May Wildlander Update - The upcoming 1.1.0 release, and next steps for the project!

Hello there Wildlanders, and happy May!

Thank you so much for your patience while the wife and I were on vacation / honeymoon. (Vaconeymoon? Honeycation?) We enjoyed ourselves immensely, and I am thrilled to dive back into Wildlander. >:)

Wildlander 1.1.0 - What (and when) to expect

Wildlander 1.1.0 is the upcoming bugfixing and quality of life update for the initial 1.0.0 build. It started as a smaller patch, but we decided to expand its scope to really smooth out the kinks with 1.1.0.

Here are the major improvements you can expect:

• The new crafting tools system vastly improves the cluttered crafting experience
• An approximate 30% reduction in file size, down to 130gb from 180gb (further reducible if you delete the 45gb of downloads)
• We now use the Special Edition version of Requiem (Requiem 5.0.2, to be precise)
• Fishing is back, baby
• The return of first person horse riding and first person visible body
• Reworked / upgraded loot for dungeon boss chests
• Improved merchant inventories; merchants now a wider variety of useful goods
• Mods causing installation issues/inconsistency have been replaced or removed
• A massive host of bugfixes and other improvements, including fixes for the infamous aggressive Thalmor, despawning horses, fleeing followers, overabundant ingredients, and so much more. (Seriously, the changelog is going to be ridiculous.)

As for the release date, we are confident that we can release 1.1.0 within the month of May. The lion's share of the work was done before I went on vacation, and the Wildlander Team (and especially Lizzy) have worked very hard in the meantime to find any remaining issues, which I will be fixing in the coming weeks.

The return of unofficial customization

Now that 1.1.0 will provide a more stable base, we are happy to announce that unofficial pack customization will return shortly after the 1.1.0 release. (Think about a week or so, once we've verified that 1.1.0 is working for everyone.)

I've also included some pre-packaged customization tools to make your tinkering even easier. If you upload your tweaks and patches to the Nexus, there is always the chance they'll be officially added - if you allow it, and if they fit the pack!

We know that customization is important to many of you, and we've appreciated your patience as we worked out the kinks in 1.0.0. 

Please note: as always, we do not offer official support for customized builds!

What's next for Wildlander?

With 1.1.0 squared away, I plan to do the following in tandem:

• Begin development of the next major version of Wildlander. The goal for this version will be the inclusion of core mechanics that are currently missing, such as jobs and lifeskills, and the expansion of some core mechanics currently in need of additional depth, such as religion, birthsigns, spell learning, character creation, vampirism/lycanthropy, and the like.
  
  Since only some of these expansions can make it into one version, this is where I plan to demo the first ever Patron Development Poll, where y'all can vote for the improvements you'd like to see first! Stay tuned for more info on these polls as the next version progresses.
• I've wanted to create some official Wildlander video guides for a long while, and I think now is finally the time to get cracking. These guides will primarily target new players, but there will be some goodies for existing players as well, such as build guides and roleplaying ideas.

That about covers it for the May update, I'd say! As always, thank you all for supporting the project, and for being a part of the Wildlander journey. Please feel free to leave any comments and questions below, and please stay tuned for even more Wildlander content!

All the best,

Dylan and the Wildlander Team