Get your attention? Good cause yes it is here. Diablo 3d in beta. Blizzard? No. Named diablo 3d? No. Its called Dungeon Runners, and its by NCSoft. Some might call it more of an mmorpg as it does support many players, but that does not change it from in every way being diablo 3d.

When people said Titan quest was like Diablo 3 I was all excited, as im a blizzard and diablo fan big time. Needless to say it left me dissapointed, big time.

Some other reviewers participating in the beta have given it reviews such as "bad graphics"( but theyre 10x bettern diablo 2 if your gonna compare it to that game which people still play, or did for a logn time and want more of). Blizzard fanboy testers have after a few minutes screamed "bad!" at the top of their lungs defending blizzard. But as I said I as well am a blizzard fan. But I am first and foremost a gamer, and this game is in every aspect diablo 3D. Its not a matter of being a fanboy its a matter of playing another extremely similar game and giving something new to the long inactive franchise, be it called diablo 3d or not.

Something I have noticed is this game is getting almost no publicity, and noone has ever heard of it. So here I am posting about it I am asking you to tag it, make the game known, tell your freinds about it, and just have a look at it. If you loved diablo, and want more of it without doing the same xp runs you all know this is a must play. I'm gonna say to the few reviewers ive seen who gave it a bad review cause your a blizz fan, get over it, and enjoy what the game is.

Ill finish up here with a few links

The website- http://www.dungeonrunners.com/

Gamespot- http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/dungeonrunners/index.html

Add it to your wishlist, tell your freinds, make it known. If you can, beta test it. I dont often (in fact I prety much never) expect much nor say great things about a game in testing or before its released. This is an exeption and to anyone whos into the type of game. Definetly something that needs to be looked at. Thanks for reading. If you have any thoughts please leave comments or questions. Id like to hear peoples thoughts, weather youve tested it or not.

Again, the game name is Dungeon Runners, the company is NCSoft. You may also be able to get an invite to beta on the gamespot forums here from another user, I believe its still open to invites.

Ok this is in response to the article posted on gamespot http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/worldofwarcraft/news.html?sid=6162382 claiming 12% of mmogamers are addicts.My response ended up so long I figured id blog it. My personal thoughts is that some games are more addictive than drugs, (i've even seen people use stuff like speed to stay on games for longer periods of time) and this article really understates the situation.

12 percent, lol. I doubt its that low. Lets see various factors to consider.
#1. Whod they quesion?
#2. What games did they actually play? #3. How many were in denial or wernt willing to admit stuff? Im guessing a lot.

The most popular, henceforth more likely in a majority of those studied would be WoW, which ill later do some comparisons with. (still in question who all was questioned) Im guessing they included fps games etc. basically all online games calling them, or implying in the article for flare mass multiplayer. Which as we know have less addictive elements but again were lacking info. What we have here is "One in nine MMOG players addicted" Followed up by "Poll of 7,000 online gamers" Another quote from within the article "concerned principally with the potential for addiction to online gaming." and I could quote more. Clearly a misleading inaccurate A.Title or B.Article. Again lacking greatly in key information about test subjects which would include graphs and stats based on games as well as other factors. (Just an article with flare for the readers?)

Ok now putting all that aside. First we take addictive factors, loss, gain, effort, difficulty, need for companionship. (When someone feels a sense of gain or accomplishment it increases chemical levels in the brain causing addiction) Thus showing that harder games with more to gain and loose will ultimatley be more addictive assuming the player is able to get past the initial stages.

Now lets take 2 games and compare (mmorpgs)
World of Warcraft: Level limit:60, Time to get there:Low, Loss resulting from death:low, Fighting difficulty:Low, PK Limits:many, sense of accomplishments when gaining various:Low. Companionship (as with all or most mmorpgs high)

Tibia: Level Limit:None, Time to get there:Infinite, Loss resulting from death:high Fighting difficulty:High, PK limits:none, Sense of accomplishments when gaining various things:High, Companionship: Due to the pking gain/loss nature of the game etc. the game causes people to bond and extremely quickly into groups so Extremely high.

Ok I played tibia. Ive seen very very few who are able to quit and a majority are honestly addicted badly. I even saw a ton get WoW when it came out, play it a less than a month get lvl 60 and run back to tibia saying how boring WoW is. Other than people whos 1st or one of few games is WoW I see WoW players game hop all the time, its simply not an extremely addictive game by nature, from what ive seen the majority case in WoW is companionship based. The fact is this study cannot be accurate in a generalization.

Macros. I hate em any and everyone can use them in any and every game, theyre not discriminating I find that in ALL mmorpgs once the community gets large enough they become rampant, today even betas and alphas are plagued with them. No matter how hard devs try its impossible to weed out mc users and they're becoming extremely slippery and hard to catch with more sophisticated macro programs. The fact is this appears to be one plague that unlike hacks developers cannot seem to ever keep up with the new tech in mcing and advancements in mc programs. Its become extremely hard to prove as well as create a prevention within a program with toady's sophisticated mc progs. Usually when caught after extreme long term abuse and long hard investigation by mod/gms the mc user gets no more than a slap on the wrist like a 1 week ban, or like 3rd offense 1 month ban etc. after they've exploited near 24 hr days for months or years with these programs. I consider these worse than hack programs in games due to the extreme difficulty in preventing them. Currently there is no MMORPG in the world that is not plagued with these people utterly destroying the enjoyment of this entire game genre as well as being used in other games. Extremely skilled rts gamers can even create simple click and record macros that will demolish non expert rts gamers by using their skill. This involves mathematics which can clearly be perfected with speed and precision by use of a macro, mathematics is part of skill in RTS games but using a program to carry out this math with pinpoint precision is horrible. I am an extremely good rts gamer by use of math speed precision and skill all key elements. But when it comes down to it people who aren't as good and would loose to players anyways who utilize bursts, or excessive macros in rts's I just donut think its right that they are trying while skilled players are relaxing pressing little macro keys. Either an excessive string of commands against a novice, or a few seconds worth of micro controlled combat vs a skilled player. Granted, as far as rts goes the people with the skill to do this are few and far between, but it doesn't make it any less wrong, and I wanted to explain how it can effect more than the mmorpg community.

An example of macros in mmorpgs, if you have or ever were an mmorpg addict, you probably realize more than others just how rampant it is. For those that don't ill give an example. When I was playing a game, (addicted) 16 hrs a day when I had too much time on my hands. I was fighting for rank 1 in a combat ability doing nothing but training it, I knew all the other top 10 players and refused to train with anyone who macro-ed. Due to this fact I could not take rank 1 cause the only people who were on enough to train consistently with me were macroers. Even with tons of training partners who I paid in game money to so they'd take extra time to train, the best I could do was rank 3. As I said I knew everyone in the top 10 rather well, how many could I train with? 0. Every single one was a macroer, which I knew was a fact since I knew them well. The GMs were doing everything they could to crack down on macroers. The fact is when they go after macroers they have to PROVE the persons using a macro, which in some cases can take a GM days of investigation.

Signed, The Rambling man