Legends of Ellaria
April 28 - Developer Chat with Larkon Studio
we would like to have your direct feedback on new ideas, updates, suggestions, improvements, and general thoughts on Legends of Ellaria.
To do this, we will hold a dev chat on our discord server: at 11 AM EST.
We can't wait to talk to you and hear all your ideas!
Chat soon,
Larkon Studio
Game progress and future updates!
Dear community,
We wanted to update you on recent progress with Legends of Ellaria. As you know, we have been slowing updates down to work on bigger features such as the RPG system and the Sphere of influence.
We are now building this for the game and as of now we have progressed on the following fixes and features:
1. There's a new visual editor for the RPG system, which will allow us to define classes, attributes, and skills in the upcoming RPG update.
2. The RPG system is expected to have a proficiency-based leveling system, where you'll invest proficiency points for each level you gain. Proficiencies (Warrior, Ranger, Mage, Diplomat, and more) will boost your abilities in said proficiency and will give you the ability to unlock Talents. These talents (Whirlwind, City Manager, Swordsman, and more) will improve your stats and may unlock skills to use during combat.
3. We are almost done with the First Person view mechanism. You will now be able to switch between first and third person mode by pressing “F”(or rebinding it to your preferred key). There are some camera differences between first and third person view, where going sideways makes the player face the desired direction, while in first person it will always face in the direction that the camera is facing.
4. In addition we are working on IK (Inverse Kinematic) allowing the players and other NPC’s act much more flexible and accurate to the terrain and environment they're in.
Our next Major Update Part 1 will include First Person view, IK, “WASD” key bindings and more :)
While the initial RPG system will be available in the beta stage, it will be fully released and improved on as a Major Update part 2, date still pending.
In order to sign into the beta, please join our discord server and PM us with your steam profile, we would love to have as many of you join us in developing the game together.
For all of you that have left reviews, thank you so much. For those that haven't, please make a review, we read every single one of them and work from your feedback to improve the game.
See you in Ellaria,
Larkon Studio
Version 0.5.39.16 is Live!
Dear community,
Thank you for your support on our most recent Major Update, we have taken your new feedback and considerations to improve and add the following:
Version 0.5.39.16 changes:
- Integrated a new engine for displaying plants and trees, with better performance and view
- You can now place buildings over trees and in forests
- Added more trees and plants to the outdoors. The number of trees is affected by the quality settings
- Buildings now remove the grass and plants around them when built
- Tweaked the lighting and shadows for a better performance and looks
- Tweaked the level of detail vs. the performance. Large cities require 70% less GPU
- Fixed issues where FPS would drop when near the goblin village
- Optimized LoE's game engine. CPU cost is reduced by 60% when in a large city and/or with a large army
- Optimized LoE's pathfinding engine to run smoother and faster
- FPS on Indoors and large indoor maps have been doubled
- Fixed issues with the minimap not appearing or appearing after a few seconds when moving between places
- Fixed citizens holding the wrong tools while working
- Fixed main menu lighting when returning to the main menu for the second time
- Placed the EA disclaimer text to the main menu since loading the game is too fast to read it
We have begun working on our RPG system and our 'Sphere of Influence', as well as some new graphics overhauling that together will considerably increase gameplay time and the general aesthetics of Legends of Ellaria.
Because of the complexity of these new features, new updates will take longer to publish, but we will still do bug-fixes and optimizations to keep the progress while these release.
Our next update(Mid April) will include First Person View, all path finding fixes, as well as more optimizations and small features.
If you have any ideas that you would like to see in Ellaria, please let us know through our Discussions, comments, Steam Reviews or our Discord, in which we do Dev talks every now and then to directly hear your thoughts in a friendly chat :)
Thank you for supporting us in building a whole new world, we will keep working tirelessly to bring you an epic game.
Sincerely,
The Larkon Studio Team
LIVE: Major Update #2, part 2
Dear community,
The second major update for Legends of Ellaria is here!
After many suggestions, feedback, reviews, private messages, emails, dev talks, and beta testing, we decided to prioritize on the critical issues many of you were having.
You will now be able to enjoy:
- Overhauled graphics and effects, including better texture display, lighting, shadows and colors.
- Reduced initial RAM usage by over 50%. The game should now load faster and use less memory overall.
- Outdoor objects now getting wet when it rains.
- A second floor to the player's home, which includes more chests and props.
- A "sleep" feature for your king, accessible through the player’s home.
- A more challenging melee combat system.
- Smarter civilian NPCs that now use roads whenever possible.
- Player walks faster.
