Dev Diary #163 - Future of the Barrier

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

Hey there, fellow ylanders!

Today I would like to tell you a bit more about changes you can expect in 1.6's Exploration. We will talk about protecting what's yours and setting the game world rules to fit your idea of the perfect place.

Let's start by saying that we don't really like how the barrier works in the game right now and even though it has served its purpose for a long time we think we could make a better, cleaner, more intuitive solution. Let's first discuss what the barrier is actually good for and how can we make sure these things will still work well when it's gone. The main areas where the barrier came in handy were these:

 

• it allowed players to create buildings they could easily dismantle for whatever the reason was
• it protected your little piece of the world from damage caused by other players, but also it prohibited them from doing things like removing terrain and such
• it protected your avatar against damage 

Not only wasn't the barrier concept very intuitive to new players, but it had several shortcomings (that we always planned to fix, but never got to it). It couldn't be moved when placed. It wasn't big enough.  And most importantly, you only had one. This last thing has become a major blocker now with the new Exploration which is actually centred around the idea of travelling among distant locations and even though you can have one home where you return and where you could have the barrier, we feel it's extremely limiting. So we are planning to introduce these features:

• improved building via the new workstation (we already covered that here)
• allowing yland owners to set the rules for their maps
   

The first feature we already covered (see here https://ylands.com/community/topic/29514-dev-diary-160-building-in-exploration/)
We want to give you full control over your games and that's something that isn't possible with the barrier. As a result, the barrier will be removed from the game in 1.6 and in its stead game owners will be able to set up rules on what can different types of visitors do in this particular world. We believe you will find this extremely useful ?

 

 

And then there's another thing I would like to mention. As you probably know, our Community manager Adam is leaving next week. We are currently looking very intensely for a replacement, but before we find one, Marci will try to take care of some of Adam's duties as best as he can. What does this mean? Since Marci has enough work as it is you can experience a bit longer response times on our side. Fortunately, there are already some awesome players who are a great help to us on the forums plus I will ask other devs to keep checking the forum (especially the bug forum). Hopefully,  this state won't last too long.

At the same time, if you ever encounter an issue that you consider critical or anything that requires our immediate attention, don't hesitate and PM me directly on our game forums. I will do my best to reply as soon as I can.

That's it for today, we will talk to you again next Thursday and so until then... stay healthy and classy, ylanders!

[Deadeye_Rob 905]

Great news and an interesting read! I’m curious about setting world rules. Will this mean that I could freeplace a load of items in the knowledge that they won’t be picked up or stolen?

[ocnoglittle 760]

I am curious, too. Will we be able to set our home map to PvE?

 

Also, how will the demo hammer work in the future?

Edited February 11, 2021 by ocnoglittle

[spiritchaser28 918]

I'm curious as to what this means for demolition hammers and blueprint cameras. That's the only reason I set up a barrier. Does this mean we will be able to use them anywhere? Or only on our own maps? Or will it be included when the owners set rules for their maps?

Edited February 11, 2021 by spiritchaser28

[jchob 354]

hmm, sounds interesting.

Maybe we will have to place the build station close to and then we can deconstruct things? 

For example, my exploration play style is having all biomes and as many traders as I can, because i mostly buy things from them. Example: i mostly buy ores/ingots, because i dont feel like going down to drill and i dont like to have lots of stations to use.

Would be cool i could set my campsites in every biome with a new "barrier", so i could use the demo hammer to fast deconstruct plus to get materials back.

With new explorarion i dont see a real use for barriers in your local map. It just makes sense if you are in a open multiplayer map.where you will expect griefers. Then barrier os usefull, but still the "pickable" stuff can be stolen. We need a way to protect our free placed stuf.

We need more info Ales ?

If needed, some of us (from the head, me, Ocnog, Spirit, JohnFMSteel, Rob, and many others) we can "show the house's corners to the new Community Manager. Im pretty sure Adam will leave a good basis transition, but we still have many things in mind for suggestions and bug reports (whatsoever?).

