Dark and Light: VWORLD Sues NPCube and Farlan

Szark

NPCube and Farlan Entertainment, the makers of Dark and Light, are being sued by VWORLD over ownership claims and alleged misuse of VWorldTerrain technology.

VWORLD sues both Reunionese developer NPCube and Mauritian publisher Farlan
Entertainment

CLERMONT-FERRAND - May 18, 2007 - VWORLD, LLC has brought a lawsuit before the County
Court of Paris against Reunionese game development studio NPCube, and Mauritian game publisher
Farlan Entertainment, currently exploiting the massively multiplayer on-line role playing game
(MMORPG) title Dark and Light.

This action follows the complaint formerly introduced by M. Vincent Pourieux, CEO of VWORLD, for
violation of intellectual property rights. The jointly incriminated companies continue to illegally exploit
the procedural algorithms that characterize VWorldTerrain technology and claim ownership on them,
which is an obstacle to its correct marketing by VWORLD.

NPCube and Farlan Entertainment will have to respond before Court to the following charges of
indictment brought against them: software counterfeit, non-respect of the right to credit and paternity,
unfair competition and parasitism.

For more on Dark and Light visit www.darkandlight.com/en.

For more on VWORLD visit www.vworld.fr.

For more on NPCube visit www.npcube.com.

niakori

I'm curious to see if DnL survives these allegations.  I would think that Farlan is in a bit of trouble as it is, this lawsuit is only the cherry of the sundae of doom they've made for themselves.  I think I want a sundae....

Koolaider

Where is Hercule Poirot when you need him!?

Gameloading

let them burn.

japo

This game is still around???

Liddokun

Dark and Light ? Is that game still alive ? I thought it's already gone since what 1998?

Phoenixs

Originally posted by Gameloading

let them burn.

/amen

Robbgobb

Is there any light in the darkness that Farlan and NPCube has found. Might be bad what I just typed but is true. Is there anything positive happening for them with all the bad feelings they have fostered with so many. I am one of those that feels Dark and Light was meant to scam with the way it came out. There are a few others out there that have done the same. I know things might have improved some but how can one ever trust in a game that did such things? Then there is this lawsuit. Just makes me not want to here any more about the game.

faefrost

So in other words the only parts of dark & light that actually work... were stolen code. Wow! Gotta give em credit for turning out an absolutely perfect failure. There is nothing redeeming about the game or its operators.

Faelan

Hah! That's fantastic news.

Thor79

---

Originally posted by liddokun
Dark and Light ? Is that game still alive ? I thought it's already gone since what 1998?

---

It started development before 2003 I think...didn't get released until 2005 (I think)...and was a failure from before the launch. They ran a free limited scope game for 6 months and launched the game despite a lot of their potential customers telling them not to. They were forced to offer free subscriptions to try to keep people interested in the game.

I was one of their "pioneers" and it was fun for a time...but I eventually grew quite jaded towards them and their complete lack of progress. I used to be a big fan of the game...before launch...hoping desperately that the game would improve. I'm not sorry to see this lawsuit...and I hope it finally brings down this poor excuse for a game.

For the record...I bought a pioneer account...and eventually purchased another account but due to broken promises demanded a refund before launch, which I got. I did not ask for a refund for the pioneer account. I wrote off the expense as a mistake in my gaming life...one of many including Star Wars Galaxies, Earth and Beyond, and Planetside.

RemyVorender

This made me giggle like a little school girl. Great news. Burn in hell NPCube.

mindmeld

Wouldnt touch the game even if i got paid for it.

rubydragon5

THIS NEWS MADE MY  F'IN  DAY



I hope they serve jail time, damn thieves.

Liddokun

If i remember right Light and Dark was already in development since 1998 before EQ1 even launched. In fact they were hyping it up and people were talking whether Light and Dark or Everquest would be a better game. Guess everyone knows Everquest went on to become an mmo legend while Light and Dark died before it even took off.

 

ronan32

didnt marvel try and sue cryptic studios..and then all of a sudden cryptic got the marvel mmo.

smartkidz

Holy crap DnL finally got sued!? WoW my day just got better.

krava81

I remember hearing about VWorld trying to sue NPCube/Farland back before DnL went live (I was one of the many "Pioneers")



The main argument from VWorld is that the world rendering engine/software is theirs, while NPCube/Farland state that it was fully developed while the VWorld team was still at Farland, and were never contracted rights to the engine/software, and thus it belongs solely to Farland.





I coulda sworn Vworld already tried to sue once before and it was dismissed...but maybe it was just the talk of the possibility, was ages ago.

nakuma

BURRNNNN!N! BURRRRNNNNN!BURRNNNNNN! BURRRNNNNNNN!!!!  FUGGIN DIE ALREADY PLEASE!! ANYOEN GOT A STAKE AND GARLIC FOR THIS VAMPIRE!???  LFMAO!

shae

Karmac balance? I think so.

It's only a shame that they didn't get sued by the players themselves.

Uproar

I hope D&L loses.

D&L are as good as crooks from my experiences dealing with them.

And they are unworthy of doing business with ever again as far as I am concerned.

CleffyII

Hate to say it, but this is old stuff that really probably won't go through.  What makes his allegations fall apart is that he used to work for Farlan in programming the engine.  He took software he made previous to employment in order to work as a terrain generator to Dark and Light.  Then after a spute with Farlan management he left and made VWORLD.  He brought this up like 2 or 3 years ago and nothing came of it.  Its only going to happen again.

The reason for this comes from many reasons.  A) He used the software for development while under employment, forfeiting his intellectual property rights.  Farlan isn't in a position they can actually pay.

Oops, just checked out thier site.  Yup they have the right to sue because Farlan redistributed the software for other game companies in order to save its sinking ship.  The only saving grace of the engine is the terrain generation that they would need permission from VWorld to sell, even if it was used in the engine.

SBE1

DnL isn't a game, it's a scam. 

nmalthus

It's a sad day for the 10 people that still play DnL lol.  I'd love to see an announcement stating DnL servers have been shutdown and that someone else has taken over who plans to make a real game out of it.

Gorilla

Originally posted by remyburke

This made me giggle like a little school girl. Great news. Burn in hell NPCube.

I think I might have peed myself a little too.



The only thing that would have caused a real woopsie would have been if Micro$oft or  Sony had sued Brad Mc Hardcore for mis representing his PoS. Not Quite as bad as Farlan/NP3 but right up there.

HappyFunBall

Let me burn in hell, I say.



For all the "rules" they have broken.

For the software/technology they falsely claim is theirs.

...and, most importantly, for the way they have treated their customers.



I still want EI interactive to burn (and their "new" parent company), for destroying my favorite game, Horizons.  Also, for all the people they have double/triple billed for many, many months, users they censored on their forums (or kicked off just for having a negative (and ACCURATE) opinion about the game, and how they made it near impossible to quit the game, and stop being billed.. among other things.  Love how they couldn't take the time to simply transfer user accounts from the Blight server, as they decided to kill it, and they KNEW many users played there as their primary server.  They made up some story how they would transfer accounts for this ONE guild, and as it turns out, that guild didn't even exist!  I never have a worse experience with a game company in almost 30 years of gaming.