''Dungeon Runners'' was a
medieval fantasy
Historical fantasy is a category of fantasy and genre of historical fiction that incorporates fantastic elements (such as magic (fantasy), magic) into a more "realistic" narrative. There is much crossover with other subgenres of fantasy; those ...
, often
satirical
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...
MMORPG
A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game.
As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...
developed and published by
NCSOFT. It featured gameplay similar to the ''
Diablo'' series of games.
Development
Development on the title first began in 2001 as ''
Trade Wars
''Trade Wars'' is a series of video games dating back to 1984. The video games are inspired by '' Hunt the Wumpus'', the board game ''Risk'', and the original space trader game ''Star Trader''.
History
The first game with the title, "Trade Wars" ...
: Dark Millennium''. The game was based on the early computer game series of the same name and originally featured a science-fiction setting. It later became ''Exarch'' in 2002 and was scrapped for some time until it resurfaced in 2005 with its third and current development team as ''Dungeon Runners''.
''Dungeon Runners'' entered the
closed Beta phase in May 2006, and a game trailer was exhibited at the 2006
E3 convention. Open Beta began in December 2006, and Beta accounts could be acquired via an invitation from an existing player or through the
NCsoft website. On May 24, 2007, the game officially went live.
Much of the original art was conceived by comic-book artist
Joe "Mad" Madureira.
On August 13, 2008, the parent company, NCSoft in Korea, decided to cut 21 members of its staff in Austin, TX due to the company's overall decreasing profits. Out of the 18 member team which developed ''Dungeon Runners'', only three of the original developers remained.
Features
Free gameplay was unlimited (no playfield or activity is closed to free players), but an optional
USD
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
$4.99 monthly membership fee granted access to additional features that greatly enhance gameplay.
[''Dungeon Runners'' – Membership](_blank)
Additionally, users could purchase the game for $19.99. The boxed game came with 6 months of membership as well as a "Bling Gnome". Although described as an
MMORPG
A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game.
As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...
, the game world was almost entirely uniquely instanced for each party of players.
''Dungeon Runners'' implemented a classless system (see ''
Classes'', below) and offered regular updates through patches. One of the most acclaimed patches was the update coined "The Heave" that introduced the first player summon "Chill Bill", and a new high level dungeon. This update patch was very well received by the gaming community and was considered by many to be one of the game's best updates.
Classes
The Beta version of the game featured three playable classes: mage, warrior, and ranger. Each class had different abilities and a different
NPC trainer in each neutral playfield. As with similar games, each class had a specific role to play within a party grouping. The warrior was the melee specialist, a "
meat shield" to gain and hold
aggro. The ranger was a ranged combat specialist, with spell-like skills that allowed different types of damage and
damage over time
This list includes terms used in video games and the video game industry, as well as slang used by players.
0–9
A
...
(DoT) attacks. The mage was a ranged
area of effect (AoE) combatant, dealing heavy damage to many opponents at once but unable to survive long in close combat.
With the public release of the game, a classless system had been implemented. Like before, the player chose a class (
fighter,
mage
Mage most commonly refers to:
* Mage (paranormal) or magician, a practitioner of magic derived from supernatural or occult sources
* Mage (fantasy) or magician, a type of character in mythology, folklore, and fiction
*Mage, a character class in s ...
,
ranger
A Ranger is typically someone in a military/paramilitary or law enforcement role specializing in patrolling a given territory, called “ranging”. The term most often refers to:
* Park ranger or forest ranger, a person charged with protecting and ...
) when generating the character, determining which package of beginning skills, which weapon and what type of clothing or armor the character began the game with.
After the first dungeon (Dew Valley Forest), the character arrived in the main town where there were three skill trainers, one each devoted to fighter skills, ranger skills, and mage skills. Any character could learn any skills desired from any of the three trainers. In place of a class, each character had a four word descriptive title that changed depending on how the character's attributes were improved (relative to one another) and which skills the player chose. When the player bought new skills from a trainer, each skill had an icon that was placed in the Skill Bar, an interface element at the bottom center of the screen. The Skill Bar had eight slots mapped to number row keys plus two additional slots mapped to each of the
mouse
A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...
buttons. The character could learn all the skills available in the game if the player wished; however, only ten could be accessed at any given time, being limited by the number of slots in the Bar.
If the player wished a radical change in the character's abilities, a "Re-Spec" button was available on the Character Sheet. This allowed the player to completely redistribute the character's attribute points at any time by spending some of the character's gold. The charge for a Re-Spec was based on the character's level and was inexpensive up to level 20, after which the price increased much more quickly per level. The final level cap was 100.
Graphics and Gameplay
The gameplay and graphics styling of ''Dungeon Runners'' had been compared to ''
Diablo'' and ''
Diablo II
''Diablo II'' is an action role-playing hack-and-slash video game developed by Blizzard North and published by Blizzard Entertainment in 2000 for Microsoft Windows, Classic Mac OS, and macOS. The game, with its dark fantasy and horror the ...
