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Best post I've ever seen.
Abraxos
Member Posts: 412
Ok
After the delay I was browsing the main site and was simply amazed that people are still buying into this game. The company is some unheard of French Company, They are small, low funded and have been promising this game's release since 2003. I feel for anyone that loses their game and have been there before myself but this one has never looked like it would get out of the gate and it took some imaginative people to believe in this one. To keep believing after all they've done is scary. What is really scarry is the posts from the poor fans who are in shock or denial or something. How many games like Horizons, Shadowbane, Asheron's Call 2 etc all have these really sad posts like "The longer they wait the better it will be" and "Everything will be OK after release or after the next patch".
I would like to see the underdog win but seldom is that ever going to happen in the MMORPG world. I might pay $50 for a game that is buggy but has vision but not $50 plus $15 a month to play such. The little guys who had that dream over a D&D game one night to make a Fantasy MMORPG sounds great but like WISH, I just don't have a good feeling here that they can get a playable version out to the public anytime soon.
Comments
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ohhh I dunno....best post I think are the ones that pop up every few days or when there is game destroying rep destroying info out there --you know which ones Im talking about....."I just bought the game" and "this game sounds awesome, where do i buy!".... threads.
As someone else stated here, it is quite remarkable how a "newbie" purchaser pops up after every bad smell Farlan leaves in the room.
Cholayna? Anymore seats in here, someone took mine.
Way back in the day of steam powered computers I had to take a course in marketing. One of the principles of marketing strategy is you have to make it look like your product is popular and a lot of people want it. Making it look limited and if you do not act immediatly (impulse buy) you might lose out is another basic strategy I see used over there. Ever notice how they like to throw out the phrase "lucky Pioneers" ? Or how there is aleways some newbie trying to buy a Pioneer account?
Farcelan is a master at marketing (scamming). Call it paranoia or conspiracy or whatever but it would not surprise me if half the posts from fanbois over there are not Farcelan's marketing guru doing his best on a shoe string budget. Of course I still do not believe they sold all 8881 Pioneer accounts, or they released 10000 settlers keys, or that they gave away 1000 keys during the lottery. So maybe I am just a suspicious SOB
Edit - also notice they are trying to charge 15 a month for this POS when they cannot even get people to play SoG when it's free?
Edit 2- anyone else here old enough to remember the commercials for the ginzu steak knives, thigh masters, choppermatics, salad shooters etc.. Now I know what happened to the guy who used to market that junk
I miss DAoC
I would not be surprised eitther if they did not sell all the pioneer accounts or even give away the free ones. Instead it might actually be Farlan who has been doing the ebaying of SoG and Pioneer accounts. On the other hand it would not suprise me if they indeed did sell all those accounts as there are lot of dumb people out there waiting to give away their money.
If I had to guess I would say they did sell all the accounts the first time but lied about reselling the Pioneers.
thread of the day over there
http://www.darkandlight.net/forums/showthread.php?t=57910
condensed version - Fanboy points out Farlan is going to be at E3, poster points out Farlan/Np3'as name is nowhere on the official exhibitor list. Mod says Farlan will be under a different name, poster asks ok whose booth they will be sharing, Mod/fanboy points to news item on DnL front page as proof Farlan will be there.
The point of being at E3 is to have people know you are there and show off your product but even that seems to be a trade secret for Farlan, unless the News item is just another bull shit attempt to try and look like they still count.
I miss DAoC
That thread should get locked soon since oh my gawd someone is questioning the almighty Mods over there.
Just reading the Mod responses I think I figured out who the 2 fawnbois they hired as mods are
it's getting even better
I miss DAoC
I know of one off the top of my head
Name starts with a VMaybe Farlan/NPCube fear that a wild horde of enraged hatebois will go after them if they announce which booth they will occupy during E3. Or maybe they just plan to go with a laptop and make some "in-game" demos of SoG/DnL, using a walkie talkie to connect with their "1,000,000 connected people" server.
BigWorld has a booth (BigWorld Pty Ldt, Kentia Hall 6207), so shall I suggest people indending to go to E3 to check on them? Since BigWorld and Farlan/PNCube were together at E3 last year, my little finger says that some Farlan/NPCube guys are predictable to hang around BigWorld's booth.
BTW, even SnailGame has no booth at E3. Quite surprising for the "first online game developer in China" according to this press-release in 2005: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/press_release.php?aid=9004 .Aren't they supposed to release DnL China "very soon" (copyright Farlan 2002-2003-2004-2005-2006) ?
No, it's not only a flight sim
Current Work In Progress
No, it's not only a flight sim
Current Work In Progress
lol, maybe the code they've acquired from npcube is a bit harder to work with than they thought.
BTW does anyone know the website of the snailgames version of DnL? The link on darkandlight (www.heinan.cn) doesn't work for me.
EDIT: btw the correct name is SnailGame for those that didn't know...which included me until a few seconds ago
the website is:
http://www.snailgame.net/dnl/index.html
lol. Well, maybe they unfortunately lost the documentation...
