Hey there, Ylanders!
Update 1.8 is finally here so hop in, WE'RE GOING EXPLORING! ⛵
We've done so much polishing, we can practically see ourselves in this shiny new update! We also added some great new features, which were based on the feedback from our player community!
With 1.8 we are staying on course with taking major steps to improve Exploration and give you the best possible experience when playing Ylands. We hope that these changes will give each type of player something to look forward to and spend some quality time in the beautiful world of Ylands.
Let's jump right into some of the new features and polishing that's been done!
A quick overview of what's happening in 1.8:
Multiplayer game flow polish
Exploration Tutorial
Achievements and Titles
Support of larger maps and ylands
Mass pickup action - collect all the items of the same name at once
Traveling with your tamed animals
New Mystery Ylands
Quality of life improvements
Mobile ambience improvements
Multiplayer game flow polish
First of all, you've been asking for this on, loud and clear. Joining Multiplayer games was no easy feat. But worry not, we heard you. From now on, there are fewer steps, it's more intuitive and most importantly - it works!
Exploration Tutorial
Have you tried surviving in the land of Ylands but it was too complicated to understand everything? Or you tried to bring in a friend but they didn't know what to do? From now on, you can use the tutorial, which teaches the basics of survival. You learn how to start a fire, how to craft basic tools, how to build a raft and much more! Grab your friend, sit them down, launch Exploration and have them do the tutorial. They can learn at their own pace, learn as much or as little as they want. The tutorial is optional and only launches when you start a new exploration adventure.
Achievements and Titles
Being back on track with working on Exploration is an achievement for us for sure, but we also want you guys to have a sense of achievement, which is why we added Achievements! Some are hidden, some are not, some have multiple tiers, some do not, but all are awesome! They are even connected to Steam, so you will get to see them on your Steam profile as well! Some of these Achievements even give you titles, which can be displayed next to your name, so go ahead and show them off!
Support of larger maps and ylands
Making maps smaller was something that wasn't a popular choice, no technical limitation is popular but this time, it was necessary. But larger maps are back! We put in a tremendous amount of work into giving you back larger maps, so with 1.8, a map can be up to 8x8 kilometers! That should give you some serious ground to cover on your exploration voyages! And what's more, we added more space between ylands so that navigation to those is a bit more challenging as well, so don't forget your compass!
Mass pickup action
Gathering resources, especially in the early stages of the game was a bit of (or a lot of) a clickfest. Carpal tunnel level bad. But we got you. Mass pick up action is now in the game! Simply hold your right mouse button to pick up all the nearby resources of the same name. Go get all the grass. All the rocks! All the sticks! All the logs! This should make your early game much easier in terms of getting the stuff you need. Less clicking, more playing!
Traveling with your tamed animals
Having a strong bond with your favorite animal is an extremely important part of our (not only) in-game lives. It breaks your heart when you have to leave your beloved horse, bear, deer, ostrich or you name it, behind. But we said: "No more heartbreak!" and ended this chapter of animal abandonment. You can now bring your animal Companions with you! Don't forget to build them a proper shelter though!
New Mystery Ylands
Now that you have a lot more land to cover and discover, you can collect those Exploration Points and spend them on some brand new Mystery Ylands! We'll keep adding those in-between updates too, so don't forget to keep checking the game for new Mysteries to solve!
Quality of life improvements
Ships were not easy to claim. Workstation tabs were switching in a strange manner. Which ship on the sea is mine actually? Which is my avatar holding this item in their hands but not this one? Yeah, it was pretty confusing. Which is why we grabbed some developer cloths and got to polishing. We polished away and made sure that many little annoying details are now all fixed up.
Mobile ambiance improvements
And we didn't forget about our mobile players either! Apart from some less obvious fixes, we also made sure that everything just looks nicer! Colors look better and water effects look more realistic now!
There are of course many more changes, improvements, fixes, additions and tweaks. We honestly can't wait to hear what you guys have to say about this update. The best person to sum up the feelings of the dev team about the direction of Ylands is none other than the Project Lead, Aleš Ulm, himself:
"We’re very excited about seeing new and returning players coming back to Ylands and giving us their feedback. This is incredibly important and a major driving force for the dev team. Rate us on Steam if you like the direction in which we’ve been going, so that we know that our work is making people happy and is making sense. That thumbs up (which you can always change, if we fail you), telling your friend that devs at Ylands have come back to their senses, that's the fuel we're now running on."
Well, 1.8 is finally out, let us know what you think and most importantly...
Keep Exploring!
And even more importantly...
Stay classy!