Dev Diary #17

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

Hey there fellow ylanders,

We would like for this post to be the first one where we‘ll try to address a rather specific kind of multiplayer issues. With the MP becoming more stable and fun, increasing number of players are joining online games, and because of that, we (as well as many of you) are beginning to see even some problematic behaviors.

Some of these are clearly hostile or mean-spirited actions. This, which is commonly called griefing, is something that we will be focusing on the most, but it should be noted that there are many other ways how one player can irritate or anger others - many times actually either unknowingly or even with a good intent. It‘s important to understand that even if we managed to totally eradicate griefers in Ylands (which would be great, but is quite unlikely), there would still be many potential conflict situations that we can‘t prevent, and that is why you, the players, need to be proactive in these matters and take measures to prevent as many of these moments as possible.

To help you do that, we'll provide you with some basic safety tips (these mostly apply to Explore game):

* if you‘re planning on spending a lot of time building/exploring/leaving your mark in the world, you should think twice before hosting/joining a public game unprotected by a password, open to complete strangers

* if you‘re in a game freely accessible by anyone, consider building your epic mansion (or any other creation that takes a lot of effort) on one of the more distant ylands. Since many griefers join games to do as much damage in as little time as possible, being somewhere where they can‘t get unless they first build a boat and locate your yland, can make a big difference

 

Having nice sturdy doors is a way to go (Courtesy of blancket )

 

* if you build a house, make sure the main entrance is fitted with a lockable door (which you keep locked). Protecting other possible points of entry (such as the roof) might also be a good idea

* we plan on introducing a feature that will prevent players from placing building blocks in the vicinity of doors placed by other players. While not a perfect solution, this should prevent ugly issues where some players have used hardened blocks to prevent others from entering their buildings

* in the upcoming update you will also be able to duplicate keys - that way you will be able to keep your house locked while giving your friends a way of getting inside

* don‘t forget to build a solid floor in your house - it is really easy to dig one‘s way inside through the dirt from the outside

* use lockable containers where possible

* we plan on adding padlocks (lockable by keys or codes/passwords) in the game, and we would like them to be used to lock most of the interactive objects (locks, levers, workstations). This should add yet another level of protection - especially for your boats and cars
  
So that‘s it for now. Please make sure to let us know about anything that you don‘t like or annoys you in the multiplayer games (or anywhere else). We‘ll return to this topic in the near future - until then you have a great time and stay classy!

[A3_Melle 150]

Maybe also a thing about locking your objects on MP: "lock protection": wenn you lock your ship they can't take it away (great news!). But still wenn they want to ruin the game they can sink/damage a ship/car as the "player who can't enter will probely not be happy (just my thought passing trew).

[John - NEXFER 111]

I am writing this because I've become clearly disgruntled, I feel that I aught to explain this, though it is possible it will simply fall on death ears, or result in down-voting.
Regardless, I am sorry if it comes across as rude, please understand that I feel the following points have merit, and my intent is to help, not hinder.

 

Again, I feel fairly terrible about this because you are all such truly lovely people, and if it were just a matter of personal, I wouldn't say a bad thing against any of you, however, this post is a matter of professional, and it aims to offer some of what in my view, is well needed constructive criticism.

- The dedicated server was introduced in January 2017 (0.21), it is now September 2017 (0.5) - almost 9 months later, and the dedicated server is still unusable for any practical sense or purpose.

- Co-op is just fine, you can lock a server and have your friends log in without issue, however, if I choose to host a public dedicated server, and some child can log in 5 minutes later, and not only grief my self, but grief any and all players that choose to join the server, without even really trying hard (walling in the starting spawn or plenty of more examples), then a public dedicated server is completely pointless and unusable in its current state.

- 9 months is not an acceptable time frame to address these issues, by any means. They are relatively simple issues to address, and examples of how these can be addressed are plentiful (Ylands is not the first multiplayer game made with Unity). They have many possible solutions that while not being "perfect", will address the issues accurately and in a timely manner and are all, far better than nothing.

