So something has happened to Blueprints in 1.10. Former Blueprints are now called Game Blueprints and former Compositions are now Creator Blueprints. Why? Because we felt Compositions and Blueprints had a lot of common functionality and when we added more variety to the former Blueprints it became obvious that merging those two together would make a lot of sense.
Long story short - Game Blueprints are simpler (as in no scripting etc.) and can be used in Adventure, Sandbox and Editor. Creator Blueprints allow capturing more sophisticated things and can be placed in the Editor only.
So what else has changed?
Players are now able to capture Blueprints in the Editor (without all of the previous workarounds...)! Just make a selection and open the "Save As Blueprint" wizard.
A LOT more things are now available for capture in a Blueprint (weapons, tools, items...trees!) and it takes a lot out of the guesswork about which assets you can utilize. For those who want to be really sure, there is a filter in the Entity Catalogue in the Editor.
And as for building the Blueprint in the game - you may notice that there are now two tabs in an active project table. Deposit material in one to build the walls, ship hulls, and car chassis (basically the parts that you can't pick up afterwards) and the other tab collects Items - all the things that you CAN carry around and might want to use as a decoration, for example. If you don't know a recipe for a part of the blueprint or you don't have the right tools to craft it, the project table will tell you and indicate which parts you can't build at the time. PC players can even Stop Building the Blueprint and keep what they built until that point.
Right now you can create just local Blueprints for your own use. In 1.11 you'll be able to share them with others and monetize them.
That's it for this week and we'll talk to you again soon. Until then - Stay Classy, Ylanders!
Update 1.10: YMPROVED YLANDS
Hey there, Ylanders! 🌴
The new update is finally here! 🤩
For a while we were wondering what to call it. We knew we needed alliteration, that is what we do, but what should it be? Balanced Balance? Better Balance? First Fperson? None of the names really quite captured all the tweaks, changes and additions. What everything had in common, however, was improvement. And it is improvement done in the way that is uniquely Ylands. Hence Ymproved Ylands.
So what's happening in 1.10?
Mythical Animal taming
Exploration balancing
Beta version of FPS camera
New Blueprints functionality
Actions while mounted on an animal
Main game modes renamed
And many more fixes, tweaks, changes and additions!
⭐Mythical Animal taming We added new animal companions that are only for those of you who dare to complete special Random Encounters and follow a famous zoologist on an adventure! The reward is a Mythical animal for you to tame and have as a unique companion in Ylands!
⭐Main game modes renamed This change is one that will be obvious right from the start. When you launch Ylands, you will see that the Main Menu artwork is the same but the game mode name tags have changed. We realized that new players might not get much out of the current names, so we decided to change them up a bit to be more descriptive of the fun that is hidden behind them. The main change is that Exploration is now called Adventure - because this is our focus, not just showing you what is it like to travel somewhere, but to experience something more. We haven't changed our focus, it's still a game for all of the adventurers out there - explorers, fighters, and builders.
⭐Exploration balancing Since 1.5 we have been focusing on the adventure side of our game. For the last few updates, we've been working on a lot of the pieces that were missing, and now is the time to start putting all the pieces, especially the bigger ones, together. For example, crafting is now an even more rounded and complex feature, as everything crafted or manufactured in workstations takes a different amount of time to be finished. We have changed a lot of other details, like the map legend, weather, temperature system, and resource distribution system, so you will want to travel through all kinds of ylands, craft better tools to get everything done faster with greater efficiency, and be prepared for danger of all kinds - wild animals, monsters, and sunburn. Balancing for 1.10 took the longest time of preparation for this update, but it doesn't mean that it cannot be even better. Please share your thoughts about it with us!
⭐Beta version of FPS camera You asked for it, we sat down and worked to make it happen and here it is! We call it a beta because there are still small bugs that you may run into. But it works and fights in caves are now much more enjoyable! Go check it out!
