Ylands News

[h2]⭐ HIGHLIGHTS ⭐
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• Tech Tree - When you select a known recipe in the Tech Tree, it will now also be selected in the crafting menu.
  
• Continue on your Adventure - Some of you who skipped the last two updates couldn't continue playing. Not anymore!
  
• Handbook Rewards - Some players didn't receive their rewards during multiplayer gameplay, but now they will have them back.
  
• Elmwood's outpost - A few Ylanders had their progress in this story Yland restarted; we have reverted it.
  
• Low memory optimization - You might have experienced a crash on Crimson Shores Yland - this issue is now fixed.
  

[h2]FIXED
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[YLD-50689] Fixed: Handbook rewards: Collectibles rewards can be claimed for clients again. Affected players will receive all rewards they should have gotten after the loading of exploration map.

[YLD-50630] Fixed: Reduced memory consumed by lights shadow maps to manageable amount.

[YLD-50644] Fixed: Exploration map compatibility issues for saves made in before 1.10.

[YLD-50645] Fixed: Editor: Freeze when you start PC only empty world.

[YLD-50666] Fixed: Editor: Custom transactions in scenarios without gameset/scenario data never finished, always resulted in refund.

[YLD-50674] Fixed: Editor: Is group tile does not work correctly in custom tools when you provide them anything else than Group/Entity/Game logic.

Fixed: Entity thumbnails in inventory can sometimes disappear or get switched with different ones.


[h2]
TWEAKED[/h2]


Tweaked: Improved readability of table view.

Ahoy, Ylanders!

Have you ever wondered how feedback works and what goes on behind the curtain? Some of you are in contact with our beloved community manager, Anna, who keeps communication with you. When you write in-game feedback, Anna sifts through all the messages and forwards any unreported bugs to our QA team. Feedback is sent along with the Adventure save of the game from when you submitted the feedback and log files. Often, it's like a detective job, scouring log files for anything suspicious, especially related exceptions or errors. Thanks to this process, we can progress in our attempts to reproduce reported bugs.



[h3]HUNTING[/h3]

Some issues are obvious, like visual glitches such as bugged icons of assets. However, often it's not that easy, and we may spend hours trying our best to reproduce the reported bug. In cases where reproducing the bug isn't straightforward, we use Unity tools to import data from log files sent with the feedback to our characters. This helps us see the issue from your perspective, allowing us to piece together the mystery. This tool is valuable, especially because a bug might only be reproducible with your data, aiding programmers in potential fixes. Additionally, it helps us consider scenarios of what happened, better enabling us to understand the situation. Our character, with your data imported, has your clothing, inventory, and map. Combined with the report, we can more easily imagine what was happening when the bug occurred. During our search, we often uncover many unrelated bugs, making the search itself effective in bug hunting. With a small team of testers and numerous elements in our game, it's challenging to keep track of everything. Your reports are crucial, and we take the time to address each one, enhancing the game thanks to your contributions.

[h3]FEEDBACK[/h3]

It's not just about bugs; it's crucial to see your perspective on what's annoying or unpleasant. We are immersed in the game daily, sometimes missing obvious things or getting lost in details. Your feedback helps us see the bigger picture—the game as a complete product, not just individual pieces. We value your feedback and strive to improve the game accordingly. Some of us in the Ylands team keep a close eye on Discord channels to catch all the bugs or other issues. Feedback on the game can sometimes be contradictory, so we consider the majority of feedback and the core direction of the game.

[h3]COMMUNICATION[/h3]

Solving reported bugs involves communication with various areas of our Ylands team, especially programmers. We may need help understanding log files, exceptions, and errors. Cooperation with designers is essential too, as sometimes issues are more design-related than bugs, requiring the input of designers. Testers also provide feedback when a new feature is implemented, contributing to the polishing process before the feature becomes fully functional. In the case of your sent feedback, we are the ones trying to reproduce reported bugs, and our community manager then maintains communication with you.

[h3]RANDOM BUGS[/h3]

These are the tricky ones, and we're powerless against them since random bugs may appear once and never again. Fortunately, we have Unity tools to mitigate the damage from these bugs, such as a tool for restoring lost items and exploration points. As mentioned, feedback, whether bug reports or general feedback, is crucial for us to uncover hidden bugs. Your help in catching them is invaluable.

Thank you, and have a fantastic day!



Stay classy and keep providing feedback!

Ahoy Ylanders,

In today's dev diary, we will look at a significant change in the history of Ylands development that fundamentally influenced the creation of new assets and significantly improved players' ability to personalize their game creations and equipment.

In the initial stages of game development, it was essential for us to design a specific visual style that would be unique and have great potential to not visually age soon. This key aspect was further influenced by other particular requirements, such as the need for a smooth change in the time of day, weather, and editable terrain.

With an increasing number of players and the amount of time they spent in the game, there came a need for a more significant variability in-game assets, even though the game already contained thousands of unique objects. After testing various options for solving this problem, we decided to make all game objects colorable. On the one hand, this decision was great because it potentially created infinite variations of current assets without negatively impacting the data size. However, on the other hand, it brought a tremendous amount of work for the entire graphics team.





