Now, due to all of the bluntness you may take this as a useless rant from someone that hates NCSOFT or hates DR. This is not the case. I love the game. I want to see the game succeed. Therefore here is my 2 cents of some of the issues with the game.

1. Exploits

1A. Getting 5 player’s worth of loot for one person:
One can run 5 copies of Dungeon Runners and then boot all of the alts after the mobs have spawned. The mobs will be tough to kill but the loot dropped will be 1,150% or whatever and all of it will drop for the player. Why is this allowed? I don’t exactly understand…. It’s a great exploit but really unacceptable.

1B. Waypoint Scroll spamming to go directly to a boss or boss loot
You can use this to take the loot from chests without killing the boss or to skip the mobs before the boss. Make waypoint scrolls have a cool down period so we cannot spam them and have an additional waypoint clear after the person first hits townstown from a reset. You can’t tell me you aren’t able to fix this…..

2. Skills

2A. Crispy Critters Spell
Yes. This spell is overpowering in some ways. But you know what? It’s also the only decent spell mages have for doing REAL damage. Nerf this spell too much and you will not only piss off. I could understand an incredibly SLIGHT reduction in damage like 10%-15% but 30%?

Here lies,
The Fire Mage Build
Killed by a patch
R.I.P

2B. Ice Bolt/Fire Bolt/Shadow Bolt/Shards
These spells often will hurt a boss/champion so little that they will actually only accomplish negating the mobs HP regen. If you are all by yourself and all you are doing is negating the regen you will never kill the boss. Main problem with these spells? Way too slow attack speed. The damage these spells do is really not bad. They are just ludicrously slow.

2C. Monster Bait
Well, it lives almost long enough…. But then again it doesn’t take agro very well at all. Most mobs would rather hit you than this enticing meat stick any day. You will probably find the meat only getting hit by like 2 or 3 of the 10+ mobs and even then it dies fast.

2D. Snowman
You get all the skills/buffs. You collect the snow….you build the snowman. The snow man pokes the mobs with his weak little hands and then melts instantly like the pathetic blob of solidified water that he is. Seriously… this snowman sucks so bad. He sucks so bad that every person I have met that gives him a try only tries him on one run and realize that it’s so useless and never brings it out again.

2E. Ray of Gosh
This spell really is a nice thing to see in the game. An actual divine area effect spell! With fast recast! Only… the area it covers is really small and sometimes you will find yourself moving instead of casting the spell even if it’s your right click. Then when you move it’s often closer to an archer and it runs away and God I hate that…


The game download is deterring people from playing the game?

Are you serious? Dungeon Runners is one of the smallest quickest downloads and I am on a SLOWER DSL line. You know what would actually deter me from playing the game? If you make a 20 or some small meg download and then every time I go somewhere in the game it has to pause to dynamically download the area information. Let’s assume on a slow connection I want to enter a dungeon and then it takes 1 to 5 minutes from when I click to when I get to actually enter because it’s downloading? I would not simply uninstall the game my friend, no no… I would take my hard drive apart, isolate the area on the disc… nevermind…. It’s not worth it. But let’s suffice it to say that I wouldn’t even give the game a chance. I would uninstall it right away.

Not enough people are becoming members?
I can really understand this being a problem. Not that many people play Dungeon Runners either. Unfortunately you the guys in control are actually at fault for this one. Yeah, that sounds harsh….but true. Here is what YOU did:

You took away reasons to become a member in the hopes that this would cause more people to play dungeon runners.

Yay, now anyone can find rainbows and purples. It used to be that if you were a non member you kind of sucked unless you really GULPED down potions. Maybe you guys don’t play the game to see it but people just trade member rb’s for non member rb’s and purples. Did you seriously believe that this change would accomplish more players and more subscriptions?

SOLUTION:
Now you guys backed yourself into a sticky situation. If you change things back will people get pissed off and quit? Possibly some will. But I gotta tell you leaving things the way they are is not working and will ultimately not work. You need to give people more reasons to become a member, plain and simple. Stopping non member rb’s would be a start. Members need something like the bling gnome which assists them in a non over powering way. I am not saying that you should let all members have it I am just saying something along those lines could work. You need to give members things that area really great but things that can be taken away if they decide not to keep paying. If the bling gnome had been implemented as some sort of member perk instead of a boxed launch item you probably would see more people paying. $5.00 is really a great deal for any mmorpg. But you aren’t offering enough. The non members have to be like, man… I wish I was a member then I could wear etc. or use etc. You know what they say instead?

LOL be a member? Why bother!

Considering adding a cash shop for money?
If you sell in game gear that negates the whole point of the game which is to go kill stuff and get the phat loot. I can guarantee four people which are good friends of mine which will all quit if this is implemented.

Conclusion:

If something isn’t done before it is too late Dungeon Runners will most likely be shut down sometime in 2009.

…. I and my friend that plays really don’t want this to happen. If the developers and or publishers would like to converse with people that really do have great ideas and will help them for FREE, drop me a line.

1. Exploits

1A. Getting 5 player’s worth of loot for one person:
One can run 5 copies of Dungeon Runners and then boot all of the alts after the mobs have spawned. The mobs will be tough to kill but the loot dropped will be 1,150% or whatever and all of it will drop for the player. Why is this allowed? I don’t exactly understand…. It’s a great exploit but really unacceptable.

1B. Waypoint Scroll spamming to go directly to a boss or boss loot
You can use this to take the loot from chests without killing the boss or to skip the mobs before the boss. Make waypoint scrolls have a cool down period so we cannot spam them and have an additional waypoint clear after the person first hits townstown from a reset. You can’t tell me you aren’t able to fix this…..

1A. Game designed for multi boxing, we take advantage of it, known to devs for long time and I put my money on it it wont change either.

1B. known for a long long time.

Since Im not in the mood writing much Ill let others go for the other stuff ;P
By the way, search option might get you quite some info about the skills.

Zaphod, a lot of what you bring up in your post has been adressed in threads and posts in the past, by long-time members as well as some fo the game developers. You're not the first person to jump in, enjoy the game, and as soon as a major change is done you cry foul and proclaim that now classes will die and people will leave and in a year DR will be gone. In fact, that happens with every chunk.

If you'd bothered to use the search option Legendrunner mentioned you'd know the upcoming chunk addresses the both the waypoint exploit and the 1150% exploit. The changes of skills and adjustments for game balance will never stop, and the only thing you can do about it is to adapt your method of playing and move on. Ray of Gosh does not hit instantly, so maybe, and I know this is a crazy notion, maybe you should use another spell to try to hit fast-moving mobs? The same goes for your complaints on the other skills... the problems you are having with them are issues that I seriously doubt you would see if you either had the right equipment to use with the skills, or if you applied them differently.

If you really want to help, then read up on the issuses you want to bring up so you can come across as knowing what you're talking about next time.

I'd just like to point out that Fireball actually does more damage than crispy critters, and it deals this damage faster.

Monster bait is a RANGER skill. It is designed as a tank so a ranger can shoot the enemies from a safe distance. Also, the bait can only take so much melee agro that if there is no more room, other melee monsters will walk around in search for other targets, for example you, if you happen to get in their sight range.

Chill Bill needs his buffs to be effective. You have to commit 3 or 4 skill slots for him to be useable. With nippy twigs he deals a decent amount of damage and he knocks back monsters quite often. Of course you also have to pay attention to healing him so you got to at least have shards or ice bolt on your bar, and if that doesnt work and he is near death, you just use Snow Globe or On The Rocks.

How exactly are they addressing the 1150% loot 'exploit' ?
I've been out of the loop for a little while.

They're not- not directly, but they are fixing bugs like Balzack's healer bug, which might deter some people from trying. However, MMM is run at 1150 without any bugs (although most people don't fight the boss) and 1150 is doable at Balz without the bug- at least before the 10% mob damage increase (I ran regular insane Balz on the PTS and used more pots than I would for 1150 solo on live). I think that will turn more people away from 1150 balz than the healer fix.

I assumed that is the bug/exploit that Stephen is talking about in this thread (http://boards.dungeonrunners.com/showthread.php?t=18339) when he mentions the insane Balz exploits.

Edit:
Alien beat me to it! :) Which is good since I clearly misunderstood it a little bit. My bad.

1A. Getting 5 player’s worth of loot for one person:
One can run 5 copies of Dungeon Runners and then boot all of the alts after the mobs have spawned. The mobs will be tough to kill but the loot dropped will be 1,150% or whatever and all of it will drop for the player. Why is this allowed? I don’t exactly understand…. It’s a great exploit but really unacceptable.
If you play with a disconnected character, any loot that drops for them must be claimed by them. It does not drop only for the online player. This is not an exploit IMHO.

