In the past few weeks, we've made important optimizations to our game engine, as well as tweaks and fixes from discussions and bug reports.
These changes are a part of a long-awaited expansion of our gameplay engine, which will allow us to integrate the new quest systems and remaining features.
The first thing we focused on was to reduce texture and memory size. For that end, we've implemented a new system that loads textures in memory depending on where you are.
Another thing we've fixed is the pathfinding and movement logics. The citizens were colliding with some objects on their way to places, and enemies were jumping on top of each other when fighting in large formations. We've fixed these issues and also fixed followers and movement issues in small spaces.
As a bonus, we've also improved the combat animations and tweaked some elements of the combat, both for small and large battles.
In addition, we've changed much of our sky rendering, which improved the speed and also shows better clouds and skies.
Its been a busy month, as we went over multiple areas of LoE and reduced multiple overloads that were causing sudden frame rate drops, such as in combat or in cities. We also collected bug reports and fixed multiple bugs in management, logics, graphics and more. We'll continue to improve LoE as we go. Thank you for your help and for all the bug reports!
Mar 29, 2020 - Version 0.6.17.01 Contains
Optimizations
Reduced required RAM and Texture memory by 50% - 80%
Improved Outdoor Framerate +30%
Improved RTS Framerate x2
Improved large battle Framerate x2
Improved NPC generation speed x2
Removed multiple sudden framerate drops
Tweaks and overhauls
Improved combat animations and combo sequences
Improved combat AI
overhauled pathfinding, followers and combat movement
overhauled sky rendering and looks
Moved the RTS build menu to the left
Fixes
"Not enough resources" was not appearing in the world view when trying to buy a building
Market and other structures were not visible after build
crystals in caves were blinking
Fixed multiple issues where canceling a building doesn't return the resources
Fixed multiple issues with Boar, Cave crawler and NPC animations
Fixed multiple pathfinding issues
Fixed some rain and wetness issues
Fixed lighting issues in city buildings
Fixed NPC behavior and mismatch animations in city
Fixed unknown buildings appear on empty maps
Fixed some invisible colliders
Mar 30, 2020 - Version 0.6.17.02 Changes
Fixed a crash when entering an outdoor map
Fixed building positions were changing after load
Fixed no unarmed damage
Randomized NPC attack movements
Apr 15, 2020 - Version 0.6.17.03 Changes
Fixed several crash issues and memory handling
Fixed several issues with NPC's pathfinding
Fixed RTS menu corrupted graphics
Fixed RTS "main menu" button doesn't work
Fixed pressing the world view button during inventory causes logical issues
Fixed mage light not disappearing
Fixed flare effect not appearing for magic and portal effects
Fixed under-construction building is sometimes invisible
Fixed information text appears over the inventory window
Fixed weapons sometimes have a wrong or negative damage stat
Fixed quiver doesn't disappear or doesn't appear
Fixed multiple projectile explosion and sound issues
Fixed multiple citizen behavior and work in the city
Fixed citizen are missing shoes in certain situations
Fixed citizen held torch scaling and graphics
Improved citizen held items, animations and work hours
Improved building work areas and construction phases
Apr 16, 2020 - Version 0.6.17.04 Changes
Fixed floating vegetation over roads
The World Domination Is Out
Dear Legends of Ellaria players,
After one year of hard work, we're excited to publish the new World Domination update. This update contains the final piece of the game mechanics and changes the previous version into a new game.
[previewyoutube="FIQ-mx6OPLs;full"]
The World Domination version (0.6.15.03) Contains
A new kingdom management
Multiple rogue factions, such as Bandits and Goblins
New city management, economy, and buildings
A new battle system, conquest, and "clear area" system
New places to explore. More will come
New graphics and characters
Known issues
The First Person camera is disabled
Dialogues and quests are disabled
Siege weapons and horses are disabled
Some framerate and optimization issues
Check out the previous announcements to see a more in-depth description of what we added
We're going to improve and add features in the following releases. Our first task will be to map and fix any new issues, polish the graphics and basic mechanics, and optimize LoE to run faster and with less memory.
During this time, we're gathering feedback about the new features that we should add and will post further announcements and discussions. We're planning to add happiness, crime, events, and other kingdom related features.
We would love to hear your feedbacks via steam discussions, Ingame Reports via F8, and reviews system.
In the meanwhile, if you feel nostalgic about the Legacy version of Legends of Ellaria, you can set LoE version through the Properties window.
