Dev Diary #23

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

Hey there, fellow ylanders!

So, it has finally happened - Ylands is publicly available on Steam! Currently, the reviews are bordering on Mostly positive and Mixed which was to be expected as pretty much all the games with in-game monetization experience this - unfortunately regardless of how fair/unfair their system is. The thing we’re very excited about, though, is that the absolute majority of reviews that review the game itself are very positive, with players excited about Ylands.

Also - the sales have been very good so far, and it’s already obvious that we’ll have a strong enough community to provide us with a lot of feedback to us get through Early Access. Thank you, everyone!

Before we move to talking about features that we have planned for you, I would just like to address one thing related to those negative reviews. Based on what players say in those reviews or comments on forums, large number of those are actually based on assumptions instead of facts and generally go like this “Well, their monetization scheme seems fair now, but it’s only a question of time before they add loot boxes/hide important items behind a paywall/start spamming aggressive “Buy XY now” ads etc.”. Not only is this rather unfair but it can also be confusing for players who might not have enough information about the game. Let me use this opportunity to say as clearly as possible:

The Store is available in Ylands from day one of Steam release so that everyone can see what we consider fair monetization. There will be no loot boxes. You will be getting large free updates (25 released so far and counting ), and if you decide to ignore the Store altogether, you’ll still be able to play, enjoy the game to its fullest and those who have bought something won’t have any advantage over you. We have formulated our plans in advance, discussed them with our pre-Steam community and you can learn about them inside a FAQ pinned on our forum.
Speaking of FAQs - players on Steam forums have raised questions about analytic data our game gathers. You can read about those in the newly created “Security Concerns FAQ”.

Now let's talk about what’s going to happen during the Early Access phase (from now till late summer 2018) - I’ll start with what needs to be fixed. Everyone likes cool new features, but the most important task is to deliver a bug-free, well-performing game.

The most troubling problems now are:

* Performance - currently the biggest problem isn’t with how much fps you get (even though we would like to improve the game so that Ylands can be played comfortably even on lower spec PCs) but the fps drops that affect many players regardless of how powerful their PC is. This, unfortunately, doesn’t have a quick, easy fix and requires us to fix and improve several systems so instead of one patch/update that would remove this issue altogether you’ll likely see graduate improvements until this is finally gone entirely.

* MP issues - while singleplayer has only some occasional issues and some features need improving, MP still needs a lot of love. We’ve been releasing MP fixes with every update released so far and will continue to do so until all is fixed.

 

Arriving at Steam... after four years of development!  Next stop: solid and stable Ylands 1.0 (late summer 2018)

As for the upcoming features (the major ones, there will obviously be dozens of small improvements and tweaks):

This December we’ll release a small update (0.6.2) containing what we internally call protective energy barrier. We believe that you will find it very handy and it has the potential of fixing several gameplay issues you have been complaining about at once. We’ll talk more about it in the next Friday’s Sneak Peek.

The first update coming in 2018 will be 0.7 “Cheerful Characters”, introducing NPCs. We’re talking both friendly and hostile, and we believe those will add a lot of life to your games. You will be able to set them up in the Editor as you see fit.

After that, some of the features that the following updates will bring (in no particular order) are: dynamic music changing based on the current situation, new dedicated server tools, radical improvements to scripting in Editor, pets (to avoid potential misunderstanding - the fact that you can see Pets tab in Store doesn’t mean that the only way of getting a pet will be buying one for coyns) and a whole new world to explore. We will talk about each of those (and other) features in the future, but I’d like to say a few things about the very last thing I mentioned.

We feel that the Exploration game should have some more clear progress, some goal, and also that after some time spent playing in the current world, it might be nice to let you, once again, venture into the unknown. To explore new places, learn new recipes, fight new monsters, find new encounters. It will be some months before this is released - coming up with a whole new world is not a small task - so it’s too soon to go into details (also, we don’t want to spoil things for you) but what we can say now is that in order to get there you will have to get rather high in the “tech tree”, find and defeat a boss monster... which won’t be quick nor an easy fight. In the new world, you will have to become stronger to be able to survive - that will make your returns to the original world (which will be possible) and encountering those predators that used to be a threat even more fun!

