See Dungeon Runner Run

Man, I really should have saved that little ditty from my past post for titles, there's a lot to talk about for dungeon runner.

Not only does dungeon runner generate dungeons, Dungeon Runner also randomly generates all the items in the game. And I mean all the items. There are, of course, upsides and downsides to this.

WHen you're randomly generating items, you don't have to worry about keeping things level appropriate. Every item has a stat that is simply multiplied by the level of the item, and the player can only equip items that are their level or lower. Great. In dungeon runner, items typically grant a +1 bonus per level, or twice that for your weapon. This is divided evenly amongst up to three attributes (of your four). It then also gets a secondary bonus for each rarity level it is (common, uncommon, rare, or mythic) that is applied randomly across a score of lesser attributes (like attack speed, elemental resistance, damage reflection, spell damage increases...). The item is then given a random name based on it`s stats (or possibly, the name is generated first and the stats are given afterwards.)

There`s one enormous problem not immdiately evident from this description - what do you call it? Dungeon Runner sticks with it's whimsical roots and gives things names like "overweight greatsword of the angry termite". Great, but what does that mean? You can take a quick glance at items to see their names, but that's now useless. How are players to know without research and memorization that termite is a bonus to intellect and dexterity? At least if it were called, say, clever greatsword it would be more useful. It's even worse when you get into more rare items, because they get more suffixes and prefixes added onto the end. "(warning may cause rash)" or "(size 17)" are funny, but utterly useless and ultimately degridating to gameplay.

Okay, so you finally decide that you want to buy a termite sword now. You walk to the shop, and open up the weapons tab.

Oh look, more random weapons. The weapons shop is not just weapons for you though, each of teh three equipment stores in the game holds random items for thirty levels of characters, meaning if you're level fifteen and walk into the shop, half the items won't even be usable to you, even before you exclude the fact that items only paid users can use about half the items, too. You wind up with a selection of items, probably two or three of which are near your level enough to be useful. Now, you have to cross your fingers that: -One of the items is what you're looking for and that -the shop doesn't refresh before you buy that item, because it refreshes every seven minutes regardless if you're looking at it or not. Sure, that gets rid of some of that poor selection problem, but it can just as easily exacerbate it by taking that item away at the last moment!

And to add onto all that, there are random item shops, where you get to either pay a small amount and get a random item near your level, or pay a large amount and get a random (typically useful) item for exactly your level, primary stat and slot. You still don't get to choose the look though, which can be frustrating for people trying to keep with a theme. Oh, and you can't choose if you're looking for a ranged or melee weapon either. You could just as easily get a bow as a longsword.

Did I mention that on top of all that there's about a dozen different armor sets? Most players take what they get and are satisfied with their character changing in appearance entirely each time they log in and play. Some people, I'm sure, will give preference to one type of armor over another, despite the fact that in the end, everyone should be in heavy armor because it has no penalties and a much higher defence. Sure it looks stupid to be carrying a staff while wearing it, but that's a small price to pay for improved DPS right?