Dungeon Runners interview

Here is part of an interesting interview of one of the Dungeon Runners team, by Gareth Von Kallenbach in mid 2007. You can find the complete interview here.

What is the background and setting for the game please?

The back story for Dungeon Runners is timeless. You’re new in town and you’ve heard about dungeons where you can gain power and riches. Sadly, there are monsters in the dungeons that stand between you and glory. The result? Kill the monsters and grab the loot! Have you guessed that story isn’t a large part of Dungeon Runners? In all honesty, there isn’t an overarching storyline or fiction for the world of Dungeon Runners. However, many quests that you can undertake do present their own mini stories for you to enjoy.

What are some of the player types and their abilities?

Dungeon Runners currently supports playing as a male or female human. There are no special abilities for humans, except looking good! In general, there is one player role that Dungeon Runners supports… monster killer! As a monster killer, you have a wide assortment of abilities at your disposal. Feel free to cut, smash, whack, pummel, burn, freeze, poison, zap or confuse your enemies to death!

With so many MMOPGS on the market and more coming, is it a challenge to reach out to new gamers, especially when many can only afford subscription rates to a few games?

Of course! Getting the attention of players is a difficult job, to say the least. However, we feel that Dungeon Runners fills a unique place in the market. Dungeon Runners is free to download and free to play. This gives potential players a chance to try the game without spending a dime! Dungeon Runners is also a lighthearted game. We poke fun at ourselves and other games in the MMO space with reckless abandon. I find myself laughing out loud as I play on many occasions. Where else can you find a free to play, fun, lighthearted MMO? You can’t!

What are some of the character classes and the strengths and weaknesses of the character classes?

Dungeon Runners sports a classless RPG system… which means you can mix and match skills to make your favorite type of monster killer. This classless system determines your title based on what skills you have, your level and your attributes. However, when creating your character, you will be presented with three basic archetypes – Fighter, Mage and Ranger. Fighters are good at smashing monsters to little bits. Mages excel at burning, freezing or zapping monsters to oblivion. Rangers are really good at poisoning and filling monsters with arrows or shotgun shells. Take your pick! Advanced players can easily mix and match skills to create their own custom class. It’s a lot of fun!

I have to commend them on their enthusiasm. It sounds very much like Paul Barnett in full swing!

It never would have worked between us... (Dungeon Runners conclusion)

The first thing you will notice about Dungeon Runners is that it has ads; a large banner accross the top of the screen, but while it isn't overpowering and dominating you still know its there so its still just as bad. Play a bit longer and you notice more ads, perhaps if you are lucky you will encounter the terrible shoe ad which seems to last forever. Play a bit longer and you begin to recognize various similarities between DR and Diablo, then you notice some similarities between DR and WoW then you see a whole lot of similarities between DR and watching grass grow. But seriously, Dungeon Runners seems far too much like a 3D Diablo. There are many restrictions on the game which you can only be rid of if you pay a monthly fee to be a member. Play NC made the job for gold farmers (...If there are any for DR) much easier by including an option that increases the difficulty level as well as allowing the character to get a ton more loot. The gameplay is repetitive, the community is silent most of the time, and dying is over powered. This is my review of Dungeon Runners;

The graphics are actually pretty nice considering it is free, although many of the weapons and armour look exactly the same. Many of the maps seem all exactly the same with only the towns or checkpoints looking any different. In the nooby zone I ran through some forest levels call the Dew Valley, then at the end of 3 levels I reached a cave. A bit later in the game I came accross the exact same cave except this time it was called Algernon and it had different monsters in it. Big whoop. I reached a portal in Algernon that said Not So Rumoured Refinery and lo and behold I entered the cave at the end of Dew Valley except there were different monsters. This copying method makes it so much easier for the developers but a whole lot more boring for gamers. I don't want to walk through 7 levels of the same cave only to advance to another cave which looks exactly the same. This is a free to play game and for that the graphics are quite nice, but the repetitiveness of the scenery gets extremely tiring after a short time.

Dungeon Runners is a hack and slash game where you kill baddies for loot, you hand in quests for gold but no experience, then you buy new skills with your massive amounts of money and repeat the process. There isn't a great sense of direction in the game with many of the quests being amusing at the beginning but begin to wear thin and end up being simply silly, as there really is no storyline. Often the quest titles and language are rough and unprofessional with titles such as 'Noobies Start Here!!' The quests are standard boring stuff comprising of 'kill x monsters' or 'collect x from monsters', or 'talk to x to get another quest which will require you to kill x monsters'. Generally I am fine with the occasional 'kill x monsters' but DR exceeds expectations and wishes in that department.