- So, Ylands is currently a Single-Player / Co-op game, and if I wanted that, I wouldn't be here! Yes it can be quite fun in single-player (explore mode is its best feature by far), and even with a couple of friends, but I and also most Steam(ers), are interested in multiplayer, or massively-multiplayer, and as Ylands was advertised as such, this is the only reason I am here.

- Bug reporting is apparently a shambles as well, fairly often and consistently I will spend my own time locating the causes and sources of bugs after an update (along with others), and report them on the forums in the hope of assisting the development team, to release a fix and speed up the process, and often, these bugs are not addressed for weeks, months or at all. Numerous times I've had to re-post the same bugs, in different threads, or watched as others do the same, because they simply were not addressed in their originals, or even acknowledged (I was still waiting on the bugs I've posted regarding 0.5 to even be acknowledged, so I had to re-link to it when the bug came back up, and these are serious game-breaking bugs). Currently, Explore mode in multiplayer has been made obsolete (possibly single player too), because ships are bugged. There is no "explore" without "ships".

- Testers and bug hunters are a prerequisite for any game developer, however, apparently WE are the testers and bug hunters! To release an update for the game, that has not been through any sufficient testing or bug hunting process, is not a good idea, and will result in some serious negative ratings if this approach continues post-Steam release. Bohemia Interactive is not some indie-developer, working solo in their basement, to pass off the job of testing and bug hunting, to the players whom have paid for your game, is fairly inappropriate. At the very least, some professional testers aught to be hired by your team, and set up to thoroughly test any updates, prior to releasing them to the community who in turn, pays your bills. If I can log in to a fresh server after a new update, and within 5 minutes find numerous bugs... if I can log in, spawn a boat and stand on it, and it bugs out to an unplayable state... then either there is no testers / bug hunters, or they are incompetent (sorry to be harsh but accurate) and aught to be replaced by competent people. As I said, if I can locate even a single "unknown" bug, within 5 minutes of playing after an update, any "testers" that exist - have failed miserably, and aren't worth their pay-cheque. Considering this is not just now and then, but so far consistently for every update that has been released since I purchased the game. This disgruntles me a lot, because it is not an overly difficult task, and I've been doing it for many years to a far higher standard.

 

- Presuming that your customers would be happy to fill this role for free, will result in this game being made "free" on Steam, because quite quickly, nobody will buy it (after reading reviews to this regard).

- The Server Monitor is still using the GPU to display itself, due to the language in which it has been written I presume, I can only hope that this is remade in to a simple console version for Steam, there is simply no valid reason to have a graphically demanding (GUI) as the server application. Servers are generally run in server environments, which do not meet the requirements of the GUI, and thus is harnessing the CPU instead, which should be reserved for processing the server itself. I am more than happy to outline how a good dedicated server should be designed and implemented, but I doubt this will be heard (as I have already done this and it was seemingly ignored)... put simply, the allocation of resources in this current setup is not efficient, a simple console, that can take commands, output what is going on in the server, and that logs who did what and when, is all I need for this, however, what I have currently, is a GUI that allows me to do that which a simple command would suffice for, does not show me any goings-on within the server, and just spams me with "has connected", "has disconnected" and shows me the current chat, heck I can't even see how many people are online, if any, I could be chatting through the server monitor to nobody for all I know! What good is having a GUI, if the GUI shows you nothing of use? It may as well be just a few buttons. The server "monitor" should allow you to "monitor" the server, don't you agree? Well, what does it monitor currently? Server Chat? Server Logged in / Logged out? Server is On or Off? So it's a Server Chat Monitor, with an attached on/off switch, and a healthy dose of spammed messages. The server monitor should be showing - incoming / outgoing network usage, total online players, players connecting and disconnecting, in-game chat, which actions are being taken by the server with time-stamps, which actions are being taken by the players with names, user codes or IP's and time-stamps, and most crucially - any errors that the server experiences (for identifying cause and effect bugs), aught to be displayed in the monitor, else we don't know any of these things and are left blind, looking at a "monitor", that monitors nothing of use, while taking up additional server resources, for no good reason.

