Anybody else playing Dungeon Runners

Cafe Society
1

Brought to you by the same folks as City of Heroes. Dungeon Runners is the first MMORPG I’ve played and I’m enjoying it pretty well so far. It’s pretty much as the name implies, a hack and slash Dungeons and Dragons type game. Reminds me a lot of Diablo actually.

The really nice thing is that it’s free until you want to pay for it. Members get a several advantages for $4.99 a month; mainly the ability to use the better items in the game. So far I haven’t joined, but I’m getting tempted. I’m only 8th level but I’ve done pretty well so far without getting the better items.

So, anybody else playing?

2

I started but the contrast with WoW makes it essentially unplayable for me. The interface is clunky, the graphics crude, and the gameplay simply wasn’t fun.

3

I have to say I’ve never given WoW a shot. However, I know I’m in a gigantic minority when I say that I didn’t really like the original Warcraft. I know people liked the constant action, but coming from a position of adoration for turn-based Civ, I just didn’t like it. From that, I assumed I wouldn’t like anything else with the Warcraft label.

4

I played Dungeon Runners with a friend on Sunday nights many times. I eventually got tired of the repetiveness of it, and just quit playing 6 months ago or so and haven’t played since.

For what it is (a free online RPG), it’s very good. What you don’t get is a free-roaming world where you can seamlessly go wherever you want and meet other players. The only place you’ll see other players is in the towns. After being used to Asheron’s Call so many years ago, Dungeon Runners seemed more like Diablo.

5

WoW play is nothing like the Warcraft games, it’s just set in the same world. You could give the 10 day free trial a go: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/trial/index.html

6

Nobody but diehard fans likes the original Warcraft anymore, or any other early RTS games. The interfaces are just too primitive. And as mentioned, WoW is not an RTS anyway and doesn’t play the same way.

7

What’s the monthly cost for WoW?

8

Can’t access the official site here at work, but it varies between $12 and $15, depending on the payment options you pick. For that, though, you get a huge world, which is fully Massively Multiplayer, a choice from dozens of different servers, 10 races and 8(?) classes to choose from, a dozen different tradeskills, a vigorous auction house economy, and phat lootz…

9

I think that price point is what keeps me away. Being an old time gamer, I’m stuck with the mindset of that you plunk down your 30 or 40 bucks and you have your game. Plus, I tend to move from game to game a lot and then come back to old games I have. So I just don’t know if I should “invest” in something long-term like that at those prices.

Also, I was wondering if WoW keeps you from getting spam killed by other players and repeatedly losing your loot. That’s what drove me away from MUDs in the old days.

10

Whatever game you’re interested in, I’ve found you can usually find (blocky) gameplay video on Youtube.com. Probably by seeing it you can get an idea of whether it’s something you’re interested in.

11

I think I’m gonna stick with Dungeon Runners for now. I’m pretty happy with it so far, but I can see how it could get repetitive.

I just wanted to see if anybody else was playing.

12

There are four different kinds of servers: Normal, PvP, Roleplay, and RP-PVP.

On Normal servers the only way you can be killed by another player is by setting your own PvP flag to “on” (which can be done several ways, so you do have to watch out - setting it on manually is one, and also by healing another flagged player or by killing an enemy faction’s NPC).

On PvP, the only places you AREN’T automatically flagged for PvP are areas that are entirely under your faction’s control. All newbie zones are non-PvP (unless you deliberately flag).

Roleplay servers are Normal servers, except that you’re expected to play your character as your character (and that’s not even loosely enforced, unfortunately).

RP-PVP are roleplay-PvP servers, PvP servers where roleplay is expected. Same rules as PvP servers.

If you don’t want to deal with PvP, you can just play on a Normal or Roleplay server (depending on your desired playstyle).

Oh, almost forgot…even if you are killed by another player on a PvP server, they can’t get your inventory. It will all still be there when you rez.

13

Eh, Guild Wars is nicer, and it is made by the same company. You don’t encounter the hard sell to pay a subscription price (no matter the cost) in Guild Wars that you do in Dungeon Runners. Always you are hit upside the head with nice items you cannot use if you don’t have a paid account. That takes the fun right out of it. Add to this, that the graphics aren’t as nice as Guild Wars, and I’ll take GW any day. If you want a FTP (free to play) game with good graphics, try 9Dragons, 2Moons, or Rappelz. ETA: I mean liscensed, Arenanet made it. :smack:

14

Um… not exactly. That’s like saying that two books are from the same people because they were published by the same company.

CoH/V is made by Cryptic Studios, NC-Soft just provides the back-end hardware, marketing, and billing service.

15

Heh, coming back from lunch I’d like to elaborate on a number of things.

First off, hack-and-slash was never really my thing, but I’ve heard good stuff about Dungeon Runners. Guild Wars is also basically free and is more well-regarded, though.

NC-Soft however is a publisher, with no internal development studios AFAIK. They are generally a very hands-off publisher at that, and are mostly interested in capitalizing on the MMO market by getting a piece of as many different pies as they can. It’s something of a fallacy to really equate any of their games.
For instance, Lineage 2 is a full-scale MMO that trades heavily on it’s graphics, looks-ism (hey! we’ve got fetish-istic female player characters!), and being entirely gank-errific (completely unrestrained PVP).Lineage 2 is developed in Japan, IIRC.
CoH has almost no PVP at all (only voluntary dueling, and a handful of faction-based PVP-specific zones), and has one of the most open, friendly, and generally helpful player communities I’ve ever seen in a successfull MMO. CoH and CoVillains are developed in the USA.
Both are published by NC Soft.

As for WoW, it is, put simply, a formulaic full-scale MMO in the tradition of EQ, except it’s executed with a level of polish and player-friendly practicality that easily explain why it’s the creme of the crop. It’s got all the addictive tendencies of social interaction in a perpetual virtual world, with very little BS going on. There’s little grind (you can solo any class from lv 1-70, the current cap, it just takes more time for support-oriented classes), PVP is well-regulated (it’s faction-based, so even on PVP servers only opposing-faction player-characters can fight you, and besides the aforementioned flagging system, automatic flaggin only happens on border-territories and the “battlegrounds”), there’s no looting or stealing of player-owned items (!), you can’t lose ingredients on a failed crafting attempt, everything about gameplay mechanics is explicitly stated and quest-text usually is very clear, etc., etc., etc.

Additionally, the entire visual style is characterized by Blizzard’s distinct art-team look, and has a general “less-is-more” approach that gives it startingly impressive visuals, while having very basic system requirements. You can run mid-level graphics settings on very old machines and actually get a decent frame-rate. The game is PC and Mac compatible out of the same box, too. This is something Blizzard is known for, and the ease of accessibility of their titles has long been a big help in their success.
It’s very much how I would characerize their company; Not terribly original, but very practical and user-friendly, able to take other people’s ideas and execute them with an unprecented level of quality. Oh, and as masters of self-promotion and hype.

The Warcraft tie-in comes from the fact that over the decade or so that they went from Warcraft to Warcraft 3 expansion (along with various tie-in novels, a tabletop RPG, etc.) they built up a fairly extensive lore and fictional world. WoW is set in that universe and has built extensively on it.

16

I played for a few weeks but now I’m in Hellgate. Dungeon Runners is a WoW parody; it’s supposed to be clunky and somewhat ugly.

17

As I said, it’s free to try. And at any time you can stop paying, and come back later and re-activate your account and your characters will still be intact.

As the others said, if you choose to play on a non-PvP server you only get into player combat if you choose to.