Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

by Cody "Micajah" Bye

In the MMOG industry, free-to-play games are deemed by many to be “second rate” titles. Whether these games are imported or made locally, the term “free-to-play” seems to run almost in conjunction with terms like “needs localization”, “already past its prime”, and “not a top-tier game.” While this attitude has started to dissipate with the release of a few well-received imported titles, it still remains a stigma for many MMOG press, developers, and players.

That attitude took a huge blow, however, when NCsoft – a top-tier development company – announced that one of its upcoming titles, Dungeon Runners, was going to be free-to-play. While many poo-pooed the idea, NCsoft CEO Robert Garriott kept the game going and when Dungeon Runners released, it was the surprise hit of 2007.

Dungeon Runners certainly has its own unique personality

Far from your typical free-to-play game, Dungeon Runners is a fast-action, dungeon-crawling MMO. Unleashed by NCsoft in May 2007, Dungeon Runners has put up some fairly remarkable numbers. Sporting hundreds of thousands of downloads and the retention rate of the City of Heroes franchise, Dungeon Runners certainly can’t be looked at as anything but a phenomenally successful small project for the ever-growing studio.

So what makes Dungeon Runners so special? “With Dungeon Runners, we really wanted to remove the downtime,” said Mark Tucker, lead designer for Dungeon Runners. “The game is really designed around 15 minute experiences, so you can get in the game, play it, and get out. We wanted to get away from the ‘wait around for a group’ mentality. The game also has its own 'unique' personality.”

But perhaps the most intriguing part of Dungeon Runners is their ability to still create huge free expansions, called Chunks, for their player base. Our visit to the NCsoft Studios provided the perfect opportunity for the DR developers to promote Chunk #2, an incredibly immense update that will change the way many of the current Dungeon Runners play the game, hopefully for the better. Chunk #1 already provided many players with the changes and fixes they needed to really enjoy the fantastic worlds of DR.

“If you played the game in May and step into the world now,” Mark continued, “you’d really be playing a much more refined experience. We’ve added voice chat, dynamic difficulty, PvP, solid WASD movement, and lots of other things. This is definitely not a static game.”

This statement by Mark is completely true; after I returned from my NCsoft trip, I downloaded all the new patches for the game and stepped into the world for the first time in months. I found the game to be just as compelling, yet with a sort of refined quality that I hadn’t felt in the first few days of the game. DR had come a long way.

The biggest change with Chunk #2 will be the around-the-game ad.

Thankfully, the improvements to DR will continue into the unforeseeable future. Chunk #2, the second content update to the game, includes a fantastic list of features. However, the list isn’t simply compiled from a numbers database or where the developers would like to see the game go; it comes from the player community itself.

“Many of the features that are being added were requested by the players,” Mark said. “We really make an effort to approach the players – as a dev team – and see what they would like in the game. We read the message boards on a daily basis. We try to find out what’s bothering them, how things could be made better, that sort of thing.”

With that, Mark went over a number of the features that are going to be included in Chunk #2. Probably the biggest change to Dungeon Runners that is going into Chunk #2 will be the “Around-the-Game Ads” that are being introduced. Rather than simply have ads on the load screens (which they will also have) Dungeon Runners is going to have around-the-game ads, meaning that an ad will be permanently present at the top of your gaming screen. Very similar to the banner ad you find at the top of most web pages, the around-the-game ad will open a browser window underneath your game, so you won’t be forced out of the game if you accidentally click the banner ad.

Of course, members will have the option to turn the banner off, but the developers at DR haven’t ignored the free play populace when making this decision. Although non-members will still have to deal with not being able to use every item in the game, they now will have a chance to use the Rare (yellow), Unique (purple), and Special (rainbow) items in the game. “We understand that ads have a negative connotation,” Mark said. “So we’re definitely trying to ease the pain as much as we can for our free players.”

According to Mark, when a weapon of this sort drops for the player, they’ll have a percentage chance to actually be able to use that piece of equipment. The percentage simply goes down the rarer that

Non-paying players will now have a bank page where they can store items.

item is. All players will now be able to use King’s Coins and every item dropped from a vendor. Minor potions will also become stackable with the new in-game ads, which is a huge boon for all the free players who have inventories full of minor potions.

Non-members will also receive a single bank page with the coming of in-game ads, which again is an upgrade from what they had previously. Members will continue to have three pages of bank space, but the single bank page for non-members is a major step forward for those gamers who were looking to have an in-depth experience with Dungeon Runners.

The final piece on the list was item bartering, which he made sure to point out was simply item-based; there would be no gold changing hands. “It’s your standard trading type scenario,” Mark said. “But we wanted to avoid some of the issues that come up with the trading of gold. This way we can avoid that completely.”

While no date for Chunk #2 has been set, the developers are hoping to get the update released before the end of the year. “Every time I promise a date, something terrible happens and things get pushed back two months, but we’re going to Q&A next week so it had better be ready,” Mark said.

By the end of the presentation, I was sold. While I originally gave Dungeon Runners a 3.5 / 5 Hammers, I’d probably have to seriously reconsider that score these days. Most of my complaints seem to have been addressed, and it may be worth my time to dive back into the free-to-play NCsoft game and give it a second round of dungeon running.

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