Stephen Nichols, putting it bluntly, says "the game just isn't profitable." Though the game's creative team has some ideas for how to inject life back into it, "they're expensive to implement and pretty risky. Those two facts, coupled with the recent loss of some key developers, make achieving the success we seek pretty much out of the question."

They're just a three man team now. (They were five.) So Dungeon Runners is caput when the big ball plops on Times Square. Until then, they put together some parting gifts for the Dungeon Runners community.

First, those with paid memberships as of Sept. 16 get 30 days free in City of Heroes: Architect Edition and Guild Wars: Prophecies. Nichols added that "any of you guys that need refunds for multiple-month membership purchases will be taken care of."

The other slice of bread in the shit sandwich? "We're going out in style," Nichols said, "with a few changes to the game for the coming 'End Time.'" That means more frequent mythic loot drops, cut rate prices at the King's Coin vendors, and quintupling XP gains "to help you finish the game before year's end!"

And what would be a grand finale without a fireworks show? "We're adding a huge nuke to Townston that will blow up on New Year's and take the game down with it."

Dungeon Runners is Shutting Down [Dungeon Runners, thanks Jason J.]

"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 rumors 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 rumors were "not accurate at all" and "pretty outrageous."

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.

Dungeon Runners Bling Gnome: Excreting gold for fun and profit

Exactly what is the Bling Gnome you might ask? Similar to its cousin, the Garden Gnome, the Bling Gnome is a tricked-up helper gnome with a bit of attitude that will follow your character around and pick up all the gold dropped on the ground (that was intended for you to pick up) auto-magically. This way you don’t have to go running around and pick it up all the gold yourself, the little gangster will do it for you.

The Bling Gnome also has the ability to pick up dropped items, at the Rare level of availability and below (anything that’s not purple- or rainbow-colored), and eat them, converting them into gold. Another time saver! Instead of filling up your inventory with a clutter of items you just want to sell when you get back to Townston, the Bling Gnome will convert them into gold right then and there. That’s not all… though honestly, what would Dungeon Runners be without some scatological humor somewhere? Every once in awhile during this “swords-into-goldshares” conversion process, the Bling Gnome can produce amazing items from its rear end in rather spectacular fashion. In other words, it can poop out an ultra-powerful item (along with the gold). The more items you pick up at once, the higher the chance it can happen. How handy is that?

Players won’t have to look under a blarney stone to get their own Bling Gnome. By the end of June, players can go to just about any game retailer in North America and purchase a Dungeon Runners game pack that includes the soon-to-be-legendary Bling Gnome as well as six months of premium membership level game time for the price of four.

For more information on Dungeon Runners and the Bling Gnome, go to www.Dungeonrunners.com.

"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.

NCsoft heaves out Dungeon Runners content update

NCsoft's Dungeon Runners team is keeping things cool for its players by launching a new content update that provides some frosty surprises including snowmen, a new dungeon, new items and improvements to the waypoint system.

The content update, which is considered more of a "Heave" than a full-blown expansion "Chunk," introduces a new dungeon called Balzack's Burrow for player levels 55 and up. Balzack's Burrow is loaded with loot, monsters and a final boss-battle that will require more than just mind-numbing violence in order to claim victory.

Chill Bill, a formidable snowman and the first NPC that players can summon in Dungeon Runners, is available at level 30 and can help players fight enemies. He has several specialized moves, such as the head butt, where Bill removes his head and bashes an opponent. Chill Bill is a low maintenance snowman that can be healed by hitting him with ice projectile spells.

Chill Bill also comes with several cool skills including "On the Rocks" which freezes Bill in a solid bock of ice, slowing down nearby enemies; "Snow Globe" which stuffs Chill Bill into a globe where he receives a major maximum health increase, and "Nippy Twigs" a skill buff which dramatically increases Bill's attack damage and slows enemies.

Closing out wintertime for Dungeon Runners is a visit by Shivery the Incorrigible Snowman who is quickly melting in Townston, so his stay in the game will be short yet filled with bitterness. Shivery, who is a victim of dungeon warming, will provide players with a loot-filled quest, but not without delivering a few pleasantries such as "...your parents didn't love you," and "...you are adopted."

Additionally, the Heave includes 51 new quests, two new fighter armor sets, new mythic items, a two-handed rifle for rangers and improvements to the user interface and the waypoints system.

