

5 hours ago, Miguel Preguisa said:

Mainly because I still love the game

Yup, me too, its a game with great potential. 

1 hour ago, bojo2736 said:

I think a fair number of us bought this game from watching Keralis play.

What he highlighted was the best and brightest of the game. Building, sailing, adventure. Really loved it! 

23 hours ago, Brbrmensch said:

it's the direction the game

I myself am a creator/community guy more than anything but when people don't like the game anymore its really hard to build community. I don't actually play much explore but the lack of it has been sucking the soul out of the groups I work with so I wanted to say something. 

More than anything, in my humble opinion, this game is suffers from a lack of focus. It up to them what direction they choose but hyping up future explore fixes will get people's hope up. I think the best way to see this game succeed would be to make a great explore game people can get really passionate about and then build an amazing editor for people to extend that game and then pursue the mini-game goal. 

Again I have no experience and I am just sharing my two cents. We are all here, I think, because we believe this game is the seed of something great. Let's grow it.  

 

Edited September 13, 2020 by RedEagle_P1.

[RedEagle_P1. 905]

@Deadeye_Robsaid it well: 

 

Edited September 15, 2020 by RedEagle_P1.

[RedEagle_P1. 905]

@NoNoNumGum well said: 

 

[Deadeye_Rob 908]

I still enjoy Ylands when I play it (I emphasise the phrase: “When I play it).

 

As I said before, it was an exceptionally hard decision to make that post yesterday. I have followed the dev diaries since the initial Steam release and enjoyed watching the designers reveal what they’ve been working on. Heck! I even have their portraits hanging proudly on display within my personal Sharegame!

 

It’s that loyalty to this game that has compelled me to warn the developers of the impending proverbial ‘iceberg’. The facts, statistics, reddit and even this very fan base is screaming “turn this game back toward sandbox survival!”. The community can already see that the current course will lead to this game fizzling out into ambivalent obscurity and as such, they’re already jumping ship and leaving.

I still enjoy replaying the original Ylands trailer: “It was the Mother of all storms”. That was the hook that drew us all in.

 

Sandbox survival maybe a saturated market, but it’s still competitive. Take Hytale for example. It’s minecraft in every way yet it’s touted to be the successor. Why can’t Ylands seize that title? You have the foundations, build on it!

[RedEagle_P1. 905]

3 hours ago, Deadeye_Rob said:

it was an exceptionally hard decision to make that post yesterday.

Me too, I really don want to sound like those too-abundant toxic, entitled posts on game forums. I hope they know we are not those kind of people but rather people who really LOVE the game and want to see the best for it. I really wish the whole dev team the absolute best and I love this game. I felt the need to say something just because I love it so much as a game. Writing the post felt gutting. 

 

Edited September 16, 2020 by RedEagle_P1.

[RedEagle_P1. 905]

3 hours ago, Deadeye_Rob said:

I still enjoy replaying the original Ylands trailer: “It was the Mother of all storms”. That was the hook that drew us all in.

Same, that trailer was AWESOME! It was fun and quirky too, really Ylands-like. I promise if they got that on mobile it would be SUCH a big hit. 

[RedEagle_P1. 905]

@SandyT @kimbuck said things eloquently.