Q&A with Aleš next Tuesday!

[ocnoglittle 760]

Next Tuesday at 8pm CET, Aleš will visit Naru's stream to talk about the future of Ylands and respond to your questions! You will be able to find it on both his stream and the official Ylands stream! So make sure to stop by, if you are interested! https://www.twitch.tv/naruthehuman 

 

[ocnoglittle 760]

(also, I can help translate anything if anyone is worried about it being in English!)

[ocnoglittle 760]

1 hour until the Q&A with Aleš!

[ocnoglittle 760]

Hi everyone! In case you missed the Q&A, here is the link:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/951975829

 

 

Or you could watch on YouTube with subtitles in almost any language (let me know if you need help setting the subtitles up) 

 

 

Or if that still isn't very helpful for translating, I *finally* wrote out the transcript (next time I am doing a summary instead ?) :

Intro and Community Manager

Naru: Hello everyone! Hopefully you're already here, but I don't know. [Laughter] Let's just wait a few minutes, okay? Just to make sure. [...] Okay, so it seems there are already 12 people so I think we can just go ahead and start with the first question and as people join.. they can always watch the replay. I'm just going to start. So we managed to get Aleš over here and he cleared an hour off his schedule, a very busy one, by the way. So I really appreciate it and I hope that he'll be able to answer all of your questions. Ocnog already sent us a very... very great list of the most common questions that appear in the community. We'll try to go through this list and if you have any follow-up questions don't hesitate to type them in the chat and we'll try to go through them as well. Ok so, first question, Aleš: What is the progress on replacing Adam? How is it going?

Aleš: well actually Adam has already … I mean it sounded like we wanted to replace him with someone. So, yeah, Adam's gone. The truth is that we have several candidates right now. We are interviewing them and if I'm not mistaken, I think we have three now that we think have what it takes to be Yland's community manager. Hopefully, fingers crossed, I think that we can have a new community manager in about two weeks. There is a possibility that the person we are going to choose may have some contract which will require them to stay for some additional time with their current job, so it may take longer. But we should have someone picked in two weeks' time. 

The Competition

Naru: Nice, I'm looking forward to it. Cooperating with a new Adam: can't wait. So the next question and this is a really great one, when will the next competition be announced? Because everyone loved the first one and they're really expecting another one so

Aleš: Yeah. Actually, the thing is, that with the next stage of the competition, we are waiting for the new community manager to join us. Since right now, Marci is doing most of the work that Adam had to do and actually planned to do. Starting the competition right now would probably result in us handling it poorly. I mean even in a worse way than how we handled the first one. Yeah, I think as soon as we have the new community manager and as soon as they have some basic knowledge of how things work with Ylands, then then we will announce the next competition.

Sponsoring Streamers

Naru: Okay, great! So hopefully, it will be soon. And the next question (and I had no idea that this was actually happening): Is Bohemia still sponsoring streamers and if so, do amateur streamers have some option to get the Exploration for free if they commit to streaming of this game often?

Aleš: Yeah, actually that's a good question because just before Adam left, we had this plan. We actually started working on it with Adam and Marci. We would in a way support Yland streamers but the fact that Adam left pretty much stopped this. So again, this is something that we definitely want to do in the future but as I said, this is something that will have to wait until we find the new community manager.

Roadmap

Naru: Okay, so it seems like we really need that community manager now. I can see I skipped one question here from Ocnog and it was about a roadmap because right now, I think there is no current roadmap for the future. After 1.5, there wasn't any continuous roadmap updated. So, is there going to be a roadmap soon?