"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. "We are always looking to create more ways for players to have fun while keeping the challenge compelling. Sometimes features can be a bit silly, but that is what makes Dungeon Runners so special."

For more information, or to download and play the game for free, go to www.dungeonrunners.com.

NCsoft Launches Chunk 2, Adding Advertising, New Content to Dungeon Runners Game

AUSTIN, Texas—(BUSINESS WIRE)—NCsoft® today announced the release of Chunk 2, the second content update for its successful free-to-download and play game, Dungeon Runners™. This update includes in-game advertising in non-member worlds, more bank space for members, item trading, increased access to prime loot, and overall Player versus Environment (PvE) and Player versus Player (PvP) balance refinements.

Dungeon Runners is a free to download and play online multiplayer role playing game in a satirical, fast-paced sword-and-shield setting, where defeating monsters and evil enemies results in piles of loot, treasure, and non-stop fun.

The hallmark of Chunk 2 is in-game advertising which will help fund future development of the massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) and keep it free for players. The in-game advertising will be visible to non-members in loading screens and in a banner that sits on top of the game window during play. Dungeon Runners members, who can subscribe to the game for only $4.99 per month, will not see any of the advertising.

Advertising in Dungeon Runners will open up new content and functionality for all players. Non-member players will gain access to new content previously unavailable to them, including dungeons and valuable items. Also, non-members will now have access to one page of bank slots, enabling them to store more items. Members will increase their bank storage space from one to three pages.

Also, by popular demand, a secure trade system has been added to Dungeon Runners. This new feature allows everyone to easily trade items (with the exception of gold) with other players through a simple interface.

"Chunk 2 unlocks an enormous amount of playable content for non-members that they didn't have access to before thanks to the addition of in-game advertising," said Stephen Nichols, NCsoft's producer and lead programmer for Dungeon Runners. "Our non-member players are very happy they can now use what was previously members-only loot, and our members are really excited about receiving additional bank slots to hold their items. These changes, plus our new secure trade system, make this update a win-win for everyone!"

Further enhancements include increased rare item drops and stackable potions for members and non-members alike, which lead to more success in this hack-and-slash game.

Dungeon Runners can be downloaded for free at http://www.dungeonrunners.com/join.html. Players can play for free or subscribe to the members version at any point for $4.99 a month. Members have access to such benefits as log-in queue priority, members-only servers, and the most powerful items, weapons and armor. Membership status also includes three bank pages for hundreds of loot items and the ability to stack potions in one inventory slot to save room for even more loot.

To find out more please visit the Dungeon Runners web site at: www.dungeonrunners.com.

The game is rated Teen by the Entertainment Software Rating Board.

NCsoft Vouches for In-Game Ads [Next Gen]

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]

Free-to-play dungeon crawler Dungeon Runner is expected to get its next big update this week. I chatted briefly with lead designer Mark Tucker earlier today about what we can expect to see from the update, labeled Chunk Number One.

In a nutshell, the update will add player versus player worlds, multiple character support per an account, in-chat item linking and a new high level dungeon.

With the update players will be able to three characters per an account, they will also be able to link to item descriptions (for better bragging rights in chats) and the team has done a bit more tweaking on latency issues.

"We've gotten a lot of criticism about the responsiveness of the controls," Tucker said. "We've done some major edits so your avatar will respond more quickly."

The player versus player worlds will work a lot like the instanced PvP battles of Guild Wars. Players will have to log into a PVP server and then go up to a non-player character to launch a team battle in a randomly generated dungeon. Initially, this dungeons will be relatively straight forward, but the development team hopes to eventually include special items for use in battle.

"Right now there's not a lot of variety in the maps, but we're hoping to change that in the future," Tucker said. "Players might stumble across a buff shrine, or something that can change areas of the map, or find items or power-ups like what you would find in a first person shooter."

Currently the points earned in PvP battles won't be good for anything but bragging rights, but that could also change.

While PvP is a relatively big addition to the game, the biggest add-on coming from Chunk Number One will be the inclusion of a new level designed for characters level 75 to 100.

The new area is called Ratsputin's Gulag, named after the boss of the area, and will include lots of new quests and monster types. Keeping with the theme of the game, there will be plenty of inside jokes, like a quest that pits you against Gold Farmers.