- Soldiers following you into dungeons when they are in follow state; Otherwise, they will perform the command you have given them.
As well as the following fixes:
- Fixed the Barracks door for old saves
- Fixed the Blacksmith door for old saves
- Fixed some fog and tree issues for the dark forest
- Fixed some pathfinding issues for the civilians and soldiers
- Fixed civilian animations in certain places
- Enemies don't get knocked through walls anymore
- Fixed an issue where civilians had more than one tool in their hands
- Fixed an issue where civilians were walking irregularly while carrying wood
- Fixed an issue where civilians did work and construction misplacements
Notes from the Part 1:
Completely overhauled the construction:
- When placing a building: Buildings check if they can be constructed by their shape and not by a general distance from other buildings
- When placing a building: Buildings cannot be built inside a mountain or close to a cliff - which removes bugs related to doors inside mountains or buildings in the air
- When constructing a new building, the terrain gets flat exactly where it should, and not as a general circle around the building.
- Buildings snap to the terrain by their entrance and not by their center. The front entrance is always linked to the terrain smoothly
- To compensate for the new system, old saves will try to snap the buildings into a more manageable position. If you encounter any problem with old saves, please send us your save file and we will fix it.
Completely Overhauled the Weather and Sky:
- Included a new cloud system that looks more natural and full
- Improved the weather and sky’s performance
- Rain is more epic, and storms are darker at night
- Night time lighting and sky is smoother
Graphics improvements:
- Included a new grass system which looks better and has touch - bending features
- Improved some of the terrain’s textures
- Most objects in the game react to rain and wetness, more to come
- Improved 25% of the texture and memory usage, much more to come
- Improved Camera effects and general game atmosphere, more to come
- Temporarily removed VSync, which will be added to the options menu in later versions
Made General Fixes and improvements:
- When Pressing "New Game" and then pressing the Escape button, the game doesn't start a new game
- When falling through the ground or from the edge of the world, your character will be returned to a normal position
- Fixed an issue where the terrain would be flat or have flat portions
Improved AI:
- Enemies try to avoid the Circle of Fire spell whenever possible
- Completely rebuild the Pathfinder system; NPC goes smoother and smarter from place to place.
- Improved Followers and RTS Commands:
- Followers can now follow you indoors. When you enter a dungeon, 3 of your best soldiers will go in with you.
- Followers won’t wander too far from you unless instructed to. When in combat, followers will disengage and return to you in a tactical way if you are too far from them.
- Also, when pressing the ‘Follow’ command during combat, soldiers will immediately disengage and retreat towards you
- Soldiers react to Attack, Move and Follow commands even when in combat mode
As of now, we are beginning to work on much-anticipated features such as a full RPG system, an initial RTS experience, and 'The Sphere of Influence' (more news on that later).
In the near future, updates will include:
- Full RPG Leveling System
- World Map
- Siege Weapons
- Destructible buildings and castle wars
- Mage Towers
- Kingdom Management
- Cavalry and much, much more
We can't be more thankful and humbled by your support until now, we will continue to work non-stop to bring you an epic title, so please continue to give us ideas and suggestions on how to improve.
We are here to build the best game possible, so as long as you tell us where is the issue, we will be there to fix it.
Thank you for joining us in Legends of Ellaria, there is still much, much more to come.
Sincerely,
- The Larkon Studio Team
Updates
Version 0.5.39.13 changes:
- A set amount of followers follows you to places. I.E no followers will enter your house, 4 followers will enter the barracks
- Fixed an issue where NPCS are not visible for a few seconds when going to outdoor
- Fixed chests, bed and interactions don't work in player home on old saves
- Fixed pixelated clouds at night time
- May have fixed a rare issue where buildings disappear
- Fixed a spelling error when interacting with the player's bed
Version 0.5.39.14 changes:
- Fixed some issues related to missing items and buildings
- Fixed disappearing items or items that cannot be picked up when dropped
Version 0.5.39.15 changes:
- Fixed enemies and chests not spawning
- Fixed more issues with disappearing buildings
- Improve FPS in certain areas in Outdoors. More to come
- Tweaked the Quality Settings to influence Volumetric Fog and Clouds Quality
Major Update 2 - Part 1 is now Live!
Dear Community,
We're excited to announce that our second major update: part 1 is now LIVE
As many of you know, we opened a beta for LoE owners and the feedback has been amazing. Thanks to you, many fixes and improvements were possible.
