Dungeon Runners hosting Bling Gnome parade on Friday

· Date: Friday July 18th, 2008
· Time: 7:30 PM Central Time
· Location: Townston. Multiple instances, multiple worlds.

To celebrate the arrival of the Dungeon Runners Bling Gnome, the Dungeon Runners development team is hosting a Bling Gnome parade through Townston, the game’s main gathering point, where players with Bling Gnomes will march and participate in gnomish party activities. The Bling Gnome parade will take place across all of the game’s servers.

The Dungeon Runners Bling Gnome is a bejeweled gangster helper that will save players the tedious chore of picking up loot and taking it to a game merchant for storage or sale. The Gnome follows your Dungeon Runner avatar around, picking up loot and instantly converting it to gold via a mystical bowel movement.

The Dungeon Runners Bling Gnome, which can only be accessed by purchasing the retail game pack which is available for $19.99 and provides six months of premium membership level play. Currently, membership level costs $4.99 per month and includes higher levels of experience, greater rewards, advertisement-free play, an exclusive server, extensive potion stacking, larger bank storage and access to the most powerful items, weapons and armor.

For more information about the Bling Gnome parade go to: http://www.dungeonrunners.com/news/current_news/bling_gnome_parade.html

The Bling Gnome has been let loose on the caves of the irreverent massively multiplayer online PC game Dungeon Runners where it will follow players around, eating item drops and converting them instantly into gold which it excretes from its enchanted bottom.

The Bling Gnome, found exclusively in the new Dungeon Runners retail pack, is a bejeweled gangster helper that will save players the tedious chore of picking up loot and taking it to a game merchant for storage or sale. Instead, the Bling Gnome has the ability to pick up most items and convert them into gold instantly in a gassy display from its rear end, no matter what game map the player is occupying.

Additionally, during a particularly flashy “swords-into-goldshares” conversion process, the Bling Gnome will produce magical droppings where players can find powerful items, along with gold. The more items a player picks up at one time, the better chance that the Bling Gnomes’ miraculous buttocks will produce an uber-item.

“Having the Bling Gnome around can be highly lucrative and useful, providing players with lots of ‘back-end’ profits,” said Stephen Nichols NCsoft’s producer and lead programmer for Dungeon Runners. “Actually, this is a pretty innovative tool for MMOGs, and we are excited about the response our players are having towards this feature. The Bling Gnome is exclusive to the new retail pack, but those who purchase that box will get a great value with 6 months membership level for the cost of four, as well as the Bling Gnome which should help any player’s ‘bottom’ dollar.”

The Dungeon Runners retail pack will be available at most North American retailers by June 26 for $19.99, and includes six months of premium membership level play. Currently, premium membership costs $4.99 per month and includes higher levels of experience, greater rewards, advertisement-free play, an exclusive server, extensive potion stacking, larger bank storage and access to the most powerful items, weapons and armor.

Additionally, the retail pack includes a client for NCsoft’s free-to-play mech PvP shooter, Exteel.

For more information about the new Dungeon Runners retail game pack, go to www.dungeonrunners.com/retail/ .

Exactly what is the Bling Gnome you might ask? Similar to its cousin, the Garden Gnome, the Bling Gnome is a tricked-up helper gnome with a bit of attitude that will follow your character around and pick up all the gold dropped on the ground (that was intended for you to pick up) auto-magically. This way you don’t have to go running around and pick it up all the gold yourself, the little gangster will do it for you.

The Bling Gnome also has the ability to pick up dropped items, at the Rare level of availability and below (anything that’s not purple- or rainbow-colored), and eat them, converting them into gold. Another time saver! Instead of filling up your inventory with a clutter of items you just want to sell when you get back to Townston, the Bling Gnome will convert them into gold right then and there. That’s not all… though honestly, what would Dungeon Runners be without some scatological humor somewhere? Every once in awhile during this “swords-into-goldshares” conversion process, the Bling Gnome can produce amazing items from its rear end in rather spectacular fashion. In other words, it can poop out an ultra-powerful item (along with the gold). The more items you pick up at once, the higher the chance it can happen. How handy is that?

(more…)