Ylands News

Hey there, fellow ylanders.

After we‘ve talked about several Exploration improvements you will find in the next update 1.6, today we focus on something big that Creators will surely like (if you‘re interested in Exploration, don‘t worry, there‘s plenty more cool stuff in 1.6 we‘ve yet to talk about).

We‘ve seen a lot of amazing creations that pushed the limit of what is possible with visual scripting (and many time genuinely surprised us). Games like this make us, the whole platform, move forward, but it also showed more clearly what is not really surprising. Visual scripting is a great tool for learning, for making simple-to-medium complex games, but once the game complexity reaches a certain level, working with the visual script, navigating through it and in general making the code intuitive and easy to work with because really difficult.

That‘s why with 1.6 we‘re bringing you a beta version of non-visual scripting. You will be able to create text scripts, that can be attached to Entities and Game logic object in the editor and when the game runs this script will be executed in a similar way to the visual script.





The fact is that internally the visual script has always been a visualization of javascript-like language so now you will get the chance to bypass the visual scripting and type in the code directly. Instead of describing these features in many more paragraphs, we put together a short FAQ that will, hopefully, answer most of your questions. We are looking forward to discussing with you this topic more in the followup discussion.

Q: You said „beta version“ - what does it mean?
A: This feature requires a lot of work based on a lot of feedback that we would like to get from you, the Creators. Therefore it is very likely that 1.7 may bring some changes and you will be required to go through your scripts and update them. Also, as always with a feature of such size, there may be bugs. The more feedback you provide, the better it will get.

Q: What language is it? What syntax can we expect?
A: The syntax and commands (the „generic“ ones, not the ones specific to Ylands) is pretty much javascript (even its file extension is .js). However, it‘s not 100% javascript, since it does not support some features, so you can probably think of it as a javascript subset. You will find more about this in the online documentation.

Q: Is this meant to replace visual scripting?
A: Absolutely not. For us, visual scripting remains the primary way of scripting and we will keep improving it in future.

Q: Can we use both scripting and visual scripting in one game?
A: Sure!

Q: Will there be some sort of editor, IDE we will be able to use to edit the script?
A: No, not at this time. With so many cool editors out there supporting .js syntax we‘d like to focus on other areas of the scripting/game - at least for the time being.

That‘s it for today - don‘t hesitate to ask about anything that remains unclear and I‘ll talk to you next week. Until then - stay healthy and classy, ylanders!

Let us know what you think on our forums!

Hey there, fellow ylanders!

Here we are with yet another portion of 1.6 goodies and today we‘ll talk about both something for Creators and something nice you‘ll experience in the new Exploration.

So what is it that the Creators may like? Let‘s say that you are making a small cool action game where the goal is to score as many points as possible. That‘s great but what‘s the point in having such a game when you can‘t store the best scores and show it to players to make them try harder, to give them more incentive? So in 1.6 we plan to introduce something we call Global leaderboards. Regardless of how many instances of your game are running at the same time, they can all store and retrieve (and show) ... well... global leaderboards. :) We are looking forward to seeing players compete with each other and we might even have a competition in future about getting the highest score in selected games! Also, if you‘re a Creator, you really shouldn‘t miss the next Dev Diary where we‘re going to talk about something really great that we‘re going to introduce with 1.6 (hype intended).


Before I get to introduce a new Exploration feature, I would like to quickly address some questions from the last Dev Diary we posted. Firstly blueprints - in the new Exploration you will be able to use blueprint camera only on ylands where you have appropriate privileges. Our plans, however, are to do a big blueprint upgrade in 1.7 because we feel they hold a great potential we have only barely touched. We will be able to provide more information about this sometime after 1.6 is released. There has also been a question asked about setting specific Exploration ylands as PvP/PvE only. We looked into this and while we understand that this is an important setting to have we ran into some non-trivial issues when looking for ways to do this properly and so this will be in some form present in 1.7.



And the cool new 1.6 feature for today? Well, we have been working on a system that allows us to present you, the players, with much more than an yland when you sail to a new location. With 1.6 you will be able to come across specific locations, custom-made, non-generated scenes. What does it mean? Imagine you sail to an uncharted yland on the regional map and instead of the ylands you‘re used to you come across something very unique - like a small floating outpost. This can be pretty much anything and the great thing is that we can keep adding these „random encounter scenes“ without having to update the game. We believe this will enhance the greatly the exploration aspect of the game.

The question some of you will very likely ask is - if you can make custom ylands and expose them to players in Exploration, can I do that as well? Can I create my own yland (city ... or anything else) in the Editor and then have it in Exploration? The short answer would be: not... yet . But we are getting there and it is something that definitely deserves it‘s own Dev Diary.


That‘s it for this week, I‘ll talk to you next Thursday and until then... stay healthy and classy, ylanders!

tl;dr
- Adam is leaving
- Thank you all for everything 🤗

Hey there Ylanders!

So this is it. My last post 😊 As was mentioned (maybe too many times) already, I am leaving Ylands for new adventures, but I do so with a heavy heart. It's been nearly two years that I have spent with y'all and I don't know about you, but I had an absolute blast. Also, I have learnt a lot, which gave me the confidence to move on when the call came. So thank you for that and for all the fun we had in the process.



This game and this community are truly something special. With such an interesting mix of adventurers and creators, there is always something new to talk about, try out and figure out. Of course, the road hasn't been always easy, but I think Ylands is now on the way to becoming really great. With the recent updates to Exploration (which are really awesome and I think we all really enjoyed them, even on the recent streams 😃) and the competitions showing us all, what amazing feats are possible in the Editor, there is a bright future ahead of the game. And I for one am really looking forward to it.