1B. Waypoint Scroll spamming to go directly to a boss or boss loot
You can use this to take the loot from chests without killing the boss or to skip the mobs before the boss. Make waypoint scrolls have a cool down period so we cannot spam them and have an additional waypoint clear after the person first hits townstown from a reset. You can’t tell me you aren’t able to fix this…..
This is fixed in the next build.

2A. Crispy Critters Spell
Yes. This spell is overpowering in some ways. But you know what? It’s also the only decent spell mages have for doing REAL damage. Nerf this spell too much and you will not only piss off. I could understand an incredibly SLIGHT reduction in damage like 10%-15% but 30%?

Here lies,
The Fire Mage Build
Killed by a patch
R.I.P
This skill has not been nerfed. This is the second time I've heard someone talk about this skill being nerfed. Who on Earth is spreading such vicious lies?

2B. Ice Bolt/Fire Bolt/Shadow Bolt/Shards
These spells often will hurt a boss/champion so little that they will actually only accomplish negating the mobs HP regen. If you are all by yourself and all you are doing is negating the regen you will never kill the boss. Main problem with these spells? Way too slow attack speed. The damage these spells do is really not bad. They are just ludicrously slow.
Monsters don't constantly regenerate unless you're in HDoL. Anywhere else, if a creature takes damage then it's not regenerating. Creatures have the same regeneration rules as players.

Pound for pound, Ice Shards does VERY good damage and the refire rate of 1 per second (assuming no cast speed modifiers) is nice.

Shadow Bolt does good damage also and it's tracking ability makes it a great choice in many cases. Same refire rate of 1 per second here too.

Ice Bolt does decent damage and slows enemies. Not really a primary attack skill but can be very useful in some cases.

Fire Bolt does very good single target damage and also has a higher crit chance than other bolt skills. It also has the longest range in the game, allowing you to rain fire on enemies from afar. I love that skill.

2C. Monster Bait
Well, it lives almost long enough…. But then again it doesn’t take agro very well at all. Most mobs would rather hit you than this enticing meat stick any day. You will probably find the meat only getting hit by like 2 or 3 of the 10+ mobs and even then it dies fast.
For bait to be effective, you have to put more range between you and the monsters. Range is very important to the aggro mechanic. If you use close-range attacks (i.e. Crispy Critters) then you're not gonna benefit much from bait.

2D. Snowman
You get all the skills/buffs. You collect the snow….you build the snowman. The snow man pokes the mobs with his weak little hands and then melts instantly like the pathetic blob of solidified water that he is. Seriously… this snowman sucks so bad. He sucks so bad that every person I have met that gives him a try only tries him on one run and realize that it’s so useless and never brings it out again.
Chill Bill is an amazing companion if you use him correctly. You gotta keep him healed, though. Use his support skills and you can mow down monsters pretty easily.

2E. Ray of Gosh
This spell really is a nice thing to see in the game. An actual divine area effect spell! With fast recast! Only… the area it covers is really small and sometimes you will find yourself moving instead of casting the spell even if it’s your right click. Then when you move it’s often closer to an archer and it runs away and God I hate that…
Glad you like it. Check out the new divine skill when it's out. It's a nice addition to the divine arsenal.

The game download is deterring people from playing the game?

Are you serious? Dungeon Runners is one of the smallest quickest downloads and I am on a SLOWER DSL line. You know what would actually deter me from playing the game? If you make a 20 or some small meg download and then every time I go somewhere in the game it has to pause to dynamically download the area information. Let’s assume on a slow connection I want to enter a dungeon and then it takes 1 to 5 minutes from when I click to when I get to actually enter because it’s downloading? I would not simply uninstall the game my friend, no no… I would take my hard drive apart, isolate the area on the disc… nevermind…. It’s not worth it. But let’s suffice it to say that I wouldn’t even give the game a chance. I would uninstall it right away.
Yes, many people are deterred by a 600MB download to try a game. You might be surprised to know that. We lose almost 30% of the folks that sign up for an account because they never complete the download.

Not enough people are becoming members?

I can really understand this being a problem. Not that many people play Dungeon Runners either. Unfortunately you the guys in control are actually at fault for this one. Yeah, that sounds harsh….but true. Here is what YOU did:
Oh boy.

You took away reasons to become a member in the hopes that this would cause more people to play dungeon runners.
This is almost right. We made playing as a free player more attractive to give in-game advertising some value. We're slowly moving away from that.

Yay, now anyone can find rainbows and purples. It used to be that if you were a non member you kind of sucked unless you really GULPED down potions. Maybe you guys don’t play the game to see it but people just trade member rb’s for non member rb’s and purples. Did you seriously believe that this change would accomplish more players and more subscriptions?
Of course they trade. That's EXACTLY what we hoped for. The idea was to make playing as a free player bearable for advertising reasons.

SOLUTION:
Now you guys backed yourself into a sticky situation. If you change things back will people get pissed off and quit? Possibly some will...
We have some solutions coming. Some I can speak to and some I can't. We have been turning up the heat on free players for a while now and will continue to do so. However, we always want free players to be viable. We don't want to make it so that free players are treated like crap or second-class citizens. Although, some envy of members is important. And, each time a free player sees an item they can't use, it nags at em.

Considering adding a cash shop for money?
If you sell in game gear that negates the whole point of the game which is to go kill stuff and get the phat loot. I can guarantee four people which are good friends of mine which will all quit if this is implemented.
We will definitely have a "cash shop". We call them microtransactions. At some point in the not-too-distant future, you will be able to purchase a currency called "Townston's Universally Recognized Dollars". You will be able to use these dollars to buy buffs (i.e. double xp, gold drops, loot drop %), remove soulbinding from items, remove membership requirements from items, purchase pets, 100 potion packs, gold vouchers and other vanity items. Each item will be in the form of a usable scroll or voucher in your inventory so that you can trade them to others if you like. This is the number one thing on my list for next year... and it represents a potentially HUGE upside for the game. This allows people to pay as they go for only the features they like. And, of course, they don't have to pay for anything if they don't want to.

Conclusion:

If something isn’t done before it is too late Dungeon Runners will most likely be shut down sometime in 2009.

…. I and my friend that plays really don’t want this to happen. If the developers and or publishers would like to converse with people that really do have great ideas and will help them for FREE, drop me a line.
This game isn't going away in 2009. If I could tell you more about what I know of the future for the game, I would. But, that info will have to wait a bit longer. I have no doubts that the game will continue for years to come...

steve

How exactly are they addressing the 1150% loot 'exploit' ?
I've been out of the loop for a little while.
It's not the loot drops that are the problem. It's the fact that some are using another bug when fighting Balz at max level. There's a numerical overflow that allows his healers to actually damage him... that same overflow can cause other damage issues in some cases. The overflow issues are resolved in build 154.

steve

ou will be able to purchase a currency called "Townston's Universally Recognized Dollars".

Oh for petes sake Steve, that's just completely brilliant. :)

You guy's f 'in rule.

I guess the microtransaction shop will look like an outhouse. Right? How about a "Joe the Plumber" NPC?

Yeah, there are some things that just feel right Mama. When Mark said let's call 'em "Townston's Universally Recognized Dollars... or T.U.R.D.S" we knew it was perfect! Joe the Plumber is a good idea. And there just HAS to be a flushing sound when you spend em. :)

steve

Joe The Plumber, Purveyor of T.U.R.D.

I just sprayed soda all over my monitor! :D

LOL. Here is a screen shot of me getting 1150% loot all for myself because of the exploit:

http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/940/lewtlo5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/lewtlo5.jpg/1/w922.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img224/lewtlo5.jpg/1/)

Yeah I am not blocking out my name. If you wanted to kick me you can but you will lose someone willing to pay for the game.

p.s. Your a really nice guy Stephen I do apreciate your careful reply.

I may consider not quitting when I see the cash shop but I have no plans on using it. I can see a basic vision of what you are planning, it may work if done right... Still, you will need the cash shop items to be not over powering but at the same time incredibly enticing otherwise. All I am saying is you could really mess things up with this one. It's risky.

Just wanted to add that the reason I am posting the info is because I would like to see this exploit FIXED. I really don't understand why we are able to do this but it causes a single person to get insane amount of loot every boss run.