For the most part fighting is quite fun killing large hordes, yelling in triumph then spending 5 minutes picking up stuff and comparing it to what you are wearing. But I do have a few problems with the system that are tremendously annoying. For instance; you have to point and click to attack the monsters around you, but when you click on a monster to attack you will hit anything between you and that monster. As a ranger I use my crossbow to take out enemies, but when I traget a ranged dps enemy I cannot do any damage to it until the melee monsters have been cleared out of my range of fire. This leads to attacking monsters which you do not mean to be attacking and wasting a lot of time, sometimes resulting in death. Often there is an elite monster in a group of monsters who has a lot more health then the rest and does more damage, and generally you get better loot from killing these fellas'. But the thing is these elite mini-bosses often look exactly the same as normal monsters which means you will only realize that you haven't been clearing the trash but instead slowly taking down an elite which is slow and not nearly as efficient.

There are many more small details about Dungeon Runners that I could comment on but it would not add a whole lot to this post. The game is fun for a while but soon many of the niggly parts of the game show and it gets tired very quickly.

Dungeon Runners adventures 5

I have now stopped playing Dungeon Runners. For a while I had been hoping that something new and interesting would pop up that would keep the interest up but unfortunately it was just the same gameplay, same maps, and same monsters. In the end I just found myself grinding through these endless monsters for hours, then I thought to myself; hang on, why exactly am I doing this, do I need these guys for a quest? Who are they? Why are they here? In fact I didn't know, now I don't know whether this reflects the game's qualities or my slackness, but I had had enough.

After hitting lvl 10 I had messed around a bit and cleared out my bags coming up with $90000. I was quite proud of myself seeing my brother who had started playing had only $20000 when he got to lvl 10. I had reached the end of Algernon level 7 and was up to the boss level. For a while now I had raised the difficulty lvl which increased all the monsters' health by %100 and their damage by %40, while the loot was increased by %100. While I picked up some really nice stuff (Most of which I couldn't actually use sadly resulting in a lot of vendoring) I was also paying a lot of money of potions to keep my alive long enough. I figured that for the boss level I would need a ton of potions so grabbed about 20 and started my first attempt.

The boss level was made up of three rooms; one near the portal entry where there were no enemies, then there was the room in which the boss and all his goonies were waiting, and past there was a room full of treasure chests. With my %100 loot bonus and a Boss to fight for the first time, I was hoping that he would drop a rainbow coloured item, which is the best in the game. So saying, I pulled the monsters. There were about 8 regular monsters accompanied by a champion monster, a champion being just a mini boss, and the boss himself; Sissirat. I was quickly overwhelmed by the simple amount of damage that the group was doing and promptly died.

Slightly shocked, I waited for the stupid shoe ad to finish and ran back to the portal. I tried again and again, and again, but was making no progress. I had barely any time to do any damage to any of the monsters before I was overwhelmed. I started buying up huge amounts of potions, which were getting quite expensive by now. A few more deaths and I realized the problem; the stupid boss guy was spawning trash for me to kill, while I had been dying and coming back, dying and coming, slowly killing some trash guys and thinking I had made some progress I had been tricked, every time I killed the trash, the boss would spawn 5 more monsters.

Pissed off, I went back and by 3 more deaths I had killed the champion monster who had been doing a ton of damage. I then went for 3 other monsters who didn't get respawned. After about 5 more deaths I had killed them and only the boss and his spawnlings were left. Finally, after at least 20 deaths I killed the boss and was able to gather up all my loot. I had lost about $10000, but wasn't too worried because I was so intent on my rainbow item which I was sure to get. Needless to say, nothing even decent dropped and I was left lonely and broken. So that is why I quit; I died more times then I can count, spent a massive amount of money on potions, sat in front of the computer waiting for dozens of the stupid shoe ads to finish, and took well over 30 minutes in the process all for nothing.

Now that I have finished I will soon post my complete opinion on the game, but for now I'm goign off to have a soft cry and a milo.

Dungeon Runners adventures 4

Lvl 8 and things were starting to get slightly repetitive, so I changed tack and decided to slow down in the game and try to enjoy its different aspects. I started reading the quests and they were surprisingly amusing. Nearly all my quests involve something in Algernon so I ventured back in there.

