Rock, Paper, Shotgun

No, it’s not our new nickname for Alec, it’s an a heavily-pimped new feature for NCSoft’s under-rated free MMO, Dungeon Runners. I really like the ‘Runners, and it’s a shame that it doesn’t get a bit more press in these EnMMOrged times. Anyway, it’s a gnome that eats your crappy loot and literally shits out gold, so you don’t have to return to the quest hub to clear out your inventory. He comes free with the boxed version of Dungeon Runners – so if you’re a hardened Runner you’ll want to grab a copy to make your free game easier, while new paying players get the extra feature from scratch.

You can watch the hi-larious commercial for Bling Gnome after the jump.
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Is sci-fi MMO Tabula Rasa stumbling towards extinction? Eurogamer certainly seem to think so:

Today’s piece, sadly, feels more like an autopsy. Tabula Rasa isn’t cold on the slab, but it’s certainly heading that way.

And so yet another sci-fi MMO heads off into troubled waters. What’s going on here? Can Eve’s esotericism really be the only way to create a reasonably successful sci-fi game? Do people simply not want to play in a character-based science fiction world? Are we addicted to spaceships?

Okay, readers. What would you have done if you were Lord British? How would you fix the science fiction MMO and make something to challenge World Of Warcraft? Is it as simply as World Of Starcraft? Or do we need a licence, like Warhammer 40k? Or do you, like me, think that the lessons are there to be learned from City Of Heroes, Planetside, Guild Wars, and Eve Online? Are the MMO developers simply guilty of not learning from the mistakes of past games? What is the answer for the science fiction MMO?