Ylands News

[h3]Ahoy, Ylanders![/h3]

There are new packs in the shop for both new and hardcore players among you. Let's see what we have in store... literally.

[h2]STARTER PACK[/h2]



Starting with the starter pack, which will ensure any new or longtime player swiftly starts off their adventure! So let's see what you get for a mere 2.99 EUR.

• Arid Region unlock
  
• 300 Coyns
  
• Bushcraft Avatar Frame
  
• Toolbox
  
• Lunchbox
  
• Herb Bag
  
• Obsidian pick
  
• Obsidian knife
  
• Wooden fishing rod
  
• 20× Clay
  
• 10× Leather
  
• 15× Flint
  
• 20× Feather
  
• 10× Healing Herb
  
• 30× Stone
  

As you can see, there is plenty of useful stuff here. So where is the catch, you ask? Yes, there is a catch, but only a little one. You can purchase the Starter Pack only once per account.

It may not surprise you, but in fact, this pack was your idea all along! It took us a while, but we finally found a reliable way to deliver resources to you in the game without breaking its natural progress.

[h2]SUPPORTER PACK[/h2]



Now we are looking at you, our dearest hardcore Ylanders. An exclusive costume, title, avatar frame, and emote are waiting just for you. On the other hand, your support will mean a lot to us and will help us to continue working on Ylands and bring you many more new updates.

On top of that, every supporter can enjoy their own role on our Discord as well as a special "Supporter only" room. Just in case, you can click here to join the Discord server now!

Thank you for your never-ending support.

Stay Classy, Ylanders!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2904300/Ylands__Starter_Pack/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2904310/Ylands__Supporter_Pack/

[h3]STARTER PACK[/h3]

• Starting resources and other important stuff for bargain price! Can be purchased only ONCE per account.
  
• This pack is based on our players' feedback and is an ideal choice for starting players who want to enjoy a little boost to the start of the game.
  

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2904300/Ylands__Starter_Pack/

[h3]SUPPORTER PACK[/h3]

• The most exclusive and top shelf cosmetics for the biggest Ylands fans who want to support the game's development.
  
• Entry to a special Discord "Supporter only" room is included in the pack. Not a member of our Discord yet? Click here to join now!
  

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2904310/Ylands__Supporter_Pack/

[h3]INTRO[/h3]

• For months we evaluated what should be showed off more and now it's going live!
  
• New players can get a better taste of what they can experience in Ylands from the very beginning.
  
• The time to invite your friends to play Ylands (or reset your progress) is now!
  

[h3]New Assets[/h3]
STARTER PACK:

• Avatar's Tropical Frame
  

SUPPORTER PACK:

• C.A.G. Admiral Costume
  
• Noble Wave Emote
  
• Avatar's Baroque Frame
  
• C.A.G. BENEFACTOR title
  

[h3]ADDITIONS[/h3]
Added: New playable Intro where player will be introduced to C.A.G and main features of the game.

[h3]FIXED[/h3]
[YLD-51838] Fixed: Story: Players lost progress from Elmwood outpost.
[YLD-51621] Fixed: Editor: All damage immunity / No player vs player damage check boxes are wrongly checked in Game settings.
[YLD-51083] Fixed: Editor: On Invulnerable Hit event does not trigger for invincible players.
[YLD-50834] Fixed: A handbook memory leak that would occur upon changing the active session (leaving a game into the main menu, changing a server etc.).

Ahoy Ylanders!

Today, let's for once leave the seas of Ylands and instead dive into what it's like to be a tester.


In general, us testers get to shine when a new feature or asset is introduced and given to us in its raw state. Here it's important to keep two mindsets: one of a tester, but also one of a player. But let's get to the latter in a little bit.


Generally, as testers, we basically have one important job - to grab what we've received and attempt to break it in any way imaginable. Already knowing all that is doable in the game, this is where we do that "all" and way more.
We get to wreak havoc and investigate all that could possibly go wrong, and this is where being creative and imaginative really pays off. Finding as many ways to break every new thing as possible lets us, after all, try our very best to bring you everything in the most polished, pristine state after it's reported, fixed and retested.




The mindset of a player comes into the picture when we also have to consider the question of: is this user friendly? As most of us already have our fair share of experience with games, we know fairly well if not only the usability but also design is something that would generally please a player. Overall, it's important to us that every new thing is easy to understand, can be used well, but also looks a way that would catch our eye as players.
As such, not only do we find bugs, but also bring our own feedback to the table.

When a release is knocking on the door, that's when the most things can possibly go wrong. Instead of testing rather specific things, we now have to look through every single corner of the game to make sure nothing has been broken in the process. Even things that until now seemed minor are important to test so that we can try our best to make the experience we bring you, our players, as flawless as it could be.
And then the release comes, maintenance happens, and we have the job and last chance of checking that everything is fine, so we split the most important parts of the game amongst our lovely team of testers and go through all Story ylands, intro, shop etc., basically all that absolutely has to be in a proper state no matter what. And we have to manage in time so that you can get the finished product and continue sailing as soon as possible.

