Welcome to the wacky world of free and cheap gaming, courtesy of NCSoft.
I like the Chunk #2 update for Dungeon Runners.
Anyhow, before anyone gets all crazy and starts saying stupid stuff like "OMG DR FREE NUT WOW WOW SUX" and all that, comparing Dungeon Runners to World of Warcraft is like comparing a sled during the winter to a Porche. Its cheap, its fun, but it ain't a Porche. If anything, its Gauntlet and Diablo getting drunk then watching "Search For The Grail" one too many times. I must have missed the part in math (asleep, perhaps) where "Free = 1000x mor awsum n00b." Poor me, paying for things and expecting to get something in return (even worse, to get more than the freeloaders).
The startup ad was for NCSoft's Tabula Rasa (or is that "NCSoft's Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa?"), and was no big deal. In-house advertising is to be expected. I rolled up a new fighter and hopped in. At my desktop resolution (1280x1024) the banner ad was fairly unobtrusive; it was for Jumpman23.com (Michael Jordan's line of stuff), which I found rather amusing since I was at home playing video games instead of considering how to improve my 3-pointer and overall dribbling technique. People at lower resolutions might feel the pinch, I'm not sure and didn't test it. Clicking on the ad minimizes your game and opens the website up in your browser. Nice.
The biggest improvement from my time during beta is the fact that small scrubby stuff like potions and such now stack for the free accounts; previously that was a paid membership function. The ability to use some of the nicer items that were previously for members only (75% of the yellow items, 25% of the purple and rainbow items) is nice too. Toss in the bank storage (one page worth) and the free guys got a nice bump all at the price of having in-game advertising. I've no idea yet if the game supports a gamepad or not; might look into that later on.
Exteel is now live, and that makes me happy.
I logged on; no ads. Okay, get to the game screen, go to the store, and they've got some stuff for sale with NC Coins. Cool. Can I buy them? Uhm... crap, no. No convenient way to get NC Coins in-game, so I had to log out, go to PlayNC.com, then go to my account and buy NC Coins. While I can understand this being done for safety purposes ("Mom! Dad just pimped out his mechs with $15 worth of stuff again!"), it is still annoying. Dungeon Runners has a convenient in-game link that takes you to the website to get membership, City of Heroes has server transfers and rename services in-game ($10 a pop, immediately billable or with password verification), and Guild Wars has a whole in-game store! Hopefully NCSoft makes it a little more convenient for us folks later. Anyhow, NC Coins are 100 per $1, and can be bought in $1, $5, $10 and $20 lots. I do like the fact they have an image recognition thingie when you attempt to complete the transaction, plus the immediate reciept straight to my email is nice. Anyhow, $5 for 500 NC Coins, just like I promised Crickette (one of the community reps) during beta ("I will be buying crap.").
Anyhow, I bought the Haskell mech (345/$3.45) plus black and red paind (20/$0.20 each) leaving me with 115 ($1.15) NC Coins left. Yeah, not much worse than a booster pack for Magic or a Burger King Whopper Jr. Meal. I'm not sure if the Haskell is a timed purchase or not; if it is, the length of time I get to keep it isn't clear. The paints last for 30 days, though, so that's not horrible if the period of time is the same. I was dissapointed in that there are no Skills available for purchase (30-day special attacks) nor where there any rocket launcher weapons for sale with NC Coins. Guess they have to keep me grinding away one way or another.
Looking at the items, I'm reasonably sure that I "bought" them, so they shouldn't time out on me.
A quick game of Last Stand and I go back to the shop, polishing off the remaining NC Coins with the Sentinal thruster (85) and a repair pack (30). Jump into one more last stand and I *feel* a lot better, game-wise. I move better because of the new thruster, easy, although I don't know if it can have any skills associated with it. There's another thruster (Tomahawk) and a skill you have to buy with in-game credits (what you earn from playing) that is literally perfect for the way I play (enables you to launch a bunch of missles at multiple enemies), but I need to earn money for it and the skill first. That's the nice thing with the NC Coins, really, is I can be decently function without having to grind and spend all those credits on working my way up; anything I earn can be saved for really cool stuff later on. How does the paid stuff compare to the regular stuff? Dunno. But its better than my starter mech, so no real biggie.
Both games are fun and easy to get into, which is a massive plus for me. I like having "off" games to play when the mood strikes me, and to be honest, that's great. I've got little to no commitment to either game because they're free (or "free"), unlike most subscription games that you can feel obligated to play because you're forking over $15/month for it. I'm looking forward to seeing what NCSoft does with these titles in the future; Chunk #2 was a great upgrade for Dungeon Runners, so I'm looking forward to Chunk #3. Exteel added 4 more maps which is nice; I'm hoping they develop the PVE element of the game myself (Western players seem to prefer PVE, Asian players PVP). All in all, great games. I think Soccer Fury might've gotten canned, which is a pity; I was really curious to see how that would've turned out...