Dark and Light’s Stephane Quilichini Discusses Changes for MMO Title

By Michael Lafferty

“DnL development did not stop, but we did need to validate our new planning before the announcement to our community”

When a massively multiplayer online game goes into a period of quiet development, that can either be a good thing or a bad thing. The good could tie to the fact that the game is undergoing some intensive changes. The bad may well be that production may be halted.

Dark and Light, the NP Cube title that sports one of the biggest online worlds yet seen, was undergoing some changes – to be certain – but most of those revolved around a new time schedule. And yes, there was the whole aspect of changing engines as well.

GameZone.com had the chance to speak with Stephane Quilichini, the lead game designer for Dark and Light.

Question: Dark & Light has been keeping a low profile of late. The release date has slid to the end of April 2005. Let's address the latter first. What precipitated that change in the release date for this title?

Stephane: We did a check on the DnL positioning in regard to our delay of one year on the development. DnL development did not stop, but we did need to validate our new planning before the announcement to our community. Our prime difficulty was adapting the Bigworld technology from Microforté to our Mafate engine.  We are quite confident in our new launch date of April 2005.

Q: What changes are being effected to the game that caused the low profile?

SQ: Mainly by the fact we wanted to communicate only with a precise vision on our release date. We needed to fine-tune our planning so our fans wouldn’t be discouraged.

Q: The beta is ongoing, and players are seeing more and more content in the game world. What are some of the biggest elements that have gone into the game recently and what can players expect in the next push?

SQ: Recently we validated personnel transport such as the dragon flight, but our 4/6 October beta will be important with our first combat skills and craft premises. We will leave the political part and economical part for December. Then we shall fine tune with our beta testers and continue to complete our different functions.

Q: What areas of this game are continuing to challenge the design team?

SQ: To date we have no particular technical problems to fix, but just need man-hours for production to have the all of the game design in the black box.

Q: Have any changes been made to the core elements such as the combat or economic models?

SQ: In comparison to our initial project, we have a lot more supplementary elements. Some of the game features -- especially the ones used later in the game -- could be added later on.

Q: With the change in the release date, what does that mean for beta testing in terms of an open beta?

SQ: Our beta are based on the game functionality more than on a set date in October we will be on the 5/6 phase, the beta 5 should be in November and beta 6 in December. As for the notion of open beta, it is not so far on our schedule. We prefer a massive beta based on our registered gamers community more oriented on the guild side.

Thanks for letting us keep DnL fans up to date!

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