If you own a copy of Legends of Ellaria but still haven't joined the closed Beta, please join us on our Discord server, PM us with @Admin and we will set you up! In case you don't have a Discord, you can also contact us here.
Thank you for the support, and we hope to build a great game alongside you.
See you in Ellaria,
The Larkon Studio Team
Version 0.6.15.04 Changes
Fixed pink screen when looking at the sun
Fixed some NPCs falling through the ground
Fixed floating rocks in caves
Balanced the areas where you can build cities
Version 0.6.15.05 Changes
Fixed your soldiers attack you in certain circumstances
Balanced male vs female spawn rate for soldiers
More followers now follow you into treasure and dangerous areas
Fixed some instances with floating deer
Fixed some issues with followers not following you between locations
Fixed invisible walls in some locations
Fixed Sword and shield has only one animation
Fixed VR issues
Fixed bottom screen creatures had no banner
Fixed sometimes construction follows you to other maps
Version 0.6.15.07 Changes
Fixed more issues with buying/selling from vendors
Fixed building is placed nowhere when buying it through the world view
Fixed Loading the game when standing on objects would place you bellow the objects
Fixed several soldier placement and AI during battle
Fixed can't attack certain animals
Limited the number of buildings you can build in a city
Fixed falling through the world when entering the ancient temple
Fixed and restored the sun flares and FX lightings
Improved sword targeting of friends and enemies during battle
Version 0.6.15.08 Changes
Fixed player stats are not set properly
Fixed can hit enemies with melee when they are behind you
Fixed not hitting enemies or friends with melee in certain cases
Fixed tavern invisible collision
Fixed encountering invisible doors in the open
Fixed duplicate environment sound
Progress Report - January
Dear Legends of Ellaria players,
Based on Closed Beta feedbacks, we've completed many tasks during this month. We're nearly finished the next stable Closed Beta version.
We've also made progress in multiple features and locations both for the world map and game mechanics, and we're expecting the official Early Access version to be ready within weeks.
Along with game mechanics, we've made it possible to conduct large battles in First Person mode.
We have tested as many as 50 soldiers in the field, and we're hoping to raise this number to hundreds. The battle consists of waves of attackers and defenders until one of the sides runs out of soldiers or retreats.
A battle is connected to the world view, so you can either resolve the battle by waiting for it to conclude, or by entering First Person and fight by yourself. We've also ensured that if the attacker has less strength than the defender, the attacker will have penalties and will have fewer soldiers in the field.
You can command your soldiers through RTS (Real-Time Strategy) menu, or through Attack / Defend / Follow quick commands from the first person. If you have enough soldiers and don't need to strategize, you can just rush forward with your soldiers set to follow you. You'll be constantly surrounded by your own soldiers as they get reinforcements.
We've also made new places of interest, armies, places with fixed bonus and places that you can build. We've also added one-time events, that disappear once you clear them.
We're still working on more concepts and places of interest, and we're excited about the results. We've created several times more exploration, locations, and logics than the legacy version.
As we're finishing more milestones, we're closer to a stable Early Access than ever. We'd prefer not to post an official date yet, but based on our expectations, the Early Access version may be ready as soon as within two weeks.
If you own a copy of Legends of Ellaria but still haven't joined the closed Beta, please join us on our Discord server, PM us with @Admin and we will set you up! In case you don't have a Discord, you can also contact us here.
Thank you for the support, and we hope to build a great game alongside you.
See you in Ellaria,
The Larkon Studio Team
Update 6/2/20 We've released a new Closed Beta version.
Version 0.6.12.01 (Alpha 1) Contains
Added dozens of new locations, logics, and gameplay features
Rebalanced LoE, added Food and upkeep
Added armies, obstacles and treasure areas
This version has known issues
Sometimes your character falls through the ground when revisiting areas. The character then reappears at the closest milestone
Battles may have issues when losing and then attacking the same place
low FPS on some places in outdoor
Sometimes your character and some NPC's have gray hair
Vendors, dialogues and quests are temporarily disabled
The loading screen has a color disfiguration when closing
Progress Report - December
Dear Legends of Ellaria players,
As we're nearing the new Early Access release, We've released the Closed Beta of the world management.
We've made progress in most of the LoE's features and we're close to finishing an official world management version.
In the meanwhile, we'd like to share with you some of the features you'll see in the game.
