While in Austin, the MMORPG.com team had the opportunity to sit down with Senior Marketing Manager Greg Bauman and Stephen Nichols, the Producer and Lead Programmer for NCsoft’s Dungeon Runners. Later, in a follow-up interview, we were also joined by Mark Tucker, the game’s Lead Designer. During the interviews, we talked about the direction that the quirky title will be taking in the near future and its place in the NCsoft portfolio of games.

 

The first thing that readers and potential players of the game should be aware of is that the game doesn’t take itself too seriously. Throughout the game, players are treated to amusing dialogue and features that almost poke fun at MMOs. One example that we were given is a skill in the game called “Awesome Cleaveage”. Now, I don’t know about you, but when I see those words together, I’m really not thinking about the fact that it’s an attack skill, but rather something else comes to mind… Or is that just me?

The dev team for Dungeon Runners is currently standing at about ten, a small dev team for a project. Talking to them, you get the sense that NCsoft wasn’t quite sure at first what they could expect from this title. When they first “inherited the title”, it was supposed to be quite a serious game, but once the team really got hold of it, it became the tongue-in-cheek game that we have come to know.

“It’s a love / hate relationship,” Nichols said, “It's either you really enjoy the humor and you think it's a fun game and you're diging it, or you say ‘What's with this silly game’ and you can't stand it, though I think most people fall on the side of enjoying the game."

 

Read it all here.

I love this game. Well worth the $5 dollars a month. You can get so much done in so little time. You'll be spending more time swapping out all the new loot you get to see what you want to wear.

Things I wish they had... shared bank space, a way of secure trading.

Do this game on insane and it is more exciting and a challenge. The one-liners don't get old with me. I still laugh at, "There is a rich woman in town, her name is Penny". haha

And good article...

I tried DR out and found it far too over-the-top silly, a Gilligan's Island, pie-in-the-face kind of MMO. Definitely not my type of deal.

I'm glad some folks are enjoying it, however.

Originally posted by tmr819

I tried DR out and found it far too over-the-top silly, a Gilligan's Island, pie-in-the-face kind of MMO. Definitely not my type of deal.

I'm glad some folks are enjoying it, however.

But some folk do like Gilligan's Island :)

Just a note to anyone who may have tried Dungeon Runners in the early beta and found it lacking..

It really has come a long way. I wasn't impressed when I first tried it due to the massive amount of bugs and glitches back in June/July.

In the past six months they've done an excellent job cleaning up the controls and graphics so everything runs much smoother than in it did in post-beta release.

The system requirements are also pretty low for a game that looks this good (the texture artists are really to be commended here).

I've been a subscribing member for a couple of months now and its just the perfect game to pick up and play when you're looking for some hack & slash fun. Very rewarding game IMO.

I played this game in beta fora  very short time and became a member for a few months.  However, when it forced me to group to do certain things, I cancelled. 

An MMO means many people play it online, it should never mean forced grouping.  I can socialize just fine with people without having to group with them.

DR is a good game, just wish it was all soloable.

One of the greatest  games to ever hit the mmorpg market.. no freaking fuzz and hype and crap that just disapoints you.

You get in, you play for an hour or five, getting a tiny bit closer to 99 and having fun on the way.

I will keep being a member til the game or me dies.. 5$ is what I spend on... well... ehh.. toilet paper in a month? Or is that expensive toilet paper?

Originally posted by sonicsix

I played this game in beta fora  very short time and became a member for a few months.  However, when it forced me to group to do certain things, I cancelled. 

An MMO means many people play it online, it should never mean forced grouping.  I can socialize just fine with people without having to group with them.

DR is a good game, just wish it was all soloable.

I've been playing the game since 12/06 and haven't found anything I couldn't solo, but there have been tweaks to difficulty, mob encounters, etc... during that time, so it possible you got caught in one of the less friendly patches?  What did you find that you couldn't solo?  There's only one dungeon in the entire game that's designed for grouping (Horrific Dungeon of Legend), but even that can be soloed.

The reason I'm curious as to  your statement is that a more common complaint from players is there's no incentive to group or that it's tough to find a groups.  Historically, one could level faster by soloing, but that changed in the last build.  Now, groups level about as fast as soloers, but get more loot drops to provide incentive.  It is still difficult to find groups, however, for anything but boss farming because most players still have the "I can level faster solo" mentality.

In regards to Dungeon Runners, in general, I love it!  It's exactly what I was looking for; a simple fun niche game that I can drop into or log out of at a moment's notice.

Originally posted by sonicsix

I played this game in beta fora  very short time and became a member for a few months.  However, when it forced me to group to do certain things, I cancelled. 

An MMO means many people play it online, it should never mean forced grouping.  I can socialize just fine with people without having to group with them.

DR is a good game, just wish it was all soloable.

Dude....... THE GAMES LEVELS AND DIFFICULTY SCALE TO YOU!

The game is 100% solo able.....

Why don’t people get this?

Originally posted by sonicsix

I played this game in beta fora  very short time and became a member for a few months.  However, when it forced me to group to do certain things, I cancelled. 

An MMO means many people play it online, it should never mean forced grouping.  I can socialize just fine with people without having to group with them.

DR is a good game, just wish it was all soloable.

Forced grouping is when you cannot experience most of the content or even advance your character without finding a group.  I am pretty sure DR doesn't even come close to that kind of game model.

The only time anyone would ever NEED a group is if they bumped up the difficulty to INASNAE, yes, the game has a difficulty you can increase.

"For anyone out there who may not be aware, Dungeon Runners is NCsoft’s first foray into the world of free to play MMORPGs."..

What is Guild Wars then? Is it not considered an MMO? Last I checked it was free to play. Yes you have to buy the game but it's free to play...