 

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

As for stealing things  - If you set your world rules that way, anyone who visits (unless they are friends / clanmates and you set a different set of rules for those) wouldn't be able to do any harm/change/steal from your world

PvP / PvE - we know that it's important to be able to support both these modes, but the actual implementation in the new Exploration is something we are still discussing, so I should know more soon (don't hesitate to remind me I promised this if it's not mentioned in some way in the next week's Dev Diary  )

The hammer - currently our plan is to let players deconstruct place objects (as long as they are either those who placed them or have been granted permission to do that) in two ways - by that hammer or while in the placing mode.

Blueprint cameras - I believe in 1.6 you will be able to use blueprint cameras only on the ylands you own. However whatever the state of that is in 1.6, it will change, because for 1.7 we are planning to do big things with blueprints (I can't go into details just yet, but to make them much more useful/powerful/available)

jchob - actually we considered a lot of ways how the barrier could be improved and having more of them / be able to move them was one of the first ideas. However, in the end, we ended up with the current plan where as long as the yland belongs to you can easily set up rules for all of it and not protect only small region or being able to deconstruct things just there. Just to make sure - whenever I talk about ylands you own, I don't mean only the starting yland but all the local game ylands you discover (which are SP by default unless you open them to others). And by the way - if you like traders, you're surely going to love yet another very cool feature we're introducing in 1.6 - I will talk about it soon in one of the future Dev Diaries (sorry about the hyping, but I couldn't help myself  )

[Deadeye_Rob 905]

41 minutes ago, Aleš Ulm said:

if you like traders, you're surely going to love yet another very cool feature we're introducing in 1.6 - I will talk about it soon in one of the future Dev Diaries (sorry about the hyping, but I couldn't help myself  )

You most certainly have my attention!

[bojo2736 1016]

I'm hoping that the new workstation build will allow us to make things unpickable.

[jchob 354]

woa Ales, that is awesome. Thanks for the response, by the way ?

New features for traders? Please, please make them sell the uncraftable items. Many people probably wants everything to be craftable, but in my opinion having them to be found in encounters and/or buy from traders is a better way for "survival playability". Please, we really need all items avaible in exploration, no matter the way we get them, we just need them. So many cool items that we cannot have
 

[spiritchaser28 918]

Thanks for the response Ales! That answers a couple of my questions about the hammer and blueprints. 

I also agree with jchobs on the traders. So many items that cannot be found, but I would definitely buy them from traders if they had them. Pots, ladels, certain paintings and books, several weapons (machine guns,etc.)  Specific uncraftable blocks like plastic, cheese and chocolate. I would add mythical sword to the list but I think that should be findable in a rare encounter with a complicated puzzle. 

Edited February 14, 2021 by spiritchaser28

[jchob 354]

16 minutes ago, spiritchaser28 said:

Thanks for the response Ales! That answers a couple of my questions about the hammer and blueprints. 

I also agree with jchobs on the traders. So many items that cannot be found, but I would definitely buy them from traders if they had them. Pots, ladels, certain paintings and books, several weapons (machine guns,etc.)  Specific uncraftable blocks like plastic, cheese and chocolate. I would add mythical sword to the list but I think that should be findable in a rare encounter with a complicated puzzle. 

i think i've seen chocolate blocks on a trader. Not 100% sure, but yeah, I think i saw it (or was it cheese? ?)

[SandyT 128]

7 minutes ago, jchob said:

i think i've seen chocolate blocks on a trader. Not 100% sure, but yeah, I think i saw it (or was it cheese? ?)

Yes, chocolate as well as cheese from traders.

 

[spiritchaser28 918]

 @jchobMaybe....I haven't seen them yet and if so I am sure it wasn't every block type. 

A couple NPC trader ideas. A dairy farmer (sells milk and cheese and chocolate blocks) A rare weapons trader (Steel weapons rare guns, etc), A collector that sells rare books and paintings, A chemist that sells plastic blocks and lab equipment (for those too lazy to craft it) , also Atlantean traders. ...some of the other things like pots, pans and ladels can simply be added to some of the traders that sell food.

 

Some things though should be in the crafting menu.....for instance we can make bark armor but cannot make wood armor.  I happen to like the look of wood armor.

Edited February 14, 2021 by spiritchaser28