While NCSoft is still hesitant to talk about the profitability of the mostly free game, you can pay for access to a small set of exclusive features and a new members only server, they do say they are quite happy with how the game is shaping up.

'We are tracking well compared to other NC Soft titles," Tucker said. "The development team has a goal in terms of number of subscribers. There is a point when we become profitable and it's not a very big number. At that point we can grow the development team."

NC Soft spokeswoman Opal Lertutai said they have 120,000 active accounts and that they have about 75 percent of the $5 a month paid accounts needed for the game to break even.

In the coming months, Dungeon Runners will also be getting loading screen advertising for the non-paid accounts through Double Fusion Advertising, something that will surely help the game survive.

Dungeon Runners almost didn't make it out the door. Originally shelved, NCSoft brought on a team of developers—the fourth to work on the title—to massage the existing assets into a game that would support the payment model NCSoft had decided was worth giving a try: give the game away for free, but charge a modest five-dollar fee for additional functionality like stackable items and the most powerful weapons.

It might not work so well if Dungeon Runners took itself seriously, but a quick glance over the item names and descriptions makes it clear the ten-person team was more interested in parodying standard fantasy MMO tropes—especially those from World of Warcraft—than they were in creating their own mythos. It totally works, because Runners is a game designed around instant action. "We're going for 15 minute experiences," says the lead developer.

We were shown a few new features that will be released over the coming
months: PVP; new weapon and armor sets; new dungeons. A new class of axes may look familiar: they're all inverted guitars, with names that reference Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles.

AUSTIN, Texas, July 3, 2007— NCsoft® today revealed its line up for the E3 Media & Business Summit July 11-13 in Santa Monica where the company will provide a preview of several of the most anticipated online games coming out in 2007 and 2008, including Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa™, Aion™, Guild Wars: Eye of the North™ and Dungeon Runners™.
NCsoft North America CEO Robert Garriott said, "NCsoft strives to deliver the highest quality online entertainment possible, and these products represent the next generation of online games. This E3 meeting will provide a window for the public to see the breadth of the variety of game genres and business models NCsoft provides, as well as show off how advanced and exciting our products are."
NCsoft products to be featured at E3 are:

RICHARD GARRIOTT'S TABULA RASA
Tabula Rasa has been in closed beta testing since May and is set for launch this fall. Tabula Rasa is poised to evolve the massively multiplayer online genre with a host of fresh features such as a character cloning system, dynamic battlefields with contested control points, deep storylines with ethical parables and fully integrated voice chat. Tabula Rasa also offers players an original alien language named Logos that unlocks special powers, and fast paced combat that combines real time action with role-playing game style character development. These kinds of features are the types of touches that players have come to expect over the years from a Richard Garriott game.

AION
From NCsoft's Seoul studios, Aion, is one of the most visually stunning MMOGs in development. Cutting-edge graphics redefine players' expectations of online role-playing and reveal a true fantasy world where divine beings wage a war that will determine the future of the world. This highly anticipated title is set for release in 2008.

GUILD WARS: EYE OF THE NORTH
Guild Wars: Eye of the North is the first true expansion to the Guild Wars® franchise, one of the most popular online role-playing game franchises on the market today. Guild Wars: Eye of the North delves into the dungeons and caverns of the lands of Tyria that players first explored in the original Guild Wars game. Guild Wars: Eye of the North continues Guild Wars' no subscription fee model and will provide new content accessible to players who own both the expansion and any one of the three previously released Guild Wars campaigns. Guild Wars: Eye of the North is set for release on August 31 at an anticipated price of $39.99.

DUNGEON RUNNERS
Dungeon Runners is a free to download and play online multiplayer role playing game set in a sword-and-shield world where players get piles of loot and treasure by defeating hordes of evil monsters enemies. It's a different game model that fits right in to NCsoft's diversified online game lineup. Dungeon Runners has recently opened up play to the general public and will have large chunks of new content implemented through the summer.

Between now and next month's E3 Expo Dungeon Runner, NCSoft's free-to-play online dungeon crawler, is getting some major updates.

The game will still look the same, but once the upgrades hits Dungeon Runners will feature voice chat, a new play control system, more quests and, the best part, some player versus player action. One thing though won't change, the game will continue to run on a split free and pay-to-play model.

