❤️ New time-limited pet (available Feb 10 - 17) ⚪ Improved behaviour of inventory and radial menu on-screen buttons 📝 New login/registration screen 📘 Tutorial UI improvements
Fixed / Added / Tweaked / Removed
[YLD-42689] Fixed: Tutorial: Mobile: Health layout overlaps the hint box. [YLD-42718] Fixed: "Gather Alchemy Ingredients" task name overlaps over its box. [YLD-42411] Added: Flying Boar for Valentine. [YLD-42530] Tweaked: Adjust character naming screen. [YLD-42280] Tweaked: Errors during login/registration are now more specific. [YLD-42544] Tweaked: Mobile UI: Inventory, Radial Menu, Chat a Pause menu should work on release. [YLD-42497] Removed: The login screen upon the first start.
As we have moved from the designing phase to fully implementing 1.12 features, we will - as always - start sharing with you information about various new or improved features that you will be able to find in the next update.
Today we would like to mention two specific changes we made based on your feedback.
The first one we already mentioned in the last Live Stream (which was a lot of fun as usual :) ). We know that sailing can get a bit tedious at times, so for 1.12 we're making some exciting adjustments that should make it more fun. The first one is - fishing on moving boats! Got a few moments to spare before you reach your destination? Take out your fishing rod and spend some quality time getting the pretty fish (and other stuff).
The second thing is more subtle but many will love it. For quite a long time some of you have complained about the camera not moving smoothly - which was especially obvious with higher fps. Well, we made some changes to the camera system and we're pretty sure you will notice the difference.
There's a ton of other cool stuff planned for 1.12 so stay tuned ... and classy!
clear name that represents what the Blueprint is (numbers can also be a name if the context of the Blueprint allows it)
all the names have to be in English
Purposeful use
Blueprints that are not allowed are those that misuse the lack of knowledge of new players (such as propeller pack blueprint, where you need to insert a built propeller pack to build it.)
No low effort Blueprints
For example two blocks, creator cube, ....
Breaking the rules
After breaking these rules if you do not continue in such behavior you may stay in the shop
If you continually break the rule you will receive Blueprint shop ban
You have probably noticed that a new exciting section of our in-gam shop has appeared with Update 1.11 - Blueprints! You may remember from this Dev Diary, that the Blueprint shop is a great place to gift, buy and sell your wonderful creations. And since the launch of the feature, we have seen some truly magnificent pieces, which is what today's Dev Diary will be about.
Seeing all those incredible ships, buildings, cars, and many more different kinds of Blueprints, we realized that we wanted to show those to everyone which is why we will start regularly highlighting specific Blueprints. Each week, we will handpick a few of your creations and promote them on our social media along with a few details about the specific Blueprint. For now, we are mainly going to promote the creations of the members of our Creators Club (Not a member? Join here.) so that everyone can see their exceptional talents!
To make sure you get to see what some of these Blueprints look like in the game, we regularly look at some during our stream. We even have a special map to showcase the Creators Club Blueprints during each stream. You can already take a peak at what that looks like! https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1718069609
What are your favorite Blueprints? Have you uploaded and/or downloaded any yet? If so, let us know which ones!
That's it for today and we will talk to you again next week!
[YLD-41901] Fixed: Exploration local save entries are now flagged as 'unsaved' before the first write to disk actually succeeds. If a player attempts to continue an 'unsaved' entry, it transparently redoes the initial starting sequence to avoid corruption of that particular map entry. [YLD-41902] Fixed: Blueprints: The main carousel does not update the download number until restart. [YLD-42121] Fixed: Blueprints: Preview does not sometimes show particles when rendering the preview for a second time. [YLD-41422] Fixed: Blueprints: Sometimes have their generated preview image missing. [YLD-41844] Fixed: Glowing carpets and sledgehammers are pickable in one of the haunted encounters. [YLD-41870] Fixed: Arrows and space keys can no longer control UI elements when the tutorial overlay is on. [YLD-41916] Fixed: Rabbits drop raw rabbit meat again instead of raw meat. [YLD-37944] Fixed: Tutorial: Mobile flow for equipping an axe did not account for not all inventory slots being visible on mobile at all times and could get the user stuck. [YLD-41874] Fixed: Tutorial: Flow explaining how crafting works should no longer highlight incorrect entries under very specific conditions. [YLD-41895] Fixed: Editor: multiselection of objects referencing different objects in the same property can break the Properties window. [YLD-41885] Fixed: Editor: you can not change the color of the brush entity. [YLD-42100] Fixed: VS: Show next/previous usage does not work. [YLD-42017] Fixed: Custom HUD/Window: Undo does not work correctly when deleting tree of widgets with buttons as leaves. [YLD-42015] Fixed: Custom tools: Undo in tool's script and editing HUD layout may break tool's script. [YLD-42178] Fixed: Custom Tools: Duplicate Objects tile doesn't work in Tool Mode. Fixed: DLC gifting was producing "invalid input" errors.