And I am also proud of what we have managed as a community. When I started at Ylands, there was a bit of a disconnect, that I think we managed to bridge together, especially because of a ton of goodwill from you 🤗 And while it may not be readily apparent or immediately seen, all your feedback and bug reports were essential in the last two years and the way Exploration and other aspects of the game developed is in a huge part because of your ideas and requests, so thank you for that. I also think quite a lot of life was breathed into our Forums, Discussions and especially the Discord (https://discord.gg/KxQJJAY), which when I began was kinda quiet and now I am delighted, how much you guys chat there and share screenshots. 

So thank you all again very much. Thank you for being so welcoming and kind. Thank you for all the private messages wishing me a bright future and I wish you all also the very best.

But most of all I wish you all to stay classy as you've always been Ylanders 😊 

Adam "Major General" Snellgrove



P.S. Thank you Spyler and Christal for the beautiful artwork and all of you, that helped out to build the Major General a retirement home. And the Pub is fantastic too, thank you cfrox

tl;dr
- Not happy with the barrier
- Rework of building and map protection
- Removing the barrier
- Adam leaving, Marci filling in

Hey there, fellow ylanders, it's Aleš here!

Today I would like to tell you a bit more about changes you can expect in 1.6's Exploration. We will talk about protecting what's yours and setting the game world rules to fit your idea of the perfect place.

Let's start by saying that we don't really like how the barrier works in the game right now and even though it has served its purpose for a long time we think we could make a better, cleaner, more intuitive solution. Let's first discuss what the barrier is actually good for and how can we make sure these things will still work well when it's gone. The main areas where the barrier came in handy were these:

• it allowed players to create buildings they could easily dismantle for whatever the reason was
  
• it protected your little piece of the world from damage caused by other players, but also it prohibited them from doing things like removing terrain and such
  
• it protected your avatar against damage
  

Not only wasn't the barrier concept very intuitive to new players, but it had several shortcomings (that we always planned to fix, but never got to it). It couldn't be moved when placed. It wasn't big enough. And most importantly, you only had one. This last thing has become a major blocker now with the new Exploration which is actually centred around the idea of travelling among distant locations and even though you can have one home where you return and where you could have the barrier, we feel it's extremely limiting. So we are planning to introduce these features:

• improved building via the new workstation (we already covered that here)
  
• allowing yland owners to set the rules for their maps
  

The first feature we already covered (see here https://ylands.com/community/topic/29514-dev-diary-160-building-in-exploration/)
We want to give you full control over your games and that's something that isn't possible with the barrier. As a result, the barrier will be removed from the game in 1.6 and in its stead game owners will be able to set up rules on what can different types of visitors do in this particular world. We believe you will find this extremely useful 😊



And then there's another thing I would like to mention. As you probably know, our Community manager Adam is leaving next week. We are currently looking very intensely for a replacement, but before we find one, Marci will try to take care of some of Adam's duties as best as he can. What does this mean? Since Marci has enough work as it is you can experience a bit longer response times on our side. Fortunately, there are already some awesome players who are a great help to us on the forums plus I will ask other devs to keep checking the forum (especially the bug forum). Hopefully, this state won't last too long.

At the same time, if you ever encounter an issue that you consider critical or anything that requires our immediate attention, don't hesitate and PM me directly on our game forums. I will do my best to reply as soon as I can.

That's it for today, we will talk to you again next Thursday and so until then... stay healthy and classy, ylanders!

Hey there Ylanders!

Some of you might have noticed some cool new stuff arriving in Ylands this Tuesday and you'd be absolutely right! The Goodie Pack #3 is out and it is full of cool new assets to play around with.



First of we have the inclusion of a new culture in Ylands, the Inuits. These descendants of the Thule people inhabit the Arctic regions of Greenland, Canada and Alaska and are experts of living in the most dangerous and life-threatening environments. They have a rich and old culture and while we did our best to emulate it, we in no way claim to be absolute experts 😅 But we have added some Inuit clothes attire, that will be of great help to Arctic explorers planning on making their base in the land of ice 😊 There are also a few Inuit idols, that you can use to decorate your arctic home and give homage to the people of the Great White North.

But there is more to aid your expedition, including the newly added expedition gear, knitted cap and research equipment. You can also use new Plastic pillar blocks and add a Metal door to the mix to complete the Expedition Research Station. 

Beware though, because new dangers will inhabit the snowy biomes too, including a number of new animals. We have the fearsome Wolverine and dangerous Snow Tiger to contend with, while you'll also be able to come upon the Reindeer (if it flies, please call Santa but also send us logs 😂). These should make the colder biomes a bit more diverse 😁 In the Editor, you can also youse the mighty Jötunn straight from Norse mythology and in update 1.6 they will be making appearances in Exploration as well in new Random Encounters, so watch out 😊

And finally something more for the Eastern biome the beautiful Junk Ship, which we talked about at length last week. It is a cheap option to get your Exploring underway and to blend into the Eastern biomes well. But for even the earlier early game or for just short trips on a map we have also added the trusty kayak, which should fill the space between a raft and a small boat.



There were also a slew of bug fixes, which should make life in Experimental Exploration a little bit easier 😁 So check out the changelog to find out more about these and as always if you find a bug, please let us know and if you have any feedback, please let us know since we are still actively gathering issues from the new Exploration and taking them on board to make the experience as good as possible 🤗

And so until next time, stay classy Ylanders.