Aleš: Yeah. The reason why there isn't any roadmap is because we actually made a great change to the whole game. Let me put it another way. For a long time, we basically focused on the Editor. This changed actually quite dramatically with 1.5 and now I'm not saying that we won't be doing anything for the Editor. Actually, there are still a lot of cool features that will be introduced in 1.6, 1.7, and beyond. But now we are focusing more on the Exploration DLC and the thing is that we first wanted to know if the changes that we did with 1.5 clicked with players, if they liked it, if it made sense, and if it worked. It definitely seems so. Obviously, we are getting a lot of comments and reviews that this is not enough and I understand it because we focused on the Editor for far too long. Or at least, it could feel this way to anyone who is more interested in Exploration but overall, the feedback is really nice. So now we know that we will continue in this direction. Obviously, 1.6 features are already finished. We're just polishing them, adding the final touches, and doing some bug fixing. So what is going to be in 1.6 is already clear at this point. We are discussing or finalizing features for 1.7 and in general what will be in 1.8. So I think, in about a month, we will be able to publish a roadmap for at least the rest of this year, and maybe with some higher goals. Honestly, I'm a little bit cautious when we do this because I understand that in the past, we promised a lot of things that in the end we weren't able to achieve. So I think it would be better for us to promise less and pleasantly surprise players than to make some big promises and not deliver. 

Chat

Naru: Yeah, that makes sense, I think. So hopefully we'll get this soon and it will be amazing. So the next question is actually related to chat and I think these questions will be better answered separately because they consider issues there. So I'll just ask if there is still some work being done on the chat and fixing these bugs that we encounter and whether there will be a voice chat in Ylands.

Aleš: Yeah. Actually, the way that the chat looks won't look any different to players (to you) when you see it in 1.6, but the technology underneath it or the code has actually changed. Most of it has been replaced or reworked and actually, in most cases, the chat is now something like 10 times faster (like the time that it takes to refresh pages and send messages). And we fixed issues that messages either got lost somewhere along the way or they were sent twice. So I think there were around 10 major fixes done to the chat. So that definitely should show in 1.6. As for voice communication, that is something that we definitely would like to have. I can't tell you any update number where we would do it because there are things that we consider at this time more important. Our idea is that it would bring a lot to gameplay if we had the voice chat, not only because players could talk to each other. Obviously, that's something that they can already do with some other third-party tools. At that point, we will be able to do something that, for example, works like in DayZ, which is that you hear people based on how close or far they're from you. I think it's quite a nice gameplay element. So that's one of the reasons why we want to have it, as well. I would like voice chat to be implemented sometime this year, but I can’t really promise it at this point.

Main Menu

Naru: Okay, great! So the next stop is the main menu and the problem problems connected to it. Many, many players think that the menu is actually overwhelming and confusing and the systems for displaying the highest-rated games don't take into consideration how many actual hits it gets. It just takes the actual rating as like five stars and it doesn't matter if it was just one person rating it. So is there a plan for a change to the main menu, at least the way these games are shown, we can see more of these great games that have maybe hundreds of positive reviews before we see the new ones that are basically empty or anything?

Aleš: Unfortunately, at this point, we can't meet with most of the people in the team because of the situation with Covid, so we have to do everything over the internet, which slows things down a bit. But tomorrow, we'll have a call where we will be discussing exactly this. It's already planned that in 1.7, the main menu will get some changes. Because we still need to discuss this, I'm not sure at this point what the changes will be or how much it will change. But definitely, we feel that the main menu should be more about the actual games. Right now, there are a lot of elements that take away attention from the things that matter the most and it's the games. Also, the system behind it, the thing that actually shows the game, is something that we did really fast at the point when we were developing it because there wasn't enough time. We ended up needing our admins to do a lot of the work themselves, like picking those games. And the truth is that normally this would be done by Marci probably or someone else. But the fact is that now that Adam is gone and even for some time before that, we get so much work that there wasn't that much time for anything that the admins need to do manually. I obviously understand this is bad and we kind of let down some of the creators, so I think in 1.7 we definitely need to implement some system that will take into account some other things other than just the rating and stuff like that. There will still be some human touch in this, definitely. We will be still looking for games to feature but I think it will work better and I think at some point we will discuss it with you. Like what are all those things that you don't like about either the main menu or Workshop and how things are presented? There are some things that we improved in 1.6 with the Workshop but those are not really related to how games are displayed. Those are more related to how games are published. So if you are a creator, I think you will find the whole flow more intuitive and better documented. But with what games are shown you will probably have to wait until 1.7. But I promise that with 1.7, that it will change.