I ran around for a few hours killing beasties and getting more quests, picking up some nice loot, and then I died for the first time. At first I was wondering what was going to happen but then the screen faded out and I was watching an ad for a shoe for about 15 seconds. When it was over I was standing back at Townston, I checked my inventory fearing that I would have lost some gear but was surprised to find that nothing had disappeared; I hadn't lost any gold, and no items were damaged as there isn't any damage system. Then I realized the problem; I had been ported out of Algernon so now I would have to spend ages run back through all the levels that I had already cleared to get to where I was originally. Sighing, I thought I would make the most of being in Townston and clear out some trash from my inventory, noticing that I was getting quite wealthy, up to about $30000. I didn't really want to run all the way back to where I had died so I clicked hopefully on the big stone portal thingy and was relieved that it offered an option to port me right back to the level where I had died. I clicked on it and was ported back to the entrance of Algernon level 3. Once there it was easy to run back to where I had died and kill the monsters.

While easy on the player, this dying system really isn't too good because the challenge really isn't there anymore, there is no punishment in dying, so theoretically you can take down a massive high level mob by killing off one guy at a time, then porting back and killing another.

Anyway, I got up to level 5 in Algernon doing quite well, but getting quite bored at the sameness of everything when I noticed someone advertising free gear in 'noob chat.' It was a sweet purple item ranged weapon, so I whispered to him that I would like it even though I was lvl 10 while the item was lvl 20. He was really kind and gave it to me anyway so I finished off the day on a high note. Hopefully tomorrow will be a bit more varied, as it basically was same old same old today.

Dungeon Runners adventures 3

Yesterday I didn't spend too long playing Dungeon Runners so was looking forward to getting into the nitty gritty of the game. I had finished the nooby zone quests and stuff so was ready to move on to the major town Townston. I clicked on this large elegant twirling, glowing rock that was hovering above the ground and it teleported me there. I spent a little while just running around finishing off 'talking' quests and getting new ones and once again I noticed that I seemed to be doing quite a lot of quests where all I would do was talk to a guy standing next to the questgiver and get $150 for my pains, which is slightly irritating as the quests that involve half an hour' worth of killing yields something like $300. But judging from some of the new quests that I have received which offer $1000 this won't last too long.

Most of my quests involve going off to a new place called Algernon which sits at the edge of the town. Quickly running through Townston I noticed a couple of other players, some of them were massive with huge glowing axes, I was surprised to see so many relatively low levels (Around 15) having some truly crazy looking armour.

I entered Algernon and started roaming around. The map was quite large so it took a long time to clear the first level. I grabbed some more quests from npcs scattered around the level and was slightly overwhelmed when I realized how many quests I had in a relatively short time. After only just arriving at Townston I had collected over 10 new quests. Most of these were more of the same but I didn't really mind.

I leveled a few more times and randomly sorted the 5 'stat points' that you are given each level to improve various stats. There are agility, strength, endurance, and intelligence. Strength and intelligence are almost useless to me so I pour them into the others.

While trawling the level I came across another portal that lead to another area but not part of Algernon. Once through i thought I had somehow got back to Dew Valley because the scenery was exactly the same, all that was different were the monsters and setting out. Feeling slightly betrayed I finished up with some quests that I had relative to that zone and ported back to Townston. I had hit level 8 now but nothing really has happened out of the ordinary or something that hasn't happened previously in the 8 levels before, but I remain optimistic.

Dungeon Runners adventures 2

After the first fun time messing around in the start zone of Dungeon Runners I got the second line of quests from the npcs there. I once more ran through the Dew Valley and reached the level 2 portal. In this area there were more monsters that I needed to kill rather then scattered around in Dew Valley level 1. I found myself enjoying myself as I played at a leisurely pace, looking at the gear that was dropping, comparing it to mine, and either keeping it or leaving it. I picked up a major health potion which increases your health by %50 over a few seconds, but only members are allowed to use it. People like me can only use the lower quality one which increases your health by %40, but its not a huge deal so I'm not complaining.

I made my way through Dew Valley lvl 2 and reached the lvl 3 portal. On the way through I had picked up some nice items that had dropped from various chests. The chests are scattered around all around the place, generally at the deep corners of the map, so it encourages you to explore everywhere. They are guarded by slightly stronger enemies then usual but the chests drop some pretty nice things so its worth trying hard. By then I was starting to get slightly tired with the scenery as it was all the same, I liked the various rays of light that shined down from above, I say above because the view camera doesn't let you look at the ceiling.
Another thing is that the chat screen is so large that it keeps getting in the way of combat, at the time no one was talking or linking stuff so nothing particularly annoying happened but I don't see why they don't allow you to adjust its size.

Anyway, I finished by quests about halfway through lvl 3 and ported back using a wayward scroll exactly like Diablo. I handed in the quests, talked to various npcs to get the next line and cleared out my inventory somewhat. I had used my only wayward scroll so I bought some more costing me $500 which was a pretty high price, but you never know when you will need them.

