Elegon Playtest · published

Another week of Elegon development is wrapped up, and there’s quite a lot to go through this time around. A big part of this week has been focused on performance and visuals, but there are also some new gameplay systems, class updates, quest improvements, and plenty of smaller fixes.
Fishing has officially arrived in Elegon.
You can now speak to Billy in the starting area to pick up a fishing rod and unlock the new Fishing ability.
Once you’ve got your rod, just find a body of water and start fishing.
This is the first step towards adding more gathering and profession-style activities to Elegon. I want there to be plenty to do outside of combat, especially while you’re exploring the world, and fishing is the beginning of that.
I’ve spent a lot of time working on client performance this week.
Elegon now uses texture streaming globally, which helps reduce the amount of texture data that needs to be kept in memory at once.
There have also been a number of other client-side optimisation improvements, as well as a new set of graphics presets:
Low
Medium
High
Very High
Custom
This should make it much easier to find the right balance between performance and visual quality depending on your hardware.
There have been quite a few visual and environmental improvements this week too.
Grass has been completely reworked and now uses a particle-based system instead of the previous MultiMesh setup. The new system looks better while also improving performance.
I’ve also added or improved a number of other effects around the world, including:
New wind effects
Pollen effects
Improved bloom and sun rays
Improved spell VFX across all classes
Improved general gameplay effects, including the level-up effect
More dynamic creature nameplates that glow and animate when creatures take damage
A lot of these changes are fairly small individually, but together they make the world and combat feel noticeably more responsive and alive.
Both Mage and Cleric have received some additional spells and gameplay improvements this week.
I’m continuing to work through the classes as development progresses, with the goal of making each one feel more distinct and giving players more interesting choices as they level.
I’ve also made some changes to the starting quests to give new characters a bit more variety during the early game.
An issue affecting Breaches has also been fixed where creatures could occasionally award the wrong amount of XP when killed.
Alongside the bigger additions, I’ve also worked through a handful of smaller issues:
Fixed characters occasionally falling through the ground in both the overworld and Breaches
Fixed creatures sometimes snapping to new positions while wandering or standing idle
Fixed an issue where jumping while travelling through a portal could place your character in the wrong position on the other side
There’s still plenty more happening behind the scenes as I continue working on Elegon’s gameplay, world, performance, classes and overall feel.
Thanks as always for following the project and being part of the journey.
A huge thank you to everyone currently supporting Elegon on Patreon. Your support genuinely helps me continue putting more time into the project and I really appreciate it.
Legendary Supporters: Andrew Miller, Archie, Blar, kyle, Nkdz Dejong, Philip Kartin, Phoenix Prime, scolh, Syke360, Systemsblue
Epic Supporters: David Andrén, Dithemoira, Jake, Kellonor Azzadi, Kelrin, Lizararti, Marco Pardun, Niblax, niktwazny, Philip Högerås, Ryan Furrer, Thomas Storli, Vladimir Pejić, Vuhdu, ximnoise
Rare Supporters: A Patreon of the Ahts, belisarius, Biscuits, Cody Owens, Daxxoz, DeeZie TV, Fenriz, headless, Jerry Williams Sr, Kabir, Kieran Smith, Neerer, Papa Leech, River Otto, Shurkuris, Tales of Virtue - Indie RPG, Unrefined, Walt
Thank you for helping support the continued development of Elegon.