MMORPG worth looking into...out soon I think

[Miach]

http://www.darkandlight.net/

[Siridean]

This was one of the games I've been interested in and have been signed up for betatesting for a while (no luck getting in though).

Link to some basic info:

http://ap.ofganareth.com/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=22&t=246&

there's also an FAQ on main site:

http://www.darkandlight.net/faq.php3

[Slak]

few questions:

1) How are sides/alliances organized? Is it just Dark vs Light sorta like Horde vs Alliance?

2) How gear dependent is this game

3) How long does it take to max level

4) Does it even use levels, or is it a skill system? How long then does it take to reach max skill?

5) Is there a seige system?

6) Are these keeps or fortresses or whatever just DAoC type things? Capture towers/castles?

7) How is the political world handled? Is it static or alive like SB? Is there really any way for major wars to occur as in SB? Something unique thats not always going on.

[Siridean]

few questions:

1) How are sides/alliances organized? Is it just Dark vs Light sorta like Horde vs Alliance?

2) How gear dependent is this game

3) How long does it take to max level

4) Does it even use levels, or is it a skill system? How long then does it take to reach max skill?

5) Is there a seige system?

6) Are these keeps or fortresses or whatever just DAoC type things? Capture towers/castles?

7) How is the political world handled? Is it static or alive like SB? Is there really any way for major wars to occur as in SB? Something unique thats not always going on.

Follow the first link I posted (homepage: http://ap.ofganareth.com/forum/index.php?act=SF&f=22 , it's to a site with probably the most info I've found. Alot is still under the NDA.

Here's some Q & A from the DnL forums that answers some of your questions:

Questions:

1. Will thier be sige war fare? (if so SB ware fair were ppl build thier own cities, or premade castles/cities like l2)
2. is pvp open(l2,SB), flag(wow), or between the 2 factions (what wow should of been)
3. is thier a newbie pk free area (newbie island SB)
4. how difficult is it to lvl? (sb 1-30 40-50 in day week 50-75 in 2-3 weeks, l2 1-10, 2 or so days (depends on how good you are, and how much play)?
5. how much is thier to do in dnl (ie sige, economy, crafting, questing, farming, lvling, ect ect (ive always wanted an mmorpg were thier was lots and lots and lots of stuff to do)
6. can you have controll of npcs, ie (pets, gaurds, privet merchents)
7. im going to feal stupid if beta hasent started yet
8. how well balenced is the game?
9. are the mobs inferear (non elites wow, not even close (sb) (decently tough l2)
10. how much wood could a wood chuck chuck if wood chuck could chuck wood
11. can some one on the light side group, chat, doing anyhting and everything, with thoes on the dark side? (wow... ... ...)

Answers from 2 Individuals:

1. Their will be siege warfare, and you can build and destroy buildings.

2. PvP between the two alignments, and there will be duels.

3. Yes, their are two newbie kingdoms, one Dark and one Light.

4. Levelling in DnL will be by steps: very easy until 20, easy until 40, normal until 60, difficult until 80, and horrible after 80.

5. There's lots of stuff to do, such as fighting, crafting, RPing, exploring, playing with politics and the economy, but it's hard to give you a very good answer before the game is released.

6. Yes.

7. It has.

8. No clue, although we do know that fighter types will be strong against archer types, archer types vs. mages and mages will beat the fighters to pulps.

9. Depends on the MOB.

10. 52 wood units.

11. Yup.

=============

1: yes and yes

2:option three what WoW should have been

3:Yes a massive kingdom for each fraction

4: Don't know

5: Games built on options. There's a lot to do

6: Yes, everything is tamable

7: It has, none of the beta testers can answer you due to the NDA though

8: don't know

9: don't know

10: All the wood.

11: No, basically you can do nothing with them unless in a neutral zone (Al Drifa, or a neutral mine)

=========================

Overview:

1 HUGE world
Amazing graphics
PvP (2 factions)
You lose exp when you die, you lose exp if you gank lowbies, you gain exp pretty much doing anything (crafting, politics, PvP (if they're not lowbies))
Seiging
Housing
Crafting
Can fly on a dragon :p:
Weather
Religion (if you choose a religion it can provide positive or negative effects when you PvE, PvP, seige. For example, grouping with someone with an opposing religion can cause you to gain exp slower)

An example of how big this world is (quote from the FAQ):

How many baronies, counties, duchies and kingdoms are there?

There are more than 4000 fortresses to take, but the number of domains is much smaller.

There are ten PvP kingdoms. On each of these kingdoms, there are five duchies.

There are seven counties in each duchy.

There are nine baronies in each county

There are thirteen fortresses in each barony.

This does not include the 213 cities of the game, and high number of small settlements, too many to be numbered.
Someone commented that they typo'd the number of fortresses: they said its 40,000 not 4,000, no idea which is correct. Either number is ALOT.

[GuilT]

4. Levelling in DnL will be by steps: very easy until 20, easy until 40, normal until 60, difficult until 80, and horrible after 80.

This alone scares me. Whats with developers thinking that i have 40-60 hours to spend on a game for 1 character. The fact that im blowing as much time as i am on WoW is amazing to me... i dont think id ever do it again.

