Game Review: Dungeon Runners

Title:  Dungeon Runners
Publisher: NCSoft
Genre: MMORPG
Price:   $0.00 USD *
Rating:  B

Sometime last week I caught a link to a review of NCSoft's new MMO, Tabula Rasa, on Ars Technica. Inside that review was a link to another review, for Dungeon Runners. If not for this fortunate clicking, I may never have even heard of this game.  I know that my readership is slightly smaller than Ars, but I figure it can't hurt to put out my own opinion.

Acquiring the game was as simple as downloading and running the installer from the website. The installer downloads the modules needed for Dungeon Runner and the PlayNC launcher. The entire process took about 10 minutes on my ridiculously fast Internet connection -- your mileage may vary.

The most luring feature of this game is it's price: zero; goose-egg; nada. It costs no money to start nor continue playing for as long as you like, but of course there's always a catch. You do need a PlayNC account, so you can either create one or enable Dungeon Runners using your old City of Heroes login. I chose the latter, and was soon building my very own Dungeon Runner.

The character creation is lacking quite a bit.  The male models all look the same, except for their facial expression.  The hair colors and styles add only a slight bit more variety.  You can chose to start as one of three classes: Ranger, Fighter, Mage. This selection is only significant in that it determines your starting attributes and skills. Once in the game, you can purchase skills from any of the class trainers to become a "hybrid" character.

After creating your character you will be taken to the server selection screen. Dungeon Runners is different from many MMOs in that you can play your character on any server. On a Friday night, which is usually a "peak" time, each of their 6 PvE servers had between 100 and 150 players logged in, and the single PvP server had less than 50.  I have not played on the PvP server, as it's never really been my cup o' tea.

Upon selecting a server, you appear in Dew Valley, the newbie zone, with all of your fellow "n00bs". After walking around for just a few seconds you find NPCs with big yellow exclamation points ! over their heads, exactly like World of Warcraft. The quest system is intuitive if you've played any MMO since EverQuest, and by your interactions you will soon observe that this game is more about humor and fun than seriousness.

After obtaining a few quests, it's time for your first jaunt into a "dungeon", your very own instance of Dew Valley Forest.  With your cardboard sword and paper armor you set out to fight - you guessed it - wolves and rats. From this point, you will notice striking similarities between Dungeon Runners and Diablo - the "click-oriented" combat system, the square grid inventory, and your increasing dependence on health and mana potions. Dungeon Runners also expands upon Diablo's multi-level item rarity system, with "rainbow colored" items being the pinnacle of loot achievement.

By this point you've probably noticed, either on the website or in rainbow-colored text on the game UI, something about "membership". This is the "catch" that I mentioned earlier in this review. To become a "member" costs $4.99US per month. Membership benefits include: login queue priority, access to a bank vault, ability to use stackable potions, and "access to the highest quality in-game items".

While it is optional, soon you begin to realize how limiting it is to not be a member.  The login queue priority is insignificant, since even at peak times you can easily find a server on which to play. The bank access and potions may be much more significant at higher levels, but not right away. However, what the website means by "highest quality" items, it really means that if you do not join, you can't use anything beyond the equivalent of common loot.  By level 4 I was already acquiring items that were "membership only", and it must only get worse from there.

Overall this game is fun, and I find humorous the amount of parody this game plays against other MMOs. The environment feels like a graphical MUD, in which you can have "World Chat" enabled and not be completely spammed. I would enjoy getting together with friends once or twice a month for some "Dungeon Running", but I don't think it's worth five bucks a month to me.