⭐Actions while mounted on an animal We know there are a lot of things that you should be able to do while mounted. So we decided to kick it off with the most requested ones: eating, drinking, reading, and holding certain items. While you enjoy these, we will continue working on the rest of the actions from the list.
⭐Fishing Rework The previous update brought underwater and sea life into the game. Since then we knew that we needed to step it up with the way fishing works. Now you can experiment with different types of rods, biomes, and weather in order to get a more varied haul. Go fishing and catch what others need to dive for!
⭐Editor enhancements Apart from the new Blueprints, we have also further improved placing and transformation of objects. The Constraints setting have been simplified and new dedicated "Toggle grid mode" button was added, so there is now more control over the object movement directly from the main toolbar.
⭐Visual Scripting improvements As a basis for a larger scale improvement of the user interface and functionality of Visual Scripting, 1.10 brings its first pieces. Multi selection of script tiles, which allows you to move, delete and copy (even between canvases) large pieces of code effortlessly. Also no more whole stack movement, you can now "pop out" single pieces without holding shift. However, to comply with this change, we had to swap the buttons for panning the canvas, which is now moved by holding right mouse button (instead of left). Second addition - Context menu, works in same manner as in the Scene editor and allows you to perform all the script actions without remembering all the key bindings (copy, paste, duplicate, delete etc.).
As always, the new update brings many fixes, changes, tweaks and additions that we implemented to give our players a better experience. We would love to know what you have to say! From our point of view, the effort to bring this update to life was summed up by our Producer, Libor: "Once we decided to focus on the balancing of the Exploration gameplay, we knew that there were two possible catastrophic scenarios. We will change just a few details and nobody will notice it or we break the whole game and it will be disastrous. But, as always, our designers found the right way and we are impressed with all those small details which Ymproved Ylands."
Well, that's that. The update is out, now all that's left for you is to go and play it! And for us to wait for your feedback! And for us all, the biggest task is to...
We're very excited to let you know that update 1.10 "Ymproved Ylands" has left our doors and after it goes through some external checks, you will get your hands on all the cool stuff it brings (*cough* FPS camera *cough *).
I realized that it might be interesting to explain what is going on with the game build now, and what it has to go through before it gets to you. So let's do it.
At some point, when we feel confident enough about the current state of the game version we're planning to release, we do what is called a "submit".
At that point, the version of the game exists in a specific development "branch" called RC - Release Candidate. This branch is created from the current game code branch that is generally called "trunk" when the data lock happens - when we reached a planned moment when we say "from now on, no new features will be added to the planned update and we just focus on testing and fixing bugs". At that moment, we copy the whole game source code and create the RC branch. It is necessary because some devs are already working on features meant for future updates and the last thing we need is them changing the game parts that have already been tested and approved for the release.
So once we're happy with the state of the RC branch build, we say that it's ready to be released. "Happy" as in "there are known issues, but they are not critical and there are about a million things we would have liked to squeeze into this update as well, but it's too late", not as in "there are zero bugs we're aware of and the update contains absolutely everything we wanted it to contain".
Next, we do what's called a "submission". All platforms have some rules you have to follow and an automatic process that checks your build before it lets you make it public, so we first need to send the game update for approval. On one side of the spectrum is Steam, where you can send pretty much anything and players can access it almost instantly. On the other side is Apple, where the guidelines are very strict and they change quite often and it can take days to find out if there's some issue, so every submission is, for the lack of a better word, fun.
Once we've been approved by all the platforms, we can do the actual release. We let you know that there will be maintenance beforehand and when the time comes, we prevent you from running the game. Every major update requires that we upload it to the backend (pretty much the game servers) and run it there. If we didn't do it, you would download version 1.10 which would try to communicate with the servers running version 1.9 and the game wouldn't work that way.
The actual update process is quite fast so the most of the two hours the game is unavailable to you we test if the connection with servers is working correctly and everything runs as expected. If we find a problem we fix it and if it takes a longer time than expected, the maintenance window is made longer.
