NCsoft, a developer and publisher of MMOs, has formed a partnership with online strategy guide publisher Game Guides Online to create an official strategy guide for NCsoft’s Dungeon Runners. This will be the first guide made available for the Dungeon Runners game and, according the guide’s author Jason Allen, will have numerous advantages over the hard copy strategy guide. Mr. Allen stated that the online guide’s chief advantaged were that the publisher was “No longer are we restricted to static pictures and text. We can include interactive content such as flash diagrams, videos and voice-overs in our digital guides.” This new level of digital technology used in the Dungeon Runner guide was due, according to Mr. Allen, to the greater sophistication of games where”it is sometimes easier to show a player an advanced tactic than it is to describe it”.

The system also has advantages, according to company spokesman Brian Whitener, as it allows Game Guides Online to “continually update the content so customers never rely on outdated information” along with giving the company the ability to “communicate directly with our customers so that we can implement features or strategies that they request. We then distribute the revised guide to every customer with a click of a button.”

Dungeon Runners itself also represents use of a ground breaking model in terms of gaming. The game allows players to engage in co-operative or competitive battles in dungeons that are randomly generated upon entering so that the layout is never the same way twice. Robert Garrot, the CEO of NCsoft North America, stated that “Dungeon Runners is a bold leap into a new business model for NCsoft and it is taking us into a new direction in terms of the kind of games we can provide our customers.”

More information about Game Guides Online, along with the Dungeon Runners strategy guide, is available at www.gameguidesonline.com. For the official Dungeon Runners site where you can download the game or simply obtain more information about the game itself please visit http://www.dungeonrunners.com/.