DnL Release Date News

[Signe]

PRESS RELEASE     by Satange


NPCUBE, developer of the MMORPG Dark and Light, and publisher Farlan Entertainment, jointly announce today that the release date for Dark and Light has been set to November 2005.

César Jacquet, CEO of NPCube, says: "The development team has been reorganized and reinforced in order to strengthen its technical experience and to rewrite the elements of the game engine that were too slow and lacked the flexibility required for DnL expectations. The game has to be able to permanently evolve along with its community".

Frédéric Caille, CEO of Farlan, adds: "This important task allows us to set the release date to November 2005, and to open DnL gates for 2500 new beta testers".

This new reorganization of the production team allowed us to hire new artists, in order to propose you a varied and enriched vision of the world of Ganareth. Among the 12 playable races of DnL, you will be able to play charismatic characters with distinctive facial traits. Role-players will appreciate this!

Thanks to the new additions to the development team, a new dynamic management system has been made possible, to manage the items players drop on the floor. Each avatar can create its own habitat, with the help of its community (houses, production and exploitation units, etc.)

These new technical capacities, that are necessary for the coherence of the unique world of DnL, are so many assets that answer the community’s expectations. Everyone can experience things for real, build one’s universe, win true victories and share them with everyone.

The teamwork between Farlan and NPCube allowed them to rely on the extraordinary freedom of movement brought by "Mafate" engine, in order to provide players with a wide array of gameplay options. In particular, we chose to put the stress on the simplicity and efficiency of traveling in such a wide universe.

We also focused on a user-friendly interface in order to create a better learning curve and a better immersion in the world of Ganareth.

Keeping in mind the discussion of our choices with our community, we are happy to be able to satisfy the expectations of 2500 additional beta testers, while preparing the upcoming massive stress tests.

About DnL

DnL is the story of the antagonism between Dark and Light factions for the conquest and control of the land of Ganareth.

Player evolution is made of, first, accomplishing different personal quests around the Social and Fighter axes, and second, getting involved in the community by playing a role that counts in the economic and political levels in Ganareth.

Both these axes are centered on 6 main gameplay styles:

For the Fighter axis

-  Fighting against the environment

-  Fighting against the opposite faction

-  Fighting for territorial conquest

For the social axis

-  Resource extraction

-  Production of crafted items

-  Exploitation of production units

In any gameplay style, players will have to master exploration skills in order to discover the world of Ganareth and to ride fantasy creatures.

Dark and Light is a game with a rich and varied game design, a vast and open world, a constant interaction between the universe and players, a really massive community, a strong immersion and an entertaining experience in a fantastic and attractive world.

About NPCube / Farlan

NP Cube, founded in 2002, specializes in the development of massively multiplayer online games and related tools and technologies for both industrial and gaming industry. Based on Reunion Island, NP Cube is dedicated to the development of innovative and exciting game titles and video game tools. NP Cube team has a long and successful track record in the games industry. For more information, visit www.npcube.com and www.darkandlight.com.

I have to wonder if anyone even cares anymore.  The original date set was mid-April and I didn't notice very much excitement generated as the date drew near.  I have a feeling that by the time the November date approaches, they won't even have to bother announcing their plans to discontinue the project.  Everyone will have wandered off by then.

I get the same feeling with Darkfall and Mourning... which is no feeling at all.  I think Mourning might actually make it into something of an open beta, but I have no confidence that they'll actually release a game.

[shiznitz]

It must be horrible to have no one talking about a game one has spent a lot of time working on. Better to be hated and mocked than ignored.

[schild]

Among the 12 playable races of DnL, you will be able to play charismatic characters with distinctive facial traits. Role-players will appreciate this!

Instead of making themselves look like jackasses, maybe they should just let us play the goddamn game.

[HaemishM]

In any gameplay style, players will have to master exploration skills in order to discover the world of Ganareth and to ride fantasy creatures.

Ummmm... what? So the two main goals of the player should be discovering the world, and riding critters? Does that just not seem out of place? Not that I don't want mounts, because I do, but that sentence just doesn't work for me.

I have hope for this game, but it is a forlorn hope, honed and hardened by years of the kind of soul-crushing disappointment the MMOG industry breeds like rabbits.

[Paelos]

I have hope for this game, but it is a forlorn hope, honed and hardened by years of the kind of soul-crushing disappointment the MMOG industry breeds like rabbits.

Hope is a bad thing, maybe the worst of things.

[Krakrok]

...to ride fantasy creatures.

So the two main goals of the player should be discovering the world, and riding critters?

In Soviet Russia the fantasy creatures ride you!

[Glazius]

In any gameplay style, players will have to master exploration skills in order to discover the world of Ganareth and to ride fantasy creatures.

Ummmm... what? So the two main goals of the player should be discovering the world, and riding critters? Does that just not seem out of place? Not that I don't want mounts, because I do, but that sentence just doesn't work for me.

I have hope for this game, but it is a forlorn hope, honed and hardened by years of the kind of soul-crushing disappointment the MMOG industry breeds like rabbits.