- Server administration by server hosts is a joke, I'm sorry to say it. If a troll or a 'griefer' comes on to cause havoc, unless I happen to be online, on the same Yland as they are, within the same area, and close enough to physically watch them do it (so highly unlikely), I have nothing in the form of evidence, I only have hearsay, he said she said rubbish, which frankly, I am not prepared to ban or kick someone over. If I cannot prove who did what and when, then I cannot administrate my own server, and a 5 year old child could log in, grief it all, and there would be nothing reasonable I could do. This is a shambles, and is in no way any form of administration, I may as well just be the server on/off switch. Or on the other hand, I could be the kind of abusive admin that simply bans people without evidence, something that would result in my server having no players. Lose-lose for me.

- I am just about ready to abandon this game, and check back in once it hits Steam officially, to see if anything has been addressed, or to be further disappointed if nothing really has. Ylands has huge potential as a multiplayer, or even a massively-multiplayer game, however, releasing more content, should not be a priority over fixing the issues that it currently has. I could only recommend postponing current plans to add more content, and take this time to address the long-overdue issues, that effectively ruin the game and game-play.

 

- As a rule-of-thumb, if you have content that is not yet finished, don't go adding more. If you have systems that are still not in working order, don't go adding additional systems!

 

Sorry that I couldn't be more positive about this, I hope some of it can be of use.

Edited September 16, 2017 by John - Ylanders

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

John, there's absolutely no need for you to be "positive" about things that you don't like about the game and I definitely don't see your post as "rude". I see well-articulated concerns of someone who's not happy with the current state of things and telling us about it - which is exactly what this forum is for. While it's nice to read when you guys like something, we welcome critical posts as well. So - and this is meant for everyone - don't hold back! As long as you voice your concerns in a civil manner, we'll be more than grateful for it.

In fact, I'm glad you posted this because it gives us a chance to address concerns that even others may have. Unfortunately, right now I don't have enough time to post a detailed enough answer, but I will definitely do so later this weekend - I just wanted you to know we've read this and we will discuss it with you. In the meantime enjoy your weekend!
 

[WijkagentAdrie 384]

I for 90% agree with what John's posted. I think the reason I can bare with the "discomforts" is because I've played loads of early access games, mainly survival/creative. I'll list a few:

Minecraft (from early browser only versions on),

Space Engineers,

Scrap Mechanic,

Kerbal Space Program,

DayZ (mod and SA),

ARK Survival,

Rust,

H1Z1,

PUBG,

The Division,

Ylands is currently very similar to DayZ, the early access process doesn't seem to be the most streamlined among the games on the list, but because it has the highest potential it's still worth to play a lot. Just like John has with Ylands now, I've left DayZ untouched for a few months a couple of times, but always came back to enjoy it even more.

What I believe is most problematic now is feedback from the devs on the reports, but also seeing bugs reported 2 patches ago which look rather minor/easy to fix still being present in the game on the latest updates. It throws a barrier to report more bugs/problems. The monetization FAQ is already a massive step forward. It's open, transparent, and it basically covers all the questions we've had and more. It took away a lot of concerns, as the feedback is so different compared to when the first ideas were announced on monetization. What Kerbal Space Program does very very very well is their status reports. They let nearly all of their developers write a small bit of what they have been doing that week. It only takes every developer 5-10 minutes and gives the people feedback that the bugs that got reported are being worked on. Maybe you guys have been beta testing a new GUI-less dedicated server for 2 weeks already, but there's no way for us to tell. I know the developers are submerged by the project 8 hours a day and know all ins and outs, but remember that we can't see what's not being shown to us.

