And so the revised release date is almost upon us, though the excitement generated by the stress test running this week has been tempered somewhat by the announcement that several key features will be missing from the game as shipped.

Of most concern for myself is the lack of Exploration. Of course there is nothing to stop people from running around exploring the world but Dark and Light was shaping up to offer something unique in this regard. It’s standard MMORPG procedure to give players a black – or darkly shaded – map of new areas, this map being gradually coloured as they find their way around. DnL proposed to let players create and sell maps of the land they’d discovered. Thus someone who’d never visited a particular part of the world could buy a map from someone who had, filling in their overhead map and radar with details provided by the seller.

It won’t be so bad if this functionality is retrofitted soon after launch. The other bad news, however, is that only five of the kingdoms of Ganareth will be available from day one, these being the Dark and Light kingdoms as well as the three kingdoms previously available in Settlers of Ganareth.