I think that means that in addition to the (mutually-exclusive?) combat and crafting trees, there's an exploration tree which provides benefits like riding skill and mountaineering.

--GF

[AOFanboi]

César Jacquet, CEO of NPCube, says: "The development team has been reorganized and reinforced in order to strengthen its technical experience and to rewrite the elements of the game engine that were too slow and lacked the flexibility required for DnL expectations. The game has to be able to permanently evolve along with its community".

My interpretation:

"We discovered WoW was getting really good sales, so we threw ourselves around in order to make the game more like WoW. Now, or in the future."

[Biobanger]

Dark and Light is a game with a rich and varied game design, a vast and open world, a constant interaction between the universe and players, a really massive community, a strong immersion and an entertaining experience in a fantastic and attractive world.

A massive community? I would love to know how they define "massive" because 100 people do not constitute a massive community.

[pants]

I think that means that in addition to the (mutually-exclusive?) combat and crafting trees, there's an exploration tree which provides benefits like riding skill and mountaineering.

--GF

Sounds like a pretty neat game mechanic to me.  I've discovered over time that in mmorpgs I become the ornery old trapper who hangs out in the mountains and resents heading into town and dealing with the idiots and beggars that hang out there.  If there could be some kind of exploration class/tree that gave you abilities like, ah, being able to pitch a tent so youd be able to camp in the middle of nowhere and get a rest bonus without having to head back to town, ala WoW, that sounds like a neat mechanic.

And people who don't give a toss about that stuff, can use their teleport stone/spell whatever, and head back to town.

[Stormwaltz]

It must be horrible to have no one talking about a game one has spent a lot of time working on. Better to be hated and mocked than ignored.

Ahh, so that's the hidden logic behind the Mourning development team adopting the persona of He Who Must Not Be Named...

I'm looking forward to DnL, though I have reservations. The last French MMG that looked like Robot Jesus on paper turned out soul-crushingly dull in practice. I'm a rare Explorer / Killer / Socializer type, so the game is almost tailor made for me.

[Hoax]

People care... there are underground legions of people who care, but DnL has not promised the moon and given plenty of reasons for people to get into fanboi vrs antifanboi wars (ala mourning).  Darkfall is dead I thought, Mourning is vaporware w/ idiotic assholes for devs and DnL is one of our last best hopes for fun.

I hate games...

[Signe]

Gaming is a terrible hobby unless you are extremely happy in the game you're playing and the staff are angels.  Once you decide to go looking for a new game to play, it becomes a terrible hobby again.  I don't reccommend gaming as a form of entertainment to anyone. These days the highs of gaming are not as high as the lows are low.

[Nija]

Well, at least you can go sledding if you want. It has some neat things going for it, I guess. Like one morning I logged in and it was snowing. Went to work, blah blah, logged in at about 6pm and there was snow up to my characters knees. Not necessarily a HUGE GAMEPLAY THING, but maybe the VIRTUAL WORLD OMG circlejerk types will get a kick out of it.

[ajax34i]

I used to follow this game about a year ago, then lost interest.  The only nice thing they seemed to have was the geography engine, with mountains and a horizon that looked pretty realistic.  Unfortunately, their avatar models sucked back then and still suck now, and it's a big turn-off for me.  And since I think the gameplay will be meh, I'm not interested in the game much.

I'm gonna give it another glance when they get ready to release, if they do.

[Nija]

Forum Necromancy on an anciet thread to bring you UP TO DATE NDA breakage!

NDAs don't count when it's a French company who has had a game in beta for 1+ year and the mouseover text still reads "Next Ennemy". It's not a typo cause the button next to it says "Previous Ennemy".

Anyways.

I got an email about the 2nd stress test this weekend, so I downloaded the tiny client (180 megs) and it seems like I can only make one race/class combo. So that's why I'm an elf chick. No other reason. Really.

Oh yeah, here's the meat of the email. How could I pass this up?

Our goals during these stress tests are to validate the necessary
bandwidth and to test the increased load on the servers. In order to do
this, the test version will be a special, minimal one, in order to prevent
extra elements from interfering with the tests. These are the features
for this stress test:

- Characters start at FXP level 10
- Full PvP zone
- 3 attack spells
- 1 heal spell
- Group system
- Active sports: hang glider , parachute and snowboard
- Ingame teleport
- ...

3 ATTACK SPELLS! ONE HEALING SPELL! Man, what more could I ask for?

The last time I played this game it ran at around 8-12 fps and it was pretty painful. It runs great now, but as you can see there's not exactly anything happening. The videos I recorded were set at 'half size' and 30 fps in Fraps. My gaming system is a p4 2.8ghz / 1 gig pc3200 ram / 6600 GT AGP. I left the 'stress test, not beta' client on the default settings, running at 1152x864 at 85 hz, my preferred gaming resolution. FPS hovers around 75, but dips to around 50 when loading stuff.

First video - teleportation to the top of a snowy hill, then I snowboard down it, wrecking a few times along the way.