Map (When you press M)

Naru: Okay, great! So there is one question from Jarda in the chat and that is: in Update 1.6, will there be a possibility to see other players on your map as they are moving around it, or is that planned somewhere for the future?

Aleš: No, that's actually planned for 1.7, as well. And I’ve never said this before, so this is in an early stage that we still need to discuss. So if this ends up in the game in some different form or shape, please don't hate me. But we feel that we need to do something to bring players together more, especially in Exploration. And one of the things will be that you will be able to see your friends on the map. And also we want to create something like a social hub in every region of the map, so you won't have to look for an island where some other players may be. But right from the beginning, you will see this one specific island you will know that at that place you will find a place which is meant for players to meet. So if you start and if you look for some players to meet, be it your friends or strangers, this will be a place to go. And it's the likeliest place you will be able to find other people. We may even (and this is really up for discussion) show this place with the current population so that you know you are not sailing to a place that has a village or a small town but it's still empty. So that you know that when you get there, there will be other players to interact with. So definitely, this is something that we are already planning for 1.7. 

Bohemia Wiki

Naru: This is great. I think a lot of players will like it, as I can already see in the chat. So amazing! And jchobs asked if we already have a question which was kind of confusing but still... if there is some plan for finishing the documentation for everything on our Bohemia wiki where we have scripting tiles and information about everything in the game. We all know that it needs a lot of work. There are a lot of empty spaces. So this question is if there is gonna be something finished like that?

Aleš: Well firstly the question is if we're talking about Editor and scripting or the game in general because I can see how we can add things to the wiki which are related to Exploration as well. But in general…[Laughter]

Naru: This is just a joke from another stream where I had no idea what BIKI actually meant, so I ended up naming the game BIKI and then everyone explained to me that they mean Bohemia wiki. 

Aleš: To get back to the question... Another question is what does it mean for a wiki to be finished? Which I don't think can ever happen. But the truth is that the wiki isn't in good shape. The way I see it, there are actually two things that we can do. The first thing is that we can put more effort, ourselves, into filling it with facts and things that are related to the game. And the second thing is that we can offer better support to players in the community so that they can help us with it, which I think in the end is the best thing to do. Because I think it brings the developers and community closer together and we can have fewer things to do. 

Naru: Yeah, it's all about saving our time. I get it. [Laughter]

Aleš: I wanted to say it in a nice way but the hard truth is that it saves us a lot of time. 

Naru: Okay, Ocnog had a good point here, that you probably need to ask a lot of people for permissions in order to edit the Bohemia wiki. 

Aleš: Actually, I asked our IT, when I started working with the wiki, and the reason for this was that whenever they tried this with Arma and opened it up for everyone, the wiki got pretty much immediately filled with just random trash, which I believe is something that we don't want. And I don't really know, for example, how bigger wikis work. So this is not something that I feel I should be talking about in-depth. Maybe there are some ways of both allowing players that are not logged in, in any way, to edit it and still keep it clean. But the thing that I think would help, would probably be if at least players could use the login that they already have, because you obviously are logging into the forums, so you already have that. So that's something that I asked our IT to do some time ago. I believe there were some other more important things that they had to work on, because obviously, it's not just Ylands they are working on right now. I believe we can still manage to give everyone that is interested, access, simply by manually adding them into a white list. So if you feel like helping us with it just let us know or let Marci know or Naru know or send me a message and we'll do that. As soon as there are more people coming in, wanting to do this, then we'll have better leverage to approach IT and tell them that we need this to work differently. 

Player-Created Maps for Exploration

Naru: Okay, great! Thanks for that. And I think three more questions popped up in the chat while you were talking, so I will try to read them all. The first one was: if there is going to be a way for players to encounter maps in Exploration that are created by other players? If we will be allowing this option for players to create some custom Exploration maps that they could visit?