This is just the first of the expansions we have planned for the Exploration game - we plan to keep adding those even when we leave Early Access. All of them, as always, as free updates.

So, that’s it for now. We’re looking forward to talking to you again the next week. Until then - have fun playing the game, ylanders,  and stay classy!

[WijkagentAdrie 384]

First of all, congrats to the entire Ylands team on finally releasing on Steam  I'm happy to see good overall reviews and sales. Where possible I've tried to explain the monetization in a fair way, but I understand that a lot of game developers have been too greedy in the past.

One request I can make for the upcoming updates is to really try to push the MP updates and fixes. The earlier we can start to have Ylands communities and dedicated servers, the better.

Some questions for 6.2: With the release of the barriers, will there finally be an easy way of deconstructing our own placed blocks?

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

Thanks, Adrie, appreciated!

I totally agree with MP being a priority now - we too see way too many broken MP games/features (on the other hand this much feedback will make it easier for us to reproduce it), although not many MP fixes are to be expected in the upcoming 0.6.2, we feel that 0.7 coming early next year needs to have as much as possible fixed.

barriers:  Just like the non-owners of the barrier shouldn't be able to damage your stuff when inside, the owners, on the other hand, should be able to destroy stuff more easily, so it should be possible for you to rather easily remove a built, hardened wall etc. (at the same time we have plans to let players simply move around large, hardened objects - but that will come later, quite likely even after 0.7). However, I can't promise this (doing more damage to your stuff inside the barrier) will be present in this first iteration of the energy barrier. If it isn't, it will definitely be part of 0.7.

[Shadow72 187]

Will admins on servers be able to remove and edit other peoples energy barriers? Will players only be allowed 1 energy barrier or can the owner of the server set the amount of energy barriers each player will get? Will players be allowed to place energy barriers on boats and cars?

[Miguel Preguisa 443]

I wonder if Cheerful Characters will bring more avatars to the game.  There is a lot of colors to choose from regarding hair, but everybody still looks quite similar. It would be nice to encounter various looking NPCs. Also, I think it could make the multiplayer easier if you hadn't to argue about who will pick which character.  

[WijkagentAdrie 384]

22 minutes ago, Shadow72 said:

Will admins on servers be able to remove and edit other peoples energy barriers? Will players only be allowed 1 energy barrier or can the owner of the server set the amount of energy barriers each player will get? Will players be allowed to place energy barriers on boats and cars?

I believe it's already hinted/confirmed that players will spawn with a semi complete barrier, which only needs a few parts to become operational. Any additional barriers are quite expensive to craft to limit the amount everyone will have.

[BigBoss87 68]

Thanks for another Dev Diary and congratulations on your arrival on Steam
I'm glad things were going well, that was a certainty since I first saw the game

I don't understand how some people can argue with such dedication on a subject that they don't understand anything at all. They have not yet realized that what is in the store is nothing more than a change of appearance of the things that really are in the game available for you.


Looking forward to this barrier.

[Wizza 11]

I didn't play the demo but followed and watched the progress through YouTube videos and I was eagerly awaiting the release. Since it's release I have played it an awful lot (some might say I'm now disregarding my family, I call it kicking my kids out the room). 

Can I just say what an amazing game it is and especially as it is an early access game. There is just so much to do and although there are bugs (which is to be expected) I must praise how quickly you release updates to fix them. I'm excited to see what the future holds.

[kimbuck 746]

What   have  you guys  done to my  life?

Went to the shops this morning for fresh milk and bread  and  found  myself stooping to pick up sticks and feathers  in case  i need to craft an arrow!

[arkaeldren 17]

As important as Bugs are to a new early release, its also important to make sure your not frustrating your player base to a point of harming a good pre-release.  As part of early updates go,  you might wanna consider a few small additions as well as a few tweaks to already implemented features.  Here are a few,

1) Off hand is needed "Badly".

2) Breaking existing or placed blocks is driving most to not alter building creations.

I have a few more but I don't want to sound greedy.  Seriously,  frustrating a new player base is not a good idea.  Love the game, love what you guys are trying to create and well worth the small entry fee.