Added / Removed / Tweaked
[YLD-40072] Added: Confirmation popup displayed when unlocking a biome via the Expedition now displays the resources required. [YLD-29662] Added: Multiplayer games can now also be removed from the games list. [YLD-40121] Tweaked: When a popup that requires input from the player opens on mobile, it will try to position itself so that it's at least somewhat visible under the software keyboard. [YLD-42182] Tweaked: Coyn packages in the in-game shop are now sorted by their price and not alphabetically. [YLD-42280] Tweaked: Errors during login/registration are now more specific. From now on, the generic "check your inputs" message will be shown only in cases, where we get an unspecific response from the backend.
Start gathering those materials and prepare to get your hands dirty as this year’s Steam Base Builder Fest is here!
This means that you should take some time to work on your home base and polish up the things you've been meaning to polish for some time now (you know what we're talking about!) and to help you out with that, during the Base Builder Fest we’re cutting the prices of the Exploration DLC by 50% from 23/01/2022 to 30/01/2023.
Don't forget to let us know which adjustments, additions, renovations, rearrangements, upgrades, restorations and repairs you've done while working on your base!
As you might have read in the previous Dev Diary, we do read your reviews and feedback. We read both the positive and negative - and even though in the last two years we see the negative ones appear less and less with every new update (hence the rising average recent reviews score), there's surely still a good deal of those thumbs down.
There are reviews like these
"I was expecting this to be a single-player sandbox game, but it's more like an MMO with in-game shops. Not for me. Others may like this but I can't recommend it."
"The game is bad. Every minute is a waste on this piece of garbage."
"This shizznit sucks cannot get past the tutorial cuz the game keeps finding a new glitch to softlock me from continuing"
"boring"
"What exactly did I just download?"
(copied from recent ones, Steam, English)
Some obviously provide a bit more feedback than others (and those we answer), but most negative ones don't really help us make the game better - and that's fine. We don't really expect everyone to spend their time telling us what exactly they don't like about our game.
However, there's one specific type of negative feedback that we consider unfair. From time to time we see people posting about Ylands "still being a Roblox clone", "focusing on the platform and ignoring the exploration" and so on. The interesting thing about this is that we, as the devs, see for each player when was it they last played the game, and most of those who post (or update) such reviews have not played the game in the last two years or more.
And that's the only thing we're asking - if you want to tell others about what the game is like, give it a try.
Two years ago we had to change the course back to where we started because we spent some time going in the wrong direction, but now we're back. In many ways, we are much better than the game you once loved. We have larger maps than we ever had. We have better AI. The game is way more optimized and the multiplayer code is way more stable. Don't just take our word for it, though, this is what other players say: "Its been a while since I've played this game and at the time I deleted it within 30 min. I decided to try it again and they seemed to pull off No Man's Sky level updates and they're still going strong. Give it a shot If it's been a while or you're thinking about trying this game especially if you like games like Minecraft, Ark, Alas, Sea of Thieves, or Deadpoly."
"open world survival game where your main base is a ship. Has come a long way since launch, and it rocks pretty hard now"
"...So why the positive review? Because as of a year ( or maybe two) ago, Bohemia has come to their senses and decided to focus heavily on exploration. The game is far better now than it was even 6 months ago..."
"In the beginning the game was trash, it performed badly, there was basically no gameplay, no advanced game mechanics, and a very short, very strict tutorial on how to play the game. Now the game performs very well, it is not hard on your GPU usage and they added more features, more animals, and basically more stuff that the player can enjoy. So I voted yes because the DEVs have done an amazing job since the beginning :)"
"I played this game since 2017 and have seen many changes in the game, some good and some not so good. I took a year off of playing and just came back earlier this year and wow the changes and the games sure have changed. I love this game from the early days and fell in love with it all over again. I have met a lot of players over the years and became friends with many of them. I would recommend giving this game a chance and you will be surprised."