Aleš: Yeah, definitely! This is something that will probably be, at least for me, the biggest thing that will happen to Ylands. Because for most of the time, there were two branches of Ylands: one being the Exploration or the survival, and another one being the platform with the Editor. And for a long time, it kind of made no sense that we are actually not focusing on a single thing and the fact that we were focusing on the Editor instead of Exploration. But I think this thing will actually make everyone hopefully see that these things have more in common than it may seem. Because this is the ultimate goal that we want to achieve. You can use the Editor that we put a lot of effort into, and which, because of that, is quite good. I would say it's not perfect, but it's quite good at this point. And the players will be able to use it to create islands or their own games that will be accessible in Exploration. That's the ultimate goal. At this point, with 1.6, this is something that we can do, as the developers. And we are going to allow players to do this as well. As to when this is going to happen, I definitely don't want to make any promises but I believe that we could be able to do it in 1.8 but if it's later (anything can happen) then I never said this. And obviously, this is not on record so no one will know I actually said it. The thing about this is that it's not as much a technical problem because we already support this. It’s a design problem because imagine that we allow players to create pretty much any scene or level or game and put it in an Exploration. It would immediately break the game and the gameplay. We would start seeing islands that are just filled with propeller packs for other players to take, with thousands or tens of thousands of pieces of wood and stone and iron. So this is something that we need to design first. To me, my gut feeling at this point, and we never actually... well we did talk about it, but not really in-depth. So my gut feeling is that we will have to do something like islands that will be, let's say, approved to be part of the official or the basic or base Exploration world. And then there would be something like other dimensions or other maps or something where players would be able to do pretty much anything. And it makes sense to me that if we do this, you will be able to travel to those islands, and maybe you won't be able to bring anything there or take anything back with you. So this is one of the problems that we need to work out before we allow players to do this. But as I said, this is the ultimate goal. So definitely everything we do is actually headed towards this direction and that will definitely happen.

Blueprints

Naru: Great! Awesome! So another question from the chat from Jarda: if there is gonna be a simplification for getting blueprints from Editor to Exploration, which as we already talked about I think on one of the streams, was never actually a feature, was it? I think blueprints were never meant to be created in Editor by players, but it is a good point that players are using it for creating some amazing structures in Exploration. So the question is if this is going to be allowed and simplified. 

Aleš: I guess it's fixed if it can be done. [Laughter] Oh, I'm kidding, obviously. No, we know this and we already even talked with some of the creators (and we will probably talk with more) about our plans. I mean not that we would go into details, but we just told them that we definitely would like to improve blueprints. So, again, what I'm going to say here probably will be heard for the first time. Our plan is definitely to let players create the blueprints in the Editor. And there are actually more reasons for it. Not only so that they can be used in Exploration on PC, but also when we have Exploration on mobiles (and I'm not saying if I'm saying when). The building on mobiles is definitely something that will never be as easy as on PC. By the way, we actually did a lot to simplify it even more. The new workstation that is introduced in 1.6 makes building so much better. I guess I shouldn't be hyping at this point. 

Naru: You’re gonna hype them up and then they're gonna spam us with yeah…

Aleš: But as I said, when we have Exploration on mobiles, I can see that building would be kind of difficult. And for players who would play this, it will be way easier to maybe use some existing structures, which ideally should be blueprints. And we would like to go further. We think that those players that create blueprints should be rewarded. So I think there definitely should be a way for creators to monetize it. Because if you work on an amazing ship or something like that and you put a lot of effort into it, then I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be asking for coyns for that. And if we do that, I think people may be interested more in creating more blueprints or better blueprints. So everyone will profit from that.

Naru: It sounds really nice. 

Aleš: So that it's clear, this won't be about us monetizing our blueprints. Our plan is not to keep adding blueprints that we create and asking for coyns for them. This is really just meant for players. 

Fluid Physics

Naru: Player to player transactions. Yeah. Okay, another question and I think this is a question that bothers a lot of players, including me. Is there a plan to add fluid physics back to Exploration? Because as you know, if you want to adjust the beaches of your islands, right now if you take away some terrain, there is going to be a hole left. And it gets very frustrating when you're trying to go for aesthetics. 

Aleš: Well, if you're bothered by not knowing this, you know you could have asked me. 

