Dark and Light might look like a quaint little independently produced MMO, but there’s one catch - there is absolutely nothing little about this game. Next Generation spoke to lead designer Stephane Quilichini.

Players will inhabit a world that is equivalent to over 15,000 square miles of land, all on one server, that can have up to 500,000 inhabitants concurrently playing the game.

Let’s put that much space into perspective. The explorable area of Morrowind, generally regarded to be an enormous game, is only about 10 square miles.  The original Everquest, after nine expansion packs, covers about 350 square miles, one fortieth (1/40) of the space in Ganareth, the world of DnL which covers an area that's twice the size of New Jersey.

But in the landscape of MMOs, bigger doesn’t always mean better. How will DnL control the player population and prevent barren cities and infrequent socialization?  "The colonization of Ganareth will be divided in several stages,” lead designer, Stephane Quilichini explained. "Pioneers will discover the world of Ganareth slowly, initially only occupying the first two kingdoms. Once this period is over, all players will be free to go anywhere on Ganareth, but the increasing difficulty of mobs encountered in each kingdom will lead to a natural distribution of player population."

DnL would not be possible without the server innovations available from Australian firms, BigWorld and its parent MicroForte. Acquiring the BigWorld license allowed DnL to have a seamless world with no load times. Farlan is adapting its own Mafate engine to the BigWorld server scheme.  "Our Mafate rendering engine brings many weather options that have never been seen in a MMO before," said Quilichini, options like roving storms and migrating herds of mobs.  

Lore abundance

Quilichini and the rest of the company are currently honing the game in beta and gearing up for the game's fast-approaching launch in November. DnL showed well at E3 and the community is beginning to develop as players are eager to explore. Potential players are already flooding the DnL forums and reading the abundance of lore on the website including a detailed timeline and profiles on each of the deities in the Dark and Light pantheons.  

While the size of the game world is receiving a lot of attention, DnL offers some very innovative gameplay in other areas. Experience points will be split between combat and social experience. Any player will be able to gain levels without ever picking up a sword.  Social experience is given for being an excellent politician elected by other players, a renowned crafter making rare and powerful items or an explorer finding new and undiscovered lands.  Quilichini knows that delving into such a big world will set DnL apart from other MMOs.  "Without a doubt, I think that the exploration will be a unique experience for our players," he says.

The player vs. player follows the standard two-team system but offers the potential for unique socialization. For example, players will be able to conquer fortresses but it will take a good politician to lead and organize the defense of a castle. This can be done by hiring mercenaries. "Every player who wants to be quickly involved in combat may register on a mercenary list, and defenders or attackers may hire them if they need more people," Quilichini said. The DnL team had previously announced a bot mode where players would have been conscripted to fight even when not online, but that idea has been scrapped. "This allows us to keep human intelligence in our fights, because no AI system to date is able to replace it."

Stefane Quilichini has been around games a long time, "I'm 40 years old, and I can say I have been a hardcore pen & paper roleplayer before switching over to videogames. I saw the first personal computers when I was 15 years old, the first games with 16 kb RAM and just 1kb video memory".

Dark and Light is certainly an ambitious project, attempting to excel at several aspects of MMO gameplay.  But if DnL does nothing else but allow travelers and explorers a truly unique world in which to adventure, it will be a success where many other games have failed.