Dungeon Runners - an online multi-user dungeon that isn’t so multi

If you enjoy party based combat and multi-player encounters that require more than just button mashing then this isn’t the game you’re looking for. Dungeon Runners is more Multi-user Dungeon (MUD) than it is a Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG).

The three playable classes are one-dimensional, the combat system is very basic, and all of the monsters are in instanced dungeons. Like most RPGs your first few challenges are easy to do solo, but at a certain level you feel prepared to team up with other players and take on some more rewarding encounters. Dungeon Runners offers little in the way of player interaction, and there just isn’t much incentive to group up. All of the level 30+ players I talked to said they’d spent maybe one day in the last two weeks in a party — usually just for thirty minutes to complete the final couple levels of one dungeon. The rest of the time they play solo and barely acknowledge other players.

Who needs crowd control and healing anyway?
Currently the game offers the choice of a human fighter, mage, or ranger. The standard RPG character sheet shows your character’s level, class, base stats, magic resistances, magic bonuses, defense, and combat stats. A fighter will focus on endurance for hit points, strength for defense, and agility for attack rating. Mages need intellect for mana points. Rangers use agility for attack rating and critical hits. This is all pretty much as you would expect. Fighters get the most hit points per point of endurance, mages get the most mana points per point of intellect, and Rangers get the most attack power per point of agility. Most developers are straying away from systems that let the user customize their character in this way because it leaves too much room for the user to completely gimp themselves if they choose to neglect the mechanics of the game. However the ability to customize your character at least offers players the chance to role-play a little in this very simple game.

Besides your statistics you can further customize your character by getting magical equipment, and by purchasing new skills from a trainer. All skills are available to all classes — so your ranger can purchase the fighter’s knock back skill, or a fighter can purchase the mage’s fireball. You will still have to depend on your class’s strengths to survive, but later in the game it may be beneficial to have certain combinations of skills, and those may be what make your character truly unique. However, in the first twenty-four hours of play time I did not find that my ranger was any different than anyone else’s. My experiences were not unique; the game is linear. I walked the same steps as everyone else. I killed the same monsters and acquired the same level in exactly the same way as everyone else. I might have gotten to level ten faster than one player, but as soon as they hit level ten there would be almost no way to tell us apart except for our names. We are the same race, the same class, we have both had access to the same items, and we have acquired the same amount of gold. Sure, I picked the face with the eye-patch for my avatar while yours has a huge scar, but that’s hardly distinguishing in a game where you’re looking at the back of your head most of the time, and where the variety of equipment graphics is severely lacking.

A headache and a finger cramp
This inability to distinguish one character from the next is primarily frustrating in a dungeon. When you’re killing monsters all you really have to do is keep the mouse cursor over the target and hold down the left mouse button. The ranged classes will stand and fire, and the fighter will run up right next to the target and start hacking away. The camera keeps your character centered at all times, but if you’re running with two other players that look identical to you it can be very confusing if you’re all on screen at once. You just have to keep clicking furiously until everything is dead.

Much like Diablo this is a hack-and-slash click-fest and all dungeons can be navigated with just the mouse and the click-to-move option (which is defaulted to ON). Unlike Diablo, you can use the keyboard to run, strafe and turn. This makes traversing dungeons a little smoother because you can just sit back and hold down the ‘w’ key and tap the ‘a’ and ‘d’ keys to turn. Moving with the keyboard makes Dungeon Runners appear to be an MMO like World of Warcraft or City of Heroes, but it still plays like a MUD and feels more like Dungeon Siege. With combat and movement both controlled by the mouse it can be very annoying to fight as a melee character. If your cursor isn’t directly over a monster your fighter will run to the spot you’re aiming at. If the monsters are moving around at all, your character will do more running than killing. Fortunately the game includes the hold position command, an important convention in click-to-move interfaces. Holding the ’shift’ key turns your character into a turret throwing fireballs and punches in the direction of the cursor. If you ever feel out of control or like your character just won’t stay put the ’shift’ key can help you focus and do some damage. I also found it helpful to use the ‘v’ key to reset the camera behind my character, and to zoom out a few clicks on the mini-map for better barrings.

Wash, rinse, repeat
After taking the time to get used to movement and combat the game pace picks up pretty quickly. Since there are no heal spells or crowd control skills in Dungeon Runners your character’s survival depends on potions. There is no cool down timer restricting your use of potions so you can use as many as you want. Hit point and mana point potions can be purchased in amounts limited only by your inventory space. Free accounts can use potions that take up one square in the inventory grid, but subscribe and pay $5 USD per month and you can use the stackable variety — vastly increasing your potential space. Any equipment you pickup utilizes this same inventory grid, and just like Diablo and Dungeon Siege, managing your inventory and deciding what items to pickup and what to ignore is a constant chore. Subscribers get their own bank space in town to store items for later use. Good equipment drops are rare and are never more than a couple levels above yours, so it isn’t often that you save a piece of equipment. You can either use it immediately, or you sell it. Its common for players level fifteen plus to only pickup blue quality items or better because anything less just isn’t worth the inventory space.

Once your inventory fills up it is standard practice to use a way point scroll to teleport back to town, sell everything, and buy more potions. Way point scrolls are relatively cheap so it isn’t uncommon to fill your inventory and make a trip through town two or three times in an hour. This sort of loop is repeated over and over until you’ve completed all seven levels of the dungeon and killed the final boss. The repetition and the mind-numbing simplicity of combat make me want to setup a script to level my character for me. It would almost be more fun to automate this game and watch it than it is to play it.

Dungeon Runners appears to be a quick and dirty release of what perhaps Diablo III would have been like if it had been released two years ago. NCSoft succeeded at making a very accessible game with many of the standards you’d expect from an RPG. The interface windows and objects are easy to use and understand. The quest system keeps you moving so you don’t get lost. Character customization is simple and straightforward. All of the basics you’d expect are there, but that’s it. There are no intelligent monsters to keep you guessing. There are no puzzles or any extracurricular activities like crafting. The itemization is pretty bad, and what is there is all random including names and stats on equipment. (At level twenty I don’t have any gear that appears unique.) There is no variety in the equipment models so everyone looks the same. There is no player vs. player and there is really no way to die. There is no combat outside of instances so you’ll never make a new friend by running by someone and lending a helping hand. The only interaction is in town, and everyone is just there to buy skills or potions before teleporting back into their dungeon. The game just isn’t really much more than a single player game that requires an internet connection. I’m completely burned out on the game and I’ve had it only two weeks. After I found myself in the rut of kill, port to town, sell/buy, port back I started to lose interest. Not that im looking to get addicted to the game, but it would be nice if there were at least some redeeming qualities to keep me coming back.

Dungeon Runners is totally free, so you should give it a try if you have some time to kill. If you really get serious you should purchase the subscription so you can have stackable potions, the highest quality equipment, bank storage, and login priority in case the world server is full. If you enjoy games like Dungeon Siege and are content with only one character and vastly limited content then you might enjoy this. On the other hand, if the “free” price tag doesn’t intrigue you or you’re looking for a deeper game like World of Warcraft then don’t even bother.

Rating: 3/5
Recommendation: Try it, don’t buy it.