To preserve the original visual style, we designed a system that would keep the artistically stylized shading of the model while also adding the possibility to colorize this model with three different colors. We achieved this effect by adding a second UV set to each model, which contains information about which part of the model is colored with one of these three colors. The original shading of the model remained stored in the first UV set, which now only contains different shades of gray. The final visual of the model is created inside the game engine using a custom shader, where the black-and-white shading is multiplied by the defined colors. In the game, there is a database where each object has its base colors stored, so the resulting visual corresponds to the original one, with the new option to change this coloration anytime.

This new feature allowed us to create even more beautiful and diverse game environments, and more importantly, it allowed you, our players, to unlimitedly customize your creations, such as building your dream house and coloring it according to your preferences at any time in the future.

Do you use this option in the game? What is your favorite way to use it? Let us know!



Stay Classy!

[h3]Ahoy Ylanders![/h3]

We all love some ships, right? This time Prokop the Asset Designer (and a Deckleader as is written in his sea book) has something to say to you classy bunch, as he might be one of the biggest historical ship enthusiasts among the team. For designers, it is important to draw inspiration from things they are passionate about, so take this as a peek inside the mind of an Ylands designer!



Building a ship as your mobile base and travelling across the vast oceans is an inseparable part of the Ylands experience. But that is also not far from reality, because not only you, classy adventurers, use your ships as mobile bases. Did you know that ships were, and in many cases still are, floating manufactures with plenty of "workstations"?

That's right, during the Age of Sails many specialists with their proper equipment were a part of the crew. The sailmaker was a skilled tailor able to stitch and patch any damaged sails, the cook used the stove aboard to bake fresh crackers. But perhaps the most skillful artisan of them all must have been the ship carpenter able to not only repair the hull, but also make a whole new bow figure if it was hit with a cannonball for example. In the diaries of the great explorer James Cook, you can learn that when a mast was broken in the storm, the captain ordered the ship to be dragged to the shore on a desert yland. Then the carpenter looked for some good tree and made whole new mast from it. All that was done in only a few days, but imagine doing that to repair your ship in Ylands, that would have been quite the workout!

Although many expeditions in our real world are no longer done aboard sailing ships, you can still experience uncovering the unknown under the sails and charting new maps in Ylands. As the game medium simplifies things but also allows many fantasies to come through, you can build your ship however you like without the need of having properly trained carpenter. And with the upcoming Update 2.2, you may even get your ship going faster with the new Elven Sails than you could with an engine!


Let us know what your favourite sail ship is and a fact about it in the comments. For Prokop, this would definitely be the brig La Grace, as its captain, Augustine Herman, was the only known Czech privateer in the Caribbean!

Stay Classy, Ylanders!

[h3]Ahoy Ylanders,[/h3]

It is finally here! We know, we know, it's been a while and sorry about that, but we think the major improvements and over 200 fixes, additions and tweaks are worth the wait! Before you skip to those long requested features, let us thank you for sticking with us in 2023, you are making wonders in Ylands! Let's see what Update 2.2: Tremendous Techtree has brought for you!

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[h3]Tech Tree[/h3]

Tired of randomly exploring the world to find specific recipes? So were we. But now, we're introducing a much better way to get them - The Tech Tree! Finally, you can take technological progress into your own hands and be in charge of advancing through the tree and helping it grow.



Wanna know more specifics about the Tech Tree? Go see this Dev Diary: https://ylands.com/community/topic/32592-dev-diary-298-big-technology-change-incoming/

And to help you get started with the Tech Tree, we have a competition on our Discord! Join in and compete with other adventurers for the limited Fox on Board pet. Join the competition here: https://discord.gg/ylands?event=1207664814902480976

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[h3]Handbook rewards[/h3]

Handbook is great, but everything can be improved. That's our mindset in a nutshell, so what is the Handbook improvement? Rewards for you! Some of these rewards will be useful in your journey and some are Handbook exclusive.



One of the exclusive rewards is a C.A.G. avatar frame that can be claimed only by helping Reginald Elmwood with his assignment. What are some of the other rewards? Go open up your Adventurers Handbook and find out!

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[h3]Compass improvements[/h3]

Behold! A brand new never-disappearing compass found its way to Ylands. Storm, fog, night or the brightest sunshine - worry not! With its updated visual, the new compass will always help you find your way... or cave entrances, as those too are marked on the compass from now on. (Our miners reported dozens of hours saved when looking for resource deposits.)

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[h3]Avatar frames[/h3]

Wanna treat yourself by getting an exclusive look for everyone to see? A whole new section of the shop is here and with it an immense dose of style! Choose yours and show it off for all Ylanders to see!



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[h3]Proximity chat[/h3]

Yeah, every game has some kind of voice chat, but where is the immersion? In close proximity. So, make sure to test this new feature out with your closest friends! At least in the Adventure mode, where you can only hear each other when relatively nearby. But worry not, when playing in Creative, you can hear each other regardless of how far apart you are.

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[h3]Mobile aim assist[/h3]

Yet another thing you've been asking for quite often. Here it is! Better aim for mobile users. Pew! Pew! Pew!

Are you curious about other new features, fixes and additions? See the Changelog for update 2.2 here: https://ylands.com/community/topic/32773-22-tremendous-tech-tree-changelog

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[h3]Valentine sale is ON right now![/h3]

Our lovely Valentine's sales are still going on. Exclusive limited pet Fox on Board and discounts on more pets, recipes and, of course, the proposal emote! Head to the shop and send a gift to that special player.