Dungeon Runners

Did You Know?

• The patch called "The Heave" introduced the first player summon "Chill Bill" and a new high-level dungeon, and was widely considered one of the game's best updates.
• The boxed game, priced at $19.99, included six months of membership and a "Bling Gnome" item.
• In-game music was composed by Tracy W. Bush, with boss monsters having theme songs in styles such as black metal, synthpop, klezmer, and funk.

Development

Development began in 2001 under the title Trade Wars: Dark Millennium, a science-fiction game based on an early computer game series. It was renamed Exarch in 2002, then shelved until 2005 when a third development team revived it as Dungeon Runners. Closed beta started in May 2006, and a trailer appeared at the 2006 E3 convention. Open beta began in December 2006, with accounts obtainable via invitation or the NCsoft website. The game officially launched on May 24, 2007. Comic-book artist Joe "Mad" Madureira conceived much of the original art. On August 13, 2008, NCSoft in Korea cut 21 Austin, TX staff due to decreasing profits; only three of the original 18 developers remained.

Classes

The beta offered three classes: mage, warrior, and ranger, each with distinct abilities and a dedicated NPC trainer. The warrior acted as a melee "meat shield" holding aggro; the ranger specialized in ranged combat with damage-over-time skills; the mage dealt heavy area-of-effect damage but was vulnerable in close combat. At public release, a classless system was implemented. Players still chose a class (fighter, mage, ranger) at character creation, determining starting skills, weapon, and armor. After the first dungeon (Dew Valley Forest), characters reached the main town, where three skill trainers—one per archetype—allowed any character to learn any skills. Instead of a class, each character had a four-word descriptive title that changed based on attribute distribution and skill choices. Skills were placed in a Skill Bar with eight slots mapped to number keys and two to mouse buttons; only ten skills could be active at once. A "Re-Spec" button on the Character Sheet let players redistribute attribute points for gold, with cost increasing steeply after level 20. The level cap was 100.

Graphics and Gameplay

Gameplay and graphics were compared to Diablo and Diablo II, particularly for instanced dungeons with randomly regenerated layouts, action-RPG style, item naming conventions, three archetypes, and the absence of a healer class. Unlike the sprite-based isometric Diablo series, Dungeon Runners used polygonal models. GameSpot and Eurogamer noted that the graphical quality, third-person perspective, and screen layout more closely resembled World of Warcraft. A substantial graphics update was added with patch 147.

End-of-Life Announcement and Shutdown (January 2010)

NCsoft announced it would refocus on big-budget MMOGs, laying off developers working on Dungeon Runners and canceling plans for other platforms. Producer and lead programmer Stephen Nichols confirmed the game would go offline on December 31, stating on the forum that "the game just isn't profitable." He noted that two of the five developers had recently left, hampering revenue-generating ideas. Dungeon Runners operated under a free-to-play, microtransaction-supported, and subscription-based model, launching to good reviews for PC in July 2008. Paid members received digital copies of City of Heroes' Architect Edition and Guild Wars: Prophecies; refunds for multi-month purchases were offered. The online service ended on January 1, 2010, and the website shut down on January 3, 2010.