So now, when you (hopefully) see the maintenance message sometime next week when you run Ylands, you'll know that somewhere in Prague, in a large glass building we are frantically trying to make things work so that you can enjoy "Ymproved Ylands" (the update, which, by the way, was originally named "Balanced Balance" :D ).
That's it for this week and we'll talk to you again soon. Until then - stay classy, Ylanders!
Dev Diary #232 What Comes After 1.10
Hey there, fellow Ylanders!
It's now just days before the release of the 1.10 update and since we've already discussed all the major features you'll find there, it seems like a good time to mention what comes after 1.10.
It probably won't come as a surprise to many that it's 1.11, but what we would like to talk about today is one particular feature that 1.11 will bring. And it's something we internally call "Dark Dungeons".
So you've been exploring Ylands for some time. You have a great mansion to return to. You're sailing on an awesome ship that you keep filling up with all the treasure and resources you come across during your adventure-filled journeys. You know all the Random Encounters like the back of your hand and with the best armor and weapons you can slay any monster with ease. And, in fact, you have slain all of them. Twice.
So what's next?
With 1.11, the gates will open and lead you to dark and dangerous places filled with puzzles, new monsters - both basic ones and those that posses some special abilities. Oh, and bosses as well. Fight alone. Fight alongside your friends. Pack whatever you need and enter that doorway.
The adventure awaits.
Talk to you in a week so until then...
Stay classy, Ylanders!
Experimental build - Update 1.10: Ymproved Ylands
Hey there, fellow Ylanders!
We have some good news for those daring among you - you can now test the update 1.10 Experimental branch on Steam. The new update bears the name Ymproved Ylands, which is mostly because we focused on balancing the game and improving the features we already have. Oh, and the name of the update also helps a bit with the correct pronunciation of the name of the game ;)
As always this means that you can get your hands on the cool new stuff early, but you may encounter some bugs. If you do, we would be very grateful if you could report those bugs on our forums (please always state that you are playing the experimental!), along with any negative or positive feedback you care to share.
So what is it that you can expect, should you accept this mission to make Ylands better?
FPS camera (beta) After a long wait, the FPS camera is back. It's not perfect, still has some quirks and things that we will iron out in the upcoming updates, but it's about 90% done. So hit "C" and let us know what you think
Exploration balancing Resources are now spread all over the game world making you travel to other biomes as well - you can see what each biome contains on the world map. As you discover more about other places of the world you will find new interesting Random Encounters. In this update, we've mostly focused on bringing more content into arctic areas. It's the first step we're making while populating the world of Ylands with its backstory, creating its own long overdue lore that will be uncovered with each following update.
Among other things that are related to balancing (there are quite a few of them there), we can name the fact that various resources now require specific tool quality. So while some early resources can be mined with a basic pickaxe, for something rarer you will have to craft a better type of pickaxe.
Improved fishing Fishing is now more interesting - not only is the actual action more fun but there's a lot you can catch (as well as new recipes related to that). What depth you fish at, time of the day or even if it's raining affects what you get.
Improved Radial menu The radial menu now controls more intuitively. And since we found that a lot of new players have no idea there even is one, we've added a hard-to-miss radial menu hotkey hint (which you can disable in Game settings).
Mythical animals You can now run into some very specific Random Encounters that let you acquire one of the very unique animal companions. Those are sort of a puzzle, but if you manage to solve them, the result is surely worth all the work.
Notice Board Now you will never miss anything important because of the cool new Notice board! Look for the owl button in the Main Menu.
Editor improvements Creators will find some pretty handy improvements in Editor - like Visual Scripting multi selection and better object placing tools.
...all this and much, much more.
What's missing:
1.10 will bring a big update to Blueprints but that is not yet present in this Experimental branch. It will, however, be present in the full release later.
For information on how to access the Experimental branch please visit our forum here. Please note, that you will have to play as a new character and any progress you make in the Experimental branch will be eventually wiped. Playing the Experimental branch has no effect on your regular game character or progress.
We look forward to hearing what you like and don't like, please let us know!
Stay classy, Ylanders!