You start the game in your fortress in Marra. Here, you'll find your home, advisors, and quest-related events.
You and your citizens go through the portal in Marra to the new world of Ellaria, where you'll expand your kingdom and find resources and technology. You can go back to your fortress from any portal in Ellaria.
While maintaining a civic economy, you can expand your kingdom by accepting quests and by capturing hostile areas. These quests will be available as you expand your kingdom and will usually involve hostile creatures.
Once you complete quests, these areas will be opened and you'll receive rewards and be able to build more civic structures.
Some of the quests or events will require you to defeat entire armies. Other quests will be to difficult for you to finish alone. Having a large kingdom and a strong economy will allow you to hire soldiers and form armies.
Along with quests, battles and kingdom logics, we're working on polishing the final parts of this massive version, and are close to a stable Early Access version. Although it was later than we predicted, we're expected to release the first Early Access version as soon as Mid January.
If you own a copy of Legends of Ellaria but still haven't joined the closed Beta, please join us on our Discord server, PM us with @Admin and we will set you up! In case you don't have a Discord, you can also contact us here.
Thank you for the support, and we hope to build a great game alongside you.
See you in Ellaria,
The Larkon Studio Team
Progress Report -October
Dear Legends of Ellaria players,
As we're nearing the Beta release, we've made progress on Legends of Ellaria's logics. Among our achievements is the army movement, battles, sphere of influence, as well of huge optimizations on memory and CPU.
We would like to share with you some of the new World Management and Sphere of Influence logics.
Sphere of Influence
Any owned town, fort, or strategical building generates influence. This influence is transferred to other territories until it dissipates. having influence on a terrain tile will automatically "own" it, which gives you kingdom bonuses and allows you to build buildings on it.
The influence dissipates depending on the terrain type and connected roads. For instance, a flat terrain with roads will only lose one influence point, while a mountain will lose four influence points.
Army Movement
The army movement speed depends on the terrain's influence points, terrain type, roads, and the size of the army. For instance, a large army would move much slower than a regular army and would move even slower on enemy territory, giving a significant advantage to the defender.
Also, you cannot go past an enemy army or a fort. When moving one tile away from an enemy, you would have to either attack the enemy, retire to where you came from, or stay put and prepare a defense.
Since armies cannot go past forts or other armies, you can defend your kingdom by building "super defenses" on strategic locations, such as mountain passes and river crossings.
Places of interest
Each location, represented by HEX tiles, may contain one or several places of interest. These places may be towns, taverns, ruins, and camps. For instance, a location may contain an owned farm, your army camp, and a special quest location.
Hovering and clicking on a location will cause your player to fast travel to that location.
Battles
When you "walk" towards a defended location, you will start a battle, which will end once one of the sides is defeated or have retreated. The outcome of the battle depends on the hero, size of the army, and location. Each battle may last from a few in-game hours to several days and will involve multiple skirmishes.
You can choose to auto-resolve the battle by staying in the map view and wait for the outcome or to switch to First Person / RTS mode and command the battle by yourself.
If you win a battle, the remaining enemy armies will retreat to another location, while you will occupy and capture the battle location, along with all of its structures.
Along with these logics, we're working on the rest of the kingdom management, quests, a new city build menu, and army management. With that in mind, We are close to finishing the World Domination version, and we estimate that we'll publish the Closed Beta in November.
If you own a copy of Legends of Ellaria but still haven't joined the closed Beta, please join us on our Discord server, PM us with @Admin and we will set you up! In case you don't have a Discord, you can also contact us here.
Thank you for the support, and we hope to build a great game alongside you.
See you in Ellaria,
The Larkon Studio Team
Our Latest Teaser Trailer
Dear Legends of Ellaria players,
In the past few months, we've added new RPG classes, new combat and AI mechanics, graphics and new features. We've also finished parts of the world domination version, destructible buildings, kingdom management, and new graphics.
We'd like to share some of these features with a new teaser trailer that we've made. This trailer contains some of our upcoming features, as well as content from older announcements.
Enjoy!
[previewyoutube="IvRI3t0eG8A;full"]
If you own a copy of Legends of Ellaria but still haven't joined the closed Beta, please join us on our Discord server, PM us with @Admin and we will set you up! In case you don't have a Discord, you can also contact us here.
Thank you for the support, and we hope to build a great game alongside you.
