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What caused the downfall?
dukelouie
Member Posts: 52
I never played but looking and the old screens and promised content, the game looked really promising. Were all the promises not met, or what exactly happened?
"Sir, the fish market is quickly emptying. I need you to out, get me 5 tuna, 4 blue snappers, 3, uh, Darkshore groupers, and 2 goldfish please. And then report to the docks. I'll see you there, goodbye."
Comments
All beta screenshots and discussions of content before release was all part of the the overall scam to lure people into sending them money.
There never was a "game" per se; this is an old fashion con job in a new media.
You know, back in the old days con artists had to go to folks homes and tell old people their roof was about to collapse and that for a small down payment, they would go buy materials and fix the roof. Today they just build a website, promise a great game, use a landscape generator that they stole/borrowed and then prevent you from cancelling your account. They also locate their business on a small island in the Indian Ocean to avoid prosecution
The word "downfall" implies that there was some height that DnL could fall from. It never achieved any height of sucess from which it could fall. Maybe an illusory height was achieved through fan-hype and big dev promises. But nothing even remotely close to the level of developer promises or fan-hype was ever a reality with DnL.
DnL has been a series of disappointments:
1) Beta was a disaster from the beginning. Everyone in the beta was underwhelmed and constantly disappointed by the cluelessness of the developers. Most beta testers just stopped trying to play the game because they saw no point after months and months of development stagnation--many of the serious bugs in the beta are still in the game now, over 2 years later.
2) SoG -- Which was the actual beta of DnL after all, drove most people who tried it away, never to return. After years of "development" SoG proved what talentless bunglers the DnL developers truely were.
3) Delay after delay after delay before the final release of DnL. And the "Pioneer" scam which suckered 1000's of people out of $65 for a game that has yet to appear with even 10% of the promised features.
But in conclusion, the one, main cause of the failure of DnL is a developement team bereft of any talent what-so-ever. A greater group of talentless bunglers you will never see.
Illusory height or artificial high? You can still read a lot of those old, now totally unbelievable promises at their official site. Their behaviour doesn't make sense without factoring in either insanity or substance abuse.
Like they still have this testimonial on their website:
http://www.darkandlight.net/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=16
The second I logged into the game, I was stunned by how shonky the graphics looked. I've played games with worse graphics, but none of them had made the sort of claims these guys had. I even took a quick ride in one of the balloons to see if it looked more scenic from on high - it was even worse.
You read their claims, log into the free trial and instantly see how false this particular claim is and it's pretty much over. See a few aggressive level 55 mobs to spawn in the noob area and you get a good idea of how badly the game is coded. Even if you stay until level 10 (the max for the free trial) you don't see anything that would encourage you stay.
I'd add one element that was missed out - terrible translation. The NPC dialogue has clearly been translated into English by someone who isn't fluent in it so the quest NPCs will make some very odd suggestions to you. The inadvertent humour in those errors is probably the game's best feature.
SWG was a downfall...this thing never got off the ground.
You can listen to all the excusses people gave you above in this thread, but Dark & Light failed for one reason only.
The lead DEV and part owner (Vauur) was extremely pompous and didn't think anything about stealing the game engine that D&L ran on. Farlan we're such crooks they actually ousted the designer of the technology they were licensing for their game... then tried to modify the VRworld code to make it look like they designed the game engine..... just so they didn't have to pay a licensing fee. Farlan spent most it's time in the courts.
That was the start of all the games problems, because after that illegal move, performance took a huge hit.. and Farlan/NPCube stopped talking to the fanbase. Or should I say started hiding...!! Farlan tried to do all of this crap behind closed door and skirt around their fans hoping we wouldn't notice or find out.
in the end, the games performance and lack of in-game features were removed because they couldn't figure out how to unlock their stolen game engine. It fell apart because Farlan/NPCube were amatures and more worried about money than making soemthing dear to them.