Overall, seeing that progress that newly added things go through is really exciting, as it goes from a sometimes rather broken state to a finished feature and we get to experience all those stages. Sometimes that results in funny bugs that we would not otherwise experience while being simply players, which we then get to share with you, our community, afterwards.

At the same time, it can be a difficult job since we're not just playing the game. It can sometimes take us days to find how a specific bug happens, which often results in us just doing the same thing over and over and over again until we figure it out, and then once more after it's fixed. It takes a lot of effort, thinking, and patience, but in the end it's always worth it.

If you run into a bug or simply need help with something, let us know in our Discord!

That's it for this week!

Ahoy Ylanders,

Let me start by saying that we love all feedback. Both positive and negative. One of the things that makes us happy is reading your suggestions on what to add to the game, how to balance it, and how to make it better. And we get tons of suggestions and ideas every day from you.

How we collect feedback
Every month or so I go through every site we have (Forum, Steam, Discord, social media, ...) and write down in a huge multipage table what people suggested and how many people want that idea in the game. Then we talk about the most wanted or just generally very creative ideas at a meeting. We discuss how we could implement them, what would it change and how long would it take.

The process of getting your idea into the game is not simple. For every Update, we have a list of features that should be added and bugs that should be fixed. So after we talk about your suggestion in a meeting, we try to figure out which Update it would fit in. Generally, it should go with something similar. Example: Many people wanted to see ghost pirates in the game and we needed some more Random Encounters for Temperate Region et viola! 

So please note how much work and time goes into getting just one idea in the game. And we have collected hundreds of ideas from you. 
With the process out of the way let's talk about some ideas that already made it into the game!




[h3]You suggested adding a utility belt, a backpack with more slots in inventory, an ammo pouch, or more containers.
[/h3]
Done! We expanded all containers greatly. We have added an ammo pouch. We have added the much-requested lunch box!
One thing we cannot do however is add slots to the inventory, imagine the mess it would create. You wouldn't see the icons properly, we would have to make all the buttons smaller and add a scroll bar in the inventory. Overall this change doesn't seem effective to us. We are always thinking about how to make your traveling luggage lighter though! So I am sure we will come up with something to make you even more content in the future. 

[h3]Tech-tree
[/h3]
Tech-tree is something that was suggested many times over many years. And from the first time we read the idea - we agreed! After many months of discussions and work the Tech-tree is now a reality.

[h3]Blank book/ folder to add notes in
[/h3]
Done! We added a folder for all your various notes. One suggestion we get a lot is adding a book you could write in. While it is a great idea it is also very complex since it would require a custom UI screen. 

[h3]Chickens
[/h3]
Just one word for you - Takahe.

[h3]Other things you wanted and we added:
[/h3]
Custom Editor tools
Running
Auto-sort in inventory

In case you want to know more about what can or cannot be implemented in the game read our Community Corner: here

Thank you again for motivating us to make the game better.

Stay Classy!

Ahoy Ylanders!

Today’s dev diary will be about how we created life and populated Ylands with various creatures. We believe the visual style of Ylands is best suited for hand-keyed animations. We decided not to use mocap in development as the cartoonish animation style brings more freedom for us as creators and is the only way to achieve the desired animations in many cases. Can you imagine someone could train and force an endangered species like a Pangolin to do a special attack in mocap? (big grin) Yeah, we can't either... So it is also very humane and no animal (or monster) was harmed in the process of animation.

When we want to get an animal into the game we first work with references. We try to get as many videos, movies, and pictures as we can. That way we can establish the character and behavior of the animal. If we have a clear character for it, most of the work will be much easier as we know what we want to achieve. We animators need to interpret the character of the animal as we are a type of actors who are not standing in front of a camera but are comfortably hidden behind our computer screens. We don’t experience stage fright, that's cool, isn’t it? For some animals, it is easy to get inspiration as we have them at home, or a nearby zoo, for some it is more difficult like the Pangolin we already mentioned. Sometimes, it is outright impossible to get a real-life reference, such as when we introduced alien animals. But this also has a positive side: if there is no reference for the animal/monster, we can use our imagination! And that’s so much fun!

After that, it’s pretty straightforward. We have to make a set of 23 animations that we need for monsters - for example, various attacks, walking, running, and idle variants. For tamable animals, we need a few more animations, and for mountable animals, we need up to 32 animations. Making those hand-keyed animations can take up from 2 to 5 weeks. As all entities share almost the same amount of animations it gives you, the player, the freedom to make animals behave as you wish in the Editor. You can force the peaceful rabbit to behave like a rabid monster. And that is what we like at Ylands, it is your call, your game! So go on, find them, take screenshots, can you count how many animals and monsters are in our game?

That's all for this week! 
Stay Classy!