Naru: I know, but this sounds way better right now. 

Aleš: Okay. This is a tough one. The reason why we pretty much disabled it, was because the fluid system wasn't programmed in a good way. This was part of a plug-in that we bought many years ago and we have never actually done anything to it. I think we improved it a little bit so it ran faster but it's still kind of demanding, performance-wise. And we keep optimizing the game. This is a tricky decision or tough decision to make because if we allow this... and it would be possible. The feature is actually still there. But if we allow this, then what could easily happen would be that someone would create a big hole with an explosion or do something with the terraformer. And by looking at the FPS (frames per second) at that moment, you would know that this is happening. The honest answer is, if we are to have the fluid simulation, we will need to rewrite it from scratch, the code. And it's not an easy thing. But I'm not sure if what we really need is this. The thing is, there is the fluid simulation and then there is the problem with, I don't know, just digging a bit of a beach and then the water stays in some unnatural shape. Maybe these specific situations could somehow be fixed, even without having a full-scale fluid simulation. And I'm not a programmer myself, or at least I'm not a programmer good enough to understand this fully or to tell you if this is possible and how difficult it is. But I can imagine that solving these situations would definitely be easier than creating the whole fluid simulation from scratch. And even if we pretty much reworked it and if we’ve done a complete overhaul, it would still take up some CPU performance, because these things are unfortunately costly. I will definitely take a look at those situations which bother you the most, and we will see if there's something that we can do about this. By the way, I think it's not really similar but this actually reminds me of some things that we've done with the terrain in 1.6. I don't know if I've mentioned it before in any Dev Diary. So I will just say here: when I think of this, I find this annoying. And also on a similar level of how things are annoying, I think I would have the fact that when you're in the Editor and you're trying to paint over the terrain, you would never be able to achieve the same look as if you generate the island yourself. You would always get this very obvious transition with sharp edges. This is something that we fixed in 1.6. So you are not getting a fluid simulation, but you are getting something else (enhanced terrain blending).

Naru: I think that this is still a great improvement to do to the feel of the island, so I think they'll appreciate it. Definitely. 

Aleš: I tried really hard to make it so that everyone actually forgot that we talked about the fluid simulation.

Additional Objectives for Exploration

Naru: Yeah, you're doing a great job. We already agreed that you are like a politician. [Laughter] Great! So Spyler actually had two parts in this question that he wrote and the second one was if there are any planned systems to increase the objectives for the player in the Exploration such as adding some sort of mechanism or widening the range of the electrical circuits that you can build there. So there are more challenging things for players to get resources for and craft. 

Aleš: I'm sorry I didn't quite catch the beginning. Are we talking just about electricity or…?

Naru: No, generally some additional objectives for the player to achieve in Exploration.

Aleš: Oh. Well actually, I don't know if this is the place to mention this. I think I shouldn't spoil everything but let me put it this way: when 1.6 is released, one of the first Dev Diaries will be about something that we're planning for 1.7. And if you are looking for more objectives in Ylands or if you feel like the game is lacking something that, for example Valheim has, then I think I can say you won't be disappointed. And this will come in 1.7. 

Custom Islands

Naru: Great! Thanks for that and another question from Jarda and I think this is a good one: how many of these special islands created by the designers will be available after the 1.6 update? How many different islands can the players expect? Is this going to be increased in number?

Aleš: Yeah. Well, I'm just wondering how to get around the fact that I have no idea. [Laughter] Because I probably should know this. Now, this is a little bit difficult to say because we actually came up with a system that allows us to add these custom islands even without updating the game client. So even though we actually finalized the game data and now only some really final things are being fixed, these islands are still being made. And designers will be making them, regardless of if an update is about to be released or if it has just been released. And as they make new ones, they will be put into the game directly. So let's say, if you have in your region map an uncharted island (an island that you haven't visited yet) and you paid a visit, you can find their new custom island that was made and uploaded just an hour ago. I can find the specific number but it keeps changing. I should probably say how this works. There is something…. I wouldn't call it AI because that would be a little bit too much, but there is some logic behind what custom islands you're going to see and what the probability is of you uncovering a new island. So it's quite likely that you will find a new one. You won't be finding the same ones over and over again. So hopefully, if everything works as intended, you should find some quite soon, I guess.

