Ylands News

Hey there, fellow Ylanders!

This time we come to you a bit earlier than usual as our team will spend rest of the week surviving in the woods. But we have good news and good news can't come early enough, right?

During our journey to make Explore great again (and even greater) we've already fixed and added a lot things that we promised and that you asked for. We're still not done by any means, but we are very happy that we can announce that in the upcoming update 1.10 you will finally find a fully working first person camera view.





Originally we planned to release this in update 1.11 but we managed to fix some blocking issues sooner than we expected. This, in combination with the fact that you've waited long enough, led us to the decision to include the FPS camera in 1.10 instead of 1.11. We delayed what we internally call "Custom Exploration" into 1.11 as the FPS camera is, based on your feedback more important, and we managed to make it work.

Why did it take so long?
Well, having both camera modes in a multiplayer game that has melee combat more sophisticated than just simple bashing in front of the avatar (like Minecraft) and is low-poly is quite tricky. It has to do with camera position, different control schemes, animation problems, balancing both modes in MP where each player can use a different one... the list goes on.

When we introduced the new combat support, having both camera views was no longer possible with the amount of time and manpower that we had and so we decided to disable the FPS mode until we're able to make it work.

So how did we managed to solve all the problems?
The honest answer is - we solved most of them and, at least for the time being, got around some of them. The new mode is not perfect, we will continue working on it of course, but for now, it's fully working.

Basically there are three things you'll notice when you use it:

• You'll see just your hands, not your forearms and rest of the body. It's not because we would plan to release a VR version but simply because otherwise we would need to make a ton of new animations. The main character has roughly 1500 animations and, unfortunately, we can't use many of those, as it wouldn't work well with FPS camera.
  
• Riding a horse or driving a car in the FPS mode can feel a bit nauseating for those who are prone to such things. That's why by default the camera will switch to third person as you start controlling those (you can override it, though)
  
• There are few cases where the existing features need to be a bit tweaked to make the experience better.
  

So FPS camera has finally made it back and this time it stays. Yet another promise kept, still some to go :).

That's it for today and we'll talk to you next week. Until then stay healthy and classy!

Hey there, fellow Ylanders!

In our quest to create a great Exploration experience, we are getting back to various features that have a great potential but in their current form and shape are simply not good enough.

One of them is definitely fishing... so what can you expect to change in the upcoming update 1.10? Firstly the whole "feeling" of catching fish gets better. Not only is fishing getting better visuals, but also better controls that now require a bit of skill to actually catch something. In 1.10 you will be watching the float and waiting for it go down.





And since fishing will require a bit more skill it should also be more rewarding, right? Well, that's why there's a lot of things to catch! And not just fish... :)The type of catch you get will depend on not only where you are (such as what depth is the water around you), but also on the weather conditions. You're more likely to catch certain fish during the clear morning weather, while some are active during the night or when it rains (and some even during thunderstorms!). On top of fish variety, we've added several different types of fishing rods.

We hope that the new fishing will be yet another feature you'll like in 1.10.

That's it for today.

We'll talk again in a week so until then... stay classy and healthy!

Hey there, fellow Ylanders!

Today we would like to tell you something about new assets that you will be able to find in 1.10.

You will be able to find a lot of new underwater objects such as Giant Starfish, Giant Sea Cucumber, Giant Sea Urchin... and many more things that may or may not be also Giant.

Speaking of underwater assets - we are fully aware that in the 1.9 we pressured players too much to go into depths and get ingredients for various recipes, even such that would be possible to craft without those. That is something we are planning to adjust for 1.10 as part of a massive rebalancing which, we believe, will address a lot of issues you've been reporting. We plan to talk about that in the next Dev Diary.





To make travelling the seas more fun in 1.10 you will also find new ornated ships bows, big steam and ylandium engines and a brand new motorboat. To make it easier to sail to other ylands there's a new primitive ship waiting to be crafted.

Based on your feedback we'll be releasing also objects that are not related to sailing such as a glass door or a scroll.

That's it for today and we're looking forward to talking to you next week when we'll discuss the general improvements planned for Exploration. Until then have fun and stay classy!

[h3]Patch 1.9.0.2 release notes[/h3]

• The Exploration option in the main menu was overlapping
  
• Tutorial's bugs fixed
  
• The translations string could be seen in the chat
  
• Ship engines won't turn on in several cases
  

Additions
[YLD-36592] Added: A new touch button for switching between sails and engines when the ship has both. The mobile button will work with a simple tap, the PC binding will still use a right-mouse hold.
[YLD-36629] Added: Drop item hotkey binding for inventory.
[YLD-36986] Added: When clicking an ingredient in the workstation screen's recipe, the player is now actually provided with some info.
[YLD-36986] Added: Non-craftable items' warning about the item being found in the world will now also show the description for the item, providing the player with a bit more info on where to find it.
[YLD-37005] Added: Unequip button to inventory's right panel, the logic for swapping equip and unequip buttons.
[YLD-37009] Added: Drop function for animal milking/shearing with full inventory.
Added: Separate actions for switching to engines and sails to allow for separate predicates and icon binding - for touch only, the desktop will still have the previous toggling through the hold.
Added: Text note about not working on protected scenarios into "Others can download and edit" editor setting on-hover hint.



Tweaked
[YLD-36435] Tweaked: Mobile: Updating removes friend/clan options in the chat system.
[YLD-36682] Tweaked: Sails are now transparent when the player is behind them.
[YLD-37054] Tweaked: Editor: you get now error when you try to playtest the game with an empty Entity template or Game logic template.
Tweaked: Increase oxygen coral occurrence in UW biotopes.
Tweaked: Compositions for vendors now contain indestructible entities to prevent deconstruction.



