I also don't agree with the free player experience nerfing, but it's interesting they're coming up with a way for free players to overcome that.

One of the things I didn't like about DR was the lack of an experience reward for completing quests. This certainly is an interesting way to address that issue. If it wasn't for that, I probably would've stopped playing once the new patch came out. I never like grinding just for the sake of grinding. I always prefer to do quests, so I'm glad to see they're adding experience rewards to quests and making quests more important.

I haven't played Mythos yet but once it comes out, I'm not sure if I'm still going to play DR or not. I'll certainly give it a good try so I can compare.

The problem with this game, it has a lousy user interface, it gets very boring quickly and the non paying players CANNOT use rainbow items at all, you get a small chance to use purple items.l

HIghly NOT recommended for anyone.  Even most of the free to play games are far far better.

Originally posted by rhinok

 

Originally posted by Unicorns_Pwn

For this game to have been rated a 10 for fun I fully expect Mythos to be the first game to ever score an 11 in this sites history.

 

Yes that was a lame reference to spinal tap and yes I was serious.

 

Mythos has no ingame ads for it to be free

You don't have to be a member to use all of the items ingame.

You dont have to be a member to stack potions. ( a completely stupid design idea)

 

Mythos is in closed beta.  Of course it's free.  The revenue model has been announced, however.  Mythos will be f2p, but will have a version of an item mall.  You'll have to wait and see how onerous and/or successful that particular model will be before you can truly compare Mytho's revenue model to DR's.

 

Btw - it's obviously been a while since you've played DR.  Since November, 2007:

• Non-members can use every item in the game (meaning that there are member and non-member versions of every item), including Mythic items
• Non-members can use the bank
• Non-members can stack pots

In regards to the ads:

• In-game ads only appear:
  • Outside the game window as a banner at the top of the screen, like on a web page - most players forget about it after a few minutes
  • On login, logout screens
  • Zoning screens

Per the recent patch announcement, the ads will become significantly less onerous (and they're not bothersome at all, now, IMO):

Ad Changes

We've removed the login and logout movie ads from the game.

We've changed the rotation time on the banner ad to 2 minutes.

We've significantly reduced the frequency of zone change and death ads. Death ads now cap out at 40% after 5 hours of play (down from 100%). Zone change ads now cap out at 20% after 5 hours of play.

It is true, however, that non-member benefits are going to change in the next heave:

Membership Perks

We've made several changes to membership status to make it more valuable and attractive to you free players.

• Members now gain experience 15% faster than free players. This is implemented as a nerf of free player experience. In actuality, free players receive 13.6% less XP than members
• Members now find 15% more gold than free players.
• Free players pay 50% more King's Coin when buying items.
• Chance for a dropped mythic item to be usable by a free player has been reduced to 5% (down from 25%)
• Chance for a dropped rare item to be usable by a free player has been increased to 100% (up from 75%)

IMO, the chance to use a Mythic that dropped was too high to begin with (Rares at 75%, Uniques at 25% and Mythics at 25% - Mythics should have been lower).   Also, since KC items (even Mythic items) are always usable by the player that receives them, many non-members get around the drop rate by simply farming King's Coins and redeeming them for usable Mythics.  Doubling the price of the items will help to mitigate this practice.  Truly, the only change I don't really agree with is the nerf to non-member experience, although 15% isn't horrible. 

All-in-all, non-members will soon see significantly fewer ads, will have a couple of nerfs to encourage non-membership to paid membership conversions, but can still totally play  the entire game--from level 1 to 100 and with access to every item in the game--for free.

