Hi guys, Well, here’s a message I thought I’d not have to write but it’s one that I feel needs to be said on behalf of those original players who are still active.   Ylands needs to return to its charming grass roots. When it first debuted on Steam, I was met with a neat Main Menu where the main feature was Explore Mode. Quaint, inviting, but most importantly; simple. Today we have a Menu page that is so confusing, so loud in fact that I may have developed tinnitus just by looking at it! As far as I can recall, Nobody asked for the menu to be changed, yet every few months it gets ‘updated’ in a manner akin to a rubix cube! Bring back the old menu.
  *Where did this game go? Expanding on this subject, the evolution of the Menu system is a clear evidence that there has been a conscious decision to change the direction/purpose/identity of Ylands. Explore was considered to be the main feature whilst Editor was a charming utility tool. (I for one used the editor to design and execute complex blueprints for my explore maps). Now we have small-scale games created by the community that are either unfinished, unpolished or just downright boring. (There are a few gems out there; in particular Minigolf, but would I play that for more than 10 minutes?) We now have Mobile devices cutting in on the action aswell. Tell me; exactly what is Ylands now? A mobile game? A design tool for Minigames? Or an unfinished survival game? I actually have no idea now which makes the game so hard to support. Playlands was hyped to be Ylands virtual community hub. Today it’s a relative ghost town. I often dip in before my evening dose of Explore just to see if anyone is online. I have only ever played one game on Playlands and the only other player I was with got bored and left. Someone needs to invent a tumbleweed animation. My verdict, either improve Playlands or get rid of it. No one uses it.   Game Update news via community forum posts were (and are) very good. I relish reading up on the news every mid-week. Sadly even this is waining on my patience. Every update, every roadmap, users across the community ask the same questions; “What about Explore?”, “Will Explore get anything on the next update”. We’re always politely acknowledged and answered with the same enticing reply; “Soon”. I myself threw my proverbial toys out of the pram with the Water Update. This was Ylands chance to allow us to begin navigating and conquering the largest parts of the map; the sea floor. Instead we were greeted with another Editor feature, the ability to create inland puddles -yay. Explore was once again left under the table, thrown a few scraps in the form of new assets -most of which couldn’t be legitimately crafted anyway. In fact with every update, Explore appears to be eroded, the very ecosystem of a standard Explore map appears to be dying, we no longer have birds in the sky, no sea life of any kind. I acknowledge the game runs smoother than ever and looks great but where is the substance? The map size was enormous, long voyages were such a pleasure and rewarding. Today however I can swim over to the nearest island in a few minutes thus rendering Complex ship construction (Ylands best selling point) totally worthless. If the temperature mechanic gets cut then all is lost! *Not dipping my toes in there today!
  I’m not going to go into too much depth on Multiplayer Servers. In short, by discontinuing privately run servers in favour of unreliable pay-to-host servers you have effectively ended a flourishing multiplayer community. Most servers today are either locally run, or password protected. Very few are populated and due to the poor quality of service from paid-servers, there’s no point in getting established on an explore game when the server could be down tomorrow. I have nothing but positive things to say about the sharegame feature however. It’s a stroke of pure brilliance and something that I’ve not seen before. Coyns? Most games have a currency system for cosmetics so I’m pretty indifferent on the matter. I am watching the development of the Creation Club with cautious interest however. I won’t be getting involved myself but I will be interested to see how it goes.   *Ships: more or less useless as you can now swim to an island within eyesight. So in conclusion, I hope you have not died of totally boredom reading my rendition of War & Peace but I feel that the Ylands I knew no longer exists and as a consequence, my interest has drifted on to more promising survival games (Like Hytale). In order for Ylands to survive, to retain its original fan base AND still be a heavy hitter on Steam, it needs to adress the following:
Menu & GUI - Its so cluttered it could be diagnosed as being a hoarder! Game Purpose - What game are you? Fulfil our best hopes or just put it out of our misery so we can move on! Get marketing to actually be more specific on your product. Playlands - Rename it Ghost-Town or just get rid. Game Updates - More bugfixes and performance improvements. Definitely more craftable content in explore mode. Maybe even a dedicated explore update to restore player confidence? Eco System - Save the sharks and vultures! We need bigger maps again and for goodness sake let us do something to colonise the seabed! Multiplayer - Should be treated as the games best bet for consumer longevity. Allow the game to be run offline as well as reestablish locally hosted servers again. Editor - yes it’s great and powerful and you can do some interesting things. But it’s taking too much attention from what should be your main product - Explore. Don’t get tunnel vision and look at what your customer base is saying.   This post has taken me some hours to write. I have done so with much thought towards constructive criticism. I (like many) want to see this game succeed but as an ‘overwhelmingly Positive’ Survival Sandbox, as it was originally intended.   Dont forget your roots, especially as it was “The mother of all storms”   Rob