Second video - teleportation to the top of a mountain, and then a few more times. Then I try to figure out how to base jump, and just use the hang glider instead. Then I was able to activate the parachute, but wasn't able to figure out how to deploy it in time. This swan dive mimics my bf2 behavior quite a bit.

Also, putfile.com sometimes doesn't work for me, so here are direct links - You can just load up the page, view source and then search for .avi to find it, or just copy/paste this into a browser.

first vid - http://x702.putfile.com/videos/25923473425.avi
second vid - http://x702.putfile.com/videos/25923501722.avi
(videos encoded in xvid, if they don't work try Koepi's Xvid)



I'm not sure how the game is going aside from these neat gimmicks. On the beta board it's nothing but bitching about how incomplete the game is and how they are going to rush it to release in order to get some money to finish development. I don't believe that though, because I've never heard of anyone doing that before! ( <--- insert sarcasm text color here )

[Samwise]

I kept walking past this game's booth at E3 because it was right by the main entrance of Kentia.  They had a couple of minutes of game footage looping on a large screen; the scene depicted was a thrilling battle between a satyr and a dodo.  They stood five paces apart and took turns awkwardly kicking the air until the dodo froze, stuttered, and then lay on the ground dead.  After involuntarily watching this display a few times, I decided that if that was the highlight reel, I'd rather eat gravel than see the rest of the game.

[schild]

I'm glad I stopped caring about this game over a year ago.

[Sairon]

The funy thing about the E3 trailer is the end of it where it says "100% ingame video". You're like holy crap I though this was pre rendered stuff for sure!

[Morfiend]

This is what I think of every time WAU posts.

[Llava]

Um, well, yay for snowboarding in MMOGs at least.

Hey, I'm trying to be nice dammit!

[Nija]

Another funny thing about it is when you're at the char select screen, you have to hit a big "enter world" button in the corner, all alone. Even then it asks you "Are you sure you want to enter the game? Y/N"

The first time I laughed, the second time I thought about it for a second and decided that no, I didn't really want to. Nice feature.

[Soln]

/rubshead

I don't think I have the mental bandwidth to spend learning this, and what's broke and what ain't by the time it's out

I do remember it was interesting they have a required field in the Beta signup of salary plus a lot of contact info (I never got invited)

[Nija]

Some more funnies (At DnL's expense) -

I was reading some of the bitch-fest posts on their forum, and one guy is just flaming the hell out of the game cause they show zero content in the beta. Like how they do this stress test with ZERO equipment, no inventory screen, no stats or character sheet, nothing. Just 4 hotkey icons, 3 of which being attack spells and one being a heal spell, and fucking snowboards and parachutes and hang gliders of all things.

One of the first replies was in all caps saying, paraphrased, "WHO CARES IF THEY ONLY HAVE 3 ATTACK SPELLS. MAYBE IF THEY CAN GET 3 WORKING THAT PROVES THAT THEY CAN GET 40  MORE WORKING? THEY DON'T HAVE TO SHOW US THE WHOLE GAME FOR FREE."

Whole forum is summed up in that single exchange. Legions of brown nosers jumping on the handful of people who bother to question the devs on the real state of the game.

[Strazos]

I sometimes wish beta's wouldn't show all the content...then there would be something new in the release.

[schild]

I sometimes wish beta's wouldn't show all the content...then there would be something new in the release.

Whatever they don't show is broken or doesn't exist. Please direct your attention to Horizons and Star Wars Galaxies.

[Strazos]

Come on, let a guy dream, Mr. Japanese Pandachick.

[schild]

Come on, let a guy dream, Mr. Japanese Pandachick.

Sorry, can't do that Mr. Full Day of WoW a Week.

[Strazos]

I think X-Fire's time tracking is broken, because I only played a few hours last week. Hell, my connection was down more than it was up last week.

[Merusk]

It's a rolling 7-days, not a week-to-week.

[Pococurante]

I refuse to use stuff like X-Fire - it might depress me to know and it would definitely give my wife way too much ammunition... ;)

[Murgos]

It's a rolling 7-days, not a week-to-week.

Wait, of the last 168 hours you have spent 63 of those logged in?  Jeezus fucking christ man, get outside!

[Merusk]

Yah, I had a huge week of catassing.  The 12 hours I did yesterday when I had the day off didn't help.

Then again I also /afk a lot, or sit at the login screen.  It counts the hours you have the .exe running, not just actual play-time.  My hours are way too high this week, in either event.

[Llava]

I refuse to use stuff like X-Fire - it might depress me to know and it would definitely give my wife way too much ammunition... ;)

Exactly the same here.  Though swap "wife" with "girlfriend".  And swap "might depress" with "will depress".

[Signe]

STRESS TEST SESSIONS TO COME     by Elhavius


OPEN stress test sessions will soon begin in order to complete the work done by the Dark and Light development team and our beta testers. In order to allow the greatest number to be part of these important tests, or just to see how things are going on, we recommend that you check and, if necessary, update your profile, your e-mail address in particular.

...and if you have not subscribed yet, now is the time!

Linky

Just in case not everyone has wandered away from this beta....