[Siridean]

His description of the lvling is no different then every game I've played: fastest lvling at the lowest lvls and slowest lvling at the highest lvls. Without a point of reference (i.e. comparison to another game), there's no way to know how fast or how slow the lvling will actually be.

[Slak]

This alone scares me. Whats with developers thinking that i have 40-60 hours to spend on a game for 1 character. The fact that im blowing as much time as i am on WoW is amazing to me... i dont think id ever do it again.

Seriously. I mean SB had one of the fastest levling systems, and the reason it kept me playing was not time sinks, but becuase it was fun.

Im hoping its more SBesque in terms of levling. IE 1-50 are pretty easy. 50+ it starts getting a little harder as you need more exp.

[Diraker]

I don't like RvR.

[Mutt]

yea 2 sides to fight is somewhat lame, and if you have 3 then you get the problem where one side is left as the trash and always gets kicked into the dirt. SB's idea of player driven politics is cool, however I believe for the best effect and to avoid zerging there should be a set of teams or organizations (say 5-9) or something, and then you function from there. You could also impose some kind of swing bonus based on avg hours played every week for each side. So the least played organization gets a 10% bonus of some kind whereas the most played gets a 10% penalty.

That would be cool imo

[Siridean]

One thing that wasn't clear in the FAQ's was who's fortresses are we taking? Can you take a fortress controlled by someone on the same faction? I think you can. I think that it might be like DF where you declare war against that kingdom in order to be able to fight them.

Wish they would post more info. There's alot that needs clarifying before I would commit to buying/playing this game.

[Lozzt One]

very cool ideas... i think we should keep an eye out on this game and possibly try to get beta accounts so we could get some good info .... the graphics are sweet

[Siridean]

The more I read about this game, the more I think its not for us. Take a look at this description of the crafting system from the forums:

My understanding of crafting is that it will require you to do the crafting at specific times and places in order to get the best quality of item. In addition to that, it requires that you improve upon already crafted items that have the same criteria. Further, to craft the most uber items, not only have you had to find the best quality materials and craft the items at specific times for your race and alignment, in specific places, and do this for every improvement for the item you are crafting to make uber, the uber item will also require a number of uber crafters doing things just right at just the right times and places without letting the materials good bad to get said uber item.

Crafting would be a MAJOR timesink. From what I've read about lvling, you get the best exp in a similar manor (i.e. grouping with compatible deity-worshippers, etc).

Even if this just means crafting and exping in your kingdom-controlled territory, it still would be a major hassle. You could chose to have no deity to circumvent some of the hassle, but you wouldn't benefit from the best gear which is deity-based (which means in PvP, you'd be at a disadvantage :puppy_dog ).

[Siridean]

Damn the graphics in this game are awesome:

http://www.darkandlight.net/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-213

http://www.darkandlight.net/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-221

http://www.darkandlight.net/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-296

http://www.darkandlight.net/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-177

http://www.darkandlight.net/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-192

I hope I'm wrong about it being a huge timesink, because I like alot of the features they plan on having and the graphics are amazing.


EDIT: Almost forgot this screenshot: :p:

http://www.darkandlight.net/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-218

[Siridean]

MORE INFO ON LEVELING

Originally Posted by Siridean
4. Levelling in DnL will be by steps: very easy until 20, easy until 40, normal until 60, difficult until 80, and horrible after 80.

The above info came from the forums and isn't quite accurate, nor does it give you enough information. Below is a more accurate idea of the lvling system (from this site http://ap.ofganareth.com/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=22&t=245&):

The evolution of the levels can be seen here:
1 to 20: Very fast,
20 to 50: Rapid,
50 to 80: Normal,
80 to 100: Hard.
One can thus quickly realize, by recounting this information with that of the few paragraphs above, that we will be looking forward to ataining level 50, which means the finalization of your class, and consequently, reaching the full capacities of your class.

Levels higher than the 50 being only bring levels of power (not bringing new skills, only of the points to set out again).
All skills will be capped at a maximum level (not indicated and variable according to skill). I.e. for a given skill, you will not be able to attain skill beyond a certain level, except for skills in specialization (your axis in your class).

When we reach level 50

We have on this level all official skills: our orientation, class and specialization. We now 'work' the skills of our character.
From level 50, the Art of Research is open for you. The acts of research which we will carry out will obtain various results according to a whole series of parameters. (Not revealed, one can however suppose that the manner, the ingredients will play for much in the result).

It is clear however as indicated by Vuuar that the astrological and weather conditions will be able to have enormous influences on extremely rare skills, even mythical. An astrological condition which will not even take place once every three months IRL could make it possible to lead to spells of an incalculable power if all is held normally! (of course these are very weak chances of success, added with the fact that it would be that 1 times every 3 months IRL, would make these spells quassia mythical).

What this means is, you'll lvl pretty fast to 50. At 50 you'll have all the skills you really need to be PvP viable. Above lvl 50, you gain rare skills and lvl slower. You specialize more above lvl 50. What isn't clear is how well a lvl 50 would fair against a higher lvl player if they both have the same skills (if the higher lvl player hasn't specialized at all).

This would be similar to SB where you reached 40 very fast, 40-50 was fast, 50-60 was normal and 60-70 was more of a grind. The additional skills you gained above lvl 60 didn't make a huge difference in PvP viability. Hopefully that's what DnL is aiming for also.