"I am very surprised how far this game evolved, and I really appreciate the hard work of the developer team. I enjoyed many hours exploring, crafting, building and everything was pleasable." (copied from recent ones, Steam, English - and there's plenty more where those come from :) )
This is the result of almost 40 people working tirelessly on the game for the last two years. To provide you with cool updates - the 48th is on the way. Yes, we've already brought you 47 updates and if nothing else, it should be enough for you to give the game yet another try and then tell us what you think. If you still don't like what you see, let us know. We'll fix it and the next update can be much better because of you. (mrknutí)
Stay classy, Ylanders!
PS: Yes, 47. Here they are (the game was available even before it entered Steam EA)
Over the past year, you gave us so many amazing ideas, constructive criticism, and encouragement. Thank you!
We notice everything you tell us. Many of your suggestions have already made it into the game (like the fact that you wanted the FPS camera back!) We discuss your ideas on a regular basis in meetings. Of course, if you tell us about a bug, we immediately jump on it and do our best to fix it. We always appreciate both positive and negative feedback as long as it is constructive, which helps us make our game better.
An example of constructive feedback:
When you tell us something nice, we notice! Once a week we share positive vibes within the team by sharing some of the nicest messages we get from you. Thank you, you motivate us to keep working hard. It is a pleasure to work for a Community like you! Some examples of our Monday Motivation:
Last but not least we would like to remind you how to send us feedback. The best way is always to send us an in-game message (especially when it comes to bugs). When you do that we get your logs (documents with technical information about your last session in the game). Logs help us determine where the issue is. Other channels:
Welcome to the first post of 2023! We're all back at work, discussing various features and improvements planned for 1.12, but there's still one thing we need to do first - release a patch that will fix and improve various aspects of Update 1.11. Those are either some smaller improvements that we were not able to test thoroughly enough in time, as well as fixes for issues that you've reported. You can expect this patch to be released before the end of January.
Before the end of the year, we had a really nice holiday-ish live stream where we looked at some of your creations and, boy, were there some truly magnificent pieces! We also realized that it's been some time since we did a specific Q&A stream so you can expect one in the near future.
Also in the upcoming weeks, we'll start sharing various pieces of information about the 1.12 update with you, as well as info related to Creators Club.
By the way - Ylands EDU, an alpha version of Ylands specifically suited for use in schools has gained quite a large momentum here in the Czech Republic, which we use as a testing ground for the education version. The feedback from the teaching community has been absolutely epic, and it's very likely that this year will see many schools here using our game.
Why should you care about EDU you ask? Not only will this eventually lead to a bigger Ylands community, but it will result in Ylands becoming a more tested and stable product, that will be with you for many years to come.
And that's it for today. You stay classy, Ylanders!
So it's that time of the year again. The unmistakable, unavoidable sound of Mariah Carey's "All I want from Christmas" announces that time when overworked devs finally get some rest leaving you, the players, with the latest update to play with.
We believe that 2022 was a good year for Ylands players. For a few days, every team here in Bohemia Interactive was supposed to say three words that summarize their project in these. For us, it was really a no-brainer.
Back to roots.
In the last year, we added a lot of things you asked for. Returned things we temporarily removed. We fixed several ancient annoying bugs. And after all that, Adventure (aka Exploration) is now close to what it used to be and, in some ways, even better.
Since in 1.11 we introduced way more content even for those who don't own the DLC and fixed issues we found to be annoying, especially for the new players (with more of those fixes coming in 1.12) we are looking forward to something we could call restarting Ylands. A game that is engaging and accessible to new players, with improved systems and game mechanics that experienced players will be able to enjoy for dozens of hours or more.
But even though we are looking forward to introducing these things in 2023, life is not about Ylands (or any other game for that matter :) ) and this is the time to remind ourselves of that.
Whether in Ylands, another game, or away from computer or mobile, our whole team would like to sincerely thank you for your support and wish you all the best in the New Year 2023. May you and your loved ones be happy, healthy, and safe so we can meet in a couple of weeks. Time flies fast and so we'll be back before you know it. Or, as a great man once said: "Smoke Me A Kipper, I'll Be Back For Breakfast".