Also with ray of gosh, yes... I often crispy critters in between ray of gosh. However I still often right click ray of gosh and run instead of casting and then the archers run away because I moved by accident.

I just think right clicking should never make a character move..... yet it seems to make me move. It's stupid yet annoying.

Due to the speed of cripsy critters it still does more damage than any of the other attack spells which are too slow and hit too few mobs. Sure, if you have lot's of increased magic attack the spells can become useful, and sure the spells work decent against NORMAL mobs, but against insane HDOL boss mobs often all the spells / skills suck super bad except crispy critters.

p.s. I am glad to hear it's not getting nerfed. My friend told me Gollias was complaining and causing it to get nerfed. I admit the accuracy of my post therefore was not accurate apparently. I was simply repeating what I heard and believed to be true.

Ok so here I go, First time poster, LONG time player. I have some things to say Steve.

If you play with a disconnected character, any loot that drops for them must be claimed by them. It does not drop only for the online player. This is not an exploit IMHO.

OK, First of all, we aren't talking about having DC'ed players in the group. What he means is that, and you would know this if you ever logged into the REAL game because people are ALWAYS talking about doing it, we are talking about 1 person running 5 copies of the game, so that then when they run into an area, or a boss, and then when the boss is spawned and it says that they have 1150% loot, that player then boots everyone in the group from the group. When this happens it causes all of the loot that the boss WAS going to drop for EVERYONE to go to one individual person. It is an EXPLOIT and deeply needs to be fixed.


This is fixed in the next build.

Ok, and you are fixing this how? I am just wondering? Because I know how to fix it is it quite simple really, all you have to do is add a cooldown to the WP scrolls. Problem solved! Because I have discussed this with others and they say that people would still be able to do the WP glitch, BUT here is the thing, yes they MIGHT be able to do it, but the chance and timing on them doing it is almost PERFECT, people would have to sit there and actually PRACTICE doing this and hope that when they are going to try to do it there isn't some incompetent person in the group. So there we go, problem solved.


This skill has not been nerfed. This is the second time I've heard someone talk about this skill being nerfed. Who on Earth is spreading such vicious lies?

One word, Golliaz. Talk to him about it.


Monsters don't constantly regenerate unless you're in HDoL. Anywhere else, if a creature takes damage then it's not regenerating. Creatures have the same regeneration rules as players.

We know that. He is just trying to say that some other mage skills should have something more to them, they don't seems to do...........enough.

Shadow Bolt does good damage also and it's tracking ability makes it a great choice in many cases. Same refire rate of 1 per second here too.

I <3 this spell, I think that it is PERFECT the way that it is.

Fire Bolt does very good single target damage and also has a higher crit chance than other bolt skills. It also has the longest range in the game, allowing you to rain fire on enemies from afar. I love that skill.

Rain fire? No, poke fire at them sadly, yes. Just saying IMO.


Chill Bill is an amazing companion if you use him correctly. You gotta keep him healed, though. Use his support skills and you can mow down monsters pretty easily.

This snowman PISSES ME OFF! He is worthless in my opinion, If you are a Ice mage, that is probably the ONLY reason why you are using him. All he seems to do is get in the way of your ice spells. Which HEALS him instead of damaging the mobs, it is REALLY annoying, this snowman REALLY needs to be re-thought.

Glad you like it. Check out the new divine skill when it's out. It's a nice addition to the divine arsenal.

I love it too, but seeing as how there are only 3 Divine skills there isn't much to love. This is like a fattie with no jugs. If you know what I am saying.

Yes, many people are deterred by a 600MB download to try a game. You might be surprised to know that. We lose almost 30% of the folks that sign up for an account because they never complete the download.

Ok, umm, I AM surprised, I would like to know where these numbers are coming from. I am just saying that there are MUCH bigger games out there that require a MUCH longer download, Sword of the New World for example is a 1.97 GIG download, and there are more people trying that out everyday. If people can't wait a few hours to play a game then maybe they are the people that we don't want playing this game anyway. Just saying. I think that a dynamic download would end up making more people quit then join. I know for sure that there was a game called Warrior Epic, it was in dev. a while ago and it was Dynamic Download, and that is actually THE reason that I, and several others stopped playing. Just saying.

This is almost right. We made playing as a free player more attractive to give in-game advertising some value. We're slowly moving away from that.

I understand this, but it is like this. Lets play a virtual game of monopoly here. Ok you own 3/4 of the board here, and I REALLY want those, so you just GIVE them to me for free, all except for Boardwalk. Then what do you know, on your very next turn you land on Boardwalk, well can you tell me how much you pay yourself? Don't understand what I am saying here? Let me explain. You GAVE AWAY all of the member perks for free. Let me use and example again, that is like If you walked into a jewelry store looking to buy a diamond ring, and the clerk says to you, "You Sir can buy this beauty of a ring here for 50,000 dollars, OR I can GIVE you this fake one that no one ever in a million years with all the technology in the world will be able to decipher the difference.". Well which one would you pick? If ALL of the reason to become a member are given for free (which they are), then why bother paying? As for your banners in the game. They fall short, as a matter of fact they are nothing more then todays EPIC FAIL! What person Puts banner ads in thier game for their own company? The point of banners is for OTHER companies to pay YOU, to be in the game. Yours FAIL! I am sorry to say that so harshly but they do.

We have some some solutions coming. Some I can speak to and some I can't. We have been turning up the heat on free players for a while now and will continue to do so. However, we always want free players to be viable. We don't want to make it so that free players are treated like crap or second-class citizens. Although, some envy of members is important. And, each time a free player sees an item they can't use, it nags at em.

Sorry to say it but you haven't been turning the heat up on anything. You are just handing free players the items that took you so long to cook up, on a silver platter. That is just the things FREE players SHOULD be treated like crap, or second class. I am sorry to say this so harshly again, but if you cant come up with 5 dollars to play a game, which I have done the math, it comes down to like 20 some cents a day, then maybe you shouldn't be here. From all the things that you have been saying in this, to me it seems like you WANT free players to over run this game, seems like you LIKE free players, seems to me like you DON'T want to make money off this game. If you want my opinion more about free players or how to get this game to make money again, then please feel free to talk to me about it.

We will definitely have a "cash shop". We call them microtransactions. At some point in the not-too-distant future, you will be able to purchase a currency called "Townston's Universally Recognized Dollars". You will be able to use these dollars to buy buffs (i.e. double xp, gold drops, loot drop %), remove soulbinding from items, remove membership requirements from items, purchase pets, 100 potion packs, gold vouchers and other vanity items. Each item will be in the form of a usable scroll or voucher in your inventory so that you can trade them to others if you like. This is the number one thing on my list for next year... and it represents a potentially HUGE upside for the game. This allows people to pay as they go for only the features they like. And, of course, they don't have to pay for anything if they don't want to.

Now here is where I am steamed. First off let me start by saying, Thank you Steven for making me quit! Congratulation You Have Lost A Paying Customer! I am done, now that I hear you say that. I QUIT! 51 hard earned levels (NO EXPLOITS, NO BUGS USES, just hard earned playing) of playing since open beta down the tubes. All because you guys have to go ahead and get greedy. Now I am going to have to pay 5 bucks a month AND pay for cash shop items! I think not! Oh and maybe you should talk to Golliaz about why he thinks that gold shouldn't be tradeable. He said "Would you like to see the game full of people saying "BUY GOLD HERE FOR THE LOW PRICE OF 50 MIL FOR 19.99 PAYPAL ACCEPTED!"" Well I wouldn't but guess what? Since you are making a Cash Shop AND making everything tradeable, once again Steven, WELCOME TO THE GOLD SPAMMERS! Because guess what? If those Items are tradeable, you ARE going to have them. So lets get ready all to open the flood gates of spammers. And another thing, do you know what kinda players a cash shop attracts? Brazilian Hackers, and Korean Gold Farmers! So I hope that you, and all the other players that are actually going to stick around after this HORRID thing happens, have a FUN time deal with those in your game. So once again I would like to thank YOU personally Steven for making a LOYAL paying customer QUIT because you are greedy.

Here Lies Forty
Paying Member Since Open Beta
R.I.P Dear friend you will be missed
The Cash shop, Hackers, and Gold Spammers were too much for thee

Thanks Steve!


This game isn't going away in 2009. If I could tell you more about what I know of the future for the game, I would. But, that info will have to wait a bit longer. I have no doubts that the game will continue for years to come...

steve

Don't Lie...

Ok so here I go, First time poster, LONG time player. I have some things to say Steve.