Dev Diary #230 Exploration is (an) Adventure
Hey there, fellow Ylanders!
Today we will mention one change that you will notice immediately after you start the new update 1.10.
So what is this change?
When you first start the new update, you will see the familiar Main menu, with some somewhat unfamiliar labels.
Instead of "Sandbox" there is "Creative mode", "Playlands" is now called "Minigames hub", "Custom games" have become "Community games" and, finally, "Exploration" has become "Adventure". We haven't gone crazy. We're not even trying to confuse players (even though yes, some slight initial confusion is something we expect). As weird as it may sound, this is one of the steps we've taken to get more players into Ylands. Let me explain.
Unless you disabled the anonymous data gathering in Ylands settings, we get information like "Some player started Ylands for the first time and first they clicked on Playlands. The second thing they clicked was Sandbox. Then they left and never returned". And because we consider Exploration to be "the game", something we want the players to try first to hook them up (and ideally never let them go :)), this obviously is a problem.
When you get info like this you need to dig deeper and then you figure out something like: way too many players consider "Exploration" to be something like "showcase of features" or some sort of "god mode" that lets you explore what the game has to offer - or some other things, but not something that holds the actual game. And pretty much every other choice they find more interesting. So they check one of those or two, if we're lucky, and they then leave and don't look back. Sure, it's not every player that decides to give Ylands a try, but the number is surprisingly large.
So, we have changed the labels to make Exploration stand out more (sure, it will be some time before we actually stop calling it this way and if you feel like calling it Exploration it's fine if you stick with it). The second reason is that it's not just about exploration but what ever you do, it's an adventure.
We will still have "Exploration pack" because it does what it says - it lets you explore, go farther, see more.
And speaking of the Exploration pack - we have some interesting plans with that that we'll talk about some other time, but in a nutshell - we want to give more freedom to those without the pack so that they can enjoy the game more, while at the same time owning the pack sounds even more interesting. That's yet another step we would like to take to bring in more players.
And that's it for today. Have a great week and until we talk again... Stay Classy!
Dev Diary #229 Magnificent Mythical Beasts
Hey there, fellow Ylanders!
So, let's see... You have explored dozens of ylands, uncovered hundreds of recipes and laid down thousands of blocks. And you think you know it all. That you've seen it all. You have it all. Right?
Wrong!
Update 1.10 brings something special for those of you who travel the uncharted horizons. Those who welcome challenges.
If this sounds like you, get ready to start the grand search for the fabled mythical animals. In the upcoming update you will be able to come across notes left by the famous zoologist Nicholas Arbeo. Each note can lead you to one mythical animal no one has ever seen in Ylands. And you can be the first one to tame it.
There are a lot of those to discover. And if you - as unlikely as it may sound - manage to discover and tame all of them, you're up for a pretty cool surprise in 1.11.
That's it for today, my fellow explorers. Until we meet again - stay classy!
Dev Diary #228 New News
Hey there, Ylanders!
We are going at full speed towards Update 1.10 so it is about time we updated you with some news on what you can look forward to: news! No, for real, this dev diary will be all about news and information!
Today we're going to have a look at something brand new that was designed to keep you informed about everything important going in the game: a notice board.
Sometimes, it can be a bit tricky to keep up with the latest news, important announcements, scheduled maintenances and other pieces of information. This is why we added a notice board to Ylands. This way, all the important information will be at your fingertips within the game. We recruited a very skilled and also a very cute owl messenger to set up shop in the Main Menu of the game so that you can easily access all the news he carries.
While this may seem like a small thing to add, we hope that it will help big time. Some time ago, we spoke about streamlining the player experience and this is another small step towards that goal. The whole update will be filled with improvements like this one and we are looking forward to sharing it with you! With what you know about the update at this point in time, what do you think it's going to be called? Let us know!
That's it for this week and we will be back to share more news with you next week!
Stay classy, Ylanders!
Dev Diary #227 First look!
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!
Dev Diary #226 What You Fish For!
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!
