Hey there, fellow ylanders.
This week we have finally released the update 0.11 “Peak Performance”. It is by far the largest update that we’ve done so far.
We’ve been working on the optimizations for quite a long time and are very happy with the results. In massive scenes with tens of thousands of objects we’ve seen FPS rise well over ten times. In newly generated games without lots of structures (like Explore), the FPS gain is lower but still noticeable. The important thing is, though, that the optimizations aren’t only about getting higher FPS - we managed to make the game run smoother in general, and we are far from being done!
We have made some serious under-the-hood changes and improvements, so it's quite likely that we also broke some things. This is why we'd like to ask you to report any bugs, anomalies, or flying sharks you experience. As we've said, this is just a step (an important one) towards improving the game and further fixes, changes and performance gains for custom ships and multiplayer modes are coming with update 0.12.
With the new optimizations Ylands runs faster and smoother - anyone fancy a race? :)
While we are very happy about the features present in this update, there are things we could have done better. The most obvious error is that we were unable to communicate properly to our players how some of the new or updated features were supposed to work , which made it difficult to use those. We could have been clearer with telling what the intended behavior is and what issues need to be reported and fixed. Because of the sheer size of the update, we focused almost entirely on getting things done and didn’t put enough effort into making sure the changes to existing systems were documented and explained well enough - for which I apologize.
We’ve discussed how we need to improve this - we will take some steps to fix this for 0.12 and will do a much better job in the future. I will talk about the steps we intend to take soon in one of the Dev Diaries.
We’ve been analyzing all the feedback you’re providing us with and will release several fixes and improvements in the upcoming small update 0.11.1, which - if everything goes right - should be released in a week or so. In this update we also plan to let you enable the first person camera via console command (as an experimental, unsupported feature). At the same time we will be actively working on a better solution to this problem.
Another thing that you’ve been asking about is the termination of the official Explore / Create servers. This was a decision born out of necessity, yet could have been communicated much better. As most of you know, these servers were not moderated by us, filled with griefers and people who were actively looking for ways of spoiling the fun for others. Even though we’ve introduced several features and fixes that helped with some of the issues, many others remained. For many new players these servers are one of the first places they go when they start playing. The fact that those were our official servers made it look like this is something we consider fine. After getting quite a lot of feedback on this we’ve decided to terminate those servers until we come up with fixes for several specific issues. When we do, we will restart those servers - we consider them to be a very important experience, especially for the new players. It goes without saying that even those running their own dedicated servers will benefit from those fixes and improvements. So the bottom line is: this is a temporary answer to a problem we are facing, and we are doing our best to solve it - so yes, the official servers WILL come back in the future.
That’s it for today. Have a great weekend, ylanders, and as always - stay classy!