I think it would be right to literally go over every single Suggestions and Bug thread to see if nothing has been missed. We could use a bug tracker like DayZ has, which makes reporting easy, takes out duplicates. The really severe gameplay breaking bugs could still be reported in the forums to show what bugs need priority. One thing I do notice is that as soon as someone says he can't play due to a bug/update/the game not loading, the response is very good to help the player get back in the game as soon as possible  

Another problem I've seen is in the Dutch translations: I have the feeling that the translations were 100% made out of the game and the translations haven't been tested, leading to loads of inconsistencies and out of place words which are not necessary I believe. For example the Tesla Coil translation is "Tesla spoel" (which is the 2 words literally translated, Teslatransformator would be more correct), but the "Tesla Coil Parts" are called "Tesla Rol Onderdelen". The word coil has been translated different, making no sense.

I honestly think Ane is doing a good job, I just feel that we could do with a second Ane  

Contrary to what John says I think that pushing new features before old features are fixed is the best way to do it, because the earlier we get our hands on something the earlier we can help and address problems that weren't thought about. Scrap Mechanic actually gives us multiple beta builds, with for example different wheel physics to test and give feedback before the final, best result is pushed to stable. 

Creative games like this will see people using things in ways other than intended. I think adding new features as soon as possible will shorten the overall development time, although it makes the game less playable now. It's a part of early access I'm happy with. I also accept that being part of early access means we're essentially the testers and bug hunters, I'm more than happy with that. It's been enjoyable so far!

 

Anyway, I don't like giving critique without ideas on how to fix things:

I believe the biggest priority at the moment should be the multiplayer experience. Fixing multiplayer is also gonna greatly improve sales, as 90% of the games I buy I only buy to play with my friends, usually after they recommend it to me. The multiplayer fixing can be divided into the actual technical side (the server performance, GUI etc.), and the actual gameplay element. I believe that if you introduce anti griefing measurements one by one, people always find the next way. If I can't build within a 10 block radius around your door I will build a cube at an 11 block radius, or just pack the rest of someones house to cause grief. There's no way for them to take down those blocks/walls without destroying their own house. I think a good solution would be a plotpole as used in arma 2 or a tool cupboard as used in Rust. I believe arma 2 dayz had the balance for raiding/griefing just right: Raiding is a huge hassle and you only do it when you really hate someone and got personal problems with them. Also, the Minecraft plugin systems are nice, in which you can mark areas as pvp/pve, and limit explosive/fire damage in certain areas as well.

If harm has been done (say someone builds a wall just outside plotpole/tool cupboard range, a nice backup system where you can fix/rollback only certain parts of the map would be useful, along with very detailed logs of what player hit/interacted with what object at what time with what weapon. Also have block owner/placer ID's. Even if it's a raw .txt dump we can still use 3rd party programs or MS excel to be able to search through this in an effective way, and be able to moderate our servers. What also isn't helpful is that we had a griefer, we knew his name, but we couldn't give a ban to his account as he simply logged off.

Other ways to massively improve the multiplayer experience is making islands more sustainable, bigger, and an infinitely generated world with island groups. Groups of players can have their own island(s). Groups of players could share rights using those tool cupboards.

 

If there's anything I (and I believe quite a few others are willing to help as well) can do to help streamline the process, to improve the overall game, than please drop a reply/topic with what is needed or a PM.

Adrie

 

Edited September 16, 2017 by WijkagentAdrie

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

Alright, I will try to quickly address some of the issues as possible (in no specific order) - I will add some more info once I have more time and after I've talked with our programmers (about things related to Dedicated Servers).

Testing
With the game being still an early alpha there are indeed lots of bugs, especially in the new features - but I'd say that we are, in general, getting better in handling this - for  example the cars and weather system were really difficult to implement and yet they are among the least problematic updates. It is true that lots of bugs are found and reported by you, the players, but putting it as if we are doing minimal testing and let you "do the job" can't be further from the truth. For dozens of bugs reported on forums (and via ingame tracker - I must not forget about that because we do receive a lot of great feedback that way!) we found and fixed literally several thousands of issues. 