Lastly, this was announced on the official boards today:

Stephen Big Boss Man Reged: 04/13/06 Posts: 839 Loc: Austin, TX

XP for quests in next build!       #53898 - 04/09/08 03:26 PM Edit   Reply   Quote   Quick Reply

We've found a clever way to add XP to quests in the next build. Here's how it works: When you complete a quest you get a modifier called "15% More Cowbell" that lasts for 5 minutes. This modifier can stack up to 6 times (for a total of 30 minutes). This modifier increases your XP gain by 15%. When you die, this modifier is lost. Finally, the duration of this modifier doesn't elapse when you're in town. This means you'll be able to get extra XP from when questing... it also means that free players will be able to overcome their XP nerf by questing. Enjoy! steve

So, simply by questing, non-members will be able to earn experience at the same rate they did before, but paid members will have the benefit of being able to earn experience faster than they did before. This encourages doing the quests rather than simply grinding an instance over and over AND it provides a new and nice, inherent member benefit.

~Ripper

 

Regardless, I don't prefer all the advertisements. It is nice to see that they are making the game more accessible to free players though who don't mind dealing with their management decisions.

Originally posted by rhinok

 

 

Originally posted by Hexxeity

 

Originally posted by rhinok

... a review of a game shouldn't compare it to another game.  An objective review should be based solely on the merits or detriments of the game by itself. 

Not really true.  A game review should compare the game to all other games in the same category, in an aggregate sense.

If the game is inferior (in some category) to most other games of the same type, the review should reflect that.

Personally, I disagree.  I believe when one reviews a single product, comparisons to other products (except in summaries) render the review subjective rather than objective.

If the purpose of the review was to compare one product vs. another I would agree, but only partially.  In such a scenario, one should use a balances scorecard, however, each product should still be still be scored solely on the basis of it's own merits or detriments. The final scores would then be compared to each other in order to determine which product is "better".  This is a common approach in the business world. It's also commonly used by Consumer Reports.  MMORPG.com does this to a certain extent by compiling averaged hype or player review scores and letting users compare scores from one game to another.

~Ripper

   Yeah but consumer reports have standards by which they judge, the standard in games is not a static thing that you can measure against every time. Each new game with better graphics sets a new standard in the industry and the genre of gaming it appears in. Same goes for all other categories.   That is why comparing DR to other games is not only appropriate but necessary.  I suppose the only category that would be statics is FUN, since the standard for it is set by each individual person.  However when someone finds sub par games fun it lowers their credibility very much, so seeing a 10 given for this game makes me considering if the person is fit to review games at all.  Maybe he should

Originally posted by Ozmodan

The problem with this game, it has a lousy user interface, it gets very boring quickly and the non paying players CANNOT use rainbow items at all, you get a small chance to use purple items.l

HIghly NOT recommended for anyone.  Even most of the free to play games are far far better.

I don't care whether or not you like the game, since everybody is entitled to their own opinions about it, but you seem to have a vendetta against it and continue to flame it in every one of your posts.

Unicorn_pwns - the membership page states that minor potions (non-member potions) stack to five, but it is worded poorly, IMO - thanks for pointing it out.

Stacking potions

• Dungeon Runners currently features two types of potions – one to restore health and one to restore mana (magical power). Both items are indispensable for the serious Dungeon Runner – or anyone that just likes "not dying". Non-members will find that a major potion takes up a valuable slot in their inventory, reducing the amount of space for loot. Minor potions will stack to five per inventory slot. Members, however, will be able to stack up to ten major potions per inventory slot.

Instead of passively stating that major pots will just take up space, it should explicitly state that non-members can only use Minor potions, which only recover 40% health or mana and only stack to, but that members can use Major potions, which recover 50% health or mana and stack to 10.

~Ripper

In the interest of clarification, I want to point out that non-members can't necessarily use every item in the game, but they can use almost every item type, except for major potions.

Allow me to clarify further. As I said, non-members can use every item type in the game. There are rainbow items and other rare items that non-members can use. But those are item types, not the items themselves. There are items of every type that drop occasionally that have been marked as only being usable for members.

Therefore, every item type that's in the game can be used by anyone. But there are some specific items that are dropped as member only. If you're a non-member, you just have to keep digging until you find a comparable item that isn't marked as member-only, or as has already been stated, trade in your King's Coins.

I think this differentiation needs to be made as there's a bit of semantic misunderstanding going on here, confusing "items" and "item types" when really they're two different things.