dungeon runners
News
Dungeon Runners Dead By The End Of The Year
12:00PM Owen Good | It’s a “crap sandwich”—bad news between two slices of nice—says Dungeon Runners’ producer. While the game goes dark New Year’s Eve, they’ll try to throw as many bones to its fans as they can until then. More »
NCsoft Lays Off 21
6:20AM Brian Crecente | Today NCsoft confirmed to Kotaku that they are indeed laying some folks off from their Austin offices. “We are announcing that 21 positions are being eliminated in the Austin office of NCsoft in the area of product development”, an NCsoft spokesman told Kotaku. “Primarily this is related to products which we have not previously announced and were in prototype phases. We are also cutting some positions on the Dungeon Runners team after deciding not to port the client to other platforms at this time”. Among those let go, Scott “Lum the Mad” Jennings. The news comes a day after parent company Korean-based NCsoft announced a bump in sales but a drop in operating profit and net income. The news is a stark contrast to rumours that surfaces earlier this week that 140 to 160 people were going to be let go and the office possibly shuttered. At the time NCsoft told Kotaku that the rumours were “not accurate at all” and “pretty outrageous”. More »Bling Gnome Pays Visit with Golden Offering
8:00AM Brian Crecente | The Bling Gnome, which sounds like such a great idea in virtual practice, leaves a lot to be desired when discovered squatting on your kitchen counter late Sunday night. There’s nothing that could get me to pluck that reticent gold coin free from its housing, even if it were real. Borderline unsafe for work pics on the jump. More »Dungeon Runner’s Gold-Excreeting Bling Gnome Spotted
8:30AM Brian Crecente | Starting in June people who pick up the box copy of Dungeon Runners at a store will get an in-game Bling Gnome. The Bling Gnome is a pet of sort that runs around in the game as you play picking up all of the gold dropped from the baddies you kill while playing the free-to-play massive game. The gnome can also be told to pick up dropped items that aren’t rare and eat them. He then poops out gold as a reward… seriously. I love this idea, it saves all of the hassle of having to go back to town and sell off the crap you horde while out in the wilds adventuring. Hit up the jump for the full explainer as well as some more pics of the gnome in action. More »
Dungeon Runners Heaves Up New Content
3:40AM Mike Fahey | NCsoft’s free-to-play hack and slash game Dungeon Runners is getting another update, only this time it isn’t a full blown “Chunk” expansion – merely a “Heave” – there’s that trademark highbrow Dungeon Runners humor for you. New content includes Balzack’s Barrow, which is a new dungeon for players 55 and up, an NPC snowman named Chill Bill *groan* available at level 30 that helps players fight enemies, and a visit to Townston by Shivery the Incorrigible Snowman, a victim of dungeon warming that gives players a special quest while telling them they were adopted. 51 new quests, new armor sets, new mythic items, a two-handed ranger rifle and some general interface tweaking round out the update. “I think that Dungeon Runners players will find these new features, especially the snowmen as being pretty cool…literally,” said Stephen Nichols, Dungeon Runners’ producer. Well that’s some relatively mild hype. Pretty cool? I mean…oh wait…I get it! Snowmen! Cool! Hahahaha! I’m going to go cry now. Hit the jump for the full press release and more frosty screenshots.
Dungeon Runners Blows Chunk 2
3:20AM Mike Fahey | NCsoft’s free to download, free to play MMO Dungeon Runners has just received its second content update, Chunk 2, which changes the face of the game for non-subscribers completely. Areas and items previously off-limits to non-paying customers are now open for all, thanks to the introduction of the in-game advertising Mark Wilson reported on back in October. The ads will be seen during loading screens as well as in a banner that sits upon the screen as the main game is running. Paying members will have their bank pages increased from one to three and won’t be plagued by advertising. Both paying and non-paying players will be able to enjoy the newly implemented item trading system and combat system refinements. Personally I think NCsoft is missing out on major ad revenue by restricting advertisements to loading screens and the banner. With its tongue in cheek, self-referential humor, Dungeon Runners is the one game that could get away with a +5 Sword of Pringles Fever. More »
Dallas Snell on NCSoft’s Future Direction
4:00AM Maggie Greene | Free to Play has an interview up with NCSoft’s “Director of Business Development”, Dallas Snell, on Dungeon Runners, the free to play model, and NCSoft’s future direction. The main topic is Dungeon Runners, as it’s one of the few games in the NCSoft lineup that has a free to play component (and the subscription aspect may be scrapped in the future). But they’re not just looking a subscription models and how to revamp them – they’re contemplating grander things: Further to NCSoft’s recently announced plans to release free to play content on the Sony network, Dallas talked about his company’s goal of becoming “device agnostic” in order to break down the segregation of gamers between platforms. NCsoft plans to build their own cross-platform community service, with friends lists, inter-game messaging, and other features similar to Xbox Live. NCsoft also intends to release desktop, facebook and mobile widgets to extend gamers’ experience. Snell has some other interesting thoughts – retail may become extinct in the next decade? – and it’s an interesting short-ish interview well worth a read through. Dallas Snell Talks Dungeon Runners, Free to Play and NCsoft 2.0 [Free to Play] More »
