Farlan Entertainment Showcases Dark and Light, Biggest MMORPG Ever, At E3 2005

Business Wire, May 18, 2005

LOS ANGELES -- Medieval Fantasy Game Featuring 15,000 Square Mile Landscape is Set For November '05 Release; E3 Demo Includes Live Events Featuring Worldwide Beta Testers

Farlan Entertainment and NP Cube, the respective publisher and developer of MMORPG Dark and Light(TM), today announced Dark and Light, the largest persistent gaming world of its kind, is being showcased at Electronic Entertainment Expo 2005 (E3 2005). Featuring a proprietary game engine, advanced character management, true-to-life experiences and much more, Dark and Light, set for a November 2005 release, promises newcomers to the land of Ganareth an unsurpassed level of immersion, realism and excitement.

As part of its exhibit at E3, the Dark and Light team will showcase live demos of the game featuring real-time in-game events staged by Alchemic Dream, Dark and Light's community management provider. The continuous event sessions will include actual responses from Dark and Light's beta test team, a community of thousands of online players located around the world.

Biggest Virtual Gameworld Ever

At 40,000 square kilometers (15,000 square miles) of seamless playing surface, Dark and Light (DnL) is the biggest gameworld ever created. Massive numbers of fortresses and cities will populate the thirteen kingdoms of Ganareth, a land locked in an epic battle for control between the Dark and Light factions.

Thanks to NP Cube's improved game engine, Mafate 2.0, Dark and Light is engineered to evolve according to gamers' real time decisions and strategies. Players in this 3D world will be able to manage their own personal DnL storyline, creating their own events, initiating their own conquests, and managing their own fortresses.

Another result of Mafate 2.0 will be an incredible increase in realism. Players will experience an extraordinary freedom of movement; traveling between and within the various duchies, countries, baronies and fortresses of Ganareth will be improved by efficient, simple and original means of transportation such as dragons or dodos. A horizon view up to 50 kilometers will heighten the sense of reality.

Unlike most MMORPGs, Dark and Light allows players to evolve their characters along two axes of improvement: the Social axis and the Combat axis. The Social axis allows players to evolve according to the achievement of specific skills, e.g., artifact-crafting or resource extraction. They will also be able to assume political designations such as lord, baron, count, duke--or maybe king. The Combat axis, a measure of combat traits, enables characters to accomplish military feats such as assaulting a fortress or cutting its supply lines.

"Each aspect of Dark and Light is being evaluated and refined according to the feedback from our huge beta community," said Frederic Caille, CEO of Farlan Entertainment. "In the character arena, for example, six enhanced gameplay styles allow for perpetual character evolution, while environmental realism is being improved thanks to our exclusive rendering engine that generates 300,000 polygons at 16 cm (6.3 inch) resolution. Dark and Light developers have made it their continuing goal to give each player a game lifespan with the most immersive experiences possible."

Continuous E3 Sessions

At E3 2005, visitors will be able to see the Dark and Light beta in action. Alchemic Dream, community managers for Dark and Light, will be organizing live events throughout the show that challenge DnL's massive beta tester community in real time. Actions set into play by Alchemic Dream game masters will provoke responses by beta players, changing the universe in real time.

"Dark and Light, thanks to its server technology, offers one unique world for all players," notes Aurelien Merville, CEO of Alchemic Dream. "This world has to be a living entity where the adventures are renewed every day, swarming with political intrigues, where battles have a reason to be, and where every player's actions have an impact on the world. Dark and Light developers tailored special tools to allow our multilingual game masters and script writers, including famous roleplaying games creator Gary Gygax, to bring the kind of epic atmosphere and interaction players are asking for in an MMORPG."

Dark and Light is exhibiting during E3 2005 from its display at Booth 6001 in the front of Kentia Hall in the Los Angeles Convention Center. For more, visit www.darkandlight.com.

About Farlan Entertainment:

Farlan, headquartered on the island of Mauritius, has been involved since 2001 in the entertainment gaming industry. Founded by a group of successful tech entrepreneurs, Farlan publishes Dark and Light(TM), one of the most anticipated MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) of 2005, and has been intimately involved in the games development from its inception.

About NP Cube:

NP Cube, founded in 2002, specializes in the development of massively multiplayer online games and related tools and technologies for both the industrial and gaming industries. Based on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, NP Cube is dedicated to the development of innovative and exciting game titles and video game tools. The NP Cube team has a long and successful track record in the games industry. For more information, visit http://www.npcube.com/ and www.darkandlight.com.