OK, First of all, we aren't talking about having DC'ed players in the group. What he means is that, and you would know this if you ever logged into the REAL game because people are ALWAYS talking about doing it, we are talking about 1 person running 5 copies of the game, so that then when they run into an area, or a boss, and then when the boss is spawned and it says that they have 1150% loot, that player then boots everyone in the group from the group. When this happens it causes all of the loot that the boss WAS going to drop for EVERYONE to go to one individual person. It is an EXPLOIT and deeply needs to be fixed.
I play the game all the time and I've heard about the 1150% farming, but I had no idea it was about 1 player getting 5 players worth of loot. I honestly thought it was loot dropping for 1 connected player and 4 disconnected players and the only way for the 1 connected player to get all the loot was to login each of the alts and have them pick-up/drop their loot. That being said, if the single player is killing the boss that was spawned for 5 man insane, why shouldn't they get the extra loot? Unfortunately, the percent of players doing so without taking advantage of the healer and shadow bugs is probably pretty small, which compounds the problem. Taking away the healer and shadow bugs, as well increasing mob damage by 5% will probably go a long ways towards decreasing this practice by all but those looking for the most challenging, but rewarding battle.

Ok, and you are fixing this how? I am just wondering? Because I know how to fix it is it quite simple really, all you have to do is add a cooldown to the WP scrolls. Problem solved! Because I have discussed this with others and they say that people would still be able to do the WP glitch, BUT here is the thing, yes they MIGHT be able to do it, but the chance and timing on them doing it is almost PERFECT, people would have to sit there and actually PRACTICE doing this and hope that when they are going to try to do it there isn't some incompetent person in the group. So there we go, problem solved.
Why does it matter how it's fixed as long as it's fixed?

Regarding your last four quoted points on free play, microtransactions and the future, I'll just summarize those as "you have no idea what you're talking about". It's not worth going into detail, because you clearly have your mind made up, so why bother trying to discuss it politely or intelligently?

Don't Lie...

Don't be a dick.

...Due to the speed of cripsy critters it still does more damage than any of the other attack spells which are too slow and hit too few mobs. Sure, if you have lot's of increased magic attack the spells can become useful, and sure the spells work decent against NORMAL mobs, but against insane HDOL boss mobs often all the spells / skills suck super bad except crispy critters.

p.s. I am glad to hear it's not getting nerfed. My friend told me Gollias was complaining and causing it to get nerfed. I admit the accuracy of my post therefore was not accurate apparently. I was simply repeating what I heard and believed to be true.

We've discussed it on the PTS server, but the rumors probably started due to this thread:

Linky... (http://boards.dungeonrunners.com/showthread.php?t=18299)

Based on Steve's responses in that thread and this one, I'd say you don't have anything to worry about with Crispy Critters...

I wasn't intending for this stuff to turn out hateful... I am just trying to address things that I feel are game issues. I really want DR to succeed. I admit that my opinions will in no way represent all the players in existence.

Instead of displaying hate towards a cash shop I would like to say that I am a member and I find it to my liking. If the cash shop is added and let us say they remove being a member I will no longer be paying the $5.00 a month. However I will not use the cash shop at all. I just simply don't like them and the use of them. So I personally will probably wind up moving on to another game. I will give it the chance and all that, but, no money shall pass from me to them for cash shop items. It just doesn't do it for me.

Now if for some odd reason my opinion DID represent the majority of the players then that could lead to a major fail! I hope you guys know what you are doing!

As a mage with BSOD and crispy critters I like to do a little thing like that picture on that other forum...

I call it cornering. I train a ridiculous amount of monsters and hop in a corner and burn them to death. This gulps down potions but gives amazing experience and a good player will be able to do it easily as long as you keep BSOD up and have tons of mana. The amount of exp earned this way vs. work is insane. It is to a degree that I would consider it an exploit but not one I expect anyone to do anything about.

(The majority of the people I seem to meet in the game don't do this, actually most of the people that group with me tend to really suck and just die and come back and often add no DPS to the group at all.)

Also about the extra loot cheat:

Sure it takes longer to kill the mobs, they do a lot of damage, and I use a lot of potions. But I get 5 players worth of chances of getting rainbows and 5 players worth of gold, crap loot for bling gnome, and not to mention an average of 12-16 or so purples EVERY time!

.....Honestly if they plan on trying to sell "Increased loot items" in the cash shop, this exploit would make that purchase pretty pointless..... IMO

.....Honestly if they plan on trying to sell "Increased loot items" in the cash shop, this exploit would make that purchase pretty pointless..... IMO

I am just saying here that with the 1150% Loot EXPLOIT + a % Loot Item = 50000000% loot for 1 person! YAY!!!!! Hope that works out I might log back in just to see that.

Thank you Steven for making me quit!

Good riddance

Regarding your last four quoted points on free play, microtransactions and the future, I'll just summarize those as "you have no idea what you're talking about". It's not worth going into detail, because you clearly have your mind made up, so why bother trying to discuss it politely or intelligently?

QFT... the bolded text is actually what I said to him in game the other day.

To Forty: for all of your play time, if you actually made any effort to get involved on the fourms before you decided to drop your pants for us all, you would know that Stephen, the lead developer of this game, doesn't talk out of his ass. That you challenge his statements on aspects of the game for which you have, at best, an assumptive understanding is nothing short of laughable. *proceeds to laugh heartily*

Good riddance



QFT... the bolded text is actually what I said to him in game the other day.

To Forty: for all of your play time, if you actually made any effort to get involved on the fourms before you decided to drop your pants for us all, you would know that Stephen, the lead developer of this game, doesn't talk out of his ass. That you challenge his statements on aspects of the game for which you have, at best, an assumptive understanding is nothing short of laughable. *proceeds to laugh heartily*

First off, Thanks for being such an ass. Secondly, the only reason I question Stevens methods is because I am pretty damn sure that he really does have NO IDEA what he is doing. The day that he gave RB's to non-members was the day that I started to think that.
It isn't like I am just talking out my ass here either. I KNOW what I am talking about. I know how to market things and how to make things work, how to bring people into things. I also know more about games and gamers, then information that you could pull out of all of the dev's sitting at that office right now. I may not know how to code, but I know how things work. I know how business works, and I know how gamers work. Trust me I have probably been one for longer then you have been alive. I don't know why they haven't hired me. Because if it were up to me this game would still be raking in the money. Hell I remember a time when W1 was so full of members that you HAD to play on W2, there wasn't a choice. Do you remember those days? Didn't think so. Do you remember when HDOL was the hardest thing? Didn't think so? But that is all beside the point. If Steven wants to drive a game into the ground then he can for all I care (which will happen), but I for one will not be apart of it. I am sorry to see one of my favorite games go down the tubes, but sadly it is. Nothing but the suggestions that I may have are going to save this game. No amount of patches or cash shops are ever going to bring this game back, if anything it will do nothing but make people quit.

I just so bothered to go on to the actual game to state that I was quiting to everyone, mostly my posse, and gave my reason as to why, the cash shop, and actually had people agree with me that the cash shop WILL tank this game, and they said that when their 6 months is up form the box version they are quitting also now.

So If you are reading this Steven, this cash shop thing is a BIG BOMB that you just dropped, and as you can already see even at the MENTION of it your player base is slipping away. No body wants it. It is a idea that I hope you are prepared for. I really don't think that you know what you are doing on this, it is my opinion, but I don't speak out my ass. I just hope that you can sweep up after the fall out when that bomb goes off.

So we've garnered and apparently lost a belligerent ass. Thank you for your very opinionated ignorant post, its all drivel Forty. Threatening and announcing you are quitting because the lead developer has announced that the cash shop will be implemented, is attention seeking and immature. And you state this right after you chastise them for the ads, however few, that are helping to fund the game, saying that they aren't doing anything, along with all the other drivel against free players like you are better than they are. There are many reason people don't pay to play, and a lot of it is they either just can't afford it, are minors with no way to pay for one reason or another and their mommy wont front the bill. And i'm sure there are dozens of other reasons. You are speaking on things you know little to nothing about, you just think you do. And did you know, that pay to play option was added in, back in the day EVERYTHING was non member.

The devs are doing their job, and doing a fine job of it.

Zaphod, you sound like you dislike anything that gives anyone an advantage, even a slight one, over anyone else. We might as well have a game where we are in a small room with a stick and a hole that monsters will come out one at a time at timed intervals. Or you want a more "hardcore" game in which its difficult and takes lots of time and energy to get good, then maybe this game really isn't for you.