Version 0.5.39.05 includes the following:
Completely overhauled the construction:
- When placing a building: Buildings check if they can be constructed by their shape and not by general distance from other buildings
- When placing a building: Buildings cannot be built inside a mountain or close to a cliff - which removes bugs related to doors inside mountains or buildings in the air
- When constructing a new building, the terrain gets flat exactly where it should, and not as a general circle around the building.
- Buildings snap to the terrain by their entrance and not by their center. The front entrance is always linked to the terrain smoothly
- To compensate for the new system, old saves will try to snap the buildings into a more manageable position. If you encounter any problem with old saves, please send us your save file and we will fix it.
Completely Overhauled the Weather and Sky:
- Included a new cloud system that looks more natural and full
- Improved the weather and sky performance
- Rain is more epic, and storms are darker at night
- Night time lighting and sky is prettier.
Improved Some Graphics:
- Included a new grass system which looks better and has touch - bending
- Improved some of the terrain textures
- Some objects in the game react to rain and wetness. More to come
- Improved 25% of the texture and memory usage. Much more to come.
- Improved Camera effects and general game atmosphere. More to come
- Temporarily removed VSync. VSync will be added to the options menu in later versions
Made General Fixes and improvements:
- When Pressing "New Game" and then pressing the Escape button, the game doesn't start a new game
- When falling through the ground or from the edge of the world, your character will be returned to a normal position
- Fixed an issue where the terrain would be flat or have flat portions
Improved AI:
- Enemies try to avoid the Circle of Fire spell whenever possible
- Completely rebuild the Pathfinder system; NPC goes smoother and smarter from place to place.
- Improved Followers and RTS Commands:
- Followers can now follow you indoors. When you enter a dungeon, 3 of your best soldiers will go in with you.
- Followers won’t wander too far from you unless instructed to. When in combat, followers will disengage and return to you in a tactical way if you are too far from them.
- Also, when pressing the “Follow” command during combat, soldiers will immediately disengage and retreat towards you
- Soldiers react to Attack, Move and Follow commands even when in combat mode
Of course, since it's Early Access, there are some known issues:
- Followers may get stuck in dungeon, they will teleport to you eventually
- Sime civils still may act funny
- Some bug causing some creatures to not equip weapons(rare)
- Many systems were renewed or changed. Please press F8 and send us a bug report for any issue you encounter
On part 2 & 3 we will be working on further fixes, optimizations, and the implementation of some features like:
Fixing the above Known issues
- Continue to optimize the game - Memory usage reduction
- Improve the graphics
- Create Combat Formations
- Vastly improve Character movement
- New Construction(optional)
- New maps and quests
Major Update part 2 will be released on March 3, 2018, so there will be many changes inside Ellaria in the upcoming weeks & months.
As always, let us know your opinion through a Steam review, by opening a steam discussion, or by chatting with us directly through our Discord Server
Please contact us if you want to participate in further beta testing
See you in Ellaria,
Larkon Studio
Update - We uploaded new versions to fix important issues
0.5.39.06:
- Fixed a game error when exiting a cave after your followers have died
0.5.39.07:
- Fixed an issue where your followers attack the barracks captain
- Fixed an issue with the positioning of the player between scenes
0.5.39.08:
- Fixed an issue where enemies would not spawn
- Fixed colliders on trees
0.5.39.09:
- Fixed Player home interaction with objects
- Fixed weather rain not showing rain effect
- Removed the Halloween effects and Halloween related issues
0.5.39.10:
- Fixed an issue where some enemies don't attack you when indoor
Major Update 2- Optimisations Beta Updated to V4
We have updated the beta version currently available to all LoE owners by requesting access through our Discord server:
or via Steam messaging
Your feedback until now has been tremendous during this phase, so we decided to keep adding to it and improve it a bit further before our major update release on the 15th of February.
Here's what's new:
• Most things in the game are now affected by rain and wetness
• When Pressing "New Game" and then pressing the Escape button, the game doesn't start a new game
• Fixed multiple issues with save / load. Saving and loading should work now, but we advise to keep a backup of a stable version load
Known issues:
• The weather does not show properly after load. The moon may be visible during daylight and the sun light is dimmer
• The night time flashlight may not work after loading a game
Things to test:
• Load your old save
• Save frequently and try loading whenever possible
Please report any bugs that you find when loading and saving, and any bug in general after a long gameplay.
Thank you for being part of this, we will keep working hard to build an epic title.
See you in Ellaria,
Larkon Studio
Major Update 2- Optimisations Beta is live!
The Beta version of "Major Update 2 - Optimisations" is live!
We've sent a message to the volunteers who contacted us about the beta testing.
