PVP:Yes | Distribution:Download,Retail | Retail Price:$19.99 | Pay Type:Free | Monthly Fee:Free
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Dungeon Runners Review: Dungeon Runners Review - Edit
7.9
| Graphics | 7 | |
| Role-Playing | 6 | |
| Fun | 10 | |
| Performance | 8 | |
| Sound | 7 | |
| Value | 9 | |
| Community | 8 | |
| Service | 8 |
Dungeon Runners - Review
“Something stirs in the darkness. A hot earthy smell wafts up from the dank depths. Nails scratch against limestone, dripping water echoes off cavern walls, ancient chains rattle in stagnant air…. What lies in the eerie depths below?” This quote is what greets you as you log onto the Dungeon Runners website.
Dungeon Runners is a free to download and free to play game brought to you from the folks at NCSoft. This game follows a pretty standard template for fantasy games. There aren’t a lot of choices for characters. Players are limited to Fighter, Mage and Ranger. As a bonus, no healing class, allowing players to focus on cutting a path of carnage through the denizens of Dungeon Runners. There are a number of solo play options available, or group up with fellow adventures for some of the harder dungeons. Dungeon Runners “match making” system is a great way for players to find a group. With the lack of healing class there is no need to try and put together a well balanced group. The more folks you have grouped they quicker nasties die, and let’s face it, that’s what gaming all about.
Graphics: 7
I can’t say that the graphics in Dungeon Runners are very impressive, what do you really expect from a free game? Although I have to say that the graphics are simple, clean, and well thought out. Character customization is very limited, although once you begin to obtain items and armor your character really comes into their own. Items really give your character a unique look. The graphics have a kind of nostalgic feel to them. They remind me of some of the older fantasy console graphics. I also really enjoyed the screen shots during loading phases; some of the sketches are truly impressive.
Sound: 7
As with the graphics, the sound within the game isn’t overwhelming. It does however work well for the game. The sound effects in the game are well done, lots of fun noises popping out from the mobs.
Community: 8
www.dungeonrunners.com is great straight forward website. There are no navigation issues, everything can be found along the menu bar to the left. They really have done a great job there, with outstanding quick start guides, and explanations of skills and abilities.
The players I’ve come across in Dungeon Runners have all been friendly and easy going. It’s a smaller knit group of folks, but if you hit site’s forums for a bit I think you’d be pleased with what you come across.
One of my favorite aspects of this game is the more recent ability to view your character outside of game. Using code found on the website players can view any character they choose.
Role-Playing: 6
;)
As with any game, I suppose you could role-play in Dungeon Runners, but why bother? Since all of the classes are damage dealers, the only question you need to ask yourself is, “Do you want to damage close, far, or with pretty lights?” The game can play fairly quickly so building that role-playing persona may not be worth it, but to let me stand in the way of all you aspiring thespians.
Fun: 10
The folks here know how to have a good time. Dungeon Runners is filled with tons of humorous anecdotes (got out my thesaurus for that word). You can log in for a quick 15 minute run and still feel like you have accomplished something. For you more serious gamers, there are a number of lengthier dungeons for you to take on. Many of the items found throughout the game are reflections and commentary on a variety of pop and gaming icons. Do yourself a favor and read everything you come across in Dungeon Runners, there is humor everywhere in this game. The loading screens have some “useful” information. Sure it’s insane information, but useful nonetheless, just in case you find yourself in that type of situation. I know many gamers like to skip some of the paragraphs of text that come along with accepting quests, but these really are worth reading. I found myself laughing out loud on more than one occasion.
Performance/Lag: 8
I am running the game with Windows Vista Ultimate on a Dual Core E6750 @2.66, Dual ATI Radeon HD 3850, 2 Gig Corsair RAM and cable modem. The game ran extremely smooth. I had no issues loading or logging into the game. Additionally the game allows you to select which server you would like to log on to. The server populations are shown at the log in screen.
Value: 9
In order to keep the game free there are advertisements along the top border of Dungeon Runners, when I first started playing they were a minor distraction. A few hours into the game, I didn’t even notice them.
Free to download and play, it doesn’t really get too much of a better value than that. Although as with many other free games there is the potential for upgrading to a membership. Straight from the Dungeon Runner’s Website when you purchase a membership for US$4.99 per month you are granted:
Access to the highest quality in-game items*
;)
- As a member, you will be able to use all of the most powerful in-game items, weapons and armor. Without these powerful artifacts, it’ll be almost impossible to conquer the deeper dungeons of the world – the places where the richest treasures and toughest monsters can be found.
- You’ll also look cool wearing armor and wielding mighty weapons--goodies non-Members probably won't get a chance to use.
Log-in queue priority
- When servers are full, there’s a line to get into the game, but as a member, you’ll skip straight to the front of the queue for easy access to Dungeon Runners whenever you want.