Re DnL SnailGame web site, they still present old screenshots and videos from 2003 and 2004. Same as for BigWorld http://www.bigworldtech.com/games/darknlight_photos.php. Maybe somebody should tell them that NPCube has a new new engine now, so they probably ought to update them, not to fool potential customers u know.
No, it's not only a flight sim
Current Work In Progress
ok so doe Farlan = NP3 = Bigworld ? It gets rather confusing at times.
Also noticed Bigworld is a Australian company, isn't one of the posters here that posts tons of screen shots also Australian? Coincidence?
I miss DAoC
Hmm, it dit puzzle me for some time too.
The only thing I know for sure is that the sticky thread here is presenting 2003-2004 screenshots, from page 1 to at least page 10. The point is wether it might not be a litlle misleading for potential buyers to be still presented screenshots dating from that period. Indeed, these screenshots cannot come from the latest version of DnL (the one that will be sold in a few weeks and the one that pioneers bought "in advance") since, remember, NPCube announced they "rewrote" everything. Hmm, tricky, isn't it?
I guess this is part of the tricky litlle things that were not easy to grasp even for journalists that reported DnL at E3 in 2004 and 2005. I just wonder what they were told by the people they interviewed at E3 to make a litlle confusion in quoting BigWorld technology's role in DnL. (http://www.stratics.com/content/portals/e3/content/features/dl/2004.php and http://www.warcry.com/scripts/columns/view_sectionalt.phtml?site=15&id=440&colid=7224 )
No, it's not only a flight sim
Current Work In Progress
"Fire is never a gentle master..."
No, it's not only a flight sim
Current Work In Progress
Unfortunately I wasted my time creating a fansite for this POS. First Wish then DnL - why oh why?!
By the way, Farlan and NPCube are the same. They're both owned by César Jaquet - try a WHOIS on farlan.net and another on darkandlight.com
NPCube have their HQ on Reunion Island, Farlan (supposedly) on Mauritius. Both firms are owned (managed) by the same person. Farlan's website links directly to the DnL website. There is no corporate info whatsoever. Generally I am very sceptical about NPCube releasing the game at all. It seems they're running out of cash - even with the money they snatched from the hapless pioneers and pre-orderers...
However that would be a good thing. The MMOG industry doesn't need DnL to drag it further down into the pits of criminal business behaviour à la Mourning.
"Fire is never a gentle master..."
Hmm, it dit puzzle me for some time too.
The only thing I know for sure is that the sticky thread here is presenting 2003-2004 screenshots, from page 1 to at least page 10. The point is wether it might not be a litlle misleading for potential buyers to be still presented screenshots dating from that period. Indeed, these screenshots cannot come from the latest version of DnL (the one that will be sold in a few weeks and the one that pioneers bought "in advance") since, remember, NPCube announced they "rewrote" everything. Hmm, tricky, isn't it?
I guess this is part of the tricky litlle things that were not easy to grasp even for journalists that reported DnL at E3 in 2004 and 2005. I just wonder what they were told by the people they interviewed at E3 to make a litlle confusion in quoting BigWorld technology's role in DnL. (http://www.stratics.com/content/portals/e3/content/features/dl/2004.php and http://www.warcry.com/scripts/columns/view_sectionalt.phtml?site=15&id=440&colid=7224 )
Great read , ty _Pix_. Outdated screenshots lol . Glad you confirmed this. I believe several of us made that statement and were told we were liars and those were in fact recent shots. But see, Im still confused.....they said SOG isnt Beta....they said SOG isnt DNL....but the screenshots they show refer, imply and in some instances , actually state these are in fact DNL shots.
so with BigWorld Server, we have the VWORLD technology which basically sets up the environment with very little work on the part of the development team. Very interesting. Instant terrain! Instant environment! Great job _Pix_! But if we take that into consideration, then Farlan and the gang havent really done the bulk of the work on the environment as they claim, or as they imply/refer/use, right? If thats true, then wtf have they been doing!??! The server is certainly NOT complete and workable. Some pretty paper was used to give out some info. Not clear enough to give an informed purchase. Skill trees there but hard to read and doesnt give ya the nitty gritty enough to make an informed purchase. However, this is the same information that was given, in somewhat sporadic and unorganized manner, in the past. Really nothing really "new" and "mold breaking" at all. There are still crashes , too many server downtimes and okay, I will say it, instability.
In the YEARS since this came together, I really do not see any progress at all, except in the marketing dept and collecting money (and consequently refunding them) from pay-for-beta people who have been sucked in and quickly gained balance again. They have got to be sitting back and scratching their heads at this point to find a new and even more "clever" way in which to keep this farce going.
Link please ?
Futilez[Do You Have What It Takes ?]
Link please ?
err... for example here http://www.stratics.com/content/news/archive/arc2-2005.php?PHPSESSID=e19a001a60250459940118e6fe295580
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".
I'm quite sure you should be able to find other sources on that subject, especially as you seem to be a great fan of the game and certainly had access to the beta forums (I mean, when the beta was still running of course)
No, it's not only a flight sim
Current Work In Progress