Lava

Naru: Okay. This is great. I think it's time for a nice easy question and that is whether there will be lava in our game in Exploration? 

Aleš: That, unfortunately, gets us back to the fluid simulation system, which is one of the things that was pretty bad about the current system that we have. It's not only that it's extremely performance or CPU hungry. It's also that it cannot simulate two kinds of fluids. So either we would have just water or we would have just lava.

Naru: Great [Laughter] 

Aleš: So if we ever in the future make the new fluid system, we would have lava, as well.

Item Repair System

Naru: Okay. So it is a question for the future and we'll see how it ends up. Okay, Jchobs asked about the item repair system. Because right now, as you know, if you craft something once, you can keep this item until the end and there is no need for additional resources for that. If there was a system to damage these items and then need to repair them, it would motivate players more to keep finding new resources.

Aleš: Okay. As you probably know, there was this system at some point. And it got removed for reasons that I can't speak of. Well, actually the reason is that it sucked. [Laughter] It wasn't very well made. We didn't really like it. We didn't have enough time to fix it. And so we thought that it's better to not have it at all than to have it broken and useless. And at the same time, there were things that you weren't able to fix at all, like never. For example, ships and this is obviously something that needs to change. So we thought we would bring ships that can be damaged in 1.6 and that they would be able to fix them in 1.6 but unfortunately, we didn't do it. It won't be in 1.6. We weren't able to do it in time. So this will have to wait but that definitely is planned. And when we're finalizing repairing ships, what we'll be talking about will definitely be how we could return things being damaged and the possibility of repairing them. So that's one of the things. Also speaking of ships, there was another thing that we planned for ships (this is still the plan but this proved to be more difficult than we thought) was if you travel not between islands in the region but between two regions, that we would let you actually sail and that you would show on a sea. And you would sail and it could be for some time (not a long time definitely we don't want to do this annoyingly or something like that). But for a little time, you would sail. Sometimes the sea would be calm and sometimes you would get caught in a rough storm. And you would come across some random encounters. 

Naru: Oh it sounds great, actually.

Aleš: But we didn't manage to do this because from some point… And maybe this is something that I should have started with. This is something that I believe is like a principle that we have or our new mantra which is: if we don't think it would be good, we'd rather not release it. We pretty much released so many things in the past that were half-baked, just for the sake of having those things in the game. And this is a legacy that we now have to live with. There was this question in the list which was about why catapults were removed. So this is the reason: that the catapults worked in a way but definitely not as they should be. The loading was weird. It was inconsistent. Speaking of that, cannons are still not working as we would like them to work. So we removed it so that we first fix it and then we return it into the game. But just to make sure that there is no panic, we have no intention of removing any more things. It's not like we would just wake up one morning, look at some picture, and say, “Well, this isn't good enough. Let's just take it away.” As far as I know, all the things that really annoyed us (with how they were broken or not working as intended) and everything that we thought should be removed, have been removed already.

Modifying Terrain using Scripts

Naru: Okay, great. I think we have time for another question. So there is a question of whether we are planning to add some option for people that work in Editor to modify terrain through scripts. And I think this is already a possibility if I'm not mistaken. Isn't it? 

Aleš: I believe we already added the new tiles. I'm not sure. I know actually this morning I went over it. Because the thing is, there are now so many things in the game. Like with so many instructions I did every other day that I don't really remember everything. Because I know about things that will be added later, so sometimes it kind of gets blurred. If the thing is meant to be released right now or if it's something that we just have working but it's not going to be released right now. But I believe that I saw some warning messages in the localization file which I went through today, which actually said something like that the terrain couldn't be created in some place because there was a player's corrector at that place.