'', especially noting the instanced dungeons (whose level layouts and content were randomly regenerated each time a player logged into the game), the "
action RPG
An action role-playing game (often abbreviated action RPG or ARPG) is a subgenre of video games that combines core elements from both the action game and role-playing genre.
Definition
The games emphasize real-time combat where the player h ...
" gameplay style, the naming conventions for in-game items, the variable class structure based on three archetypes (five in ''Diablo II''), and the absence of a "healer" class, among other similarities. One notable difference is that ''Dungeon Runners'' was rendered using polygonal models, rather than the
sprite-based
isometric graphics of the ''Diablo'' series.
GameSpot
''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...
and
Eurogamer
''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 and owned by alongside formed company Gamer Network. Its editor-in-chief is Martin Robinson.
Since 2008, it is known for the formerly eponymous games trade fair EGX ...
,
''Dungeon Runners'' Review // PC /// Eurogamer
/ref> stated that the graphical quality, third-person point of view and screen layout more closely resembled that of ''World of Warcraft
''World of Warcraft'' (''WoW'') is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. Set in the ''Warcraft'' fantasy universe, ''World of Warcraft'' takes place within the world of Azeroth ...
'', another MMORPG.
As of the latest 147 patch, a substantial graphics update was also added.
PvP
NCsoft had introduced a PvP world where players could travel to the town of Pwnston and engage in single duels or group duels with other players. Each character started off with a PvP ranking of 1500 and this number changed according to duel outcomes.
Players could engage in single or group pvp combat and each side could have up to 5 players. The difficulty of the match was also scaled according to the ratio of the group sizes. For instance, a single player facing off against a team of two players would be at 100% power while the other team's two players would be toned down in damage and armor. Depending on your performance you might receive King's coins which could be spent on items.
Sound
''Dungeon Runners'' in-game music was composed by Tracy W. Bush as straight forward game music in the vein of ''Diablo II
''Diablo II'' is an action role-playing hack-and-slash video game developed by Blizzard North and published by Blizzard Entertainment in 2000 for Microsoft Windows, Classic Mac OS, and macOS. The game, with its dark fantasy and horror the ...
'', whereas the boss monsters had their own theme songs, varying in such styles as black metal
Black metal is an extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include Tempo#Beats per minute, fast tempos, a Screaming (music)#Black metal, shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted Electric guitar, guitars played with t ...
, synthpop
Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s a ...
, klezmer
Klezmer ( yi, קלעזמער or ) is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for l ...
and funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...
.
End-of-Life Announcement and Shutdown (January 2010)
NCsoft said it would be refocusing its efforts on big-budget, top-tier MMOGs. The announcement was accompanied by news that NCsoft had laid off a number of developers working on its casual MMOG ''Dungeon Runners'', as well as cancelled plans to bring the game to other platforms. ''Dungeon Runners'' had dropped, as producer and lead programmer Stephen Nichols confirmed that the game will be taken offline on December 31. ''Dungeon Runners'', which operated under both a free-to-play, microtransaction
Microtransactions, often abbreviated as mtx, are a business model where users can purchase virtual goods with micropayments. Microtransactions are often used in free-to-play games to provide a revenue source for the developers. While microtransact ...
-supported and subscription-based business model, launched to good reviews for the PC in July 2008.
"''Dungeon Runners'' just isn't cutting the mustard", Nichols said on an announcement on the ''Dungeon Runners'' forum. "If she were a ship, she'd be taking on water. Yeah, she's been taking on water for a long time now. Are my cryptic references too hard to decipher? The game just isn't profitable. And, the first rule of business is to be profitable!"
Nichols went on to note that, while the team had a number of ideas to generate revenue
In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of goods and services related to the primary operations of the business.
Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some companies receive reven ...
, they would be expensive and risky to implement. He also noted that said plans would be greatly hampered given that two of the five developers on the game had recently departed from the team.
Nichols noted that those with paid memberships to ''Dungeon Runners'' would receive digital copies of ''City of Heroes
''City of Heroes'' (''CoH'') was a massively multiplayer online role-playing game which was developed by Cryptic Studios and published by NCSOFT. The game was launched in North America on April 28, 2004, and in Europe by NCsoft Europe on Febru ...
Architect Edition and '' Guild Wars: Prophecies''. The producer also stated that anyone who needed refunds for multiple-month membership purchases would be "taken care of".
The online service for ''Dungeon Runners'' ended on January 1, 2010. The website was shut down shortly thereafter on January 3, 2010. Many players had commented on the official forums that they thought the biggest mistake was the re-organization of the servers that occurred when the game went to a retail box version. Several of the servers were merged or made available to retail box purchasers only, and good game communities were broken up as a result.
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
''Dungeon Runners'' official website
Gaming Steve E3 interview with Mark Tucker
MMORPG.com interview with Stephen Nichols, 05-Feb-2007
External links
{{NCsoft
2007 video games
Instanced massively multiplayer online role-playing games
Fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing games
NCSoft games
Video games developed in South Korea
Windows games
Windows-only games
Inactive massively multiplayer online games
Products and services discontinued in 2010