You both assume a lot, and you know what they say, "assumption is the mother of all F-ups" ex. The Pres, assumed that there were WMDs in Iraq, you know what they found, nothing. And now the USA is in a money sucking mess of a war that is causing our economy to collapse.

There IS NO WAY that the devs will be able to to "fix" the 1150% loot "exploit" as it pertains to a single person getting all of the loot, PERIOD. Unless they disallow grouping entirely, and it really wouldn't be an MMO now would it. Even if you can't open 2 instances, you can use two computers and two accounts, or your friends could help you invite alts to the group. If you make it so that if someone logs off/disconnects you are going to have a lot of pissed off people. If i got disconnected durring a boss run with friends and missed the end of the fight, that would piss me off something fierce.

It's not an exploit, it doesn't give anyone an advantage over anyone else, beyond level boundaries that is. And the person DOES NOT get the rb drop chance as 5 people when they do it. That would really be a problem, concidering that would be 3 rolls at 1 in 300 chance on normal from a boss times 5, so 15 rolls at 1 in 10 chance on insane. I think we'd see a great deal more rbs dropping. You could theoretically get more than 3 rbs in a single run, but it would be very rare and certainly from more than 1 monster. I don't know the mechanics on heros and champs, and standard mobs drop rbs on occasion to. All it does is increase the amount of total loot dropped and increases the % chance of an rb drop, 3 rolls at about 1 in 10 chance.

Crispy Critters isn't over powered in the least bit, its very effective for killing mobs, and pulling mobs and cornering isn't exploiting, its just an intelligent way to play, and the reward is faster xp. CC's single target damage sucks compared to any of the bolt skills. When i am farming and when i was running for xp, once i was down to just a few mobs i switched to a bolt skill cause rarely do 2 or 3 mobs stay in a nice line and close together so you can fry them with CC.

Whats you guys problem with getting more xp anyway, are you playing fighters? I sense envy.

You aren't forced to do anything, play what class you want to play and deal with the disadvantages, every class has them.

You don't have to use the cash shop for anything, and i'm relatively certain that the 5$ a month will stay in place when it comes, it'll just be a way to help generate some revenue for the game that isn't getting much, its not greedy, its survival. And all of the items are vanity items. The ability to trade the items you purchase may cause problems, but i'm sure this will be addressed in a attempt to stave off spammers, which i fail to really see in this situation. Some one buys stuff from the store to trade for rbs? How is this going to be a problem, since you can't farm for said items, and you can't trade them for gold, and you certainly can't sell them on ebay without getting a permanent ip ban, i don't foresee much of a problem. Market spammers? Ok, thats what ignore is for, and if you, like a person or two i know of, refuse to use ignore for whatever reason, thats your own damn problem, and is just plain stubborn.

1. I use crispy critters all the time. It gives me an amazing advantage over almost ALL mobs except fire resistant ones. It's such a great spell it can sit in the left click all the time pretty much. It's such a ridiculously good spell. It's too good but never mind that anyways.

(I am currently a warrior/mage using flaming buddy now though)

2. Yes, the fact that you cannot trade the items for gold negates major problems. Actually you seem more negative than I am on the whole thing so I hope you are not referring to me. I have played numerous mmorpg's and the major thing that kept me liking DR is the simple $5.00 membership and lack of a cash shop. It's nothing personal, I will just quit when it comes out. (or sooner.) So no hate back at me ok? I am just stating the fact here. It bothers me to that extent.

3. I still feel the loot cheat is an exploit. There really is no reason to allow multiple instances of the program. True, this does not remove the ability completely... but once again I can see no reason to allow multiple instances on the same computer.

So anyways I am just giving my opinion and my two cents. I'll reply again only if I feel the need too or if I feel someone is attacking me for my opinion and expressing it.

P.S. you say I assume things, I merely assume this: The cash shop will either make or break dungeon runners. This is in fact a very correct assumption. Hopefully for the sake of NCSOFT it will "make" them.

1. I use crispy critters all the time. It gives me an amazing advantage over almost ALL mobs except fire resistant ones. It's such a great spell it can sit in the left click all the time pretty much. It's such a ridiculously good spell. It's too good but never mind that anyways.



Wow, you have serious issues, a skill is "to good" never thought i'd hear that about a skill from a pve play. In recent events, Cold Snap was a bit different.



2. Yes, the fact that you cannot trade the items for gold negates major problems. Actually you seem more negative than I am on the whole thing so I hope you are not referring to me. I have played numerous mmorpg's and the major thing that kept me liking DR is the simple $5.00 membership and lack of a cash shop. It's nothing personal, I will just quit when it comes out. (or sooner.) So no hate back at me ok? I am just stating the fact here. It bothers me to that extent.



Again you assume to much. And YOUR opinion on cash shops for dr is just that, YOUR opinion, and quitting because of it is unfounded. But whatever, i don't care if you stay or not, and no one is going to try to change your mind. In fact, publicly announcing you are quitting usually just gets you flamed for being an attention seeking schmuck.



3. I still feel the loot cheat is an exploit. There really is no reason to allow multiple instances of the program. True, this does not remove the ability completely... but once again I can see no reason to allow multiple instances on the same computer.



Of coarse you don't, you obviously don't or can't do it, so why should anyone else be able to do it. Getting max loot is only one thing that multi-instancing is used for. And there is nothing wrong with it, in fact, it saves money and electricity, i'd rather not have to dual box just to put some stuff on a storage mule, or transfer stuff to alts on different accounts(of which i pay for 2).



So anyways I am just giving my opinion and my two cents. I'll reply again only if I feel the need too or if I feel someone is attacking me for my opinion and expressing it.

Don't take this the wrong way, but you've already given your opinion numerous times, and there is really no reason for you to defend your opinion at all on a forum.

So let me start off by quoting you in a few sections.

So we've garnered and apparently lost a belligerent ass. Thank you for your very opinionated ignorant post, its all drivel Forty. Threatening and announcing you are quitting because the lead developer has announced that the cash shop will be implemented, is attention seeking and immature. And you state this right after you chastise them for the ads, however few, that are helping to fund the game, saying that they aren't doing anything, along with all the other drivel against free players like you are better than they are. There are many reason people don't pay to play, and a lot of it is they either just can't afford it, are minors with no way to pay for one reason or another and their mommy wont front the bill. And i'm sure there are dozens of other reasons. You are speaking on things you know little to nothing about, you just think you do. And did you know, that pay to play option was added in, back in the day EVERYTHING was non member.

1, Thank you too for being another ass, seems more and more to me that there is nothing but asses in this game, sept me and a few close friends, we seems to be the only nice people left in the game. First off I wasn't being belligerent, and if you took it as that then you don't understand what I was going for. Secondly my post was FAR from ignorant. All I do is speak the truth, and if you find the truth ignorant, then you sir are ignorant yourself. Thirdly I NEVER threatened anything or anyone. Why would I do such a thing? I have nothing to gain from it. The only reason that I chastised the ads is because they deserve it. The ads are stupid, did you not understand what I said? A company, that would pay it self for self advertising doesn't make the least bit of sense. They aren't helping to fund anything, remember our virtual game of monopoly? As for the people paying vs. not paying there are more ways to pay then with just a credit card. You can use NCsoft time cards, or you can pay by cell phone, or even home phone for that matter. And seriously if you can't AFFORD to pay 5 dollars a month to play a game. Maybe you shouldn't be playing the game in the first place, maybe you should be looking for some way to make 5 dollars. IT IS 5 DOLLARS!!! I cant seem to stress that enough. I mean hell there are a million things to do to afford this game for a month, sacrifice a pack of cigs if you smoke, skip eating at Mc'y D's one day eat at home, Skip that 5 dollar foot long at Subway, the list goes on and on. That is what I am trying to say here. It is SO cheap that if you can't afford this game, then maybe you shouldn't be playing games in the first place, and with all the different ways to pay for it, there is ALWAYS a way to pay for it even if you are a minor. Just saying. And to answer your question YES, I did know that when it started in CB it was all non member, but when I started playing back in '06 when OB hit, was when the P2p was added, and that is when I started paying. I started paying because back then if you wanted to be REMOTELY good you had to pay, and all I am saying is that we need to go back to those days if we want to see this game survive, in no way is a cash shop going to fix what Steven broke, only he can do that by making the choice to go back to making money.

The devs are doing their job, and doing a fine job of it.