Fixes
[YLD-34704] Fixed: Random encounters: cave encounters spawn without any entity.
[YLD-35621] Fixed: Missing names and colons in GAME chat and CLAN chat
[YLD-36276] Fixed: The client could sometimes not reconnect when he tried to respawn while having his pet summoned.
[YLD-36409] Fixed: No more problems with connecting exploration games with sandbox games.
[YLD-36424] Fixed: Harvested oxygen coral plant instantly change to fresh one when placed.
[YLD-36443] Fixed: Some animals cannot be placed on the first try.
[YLD-36562] Fixed: Pipe Block's 3rd channel is now colourable.
[YLD-36573] Fixed: The custom instruction parameter doesn't inherit the custom colour of its parent tile.
[YLD-36647] Fixed: Floating hints should have all elements correctly vertically aligned (e.g. the holding text etc.).
[YLD-36682] Fixed: In some scenarios, sails are not transparent.
[YLD-36739] Fixed: If you redeem explore DLC, you will get a costume and pet after restarting the game (now it happens immediately).
[YLD-36767] Fixed: There is no error when referencing objects from Group referenced with Group template which is marked to destroy the group on export.
[YLD-36768] Fixed: Animators do not work in Random Encounters.
[YLD-36779] Fixed: Item description in mobile inventory can no longer be scrolled out of the screen.
[YLD-36790] Fixed: Fish Net Grip.
[YLD-36911] Fixed: Leopard shark is slower than the rest of the sharks.
[YLD-36941] Fixed: Pulsing/Glowing Mushroom Trees and Pulsing/Glowing Polyporus Trees don't react to wind at all.
[YLD-36960] Fixed: Redundant 3rd colour layer of the harvestable Brown Kelp plant.
[YLD-36968] Fixed: When the air tank is equipped from the vicinity, the air is not refilled.
[YLD-36978] Fixed: Some strings in Skill Editor in the Editor are missing translation.
[YLD-36993] Fixed: Combat music should stop now properly when teleporting.
[YLD-36995] Fixed: Locked Oxygen Harvester can be normally used.
[YLD-37001] Fixed: Marble block 1x1x2 wrong loads.
[YLD-37015] Fixed: Insufficient glow of harvestable Red Kelp plant.
[YLD-37077] Fixed: Underwater cave REs spawn in the middle of the room instead of the floor.
[YLD-37148] Fixed: Account link: create new account button does nothing if you are not in the home window.
[YLD-37279] Fixed: Loot containers not spawning in deep water (voxel -2 or less).
[YLD-37285] Fixed: Sometimes ships are teleported away after they are spawned into the world.
[YLD-37287] Fixed: /r command to reply was not working.
[YLD-37288] Fixed: Whisper command remembers the wrong user.
[YLD-37302] Fixed: Exploration 2: Mutated alphas are defeated when they are despawned during the day.
[YLD-37482] Fixed: Correct NPC names in chat
[YLD-37484] Fixed: Hint for dropping an item will not be present on the Cube screen.
[YLD-37504] Fixed: Random Encounters: Crates of REs in underwater caves may be inaccessible due to clipping into terrain
[YLD-37938] Fixed: Untranslated texts found in the Exploration mode news popup.
Fixed: Several bugs in the tutorial.

[YLD-36824] Fixed: Editor: Global variables created in the referenced entity in Template GL.
[YLD-37026] Fixed: Editor: Exception after deleting entity with a faulty script and using the Game Log search bar.
[YLD-37124] Fixed: Editor: Exception after placing some entity into NPC's inventory.
[YLD-37268] Fixed: Editor: animated GLs/Entities as part of Group template prevents playtest.

[YLD-36571] Fixed: VS: Custom instruction variables do not have always the correct custom colour.
[YLD-37034] Fixed: VS: dynamic trigger zones can slow down clients.
[YLD-37128] Fixed: VS: array variables with specified type have wrong embedded tile in the menu.
[YLD-37130] Fixed: VS: there is an error when deleting the last switch branch.
[YLD-37228] Fixed: VS: Infinite exception when spawning from Group Template a group with delayed function in its child.
[YLD-37238] Fixed: VS: it is not possible to hide in properties previously shown global variables.

Hey there, fellow Ylanders!

We're working hard on update 1.10 and since update 1.5 it's always been about Exploration first. This is not going to change, but we understand that the ones who like to create cool contraptions or worlds in the Editor might feel neglected, which is why the past few updates brought a lot of Editor and scripting improvements as well.

So today we would like to let the Creators know, what the near future holds for them.

We are currently working on something we internally call "Custom Exploration". We've already mentioned it in our Dev Diaries, but let us remind you what it's all about.

We want to let Creators build ylands in the Editor (or in the Sandbox mode) that players will be able to visit with their ships from the Exploration world. This will result in much more than the ability to create a cool "home" for you with the help of cool things that only the Editor offers. We are going to add incentives for Creators to come up with cool experiences for players who want something more than what Exploration currently offers. At the same time, it will be something that is based on the core Exploration gameplay. You can think of it as Mystery Ylands... created by players for players, friends or strangers alike.






We will reward Explorers for sailing to these worlds and leaving notes and ratings for others if what they found is worth experiencing.

This feature was originally planned for 1.10, but we now see that the first version would be too rough around the edges and missing some of the cool things that make it interesting. So we decided to take more time working on it and will release it in 1.11 in a better shape and with more tools and documentation ready for the Creators. We will also be giving the Creators enough information in advance so that their creations can be available to players as soon as 1.11 is released.

The Editor and content creation will get much more love not just thanks to "Custom Exploration", but also thanks to Ylands EDU version, which is doing surprisingly well and which, in the end, seems to be something that the Ylands game will profit from even more than we expected. But that's a story for a different time :).

We're looking forward to talking to you the next week. Until then - stay classy!