[blfonsworth 10]

Micro-transactions in a pay-to-play game can rub people the wrong way. I don't mind them if they are all cosmetic. If you pay for a game and then have to pay to unlock usable items in the game, that's when you are just trying to rip people off (look at The Hunter)

That said I'm pumped on this game. We had 6 people playing last night

[yumikaze 6]

can you add offline mode? my account shared with my lil brother to play pubg

[Ane 1213]

48 minutes ago, yumikaze said:

can you add offline mode? my account shared with my lil brother to play pubg

We're looking into it

[Jimmy-T 9]

Congratulations! I'm surprised I hadn't heard about this game before I saw it on Steam, instant buy for me. I really love the entire game but also feel it has room to improve on the crafting aspect and definitely on the combat aspect. I read some older posts mentioning that adding a crouch feature was not a consideration at all, I really hope you change your minds about that at some point. It's really easy to get stuck in silly places, where all you'd really have to do to get loose, is to crouch. 

When it comes to improvements, I hope there will be a vicinity area when tabbing so it would be easier to pick up a specific item in a pile next to you. And a keybind for the map when it's present in your inventory. For crafting I'd wish it was possible to add stacks instead of single items, then it could craft one type, if you add an output slot, and say you have 100 iron ingots going it stacks those, and holds on to smelting the copper ore until you pick up the iron ingots from the output slot. Then eventually we could get crafty with machinery and connect stuff to chests etc for automated systems hopefully. But I understand at that point it's getting advanced. 

Other than that the combat has a lot of room for improvement. Especially melee combat, it can be a bit clunky atm, the way it locks the orientation when you do a hit, smashing running boars can be really hard, and sometimes even a little frustrating. 

[Scytale T 3]

Great game in early access !

Keep doing the good work !

[Chris Young Noize G. 8]

@Aleš Ulm @Ane
I think something great would be having a huge land ( like skyrim or a witcher map size generated where the main questing will be ) with all biomes somewhere if you are not going to make ylands as you go ! And i also think if you combine the crafting experience with the quests it will give more sense to the game for example you craft a propeller pack and you find a human npc after like 40 hours of gameplay because only then you will be able to discover him but he will be on the generated huge island that is the new one after you are able to discover all 8-12 islands and this area will be more likely to have most quests then you can find storylines i guess like him saying to your character "I haven't seen another human being in ages"    .  I think procedurally generating them as you go would be one of the best features of this game ( could be an update with this option at a later date ? ) . Also i think a globe feature would be nice with a couple huge islands and mostly some scattered around . Nice game btw but really painful bugs, I hope you get it right though it has great potential. Quick Tips ? add shields ? Combat a bit Sluggish ? i hope i see some bugs fixed in the future . Good luck to the team

[Quimerse 18]

Congratulation for your Steam introduction!
This game became my favorite in no time, its really atmospheric, polished, and fun to play
Can't wait to see your accomplishments in the future too
Keep up the good work!

On 2017. 12. 08. at 2:17 PM, Aleš Ulm said:

We feel that the Exploration game should have some more clear progress, some goal, and also that after some time spent playing in the current world, it might be nice to let you, once again, venture into the unknown. To explore new places, learn new recipes, fight new monsters, find new encounters. It will be some months before this is released - coming up with a whole new world is not a small task - so it’s too soon to go into details (also, we don’t want to spoil things for you) but what we can say now is that in order to get there you will have to get rather high in the “tech tree”, find and defeat a boss monster... which won’t be quick nor an easy fight. In the new world, you will have to become stronger to be able to survive - that will make your returns to the original world (which will be possible) and encountering those predators that used to be a threat even more fun!

[SUGGESTION]
It would be cool, if you could add some auto-whitelisting method for singleplayer saves. To check if the game was externally modified, or added anything with creator cube, spawned objects, duped items, edited the file outside of the game, etc.
If that could be possible, joining from private "original world", which is safe and "invite only" based, to multiplayer official provider hosted public "new world" could be a really nice stuff.
It would easen up whitelisting players from mismatching/suspicious assets from singleplayer game, if someone decide to host a "new world" server.