Dark and Light
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| Dark and Light | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | NP Cube |
| Publisher(s) | Farlan Entertainment |
| Release date(s) | June 2006 |
| Genre(s) | MMORPG |
| Mode(s) | Online |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: RP? |
| Platform(s) | Windows |
| System requirements | 1.8 GHz processor, 512Mb RAM, 128mb video card, Internet Connection |
Dark and Light is a former Pay to play fantasy MMORPG currently being developed in Reunion Island by NP Cube. It was recently made available for free. [1]
Contents |
[edit] Development
Dark and Light was the long awaited sequel to the mmorpg title "Settlers of Garaneth".
Developement on Dark and Light started by NP Cube in 2002. Later, under the "pressure from its investors and from the gaming community"[2], it was released underdeveloped to retail and on the internet in 2006 after a prolonged beta testing. On August 14, 2006, the publisher, Farlan Entertainment, stated that the game was released prematurely and has experienced problems due to its early release.
- Farlan Entertainment now acknowledges that the game was released prematurely due to pressure from its investors and from the gaming community.
- [We are] embarking on a new initiative to correct and improve various operational aspects of Dark and Light. While worldwide play in the Internet game will not be interrupted during this period, Farlan is nonetheless offering a thank you to the hundreds of thousands of Dark and Light subscribers who have signed on thus far by offering three months of play with no monthly subscription fee.
Farlan Entertainment signed with SnailGame Entertainment, the distributor in China, to provide additional help with the graphics. All of the current subscribers are given a free 3-month period to play the game. [3].
[edit] New Concepts
The majority of DnLs release player base came from Settlers of Garaneth users anticipating a sequel. The premise for the game was a 3d world that was so large it would take someone over a day to walk across it. The terrain generation engine was hyped significantly and early videos showed an immensely realistic world with lakes and mountains that could be traversed by hand glider.
Farlain also offered 2 payment schemes: Free to play (after initial purchase) and 9.99 USD per month. Restrictions were imposed on the free to play account relating to character development with the intention being that a casual player may never be affected by the restrictions or it would take several months for them to hit the f2p level cap.
[edit] Bugs
The initial release of client and server were both crippled by bugs. The problems involved repeated roll-backs (reversion to the last correctly saved copy of the players data) in which entire guilds were disbanded as the data associating the players was not recorded correctly. The client had compatibility issues with ATI cards (covering roughly 50% of the graphics market) and giving many ATI users a frames-per-second below the accepted standard of 25.
[edit] Publicity
There were many communication problems between the developers and the community. The developer spokesman, nickname: Vuarr, spoke poor English and made many statements that alienated players that were already unhappy with the game state. The games forum was extremely heavily moderated and had a high turn around of staff leading to many "Gung-Ho" moderators that blocked any criticisms of the game.
Silenced users found other forums to spill into with many migrating to the mmorpg.com forum and using it as a chance to ward others off the game. Prior to Farlain admitting the true reasons for the games failure many fans of the game and 'Vuarr' accused hateful gamers of ruining the game by generating such bad publicity that supply of new users dried up.
The game was also surrounded by an intellectual property dispute with one of the games ex-developers who claimed intelectual rights to the terrain generation engine. The dispute used publicity to gain momentum via the DnL and mmorpg.com forums.