See you in Ellaria,
The Larkon Studio Team
Progress Report - September
Dear Legends of Ellaria players,
This week we've polished many of the visuals and logics of Legends of Ellaria. These changes include indoor and outdoor environments of ancient dungeons, world map textures, and world map objects and creatures
Also, we're near the end of significant game optimizations. These optimizations will help Legends of Ellaria run faster, consume less memory, and support older hardware.
At the moment, we're focusing on connecting and testing the different parts that our team developed. Some of these parts include map loadings and player movement in the world.
Our next task is to finish the logics for multiple cities, conquering areas, quests, and the kingdom economy. With that in mind, we are getting closer to the next major update. Our next closed beta is expected at around October - November, and we expect the first Early Access update at around December.
Meanwhile, we visited GamesCom 2019 and met with interesting people. We received very positive feedback about Legends of Ellaria's concept and the upcoming features. We can't wait to finish the next Major Update.
If you own a copy of Legends of Ellaria but still haven't joined the closed Beta, please join us on our Discord server, PM us with @Admin and we will set you up! In case you don't have a Discord, you can also contact us here.
Thank you for the support, and we hope to build a great game alongside you.
See you in Ellaria,
The Larkon Studio Team
Progress Report - August
Dear Legends of Ellaria players,
This week we've designed many of the visuals and lore related aspects of the ancient ruins of Ellaria.
We've designed multiple custom-made models to fit our lore and the items you will find in these ancient ruins
The ancients are a lost civilization who mastered technology through magic instead of machinery
Ages ago, these ancients created portals between Ellaria and other worlds. The ancients explored these worlds and collected vast knowledge and various items. One of these abandoned portals was used to transfer you and your kingdom to Ellaria
Now, these ancient ruins contain scrolls which you can use for research, as well as unique items and resources.
We're also planning to add portals that will be unlocked after visiting these ruins, which will link together different parts of your kingdom.
Our next task is the link between the world map and indoors, which will bring us closer than ever to our first major beta update. We hope that this update will be as soon as next month
If you own a copy of Legends of Ellaria but still haven't joined the closed Beta, please join us on our Discord server, PM us with @Admin and we will set you up! In case you don't have a Discord, you can also contact us here.
Thank you for the support, and we hope to build a great game alongside you.
See you in Ellaria,
The Larkon Studio Team
July Progress Report
Dear Legends of Ellaria players,
This week we've made progress in the game concept aspects of the upcoming World Domination, as well as their visual aspect.
In addition, we've developed fog of war, functional rivers, minor terrain details and much more
The world concept will send you on quests find treasures or scrolls, which will benefit you and your kingdom.
When not in adventure, you can construct buildings and tie them to your cities
Your kingdom is expanded with influence. To increase your influence, you'll need to build forts, which will send patrols and reduce crime.
Through the map, you'll find dark areas, full of undead creatures. These areas will expand their influence and corrupt the land until you clear their enemies or increase your influence.
Whenever you gain influence, you can build mines or lumber mills, and gain resources. The more resources you have, the more you can construct.
Each part of the map is made of a HEX area, which can be interacted with. If you control that particular area, you can build towns, mines, trading posts, forts, bridges, guilds and many other things that will expand your kingdom. you can also visit these areas in the first-person mode once they're built
If you own a copy of Legends of Ellaria but still haven't joined the closed Beta, please join us on our Discord server, PM us with @Admin and we will set you up! In case you don't have a Discord, you can also contact us here.
Thank you for the support, and we hope to build a great game alongside you.
See you in Ellaria,
The Larkon Studio Team
June Progress Report
Dear Legends of Ellaria players,
This week we've made progress in the visual aspects of the upcoming World Domination.
Our new graphics take into account small to large towns, bridges, rivers, unique locations, and more. These new graphics are the first step towards combining our game code with the actual look of the world view, which will change depending on your in-game actions
We've also improved the rendering and look of our characters. The new graphics use new translucency, skin tones, and more details. We're also working on new sets of medium armor, which will add a stop gap between the heavy armor and the leather armor.
For these purposes, we've added new designers and coders into our team, so that we'll finish the World Domination faster and better than planned.
We've also finished most of the siege weapons, destructible buildings, and a more in-depth city life version. We're now connecting these parts to the new World Domination version as we're preparing a new Closed-Beta.
If you own a copy of Legends of Ellaria but still haven't joined the closed Beta, please join us on our Discord server, PM us with @Admin and we will set you up! In case you don't have a Discord, you can also contact us here.