Also the feeling that things that you report just end up forgotten or ignored is wrong. I already discussed this in one of the previous Dev Diaries:

The suggestions you make are discussed during our daily "design talks." All the issues you report are put in our internal system - even if you don‘t get an update about the state of the issue you‘ve reported after some time, it didn‘t disappear. We still know about it, and if it‘s not fixed in the upcoming update, it can be because of several reasons. Even though more people are coming to our team, there are still hundreds of bugs and design issues to take care of, and that takes time. Also, some of your bugs can be related to systems that we know we‘re going to rework soon(TM), in which case we don‘t fix them - we just wait before the new system is in place and then test if the issue is still there. And, unfortunately, sometimes our QA/programmers are unable to reproduce the issue you reported (even after we ask for logs, etc.) - in that case we just leave it in our system and wait if someone else doesn‘t report it as well, hopefully with some additional information.

We've been already thinking about using a public tracker where you could check the state of the issue you reported, see/ask about its progress, easily find duplicates etc. However, from what we see in other games (Arma etc.) people prefer reporting issues over forum and only small portion use trackers even when available. Using a tracker at this moment would very likely end up in it being used by only several players while creating unnecessary overhead for us. We do, however, plan to use it sometime in future, when there are more players.

Translations
"I have the feeling that the translations were 100% made out of the game and the translations haven't been tested [speaking about the Dutch translation]". 
I'm not sure if I fully understand. Dutch translation is one of the community-made translations and because it hasn't been approved by at least some other players it's available only to those who explicitly run the game with -translator parameter (so that they can check it). It will remain in this stage until the community lets us know it's good enough so this is really up to the community to test it. We just make the tools for those who want to translated the game into their language. If you found some problems with it it's basically a proof that the system works - you should report it to us as an issue or in the localization thread and if you feel proactive you can take part in improving it and fix those yourself  

Griefing
Maybe this is a misunderstanding but as I said in the post - here we just presented few quick tips (and features we know are gonna make it to the next update) that might make your experience more safe and pleasant. I even said that there will be more post like this coming so don't think that what we presented is everything that we are planning to do. Just like the quick fix with doorway I mentioned - we are designing a more robust solution which will very likely replace it but we're not sure when it becomes available (obviously we would like it to be asap).

( I will definitely address even the other concerns you have once I'm at the office on Monday)

[BigBoss87 68]

I came during the events of E3 2017. I loved the way the game was being presented.
  We have to keep in mind that this is an alpha state and will enter Steam still in early access.
But I agree that some bugs should have been fixed

If we had a more solid multiplayer we could test with another availability.
For example, dying when we don't return to the game for a while can make it fun to create something and lock and hide keys it but it makes me think twice before going there to do anything.
We still can see and pick/use/interact behind 1unit wall.

I think we have to wait until the game reaches Steam.

Edited September 17, 2017 by BigBoss87

[WijkagentAdrie 384]

Thanks for the response @Aleš Ulm! I totally forgot that I've been running -translator parameter, my bad, I'm sorry! It makes sense the way it is now. I would love to help doing the translations for Dutch, I've sent Ane a message and made a crowdin account. 

 

Edited September 17, 2017 by WijkagentAdrie

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

No problem and thanks for getting involved - this is exactly what we hoped for.  Anyway - later today I will discuss the MP concerns with our programmers so that we can discuss it in detail here (that might not be today, but you'll definitely get your answers in this thread - actually feel free to voice any other concerns you might have right here).

[A3_Melle 150]

@WijkagentAdrie the dutch translation was a big part done by me, and a small part by someone before me who skipped a lot of lines and translated the fast way with skipping a lot of lines. It was like finding a needle in a haystack to find all wrong translations, i did my best. As a example: i found out that A was translated  B in line 350, but the word came back again at line 1035 it was translated A -> C.

 

 

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

Just to keep you in the loop - we started discussing all the concerns you posted and we are coming up with solutions how to address those and improve whatever isn't working as it should be. In order for this discussion not to become too fragmented we decided to first discuss everything, then post all we plan to change (some changes you'll see already within the next few days) as a new Dev Diary (probably on Wednesday). Once it's out we'd like to ask you to read it and tell us what you think. Thanks again for talking to us, we appreciate it!