Please contact us if you volunteered and didn't get the message or if you want to participate in the beta testing
What’s new in 0.5.39.4 BETA 2:
- Completely overhauled the sky and weather system, improved its performance and graphics
- Temporarily removed VSync
- Improved 20% of the texture and memory usage. Much more to come.
- Fixed an issue where the terrain would be flat or have flat portions
- Improved the camera’s processing and post effects, and its performance
- Completely rebuild the Pathfinder system; NPC goes smoother and smarter from place to place.
- Completely rebuild the follower system; Followers move in an organized formation when possible, and stick with their leader in tight places
- Followers can now follow you indoor. When you enter a dungeon, 3 of your best soldiers will go in with you.
Crashes vs Beta:
- Players who had low FPS at the start of a level should see a 20% improvement. Later versions will include 100% improvements
- Players who fell under the ground or appeared under the textures in some cases - it was fixed
- Players who couldn't load the game at all, the memory usage was reduced by 20%. Further memory usage will be optimized up to 100%, as we're gradually reducing the RAM from 14GB to 2GB
For more info please check the Beta Discussion.
See you in Ellaria,
Larkon Studio
Major Update #2 and Beta Dev Progress
You will now be able to take your army inside for a dungeon raid!
Development Progress:
Dear community, we have been reviewing all of your feedback through the Steam discussions, reviews, and our Discord server. We wanted to take the time to tell you a little more about our development schedule, and why we decided to work on the optimizations that we have instead of building upon new features for this update.
We read every single one of your reviews, comments, feedback, suggestions, and even rants, furthermore we also take action based on them. Some of you are having critical issues with game crashes, bugs, and slow performance with the game, so instead of adding more cool stuff into it, we thought it would be best to first polish what we have built until now.
This is also why next week we will finally open our Beta for which some of you have been registered to (In case you haven't and wish to join, write us here or DM via the Steam profile).
The beta version will include the following:
1: reduced usage of virtual memory, which is the main cause of the game crashes as well as the player appearing under the ground bug.
2: new and a better-optimized weather system which increases FPS as well.
3: Some new and better-performing camera effects.
4: New and much less CPU consuming pathfinder system.
5: New army formations in RTS mode, the soldiers will now follow you on formation when possible, and will gather near you in tight places.
6: Soldiers in your army will now go with you inside dungeons.
Within the Beta, you will test all these features, and we will prepare for our second major update this February 15, which will include:
1: All the above + further FPS increase as well as a new and better-performing environment system.
2: A fixed citizens algorithm, correcting misc. bugs that make them act unpredictably (and in some cases, in a funny/buggy way).
3: Groups in RTS mode, you will be able to select soldiers and add them to groups and command groups using hotkeys.
4: Better combat AI, NPCs will avoid the circle of fire and others dangers, and they will be more aggressive and smarter when in combat mode.
Basically, with your help, we will have a much better-performing game, which will then help us build tons of new features that you have all been asking.
A short debrief of what to expect after the 15\2 version:
A week or 2 after, we will finally release new quests and maps, followed by implementing a full RPG Leveling system, a sphere of Influence with the world map(by April), the Market, Destructible walls and finally, a multiplayer experience (by Summer). For more details please check our Development Road Map
If you have any other ideas or suggestions, please let us know through a Steam review, your review helps us a lot and are we deeply appreciate your opinion.
See you in Ellaria,
Larkon Studio
Development and roadmap update
Environment optimizations
Hey guys, as you know we've been doing steady progress and are currently working on several fixes for our next update. The idea is to have an optimized game with all (or most) crash-related bugs and performance issues you have been reporting
As of now, we have improved scenarios, so you will be able to enjoy beautiful views of your kingdom with our next update:
Basically, you will have an improved FPS & overall performance, the game, in general, will take considerably less virtual memory, and there will be added details like the grass interacting with your character as he walks through it.
If you want to check out our development plans, we have developed this Roadmap
See you in Ellaria,
Larkon Studio
Open Beta and bug fixing
Dear community,
We wanted to share with you our progress and things we're working on currently for Legends of Ellaria.
This week we went into:
- Graphics optimizations to improve performance
- Pathfinder optimizations
- Enemy AI optimizations
- Misc. fixes from your reports
We want to have a much smoother-running game over the next couple of months and then begin to build further features for you to enjoy, tons of content coming your way :).
Also, we're opening a Beta testing for LoE owners. All you have to do is send us a message on our Discord or via the steam profile, if you have a copy of the game you will be immediately added to the beta list, which will be available in a couple of weeks.
So if you want exclusive content before it's actually live, and the chance to be part of the game in an even deeper way
See you in Ellaria,
Larkon Studio