The Elderlands website has seen a number of updates over the last 48 hours or so, the most significant of which is the announcement that the game’s open beta — version 1.00, notably — has begun. Origin Systems alum Jason Ely, who goes by the handle Lothgar, had some stirring thoughts to offer about this milestone in the game’s development:

Elderlands started as a small project being developed by a single person, Lothgar (Me). The original game was Lothgar Online and it was following in the footsteps of my previous game Dransik/AE. The game has grown slowly over the years and has evolved in many different ways. A number of people from the community have contributed to the project in the form of Artwork, Maps, Sound Effects, Music and Support. The community has been wonderful and patient. I really appreciate the endless support and donations from the community over the years. You guys/gals are all amazing!

The game has gone through stagnant times and rapid development times. I’ve suffered burnout and lack of home for the games future. In the end it was the community that brought me back to the keyboard to work on the game again. Finally it was time for a change… Elderlands needed to push forward. So I brought on some amazing people from the community and hired a new dev.

For the last year and a half we have been transforming the game into a game worthy of bringing to market. We have created more content in the last year than we’ve have since the game started. In the past few months we’ve increased the continent by 300%. We still have plenty to do and it takes time.

At long last Elderlands Beta is here. We hope you enjoy the game and we look forward to you joining us on this journey through final testing before opening the game as a commercial product for the world to enjoy.

I can’t direct link to news posts on the Elderlands website, so here’s the feature list that was included with the announcement post:

• Three Classes, each with their own subclass mastery builds.
• Dozens of spells and abilities.
• Hundreds of weapons and armor pieces to collect.
• Fight hundreds of monsters, many with powerful magical abilities.
• Dozens of dangerous places to adventure.
• Explore dungeons, caverns, crypts, graveyards, haunted mansions, frozen wastelands and plague infested forests.
• Hundreds of quests let you discover a world rich with lore and interesting characters.
• Beautiful and Haunting music that enriches each environment.

Systems read for Testing in Beta 1.00:

• Party System. Create, Destroy, Explore with party members
• Gathering Professions… Mining and Herbalism
• Player vs Player combat.
• Reputation System.
• Class Balancing. Every build needs to be tested for difficult/overpowered levels and most importantly… FUN FACTOR!
• Questing Progression Content.
• Basic Guild System. Create your Guild in the Sedokian Castle until the Guild Quest is completed.

Known Issues in Beta 1.00:

• Classes are not fully balanced
• Cleric classes are missing spells and abilities
• Sound/Music Volume does function properly
• Chat window has some scrolling issues
• Various Effects on Spells are missing
• Guards are not responding to PvP
• The Mage Elemental has a few behavior issues
• Some Bridge pieces have bright pink areas (Lets us know we need to replace them)
• Some river and roads end abruptly.

Systems coming online soon to Beta 1.01:

• Trade Skills – Blacksmithing, Tailoring, Leatherworking.
• Farming! Grow and harvest plants.
• PvE Challenge – The Pit
• Zima Fishing Tournament
• The Primeval Caverns (High end progression area)
• Primeval Lava Pits PvP Battle Ground

Since the beta went live, the game servers have seen some issues. A lot of new players signed up, causing some outages for both the game server and the authentication server. The Land of War PvP server also experienced some additional outages.

As well, it should be noted that the character art currently in use in the beta is being phased out in favour of animated sprites, which are in the process of being produced. Here’s a sample of one such sprite, which I assume is an attack animation:

So if you’ve some time to spare, and if 2D tile-based MMORPGs sound like your kind of thing, why not grab the Elderlands client and give Jason Ely’s passion project a go?