Dark & Light - Vast Fantasy Survival Sandbox RPG [preview]

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Dark & Light - Vast Fantasy Survival Sandbox RPG

Story

As this is a sandbox survival RPG game, many players will have different stories as they choose different factions, races and exploration paths. What we know is that there is 3 competing factions in the world of Dark & Light, acting in each respective home capital on the game planet called Alpha, namely:

Vardo "The City of Protection".

Named after the Elvish word for "protection", legend has it that Vardo was founded by Noah, the god of humanity, who opened a portal for humans to reach the planet Alpha safely. After their arrival, humans established the city, which welcomes travelers from all corners of the world. Vardo is the capital city for the human race.

Estel "The City of Hope".

Hidden deep within the forest, "Estel", meaning "hope" in Elvish, is the capital city of the Elves. Estel was merely a legend until around 100 years ago, when it finally revealed its existence to the world and opened its doors to outsiders.

Zaharul "The City of Innovation".

The Dwarven capital city's name is "Zaharul", which means "cheers" in Dwarvish. Every year , Zaharaul holds a massive drinking party, which brings together all matter of men and women of different races and cultures to get completely sloshed in the name of tradition.

If you play as a proud dwarf from the city of Zaharul, you will want to kill the fancy pointy-eared elfs of Estel. This is a survival game, meaning that its world-PvP, meaning everyone who is not on your team can kill you. There will be specific PvE servers for those who just want to explore and inhale the vast & magic atmosphere of DnL's world.

Much of the lore of the game is taught to the player trough in-game quests and exploring, like the big piece of a planet that you will see floating in space when first playing this game.
Why is the planet-piece there? Where is the rest of the planet? Questions like these can be answered trough only playing the game and exploring (Hint: the floating planet is a critical part of the world story).

Gameplay Mechanics

A Massive, Constantly-Changing World

In DnL there has been much focus to create a magical world that feels alive and a feeling of strong interaction from the players in how the universe is shaped. They do this by certain cool features like:

Advanced weather system where night and day cycles has real effects on the surrounding world. During night, menacing creatures imbued with dark, mystical magic will lurk out of their dens for hunting, watch out!
Continuing on the aspects of the weather system in DnL, the players stats will also change during certain conditions. On windy, cold days exploration will be harder, as players get cold and hungry faster. While on rainy days players game avatar will be hydrated much longer.
Explore areas like volcanoes, snow-capped mountains, swamps, plains, forests, jungles, floating islands and much more, all in high-end realistic graphics.
Living ecosystem of animals roaming the world and living their own life. Some are aggressive, while some are kind. These are not just ordinary animals seen in the local zoo, but mythical and magical creatures is what inhabits this planet.
You will be able to build houses almost anywhere you want in the world to make as your personal base hub when playing.

Character Development in Dark & Light

This game focuses a lot on the magic aspect. That's not to say that there is not physical weapons you can use if you want to, but magic casting certainly is where this game shines. There is much customization available for every style of magic casting, though you need to make prudent choices from the beginning when starting to level and skill up your character towards the skill-tree you want as they get locked.

There will be 12 races and 14 classes to pick from in DnL, all are not released yet but at least we know you will be able to play human, elf and dwarfs.
Advanced character creation screen with many options to make a truly unique and custom character.
Wide array of creatures that are tameable and sometimes you will be able to ride them, giving interesting mount choices for players. Mounts will come in the shape of dragons, unicorns, gryphons and a variety of new and original creatures never seen before.
Craft magical weapons and make it a part of your arsenal. More powerful and cool weapons will be available as you progress trough the game. Always wanted to own a lighting hammer or a fire sword? Get this game and start forging away.

Combat Mechanics

Spells are not learn and then locked to a specific character, but are item-bound and can be crafted, meaning you will be able to share powerful spells with other players.
You will be able to learn all skills in the skill tree, thus maximizing you character, this will take a long, long time though. Most of the game you will be best of by focusing on skills you are most interested in.
Unleash chaos with cool spells like levitating big rocks and hurl them on enemies or deploy a ice wall in front of your enemies thus blocking their passage. This is just a small selection of all hundreds of spells that exist in the game.
Tame beasts to fight on your side will also be a cool aspect to the combat. Taming will be quite hard though, requiring you to trap animals with ropes and spikes to pin them down, then feed them their favorite food in an attempt to domesticate them. More powerful animals will be harder to tame but will also provide a stronger ally when tamed.
Enchant weapons with powerful magic to make them more effective and mighty. Enchants on weapons will not just help for damage as there will also be other helpful effects spawning from different enchants.
First-person shooter type gameplay that plays more like a standard FPS game then a RPG game. This is not your typical tab-target RPG where you click and choose a target to attack, instead its much more dynamic and action based. You will be able to dodge and shoot spells, requiring you to be active in combat and on your toes at all times.
Deploy powerful magical defensive turrets and traps to your house, providing a extra layer of protection when being attacked by your enemies.

Concluding

Update: Check out my article describing how The Bestiary will work in DnL here

There is not to much information out there right know about this game, but i will continue to give you guys updates as i think this looks like a game for the ages! I personally love RPG's and magical things, so this will be perfect for me, if you would like me to keep writing about how this game works, please give me a comment or a upvote :)