Ummm...if you say so. Right now I am watching the game fail, so ummmm, yeah.....
Remember when the worlds were full and you had to wait to play? Or sometimes even couldn't 'cause they were so full? Now look at the game, there is only like 300 people playing TOTAL at peak times in the day. Just saying.

You both assume a lot, and you know what they say, "assumption is the mother of all F-ups" ex. The Pres, assumed that there were WMDs in Iraq, you know what they found, nothing. And now the USA is in a money sucking mess of a war that is causing our economy to collapse.

Don't even get me started on that. All I can say is thank god we have a new pres.

There IS NO WAY that the devs will be able to to "fix" the 1150% loot "exploit" as it pertains to a single person getting all of the loot, PERIOD. Unless they disallow grouping entirely, and it really wouldn't be an MMO now would it. Even if you can't open 2 instances, you can use two computers and two accounts, or your friends could help you invite alts to the group. If you make it so that if someone logs off/disconnects you are going to have a lot of pissed off people. If i got disconnected durring a boss run with friends and missed the end of the fight, that would piss me off something fierce.

We understand that technicly there is no way to fix it, because people could use more then 1 computer to do it and various things of that nature, but hey at least then it would be a little harder to do. Other then that the other way to fix it is to have the Mobs dynamicly adjust their loot so that if one person is booted from the group, while a boss or other mob is being killed the % of loot drops with that player. That would be one way of fixing it. Just saying of course.

Crispy Critters isn't over powered in the least bit, its very effective for killing mobs, and pulling mobs and cornering isn't exploiting, its just an intelligent way to play, and the reward is faster xp. CC's single target damage sucks compared to any of the bolt skills. When i am farming and when i was running for xp, once i was down to just a few mobs i switched to a bolt skill cause rarely do 2 or 3 mobs stay in a nice line and close together so you can fry them with CC.

Yes it really is overpowered, VERY overpowered, but I am sure that it was ment to be that way and for good reason. Obviously it is ok that it be overpowered, because that is equaled out by Mages being really squishy, which is cool, that is the point of it all. The only thing that need be worried about is Fighters using it to take out big groups of mobs, but that is taken care of by Fighters having a huge mana shortage, and the spell costing a lot of mana to use.

You aren't forced to do anything, play what class you want to play and deal with the disadvantages, every class has them.

Some just seems to have more then others.

You don't have to use the cash shop for anything, and i'm relatively certain that the 5$ a month will stay in place when it comes, it'll just be a way to help generate some revenue for the game that isn't getting much, its not greedy, its survival. And all of the items are vanity items. The ability to trade the items you purchase may cause problems, but i'm sure this will be addressed in a attempt to stave off spammers, which i fail to really see in this situation. Some one buys stuff from the store to trade for rbs? How is this going to be a problem, since you can't farm for said items, and you can't trade them for gold, and you certainly can't sell them on ebay without getting a permanent ip ban, i don't foresee much of a problem. Market spammers? Ok, thats what ignore is for, and if you, like a person or two i know of, refuse to use ignore for whatever reason, thats your own damn problem, and is just plain stubborn.

IT WILL CAUSE SPAMMERS! That is all I have to say but you are right that is what Iggy is for. But then you will have to worry about the worlds being so full that you won't be able to play because of all the spammers. Errrr maybe THAT is what Steven has up his sleeve. Release a Cash shop to flood the game with spammers and botters, that way people will be forced to pay for the game to get into a server. So good going on that one Steve, guess you out smarted me there. but once again, just saying.

Ahh, I see what you mean with the exploit. Since you can get the monsters to spawn with increased difficulty and have all group members bail then you get all the loot. Clearly I misunderstood. My bad.

Is it an exploit? That's debatable. I can see that point of view for sure. However, as Ripper pointed out, the monsters are increased in difficulty. So, they are harder to kill. It's almost a wash. I'm not sure what the best approach would be to "fix" it either. Fundamentally, the problem is that you can spam infinite potions to survive such increase difficulty as a solo player.

We could skip loot passes for the removed group members. That would ensure that only the remaining player gets loot. That is, we could recompute the loot % as soon as a player is removed from the group (not disconnected, mind you, only removed). That would do the trick. I'll talk with Mark about it and see what he thinks.

Sorry for not understanding the issue fully. I apologize for being so uninformed. Being human, I'm not perfect. :)

steve

Hell I remember a time when W1 was so full of members that you HAD to play on W2, there wasn't a choice. Do you remember those days? Didn't think so. Do you remember when HDOL was the hardest thing? Didn't think so.

Do you even hear yourself? Do you know how long I've been playing? Didn't think so.

Do you even hear yourself? Do you know how long I've been playing? Didn't think so.

So then why don't you tell us instead of being an ass. Were you a CBtester? If you say yes please provide proof. Because I could go around saying things too. But I don't. I speak truth. And yes to answer your assy question I do hear myself.

I really have no interest in arguing with anyone. It's late and quite a waste of effort.

I can share some statistics on the game to help you understand a bit on where we're at and why we're making the decisions we're making:

Since it's inception, Dungeon Runners has had about 600,000 accounts created. Some 30% of those never created a character. Of those 600k, only about 300k are in the US. The rest are spread out over the EU and "rest of world". 600k is a very small number. There are still plenty of folks to reach out to.

We have roughly 35k unique users a month... with anywhere between 10k to 17k unique players a week. Our max concurrency is about 600 -- and that peak is generally hit on Sunday. Today's max concurrency was 467. Average playtime is about 45 minutes.

Dungeon Runners is a small game, but it has great potential IMHO. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be here working on it. :)

Keep in mind that DR has been an experimental product for NCsoft. We've been trying out new business models for the company and testing out some crazy ideas. About a year ago we were the first NCsoft game to try in-game advertising. Based on our research, and the initial performance of the ads, the revenue potential they presented seemed very good. To support ads we moved to more equity between free and paid players. In fact, early on, ad-watching players generated more revenue than paid players. So, the decision seemed to be valid. However, as time moves on, it's obvious to us that in-game advertising is pretty much dead at this point -- seemingly because advertisers are steering away from such "unproven" models. I can't really guess the reason, but the money coming from ads is junk.

So, where does that leave us? Do we just revert to when all free players had no access to anything but blue items? That would be disastrous IMO. The ill-will generated by such a move would do great harm to the community. So, we're looking for other ways to generate revenue that doesn't include destroying the free game. Free players represent potential future customers. To alienate them is to cut off potential future revenue.

The game is in a downward trend right now. The number of incoming players is dropping and there is uncertainty in the community about the future of the game. NCsoft has publicly stated that they are focusing only on the AAA games. Where does that leave us? I am not allowed to speak about that now. There are things in the works that have the team very excited... but I can't say a word yet.

Yet, keep this in mind: NCsoft recently announced the plan to shutdown Tabula Rasa at the end of February. Don't you think that announcing the same for DR would be easy to do? Why wait? The reason is clear... NCsoft is not shutting the game down. It's just not happening.

Why, on Earth, would we consider microtransactions? Because they make for a much better business model. Having such a system in place allows hardcore players to spend more on the game... while allowing casual players to pay a little at a time without a $5 monthly commitment. We could discuss, at length, the examples of microtransaction systems and their performance. But, from where I'm sitting, it makes a great deal of sense.

I really don't understand the anger behind the idea of a cash shop. When I look over the complaints posted here, they have to do with:

Gold Spammers - Having a cash shop doesn't mean that you can trade gold. Trading gold isn't in the cards. As long as I'm in charge of this game, there will be no gold trading. The closest thing you will see is the ability to buy a gold voucher from the cash shop and trade it. Once used, the gold voucher will turn into untradeable gold.

Having to buy items from the shop - You won't have to. The things for sale will improve your experience but they will never be necessary. Players will want them, but they will never be forced to buy anything. You will still need to play the game to get loot and XP. A good example of a buyable item would be the bling gnome... or perhaps a character emote... or special costume. Lots of potential for fun optional items that will make the game better.

About the dynamic download... you will have the option to download the full game. However, the dynamic download will make getting into the game a 5 minute affair instead of hours for some. Our target audience is the casual game player without interest in downloading a game for two hours. We have to capture their interest quickly. A fat download just doesn't cut it in that market.

Finally, the angry spew coming from some on this thread makes me want to close the thread or pull out my ban hammer. I hope that folks can relax, take a breath, and discuss things rationally. The one thing this development team is is open-minded. We will take into account any complaint or point of view. We're happy to admit when we're wrong and make adjustments. Bashing us, however, is not the way to make a positive change. It just drives a wedge between us.

