This is why Ylands failed

[Red]

https://youtu.be/b3oPVCSyD8U

As one of the few people that's been both supporting this project on YouTube with my videos and by trying to build an amazing community in Ylands I have decided once and for all that this game is a waste of our effort.
Ylands is a beautiful gem of a game ruined by leadership which lacks focus and does not listen to its community.

This forum among other places have tried to say something about the issue and 9/10 we got ignored or were given empty promises.

When we had daily wipes/resets:
-- The developers made the editor.

When we had weekly wipes and resets:
-- They introduced Coyn monetization

When we still had weekly wipes:
-- They switched to mobile.

3 years of disastrous performance when it comes to fixing servers and keeping our progress while focusing on anything but fixing the issues at hand where the key to this game’s downfall.

I love this project and I deeply want it to succeed still and I hope that I'm wrong but as for me and P1, we can no longer take this journey with them.

My specific complaints:

Bohemia Interactive:

1) Cares deeply about maintaining a good reputation and is deeply hurt when people complain but tries to either deny the problem or cover over issues rather than confronting and addressing issues.
2) The game's marketing and development lacks focus.
3) Over promise, under develier year after year. Trying to please everyone but not having the focus to please anyone.
4) Ignores critics, surrounds themselves with only good news and plugs their ears when it comes to bad news.

[Alessaint]

Hi Red.

We do respect your opinion, however, there are some things in this post that are quite misleading (to say at least).

When we had daily wipes/resets:
-- The developers made the editor

P1 was the first one to use the Editor, asked us for specific features, wanted to sell your games to us, we played with you your games and our devs even looked into your code to help you troubleshoot it. Your community has used the Editor to create assets with which you succeeded at Tencent's competition. In this light, to hear you blame anything on Editor's presence, seems weird. Also, it's just been 5 years since the Editor was introduced

When we had weekly wipes and resets:
-- They introduced Coyn monetization

Coyn monetization was introduced before the game even left Early Access - I don't quite see how this is related to server problems. P1 was, once again, the first one come up with monetized games and you actually welcomed the possibility of monetizing games.

When we still had weekly wipes:
-- They switched to mobile.

Again - I don't see how this is related to server stability. The Ylands mobile version was created by Mobile team while servers are being administered by Core/Backend team.


Accusing us of not listening to our community is a bit hypocritical since I can post numerous quotes where you are praising how we listen and the fact, that over the year the CM/Marketing/Project Lead/devs have exchanged thousands of chat messages and PM with you.

I'm far from saying the game is perfect and yes we should have done much better job improving Exploration and server stability, but posting things that are not true isn't going to help anything.

Also, could you please elaborate on how "A few very specific issues in which they destroyed years-worth of our creators work with little concern." since this is serious accustation so I would like you to back it up with something.

A.

[Red]

The entire use of the editor for us was an effort to save the community and bring some fresh excitement to the game because of the dying state of the game. We were doing our best to save the community.

Just imagine if you were the Lego company and every time somebody looked away from the Lego blocks they deconstructed themselves. Nothing but fixing that issue would matter. Every patch we were promised a fix but no fix came, just new features.

The wipes and resets were happening long before we left early access but my point stands, The focus was on creating unnecessary features before fixing the fundamentals and the players leaving the game shows that reality. Just reading through the Steam forum you can see how people feel about these critical decisions.

The problem is that many times I have made so many complaints about issues but that’s not what seems to rise to surface because the company culture is one not to bring anything negative to the table. That’s why I no longer believe in the game because the problem is cultural.

Even though Adam was highly available, the serious issue with accepting criticism made it so that our criticism was deflected, and disregarded deflected rather than taken in and passed to you.
I was telling you about these issues in emails and videos in every possible avenue as often as possible for years and I was told things like that this game will never be the MMO that I hope it is and that it’s actually my fault and how i use the servers.

Obviously with things improving now, those were just the deflections.

As a company you should learn to bring contrarian voices to the table, seek out criticism and realize that when people criticize it’s not because they don’t like you it’s because they’re deeply passionate about what you’ve created.

You were often deeply concerned with how people perceive you and seeking to solve that quickly rather than solve the fundamental underlying issues.

If you watch my video you can listen to the serious accusations I do have. One of them includes telling us that we can publish our games and that that will not affect our standing in the competitions, then once the games were published you changed your mind and banned all games that were published already on the workshop allowing you to get the games for free without paying for them.

The coin monetization system is so on lucrative that there is no way anyone can cash out. We are one of the biggest players in the space and we have hardly ever got to the number needed to cash out.

However we constantly have to spend all these coins on servers which barely work.

[Red]

I conclude by saying that I have nothing against you or against Ylands, I just know that a lot of people play this game and invest the time in it because I told them that this is going to be a big thing and I no longer believe that and therefore I don’t want to lead people astray.

[Alessaint]

"A few very specific issues in which they destroyed years-worth of our creators work with little concern."

All I can say is, that this isn't true.

"The years-work of your creators" that got, supposedly, "destroyed" are, in fact, assets that P1 community created specifically for the Tencent competition (and got already rewarded for it). There was one major competition done by us so far, and your games were part of it just like those made by others, so I'm don't really understand what we have destroyed.

The fact that for the next competition stage we are not allowing already published games is because we want all the creators to have the same starting line - and we had exchange a great number of mails and PM with you explaining this. I urge those willing to find more about it visit our forums and read what the creators had to say about it.

It's perfectly fine to criticize us, the game, problems with servers, our decisions - but please don't suggest we have no respect for players' creations.

A.

[Red]

As I said via email: https://gyazo.com/daa30fdf8ca5320951d144535dc0de56

We were encouraged to publish our games before the competition, told they would be allowed to enter and then that was taken away which meant our games no longer had any value.

