For those who weren't around for the glory days of peer-to-peer piracy in the early 2000s, BitTorrent is a communications protocol that enables decentralized file sharing. It's a bit like FTP (you know what that is, right?) except that instead of downloading files from a single source, you're getting them from multiple sources, called "seeds." If you're the considerate sort, you'll also seed the torrent yourself, because the more seeds Dark And Darker Gold , the better it is for everyone trying to get the file.

Dark and Darker playtest 5 meme

To be fair, it's also not the most user-friendly software in existence—this is what the Microtorrent client looks like in action, for instance.

It's definitely more of a hassle than a simple Steam install, and the download speeds are a little slow right now because of the relatively small number of people seeding the torrent. But the good news is that by all reports it works, and instead of being irritated by the extra work involved, fans are throwing kudos to Ironmace for powering through it.

"This is the most dedication I have ever seen from a studio," kaleoh wrote in the Playtest 5 Megathread. "This is just the best fucking thing in the world. I cannot believe that they made this deadline despite all of the legal issues surrounding the studio. Absolute legends."

There's also some genuinely joyous reminiscing going on, which quite frankly may be my favorite part of the whole thing:

The latest Dark and Darker playtest is live now and free to join (as long as you can figure out the torrent). At last check, it was expected to run until April 19, after which I suppose we're back to waiting and seeing how this whole Ironmace/Nexon lawsuit shakes out buying Dark And Darker Gold .