I'll respect you as long as you respect me and others on the team and in the community. Please, let's try to be somewhat mature?

steve

Ahh, I see what you mean with the exploit. Since you can get the monsters to spawn with increased difficulty and have all group members bail then you get all the loot. Clearly I misunderstood. My bad.

Is it an exploit? That's debatable. I can see that point of view for sure. However, as Ripper pointed out, the monsters are increased in difficulty. So, they are harder to kill. It's almost a wash. I'm not sure what the best approach would be to "fix" it either. Fundamentally, the problem is that you can spam infinite potions to survive such increase difficulty as a solo player.

We could skip loot passes for the removed group members. That would ensure that only the remaining player gets loot. That is, we could recompute the loot % as soon as a player is removed from the group (not disconnected, mind you, only removed). That would do the trick. I'll talk with Mark about it and see what he thinks.

Sorry for not understanding the issue fully. I apologize for being so uninformed. Being human, I'm not perfect. :)

steve

Steve-O,
Since people are doing the 1150% thing they are also taking on a higher damage doing monsters as well as a monsters with a higher health % I feel that if theyre takin all that on by themselves they deserve the increased loot. Dont worry about it, Marks time could be spent better doing other things than coding in for that 'exploit'. And dont let one persons bitch about it sway you away from other more important things. Personally Id rather see something that lets my POS GF4 5200 FX still be a halfass decent vid card to play the game smoothly (Like it did prior to the 151 build. Let me tell ya I get some serious lag now doing balzy that I didnt prior to 151).:D

Forty,
You says youve been playing since open beta but then you say you only have a lvl 51 character, WTF Have you been doing? I have a Lvl 100 that I took my sweet ass time getting to 100 and then dilly dallied with it for 6 months afterwards. I know have a lvl 71 Mage that once again Im dilly dallying with (Goto W2 and ask around if Jesus doesnt do more talking than actually dungeon running and you'll get a Resounding 'YES!!'). I got into DR just as the open beta came to an end (wish I had gotten the info that took me from being bored in CoH/V to DR during beta) I didnt get a membership until the night Steve showed up on w1 Drunk (Thanks to Ripper I believe and Jaegerbombs) off his ass as EvilSteve. This is the 1st Game I have EVER played where a LEAD DEVELOPER came onto a LIVE server and ACTUALLY interacted with members (its also the same night I created JesusHChrist and Steve-O sent me a whisper with "LOL Love the Name LMAO!") and Ive been playing online video games since AoHell,CompuCrap and ProdOGeesh (AoL,CompuServe and Prodigy for you youngsters) were the ONLY ISP's available. I beta'd MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries waaaaay back in 1985 as well as every MechWarrior game after that. And DR has been the only one where the Developers actually listened and reacted to player input. In short you must talk a whole F@#*& S$^t load more than I do and as prolly everyone who has posted on this subject, with maybe the exception of Khazandra can attest, I TALK ALOT!!! Im the W2 Social Butterfly and I have 2 characters above lvl 51. I think you just need to let it go and find another game or just a chat room because anyone talking more than me has no buisness talkin S*!t about whats broke and how your butt hurt that players are making more Gold and other Loot than you are.:eek:

Ok Nuff said You'll prolly flame me for this post but whatever. Go. Get. Leave. NCsoft and DR thank you for paying $5 a month and if you have the gnome $20 for the retail version for the time youve been here.

...I didnt get a membership until the night Steve showed up on w1 Drunk (Thanks to Ripper I believe and Jaegerbombs) off his ass as EvilSteve....

lol - while I have seen Steve a little toasty, I didn't get him that way :p. Drive him to drink, however? Entirely possible ;).

Yeah, I love that name, too, btw!

I'll respect you as long as you respect me and others on the team and in the community. Please, let's try to be somewhat mature?

steve


Opps my Bad Steve-O. Sorry I went on a rant but I have this knee jerk reaction when someone complains about a game Ive been getting a kick out of for a year and a half (and paid for up till Sept 09). Id take more meds but then Im sure Id get Pryapism and CandyStripe'rs wouldnt be safe:p:eek::D

lol - while I have seen Steve a little toasty, I didn't get him that way :p. Drive him to drink, however? Entirely possible ;).

Yeah, I love that name, too, btw!

Thanks Ripper Now Ill have to take the way back way back machine thru the Search Option and find out who it was that posted the Spiel about the Meet n Greet last year.
I still chuckle about Steves boy tellin ppl they were Losers as they left the convention center (Dorcas FTW!).:)

HAH Found it! It Was Masse and it was at Dave n Busters not a convention center.

I'd like to clarify: I never had sexual relations with that woman! Erm. Or was it that I wasn't drunk? Erm. Dang. Caught again!

EvilSteve is my fighter alt. Hooray for alts!

A final point on the advertising that I'd like to make. It seems that some people don't have all the information on why we're showing our own ads instead of paid ads. It's almost like these folks think we have some choice over this... let me make it clear:

Double Fusion is the company that provides ads for Dungeon Runners. We have no ability to line up advertisers -- that's their job. We provide ads for our own games to fill the space when there are no paid ads. "Might as well advertise something rather than show nothing all day." we said to ourselves. It's an odd idea to me that folks might think that we pay ourselves to advertise in our own game. Nope, we don't pay a dime to advertise in DR. But, then again, nobody else does either. :)

I imagine a day coming soon when all in-game ads are tossed in the crapper and forgotten.

steve

Ohh gosh the thought of a cash shop, and the revenue it will bring into DR makes me so excited :o!!!

I got so many cash shop ideas, just bursting out of my head, all things that wouldn't need to be bought but would definately be wanted vanity wise and some other things.

I look forward to sharing some of these with you sometime :D

Finally, the angry spew coming from some on this thread makes me want to close the thread or pull out my ban hammer. I hope that folks can relax, take a breath, and discuss things rationally.

Heh, heh. whoops, sorry about that... so we can still retort as long as we do it in a civil manner, right? :p

So then why don't you tell us instead of being an ass. Were you a CBtester? If you say yes please provide proof. Because I could go around saying things too. But I don't. I speak truth. And yes to answer your assy question I do hear myself.

/perfectly civil mode

No, I was not a CBtester. It seems you assume I'll make something up. In fact, assumption seems to be your main form of discourse. My point was not "neener, neener, I've been here longer than you" or anything to that effect. My point was that you assumed I "wasn't here when w1 was often at capacity," or "when HDoL was the hardest thing in the game." Whether or not that is the case makes no difference as far as I'm concerned.

What I was attempting to do was to get you to reevaluate how you come to your conclusions, because, in my opinion, your methods are a bit flawed (an opinion that I believe was strengthened by Stephen's clarifications to some of your comments).

...and just to ease your curiosity, I've been here since Nov. 07. Make of that what you will.

...oh, and Happy Holidays! :D

In fact, early on, ad-watching players generated more revenue than paid players.
steve

Yes :D I remember when there were those video commercials for "Lost" and such...

btw Cash shop would be a great addition to the game!I wouldn't use it but it certainly wouldn't make me leave the game and I am sure there are players that would pay for some perks :D
And yes 1150% loot thing is not a exploit you just get more loot for more effort...
I am a non member and lots of time I envy members that they get those cool items and faster XP...but still it's a great game if you play like a non member just much harder...

Ok, I thought that I was being pretty civil as it was, but I guess you couldn't tell that from behind a screen, but anyway. With all of these things being said, which by the way, thank you for clarifying some things Steven. As for the AAA games that you talked about, we know about Aion, and Blade and Soul. B&S Oh how I wish I could play thee, sadly we may not see you in our lifetime. Why is this you might ask? Well I can answer that right now...

The game is GOOD.

It has INSANE graphics, awesome combat, and good overall game play. Now aside from that it is going to be P2P which WILL stop me from playing it even if I get the chance to, that is if I ever get the money to build a super computer to run it.

But back to the topic at hand DR. Thanks again for clarifying some things Steve, but that just leaves me with one thing to say.

If the non members aren't converting into members now, then what makes you think that they are going to bring any money in with the CS idea? All that i can see from this is that the paying members are going to be the only ones using it. Which means you are going to get more money out of the people that are already giving you money. To me this sounds greedy. I only say this because it makes sense. Honestly if people are not coming up with the 5 dollars to convert now, then how or why would they pay for a CS? Do you understand what I am getting at here? We need not find a way to sap extra money out of the pockets of people that are currently giving it to you, that will only want to make them quit. For example me. What we need to do instead is to find a way to get non-members to become members again. But without cutting everything that you gave them, and taking it all back, I don't see that happening. From a business stand point I don't see a CS helping this game, I only see it hurting it. I forsee a lot of current members leaving because they wont want to give extra money on top of the money that they already pay. If you guys were really open-minded as you say you are, you should really listen to me on this. It isn't like I am some little 12 year old kid here just talking out my ass. I said before I know what I am talking about when it comes to games and the people that play them, hell I have been doing it all my life.