This has nothing to do with Tencent or any issue other creators know about.

[marton.magyar]

Hey Red,

This is not the first, the second, the third or the fourth time you post screenshots of PRIVATE messages between yourself and team members - team members, who by the way spent countless hours of their free time, their weekends & their holidays answering your messages.

I believe Ales answered most of your questions and refelected on most of your concerns - so I'm here to do something else: consider this a warning.

Next time you post private messages without the consent of the involved parties, there will be repercussions.

[Fallalot]

Hey marton

You make me ashamed of owning ylands,arma 2,arma 3

[Vega]

All i can say is that the dev team created a great game... the problem is that that just on the wrong track. Like red also mentioned, when they had to focus on the problems in the game they focused on total new stuff that was NOT needed at the time. Surely they must have seen that many stop playing after users reported and moan about critical game flaws (protection in world one off them) If i sit back and look at the route the game scattered left and right i get the idea that the dev's become bit "panic to save the game" get the idea that they fail bit to listen all the years to the player base.. else they would have fix the important parts off game and not add new senseless stuff on the wrong time.

I am with the game from start.. bought exploration but i must admit the dev's did fail to please me over the years with a just stable exploration gameplay. Stuff like be protected in this crazy grief infected world is more important as new fancy interfaces.. mobile gameplay... There are many more aspects they found not important to addressed after many players reported it.

I just hope the dev team pull up there socks and get this fantastic game BACK on track. This just by fixing the REAL stuff first NOW and add the glitter on the code later.

Good Luck Dev's

[Korgoth]

Funny to see Red, whom I believe "was" one of your greatest advocates, get reprimanded for the transparency he was willing to display. Even funnier that it happened on a public forum instead of through a PM which could have served the same purpose. I get the frustration at some of the things Red has brought up and if you don't want your community to fill in the gaps like he took the liberty to do, then I'd suggest more transparency with what is in the works and why decisions have been made. A good example would be the recent dev log, which I feel after reading it was very difficult to have put together. Stop with the three-year-old, extremely cheesy messaging and "teasers" and give your community some cold hard facts. Bottom-line is some of us feel like we are being cast aside for a different market base now after being misled about exploration. The recent news about China doesn't help that messaging.

[Riktor87]

Originally posted by Fallalot:

Hey marton

You make me ashamed of owning ylands,arma 2,arma 3

+1 to this sentiment...
Marton.... You've single handedly made me swing from just general dislike with the way the game has developed and been handled to actual shame for even owning it or spending my time on it... Don't quit your day job mate.

[Captain Sweaty Balls]

The game is good, I paid for it back in the day..it was good then and it's still good now...why can't none of you just enjoy the game instead of picking at it..yeah it's changed, but guess what, that's what happens in these early stages of development...it's still a great game, and the change are so small that it really does not warrant such hate. It's gona get better...ya just gotta believe in the developers a bit instead of criticizing every choice the they make..It'll all fall into place eventually..

[stecph]

Originally posted by marton.magyar:

Hey Red,

This is not the first, the second, the third or the fourth time you post screenshots of PRIVATE messages between yourself and team members - team members, who by the way spent countless hours of their free time, their weekends & their holidays answering your messages.

I believe Ales answered most of your questions and refelected on most of your concerns - so I'm here to do something else: consider this a warning.

Next time you post private messages without the consent of the involved parties, there will be repercussions.

I wish there would also be repercussions when you buy a car,but during production,that car turns into a bicycle....

[LustrousTroll]

Originally posted by marton.magyar:

Hey Red,

This is not the first, the second, the third or the fourth time you post screenshots of PRIVATE messages between yourself and team members - team members, who by the way spent countless hours of their free time, their weekends & their holidays answering your messages.

I believe Ales answered most of your questions and refelected on most of your concerns - so I'm here to do something else: consider this a warning.

Next time you post private messages without the consent of the involved parties, there will be repercussions.

dont need consent if you live in a one party state.

[LustrousTroll]

Originally posted by Cheese:

The game is good, I paid for it back in the day..it was good then and it's still good now...why can't none of you just enjoy the game instead of picking at it..yeah it's changed, but guess what, that's what happens in these early stages of development...it's still a great game, and the change are so small that it really does not warrant such hate. It's gona get better...ya just gotta believe in the developers a bit instead of criticizing every choice the they make..It'll all fall into place eventually..

yes and no. while i share your opinion that the game is great. and this is only due to the fact of my love for survival/sandbox games. as well as voxel based games. ie. me owning teardown. astrooneer and such. i think the hate that is warranted is mostly from the P1 community and those who were closer to the devs than us peasants. while i REALLY ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ HOPE THEY ADD A MACHINE GUN RECIPE TO EXPLORATION SOOON. the game its self is playable and rather decent. as i said before i love survival and building games. and have spent quite a deal of time in said game. ive built several winter outposts in forced blizzard weathers. built a ship breaking yard and am working on establishing a sea wall. all done in eperimental exploration so no editor cube all hard peasant work.

if you guys are tossing p1 to the curb and looking for someone else for new ideas to steal from im your guy i got this really great idea. of hotfixing some code to add the machine gun recipe to exploration.

[Hannibal]

Other than Arma you really cant find a single product thats been successful. Ive learned quickly dont buy anything from bohemia with maybe the exception of Arma. Guaranteed to be incredibly disappointed or the product just abandoned. Take On series Dayz and this farce. Paid full price only to have it bait and switch to f2p. Frankly i wont buy another product from them and they only have themselves to blame. You can disregard your customers soo long before they just stop coming back.