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-Zvorak
My questions would be: 1 Was there ever an Open beta for D&L? If yes, did people found out about it in OB?
2. Was there flame wars between the proers and conners?
There never was an upfall to begin with... There were no good times of DnL, it was all hype and makebelieve, fantasies from a fan base that could not even see what was right under their noses. They had some stills, some screens with pictures of items they liked. But the actual game? From the first movies of the actual game engine, up until release it was obvious they did not have a real game in there, just a broken husk of a game engine with some really subpar graphics.
But as always, a small crowd buy the hype like it was religion, and make up some utopia in thier own minds of how absolutly perfect everything is in there, no matter what they have actually seen. Anyone pointing out that the problems that was there, were considered a "hater" and "troll" no matter how nicelly put it was and... There we go.
Now they have left DnL, having completly forgotten how they insulted and silenced with any means necessary any voices that told the absolute truth about the game for 2 years straight. And we find them all in other games, doing exactly the same again. Refusing to have an honest discussion about the problems a new release might have, they again sit in a game forum and beta forum and call everyone "hater" and "troll" that try to have a mature discussion about how games in development can be improved. Listen to any discussion in Vanguard... Anyone not speaking in only positive tones, even the smallest concern, no matter how honest and how nicelly it is put forward, is called a "hater" and "troll" again. Its exactly the same people as in DnL doing exactly the same thing. And some really simple problems to solve will stay in game until release, because any discussion about them is killed before its even begun, filling the posts with page after page of insults against anyone not speaking in 100% positives...
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
The old fanbase of Horizons left it long before the "Settlers of Ganerath" debocle. Listening to the DEV and their action was proof to many that HZ was not going anywhere and it was essentially vaporware.
As for Vanguard, I dissagree. There ARE stages of development with a DEV team thats very vocal and setting forth an outline to their beta process. Many of the "trolls" are just that...! They poze a question that already been aswered by a DEV or is so obvious of an answer you have to question their intelligence/experience or their motive behind the question.
I find the VG forums completly civil and highly intelligent debate. I havn't seen the word troll in about a few weeks. The game and Dev simple have too much respect from the community to missbehave on their forums. But that doesnt not silence the debate or issues, just that there arn't tards running their mouths over there....!
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-Zvorak
Lets stick to the subject.
There was indeed NO mountaintop of which to come down from in DNL. It was a mountain of words and empty promises, smokescreens and unethical behavior. Farlan themselves doomed the game the minute they believed they could actually make one! As time goes on and you watch the shenanigans they are pulling (especially with ppls money and _Pix_'s engine) it moves anyone to question whether a "real" game was ever really in the basket. Let them call Farlan inept, unethical, incompetent and an unsavory lot -- they are laughing all the way to the offshore bank.
Their "rise" was all fabricated. When things were good, they just looked good. However when the facade was gone, everyone and everything gets sent back down to where it truely was.
What is amazing with that game is that a lot of people have been pressing on the alarm button for quite a long time. But apparently this was not sufficient to warn people, not to mention "save" the game.
The good point with Farlan/NPCube is that now, everybody can see for himself that there are lot of well..."issues" with these two companies. The reason of DnL's downfall is not really the game in itself (even if it seems that technically they are totaly at a loss for quite a few years) but the very corrupt functionning of these companies. The very fact that the NDA is still active while SoG went "live" a year ago is already telling a lot.
Let's see now what comes out of the Chinese market.
No, it's not only a flight sim
Current Work In Progress
Totally agree. What is it they say ..something about building on a solid foundation first then make your tower..? Sumthin like that anyway. Seems this wisdom was blown off by Farlan/NP3 in their quest for the money. Seems to me anything with the Farlan name on it, no matter where they try to shlump it off in the world, is already a black mark against success for anyone dealing with them.
havent heard any news from the chinese side lately....makes ya kinda wonder wahz zappenin over there eh?
Ditto!!!
Played Wow, D and L, AOC, GW, Eve, Rift and many more insignificant games.