From a business stand point I don't see a CS helping this game, I only see it hurting it. I forsee a lot of current members leaving because they wont want to give extra money on top of the money that they already pay.

I don't get your reasoning here... the cash shop will not be mandatory, so I will not be forced to use it in order to keep playing the game. In fact, if I read Stephen's posts right I can keep playing for $5.99 a month without losing any member privileges, and will never have to use the cash shop unless I want to. Others, both members and non-members, who are willing to spend the extra money, will get cool new toys for doing so.

Why should I want to quit over that? Where is the glaring injustice that discriminates against me as a paying member?

If the non members aren't converting into members now, then what makes you think that they are going to bring any money in with the CS idea? All that i can see from this is that the paying members are going to be the only ones using it. Which means you are going to get more money out of the people that are already giving you money. To me this sounds greedy. I only say this because it makes sense. Honestly if people are not coming up with the 5 dollars to convert now, then how or why would they pay for a CS? Do you understand what I am getting at here? We need not find a way to sap extra money out of the pockets of people that are currently giving it to you, that will only want to make them quit. For example me. What we need to do instead is to find a way to get non-members to become members again. But without cutting everything that you gave them, and taking it all back, I don't see that happening. From a business stand point I don't see a CS helping this game, I only see it hurting it. I forsee a lot of current members leaving because they wont want to give extra money on top of the money that they already pay. If you guys were really open-minded as you say you are, you should really listen to me on this. It isn't like I am some little 12 year old kid here just talking out my ass. I said before I know what I am talking about when it comes to games and the people that play them, hell I have been doing it all my life.

You are still looking at it to objectively. You seem to think that in order for everyone will have to use the cash shop in order to keep up with things, like some membership perks will be lost to the cash shop and to get what we had we'll have to pay extra for it. Its not mandatory at all, and the things that it will carry will be vanity items, nothing anyone will NEED, just stuff to make the experience better or more fun.

Its not at all greedy, its a damn good action to take from a business standpoint. What might be greedy is to increase the cost of membership. This is the lowest priced p2p mmo out there. Most are $15 a month, only a sprinkling of other games cost any less. I wouldn't begrudge the devs if they had to increase the p2p costs a bit, its part of reality of an mmo, they need to make some sort of money from it, and the need to be able to maintain servers and other such things. The cash shop in lieu of an increase in membership costs may work out better than the latter as it has the potential to bring in some revenue from non members and members.

On other subjects, you really sound like a self righteous elitist. You act like you are better than EVERYONE: non members because you pay, devs because you think you are smarter than they are, and most of the community as a whole since you say you have been playing since closed beta as if that really means anything, you really haven't contributed to the game or the community at all other than paying your $5 a month. Seriously 51 levels in 2 years, what have you been doing all this time. I really dilly dallied getting my self a 100, 10 months or so.


Sorry steve if i come off as angry, but he needs to be knocked off of his pedestal so maybe he can see things from a better angle.

I really don't see where Forty is coming from, I personally would love to see a cash shop as long as it only sells vanity stuff or things that don't increase the overall power of a player. And yes if anyone read my thread in the suggestion forum, then you already know I would spend 5 bucks for a custom colored suit or a set of niffty looking boots or gloves, and a shield with a posses clan logo would rock if I was into that kinda thing, or paying a few bucks to make my headgear invisible so I can run around with my players face showing but still have the stats of my RB helm. I totally agree that if done right this idea can add a lot to the game and bring in some extra cash, without hurting regular paying members at all. I know you might not like the idea of others getting cool looking stuff just because the have money and you do not, but if the stuff only looks cool, well thats nothing different from the real world, and example would be my car is an average okay car that starts and gets me around, my neighbor happens to have a BMW with all the bells and whistles, but it is still just a car that gets him from here to there, no advantage other than the vanity factor. IMHO if it can make more cash for the game it is a good idea, I don't see many people leaving because of it, and it might even bring in more people to the game.

Agreed, MaDMaGe. The key to the Cash Shop being successful is to only sell items that players really, really want, not items that they need in order to be competitive. There are games that do the opposite and I loathe those types of cash shops. Then, there are games like Wizard101 that has done a really good job of implementing a cash shop alongside a traditional subscription model.

Gollias and I chatted with Steve on the PTS this morning. Based on that conversation, we're both really excited (I feel confident speaking on Gollias' behalf, based on his chat responses) to see what's in store for DR in the near future.

you might not like the idea of others getting cool looking stuff just because the have money and you do not

The game already offer this. It's called "paying for membership" ;)

While I agree that the increased loot % isn't an exploit as such it is a problem for inexperienced players. They often get invites from higher levels and think "Great, free powerlevelling" and accept, then get booted from the group as soon as the boss spawns. While I disagree with people begging for powerlevels all the time randomly inviting lower level players then booting them is a very unfriendly way to treat a new player and may put some people off, especially as for the more timid players this may be the first social experience they have in game and they may not have realised that their dungeons would reset upon accepting the invite.

Originally Posted by MaDMaGe

"you might not like the idea of others getting cool looking stuff just because they have money and you do not"

The game already offer this. It's called "paying for membership" ;)

Yes what i mean was more cool stuff above and beyond what is already in game, or they can always just keep adding all new items to the game and raise the monthly membership from 5 a month to 10, you may prefer that but I'd rather see a cash shop and the monthly rate stay the same. Nobody is saying all new items will be cash shop ones, at least I hope not. They way I'm seeing it, and i might be way off, is the game sill stays the same, new chunks still come out with new stuff for both members and non members, but then there is also the cash shop for even more unique items, if you saw my other thread I was even hoping for a user made graphics shop where players can actually earn KC's or gold for making cool skins or posse logos and such.

While I agree that the increased loot % isn't an exploit as such it is a problem for inexperienced players. They often get invites from higher levels and think "Great, free powerlevelling" and accept, then get booted from the group as soon as the boss spawns. While I disagree with people begging for powerlevels all the time randomly inviting lower level players then booting them is a very unfriendly way to treat a new player and may put some people off, especially as for the more timid players this may be the first social experience they have in game and they may not have realised that their dungeons would reset upon accepting the invite.

well u shouldnt accept random invs unless u are on w7 or any other world besides 1. You shouldn't take offence though, think of it like this ~i helped him and that makes me feel good :p~ If they were gonna pwrlvl you, you think just maybe that they might have said something to you idk. But i dont see anything wrong with loot % if you can do it good for you heres a lil extra for your trouble.

and i must say HOLY CRAP it took me a hour to read all this.

I also have used the 1150% runs to amass a fortune. The problem is, this is not an easy fight (if you think balzack is easy, then try rats on 1150%). I hear the complaints and understand. I felt the same way until I tried it and got my gear good enough to actually finish it and see a profit.

Most, not all, of the complaints that I see are from people who just hear about the runs, not actually run them. It takes skill and practice to keep from running back and forth from the cemetary to the obelisk in time for the goons not to start healing.

I like the cash shop idea. I would love to unsoulbind the items i've upgraded so someone else can benefit. Maybe another good one to generate funds would be to allow nonmembers to make a mythic item nonmember. I know of several nonmembers who would pay for that, even though they won't pay for a membership.

Glitches will be found and fixed. Remember killing Ratsputin through the cage? Pulling healer away from Abby? The level 1 loot% error? Double tapping dual 2 handers? The gnome....

We have to remember that this game is a work in progress, a running experiment.

I have been a committed player for about a year and a half, had a 100 over a year and still play daily if I can. I don't plan to quit anytime soon.

IMHO this has become a serious game that was based as a parody of other games and was not meant to be taken too seriously.

Come on people. Lighten up and enjoy the ride:)

Too late to edit, the funniest glitch was HDoL 5 and the enticing, but unreachable portal to 6.:eek:

Maybe they just hadn't finished it yet. I was around 70 or 80 then.

To all Devs... kudos and keep up the good work.:D

I'm in favor of a cash shop, just as long as it doesn't sell items that you HAVE to buy in order to be competitive. Cute costumes, and invisible hats ftw!