NCSoft's first free to download and play online game has launched, as Dungeon Runners today opens up to the general public. The game is a dungeon crawler that plays like a light version NCSoft's own Guild Wars, only with more cartoony graphics and a very quirky sense of humor - in the opening area there is a merchant who sounds like Krusty the Clown who cracks jokes about ren faire geeks. Players meet up in central hubs and then journey into instanced areas to take a swat at evil.

Dungeon Runners is completely free to download and play, with a slight hitch. You cannot access the best armor in the games or stack potions in your inventory without paying a $4.99 a month subscription fee. For the price you also gain bank slots for storing items and server queue priority. Having played a bit as both a free player and as a member, I can tell you the differences are night and day. If you grab the game from File Planet between now and July 4th you'll get a free week of premium play, allowing you to taste the spoils of five bucks without having to part with it. Michael Fahey

Dungeon Runners Sign-Up Page [NCSoft]

NCsoft Unveils Dungeon Runners Game With A Free-to-Download and Play Business Model

Tuesday 29th May/...NCsoft® North America announced it has opened to the public its first free-to-download and play game, Dungeon Runners™, as the company continues to expand its online entertainment offerings. Dungeon Runners is an online, multiplayer role playing game in a fast-paced sword-and-shield setting where defeating monsters and evil enemies results in piles of loot and treasure.

Dungeon Runners, currently available strictly via free digital download, has a play-for-free tier where players can access large chunks of the game's content, and a "membership level" for $4.99 per month where players are given, among other things, log-in queue priority and access to the most powerful items, weapons and armor. Membership status also includes bank storage for up to 220 loot items and the ability to stack potions in one slot to save room for even more loot.

In Dungeon Runners, there are a variety of character archetypes to choose from including fighter, mage and ranger in a classless RPG system where players are not locked into skills that are usually associated with their specific archetype.

Dungeon Runners focuses mainly on action and battles with limited death penalties and endless gold, weapons, armor and magic items available to claim after defeating hordes of monsters. The game also features a lighter side, with subtle and not-so-subtle humor sprinkled throughout the game including names of many items in the game. For example, one particularly dangerous sword is called "Shifty's Crystal Sword of the Hypersonic Monkey" and a very helpful magic item called the "Pulsating Dragon Eye Amulet of the Thorny Donkey."

"Dungeon Runners is a lot of fun and doesn't take itself too seriously. But the game will take players into an action packed-adventure, where they blaze through a maze of dungeons, face fierce monsters and formidable opponents to become a hero," said Stephen Nichols, NCsoft's producer and lead programmer for Dungeon Runners. "Regardless if a player pays to be a member or plays for free, Dungeon Runners will deliver more than 200 hours of game play and a continually growing number of missions and quests. The game is also designed to appeal to gamers who have limited time to give to a game, but it will have the content to keep players adventuring for hours at a time."

While NCsoft presents Dungeon Runners as a scaled down version of its other online games, Dungeon Runners is far superior to other "free with membership" type games due to the high standards NCsoft's development team applies to all the products it creates, regardless of business model.
"Dungeon Runners is a bold leap into a new business model for NCsoft and it is taking us into a new direction in terms of the kind of games we can provide our customers," said Robert Garriott, CEO of NCsoft North America. "There are plenty of other 'free' games available for online RPG fans, but none that packs as many features as Dungeon Runners has or comes with the NCsoft stamp of quality. We expect that players will receive this game warmly because it is fast, fun and free. It is hard to beat that deal."

Dungeon Runners is available to download and play for free at www.dungeonrunners.com/join.html.
Moreover, an exclusive Dungeon Runners promotion with bonus contents can be found on FilePlanet.com can be found at http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/mmoclub/dungeon_runners.aspx from now until July 4th 2007.

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