Naru: I believe it should be in 1.6 (at least some version of modifying the terrain right now). And honestly, I'm not sure. There's really a lot of things to go through and it wasn’t my feature. I didn't get to try it out. So I don't want to promise anything but I think there is actually a possibility. […]

Conclusion and Next Q&A

Naru: We agreed with Aleš that he would stop by for an hour and it has already been an hour. So I'm afraid this is our time with him. It was originally planned that we would answer the rest of the questions on the forum, but I was thinking that if Aleš is up for it and if you guys like this way of communicating with him, we could do this thing once every 14 days. So you can get regular updates about the game and all the issues that you encounter. So what do you say Aleš, do you think that will be possible?

Aleš: Yeah, sure. Actually, this was fun. I just need to work on my skills so that I don't say everything and keep some things for later. Because I know that some things that I said [I will regret]. It's been fun and I really like it. And it's definitely better to say it out loud than to write it into a Dev Diary.
 
Naru: Yeah it's a much better way to communicate. 

Aleš: Well, thank you guys! Thanks to everyone who came and asked questions! 

Naru: Okay so there you have it guys. Say bye to Aleš and it seems we will see him in 14 days again. So great news there!

Edited March 22, 2021 by ocnoglittle
increased highlight

[ocnoglittle 760]

So if your question wasn't answered, you can attend the next Q&A with Aleš or write it on this thread and I will make sure it gets asked.  If you want me to make sure one of these gets asked (we won't have time for all of them next time) please let me know that too.

Some questions I still have (or heard someone else ask):

1. Can the social tab go back to displaying what game our friends are playing? It was much easier to join them earlier. If there is a privacy issue, maybe set up an “invisible” mode. Also, more than half the time, it won’t let me invite my friends to the game I am playing.  
2. Are there any plans for player-generated Random Encounters? This would be especially nice since the community has many fantastic builders.
3. Are there any plans to expand the tech tree?
4. Are there plans for players to be able to rotate or free-place blueprints?
5. Are there plans to increase the number of custom blueprints a player can have above 50?
6. When will the players be able to dig near water?
7. Is it possible for the players to get more interesting caves/cliffs/landmasses and larger landmasses?
8. Can the game improve the lighting underwater? It is impossible to see, even with a scuba helmet, etc.
9. Can the game also improve the lighting in caves? It seems to be darker than before Update 1.5.
10. Are there any plans to expand the player maximum above 8? 
11. Are there any plans to improve custom game stability now that Exploration is so much more stable?
12. Many players would like to share the map (the one that comes up when the players press M) with their friends/allies that are playing the same game. Is this possible for the future?
13. Are there any plans to add this map function to player-created games?
14. Are there any plans to bring back the first-person camera in Exploration?
15. Are there any plans to bring back sharks or birds? What about any type of new sea animals?
16. Could it be possible to get larger stacks for stone chunks/sandstone chunks etc?
17. Can the players have any of these new inventory containers: backpacks, lunchbox, something for logs, foraging box for berry's, mushrooms, and maybe sticks, bark, resin, and other plants that won’t go in the herb bag?
18. Would it be possible to add custom textures to blocks sometime in the future? Including things like custom flags using the image library?
19. Can the players get craftable blocks without any texture (plastic/basic/flat blocks)?
20. Are there any plans to add bathtubs or sinks to the game?
21. What is the difference between mutant and tainted animals?
22. Would it be easier to make something like the medieval shields pickable (assets would need to be able to go in the inventory) or make them craftable? Whichever one is easier, can the players have that?
23. Are there any plans to allow the players to use ranged weapons while using a mount or car? 
     

More of a comment: Please include more uncraftable items in Random Encounters! Or make more things craftable!

[SandyT 129]

Questions for the next session: 

1. Can more items go into the toolbox, like chisels, screwdrivers, and knives?

2. Can we have thinner building items, like wood or wallpaper that won't take up a whole block?

3. If we can't have a refrigerator, would you consider creating plain white storage boxes in different sizes that we could use? Instead of just metal or wood ones with crosses or other items on them?

4. Please let them know that the 1.5 upgrade was really good, and I'm really glad they are working on Exploration!

[ocnoglittle 760]

Hi SandyT!

I will ask these. Thanks!