Bank Storage
- You’ll pick up a lot of loot in Dungeon Runners; some you’ll want to keep and some you’ll want to sell. There will come a point where your inventory and bank page is full, and then you have to start making that nasty decision of what to drop in order to make more room. Well, that moment will not arrive as quickly for members as it will for anybody else!
- Where a non-subscriber can only keep as much loot as will fill their inventory and one bank page, a member gets three bank pages! Each bank page contains an additional 140 slots of storage to access when you are in Townston.
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.
Free yourself from ads
- Non-paying players will find their Dungeon Runners experience sponsored by advertisers in the form of banner ads across the top of the screen, and may even see a video when they log in, quit, or even suffer a brutal, horrible death. Members can absolve themselves of seeing advertisements, however, by merely being a Member.
Service 8
- Regular upgrades and expansions released by the Dungeon Runner team, the most recent expansion was March 4, 2008.
In closing, you won’t regret downloading Dungeon Runners. The download time isn’t too bad, and let’s face it the cost is right. It’s worth mentioning again that this game is one of the most fun I’ve played. Simple, to the point, and with tons of humor laced throughout the game.
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Good review, though the member only items are really not as manditory as you say they are for higher level areas.
[quote]There aren’t a lot of choices for characters. Players are limited to Fighter, Mage and Ranger.[/quote]
This is incorrect. While yes, these are the only choices you have at the beginning of the game, every character can learn every skill from any discipline. The "Classes" are not classes, they are starting equipment and skills only, and you are NOT locked into to this, in fact, depending on your gear, stats, and skills equipped, the game generates a "Title" for your player dynamically that can be viewed by others, or yourself in the player screen.
Also, dungeons automatically scale depending on numbers of people in your group, and what the leader has set the difficulty to. (yes it has a difficulty), also, the Go to feature is a god send allowing you to instantly go to a friend where ever they are.
"The best items in game" this has also changed, with the addition of ads, free members can now obtain blue, purple and rainbow items (They could not before). They will be less frequent, but they are there now.
The game had potential , but development took to long and yielded mediocre results.
Now you have Mythos that is almost twin similar , but much better in every single aspect.
Good review,ive played this on and off and for the most part its a fun easy to pick up game.I hate how the spell aiming worked with non mouse bound spells though
I disagree about the limits of the class system,if anything its one of the games strongest points by being able to pick and choose exactly what you want to have skill wise from any of the 3 archytypes. Theres many player made subclasses over at the forums.
hello i found the review interesting. whenm i played the game i found it limited on quest and mobs to kill. became boring in a short period of time.
I have to disagree with the Value score.
The free version of the game is great ... for a free game. But the member version is really not that much better. You don't need uber items. You don't need the extra bank page. And the game overall just isn't worth any subscription price.
It's good enough to be free-to-play with ads. That's exactly how good it is, no better.
There is NO CLASS SYSTEM.
The game is average. The review is full of grammatical mistakes, and if you need a thesaurus for "anecdote" you shouldn't be writing.
if anything its one of the games strongest points by being able to pick and choose exactly what you want to have skill wise from any of the 3 archytypes
I think this game is really best as a buddy game. Not so much finding people in-game to play with, but if you have some buddies around town or some that have moved away you can all hop up on voice chat and go dungeon delving together.
After reading the review i gave the game a try. After playing for 3 hours i really like this game. I just bought a one month sub just to be able to get access to all the features. I can recommended anyone who's looking to try a new game to download and install dungeon runners. It's not a big file (only 500 mb) and the update is around 100 mb.
Completely agree with you on that statement. At first dungeon runners semed like a breath of fresh air for a casual/free game to play but after playing Mythos I can say I would never want to play Dungeon runners again. The amount of polish already in game for Mythos is amazing and really just makes DR look poor in comparison. Especially the towns and dungeon design, by comparison the DR tilesets just look completely uninspired.
Another fluff review by mmorpg.com, All the scores are too high, way too high. Graphics 7 ? Even by f2p standards if you compare them to the other games of the genre they are mediocre at best.
The second I saw a 10 score for Fun on this game I just threw my hands up in the air, this site has no credibility as far as reviews go , and this confirms it. At least the news are still there :)
~Ripper
If the game is inferior (in some category) to most other games of the same type, the review should reflect that.
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)
Don't forget when the next patch comes out, according to massively.com, they're going to reduce the amount of experience free players get as well as a few other adjustments that will make the game even less fun for those that like to play it free.
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
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:
In regards to the ads:
Per the recent patch announcement, the ads will become significantly less onerous (and they're not bothersome at all, now, IMO):
It is true, however, that non-member benefits are going to change in the next heave:
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:
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.