The quests directed me to two new areas, some place called Rattle Cave and a town called Townston. (Funnily enough) I dreaded the thought of trawling the Dew Valley lvls again in search of the cave that was supposedly in there somewhere but in the end it was easy to find and complete the quests. After handing the last quests in I realized I had finished the nooby starting zone and I gave myself a pat on the back, I was now level 5 although looking pretty much the same as the last couple of levels as I hadn't acquired any better gear.

Dungeon Runner adventures 1

I finished collecting up all my quests in the colorful starting zone so I entered a place called Dew Valley through a red portal. I had two quests; one to kill some wolves and collect a lucky paw from one of the stronger ones. I was having a bit of trouble trying to get used to the controls but it was soon sorted by a visit to the controls panel. There is no targeting system in DR so its easy for you to miss the monsters lurking in the foliage. This puts you constantly on your guard as often if you get one baddy on you 3 more come rushing out of the distance. This adds a new sense of uncertainty and tension, whether deliberate or not.

I ran around aimlessly for a while killing anything that came in my way, when I found a group of Dew Valley wolves for my quest. After killing them I waited for a little while for the respawn before I realized that there was no respawn at all; instead you were forced to clear the whole level of all monsters in the search of your particular one. However this game me enough to time to adjust to the aspects of the game and fighting became easier. Very quickly I picked up some really nice looking gear and I exchanged my crossbow for a mace and shield as the mace did better damage as well as being 1-handed.

After a little while I had completed the first 2 quests I ran back through the portal into the starting area. After handing in I was surprised to find that neither of the quests gave me any experience rather just gold pieces. I got a lot of new quests after handing in the first and I discovered that many of these involved talking to other people in the enclosure who would then give me a final quest. It was rather confusing and I think I completed about 5 in a minute without doing any killing whatsoever.

Surprisingly though, by the time I had received my second round of quests I realized that not only had I reached level 4 almost without noticing but that I looked really sweet, after picking up some nice blue coloured armor, a helmet, and some shoulder pads.

Dungeon Runners first impressions

So I finished the initial download of 400mb and then download the patches which totaled 200mb. While waiting I went on youtube to view some of the gameplay videos. They were quite interesting but what I was truly surprised by was the comments. Countless remarks were made about the quality of the game, and normally I ignore this trash but it was interesting just how many people hated it. Feeling slightly apprehensive I waited for the patches to finish downloading. Once they were done I started up the game.

I was first met with the normal log-in screen in the form of a skeleton sitting on a large throne, I'm not sure quite who he is and what relevance he has to the game but just guessing I would think that he is some sort of boss, perhaps the end boss. I was quite amused by this because of the contrast to this comical, slightly ridiculous skeleton compared to WoW's Illidan.

After I had logged in I had to choose from a couple of servers none of which were in Australia so I just picked the most populated one which was hosting around 100 players. At this number I was suprised at the lack of players but most likely this was the downtime for most living in the US.

Next I had to choose what class my toon would be from a vast 3 options; ranger, fighter, and mage. I looked over them quickly and decided to go with the ranger as he had a big weapon that looked crazy, a quick messing around with his appearance and I entered the game.

The first thing I noticed was the large banner ad at the top of the screen advertising Play NC's other games such as Lineage 2 and Guild Wars, at first I was wondering why that was there and if it only appeared just as you logged in but I soon realized that it was there to stay. A player has to buy a membership to get rid of it as well as to access many other items in the game, which I figured was fair enough as it is a free mmorpg, but it still is piss annoying.

Turning my attention from the ads to the actual game I noticed that I was standing in a large opening dotted by various npcs. The surroundings were colourful, if slightly crude. I ran to the nearest ? npc which seemed almost exactly like the quest giving ? in WoW. I ran around for a bit just talking to various npcs and getting my first couple of 'kill x nasties.' It then hit me; this is Diablo. The inventory is the same, there are the same instance-like killing areas, and the toolbar and potions are the same. Hmm, will reserve judgment for later.

Dungeon Runners

I was checking my emails today and I had received a notification from Play NC about a new feature they had added to the game Dungeon Runners. Something called a Bling Gnome something or other, from what I gathered it is a feature that allows you to vendor your stuff wherever you are, but I'm not certain, mainly because I don't actually play the game. I don't know quite why I had an account with Play NC if I didn't have any of the games but that will soon be fixed.
Judging from the front page of their website the game kinda' looks like it was designed and made by teenagers with their 'FTW's and 'Noobasaur' but that could just be the nature of the game.
From what I have gathered so far it looks like a pretty decent game with some humerous aspects which I feel help mmos tremendously.
The site also has a pretty good video that coincides with the new feature of bling gnome. Curious I decided to download it and give it a go. Will report back later.