I am currently testing out the beta for 1.6, and you can add chisels and screwdrivers to the toolbox, but no knives. The game still considers knives as weapons instead. So I will ask about the knives

From the beta:

[spiritchaser28 920]

While I am happy the toolbox can include the chisel and screwdriver. Mine is always full. If it just had 3 more slots I could fit my mining drill, chisel and screwdriver. I generally have it ful with all the other stuff. Saw, shovel, pick, paintgun, sewing kit, fishing rod, lighter, hammer, demolition hammer, compass, glassblowing pipe sheep shears, bucket and stone mortar....there are other tools but I can never fit all of them. I hope it has more space to fit the rest.

[ocnoglittle 760]

You should put it in suggestions as its own thread ?

[ocnoglittle 760]

Jarda wants to know when the players will be able to transport animals and cars on ships, especially between regions to form a zoo.

Does anyone else want any specific questions?

[spiritchaser28 920]

On 3/25/2021 at 10:50 PM, ocnoglittle said:

You should put it in suggestions as its own thread ?

Or I'll just carry 2 toolboxes LOL

 

[ocnoglittle 760]

My top questions for Tuesday:

The 1.5 upgrade was really good, and many players are really glad they are working on Exploration!

1. From SandyT on the forum: Thank you for adding the chisel and screwdriver to the toolbox. Can the Ylands team also add knives to the toolbox?
2. From SandyT on the forum: Can the players have thinner building items, like wood or wallpaper that won't take up a whole block?
3. From SandyT on the forum: If the players can't have a refrigerator, would the Ylands team consider creating plain white storage boxes in different sizes that the players could use? Instead of just metal or wood ones with crosses or other items on them?
4. From Nico14973 on the discord: Can the Ylands team change the sound effect and animation for the Cup of Tea, Coconut Drink, and Green Coconut Drink? So it is more like drinking instead of eating? The sound already exists for the potions.
5. From Nico14973 on the discord: Can the Ylands team increase the default difficulty (max HP and damage dealt) of the mobs? Right now they aren't really a threat.
6. From Spirit: will it ever be possible to include rafts or small boats in blueprints?
7. From Bobo: can we get a new, faster motor made from zirconium and ylandium?
8. Although some players are happy the propeller pack is no longer OP, many players are very upset that it has been reduced so much. 10 seconds is not very much time. Are there any plans to increase the time to 30 seconds or 1 minute? 
9. What are the plans to add more animals to the sea? Will we ever get sharks back?
10. What are the plans to add new types of transportation? Submarines, planes, helicopters, blimps, bicycles, etc?

 

What do you guys think?

Edited March 29, 2021 by ocnoglittle
rephrased the complaint about the propeller pack

[arceushunters 0]

Can u pls add coolants for the prop pack?

and if in the editor we could be able to make an npc pose as we want.

 

[bobo198312 121]

looking good

[empeorgame3(2) 15]

Thank you Ocnog you have mentioned my Question Also.

[6Cowa6Bunga6 55]

10 seconds for the propeller pack..... dam thats gonna make building a bit harder

[ocnoglittle 760]

1 minute ago, 6Cowa6Bunga6 said:

10 seconds for the propeller pack..... dam thats gonna make building a bit harder

Well with the new building station, you don't need a propeller pack at all to fly around and build

[SandyT 129]

I've one more question that I would really like them to consider. Would it be possible for us to get uncraftable items like the cooking pots from NPC traders?

 

[ocnoglittle 760]

I know they are adding them to Random Encounters. Do you want them to be traded as well?

[spiritchaser28 920]

Haha Deja Vu question. @SandyT Ask Ocnog....I have been like a broken record wanting cooking pots and ladels. I was soooo happy to hear they will be in random encounters.

 

Edited March 28, 2021 by spiritchaser28

[SandyT 129]

Random encounters would be awesome! They don't have to be in both, just the chance to get them will be awesome! Thank you, Ocnoglittle!

[ocnoglittle 760]

From @Mello1223: do you plan to modify the Creators Club and if so, will the creators have any better benefits?