"This is an experiment for NCSoft," said company spokesman Mike Crouch. "This has gone exceptionally well for our company."

In Dungeon Runners gamers can either play for free, getting access to the full game minus a few features or choose to pay $5 a month to unlock some extras. Currently paying gamers get access to special stackable potions which are more powerful than the sort the free gamers can use. Paying gamers also get an in-game bank to store items and more high quality level items (think WoW's epic items).

Game designer Stephen Nichols said NCSoft plans to release new builds of the game every month, with every other month's build including a major new feature.

The first new build for the game will hit in a couple of weeks, he said, and include some major tweaks and bug fixes to the game as well as a lot more content.

"We've cleaned up the niggling control issues that people have complained about," Nichols said. "The (June) build has the ability to move around while you chat."

The June build will include 60 more quests for characters who are level 40 to 50, four new armor sets and a handful of new items including some mythic ones, such as a mythic guitar that features two necks and bares a striking resemblance to an electric guitar.

The July build will fix up some of the client server lag associated with movement, but more importantly it will launch both voice chatting and player versus player gaming.

The player-versus-player will two teams of five people to take each other on in a randomly generated dungeon instance. Gamers will be paired up with an automatic matchmaking system and then dropped into a PVP map with base camps on either end of the map.

Initially player-versus-player gaming won't come with many incentives, besides the fun of ganking your fellow gamers. After the issues have been worked out of PVP and the mode balanced, NCSoft plans to add the ability to level up your character in PVP and perhaps the ability to win special items in PVP matches, but that upgrade probably won't hit until September, Nichols said.

The voice chat hitting in July will use a proprietary similar to the one used in Auto Assault to allow up to three players to talk to one another. Non-paying gamers will only be able to listen and not talk, Nichols said.

Nichols said he's been pretty happy with the number of gamers who have checked out the game and decided to stick around, but that want to try and get more people to give it a try. While he declined to discuss the ratio of free to paying gamers for Dungeon Runners, he said it was a "healthy ratio."

I haven't really had a chance to check the game out. I played around with it for a few minutes a couple of weeks back and from what I saw it looked pretty impressive. I particularly liked the sense of humor the game seemed to have.

I'll be checking it out more later this month. If you play feel free to drop me some tips. Brian Crecente

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.

I somehow missed this, but a few weeks ago someone uploaded some gameplay footage from the beta of free instance-based Dungeon Runners. Looks kinda like Diablo meets World of Warcraft. Brian Crecente

The association is hosting resumes for all of those recently laid off. So far it looks like about seven NCSoft former employees have taken them up on the offer. Looking at their resumes it looks like this very small sampling came from a mix of the companies games including City of Villains, Guild Wars, Dungeon Runners and, yes, Auto Assault.

If you're a developer looking to hire in the Austin area, perhaps you should check the IGDA first. Brian Crecente

Recently Laid off? Let IGDA Austin know [IGDA-Austin]

The E3 06 details are rolling in, the latest comes from NCSoft. The MMO company will be showing off Tabula Rasa, Dungeon Runners, Aion and some Guild Wars stuff.

I'll be interested to see if Dungeon Runners feels as much as it looks like World of Warcraft. I'm hoping more for a Diablo take-off than a single player WoW.

Dungeon Runners from NCSoft has quietly (well, they told us) moved into preview to signup mode tonight (GMT)!

For US testers, they haven't announced a date, but check back for details on sign up here; European adventurers sign up here.

Early birdies get the wormies, so what are you waiting for?

Dungeon Runners Opens Up For Beta Signups [NCSoft]

This once-secret project that NCSoft is working on has surfaced via screenshots at 4Gamer. I first saw them over at Fires of Heaven only to see a couple clicks later that Kotaku editor Brian Crecente had them up at his Rocky Mountain News blog Free Play.

Looking at the screenshot above, some things are very familiar about Dungeon Runners. The party frame (look in the upper left) and the NPC with the yellow exclaimation point over its head? Imitation is the highest form of flattery, eh NCSoft? Hopefully, Blizzard agrees.

NC Soft Unveils Dungeon Runners [Rocky Mountain News]
Dungeon Runners Screens [4Gamer]
NCSoft Blatantly Rips of Blizzard [Fires of Heaven]