Dungeon Runner Patch Notes

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Déjà vu! Didn’t I just do this with Arachnomancer?

Why yes, yes I did! It has been well over a year since I’ve written in this world. The last time I tried, I was so burned out from overworking myself on Arachnomancer 2 that I couldn’t deal with the tiny inconsistencies.

Dungeon Runner 1 and 2 have each gained a few pages of content and many small adjustments to the world and game systems. I believe these changes will provide a better foundation for many more Dungeon Runner stories.

Dungeon Runner was written as a side story to drum up interest for the main series that never got published. I invested months (plural) into developing the world and game systems, then spent more months on writing the first novel.

Eternal Fantasy Online grew out of control. Before I finished the first book, the world had grown into multiple series (and continues to grow to this day; it’s darn well near impossible to turn off creativity).

Unfortunately, I was not at a point in my writing career to tackle such an ambitious project. I put it on the back burner until I published Arachnomancer. Then, thinking I was smart, I included Dungeon Runner as a newsletter magnet.

Somewhere between developing the world and publishing Dungeon Runner, a handful of details were changed. This likely came from a realization that I didn’t need to make everything unique. As a more experienced writer, I cut out things that may just confuse people. Or I just forgot. . . .

Now, I see that Arachnomancer was heavily influenced by Dungeon Runner. In an effort to keep these two stories separate and different, I’ve gone back and studied the original source material.

Let’s see what has changed!

Let’s start with some general changes. Then I’ll break down the few story changes in the next two sections. The following content is organized in groups of Added, Changed, and Removed.

Added Geneticists

This little detail pops up in Dungeon Runner 1 and Eizel’s story. Before being made digital, everyone lived on a spaceship, traveling to a far-off planet. They were over a hundred years into their journey when everything changed.

On the ship, they had matchmaking events where families would present their children who have come of age. If a match was found, the geneticists would have to sign off on the match before it became official.

This, of course, doesn’t matter now. But characters will think about their lives before, which may affect what they do in the stories I release.

Added Sacrestones

Gempieces can be combined into gemstones, and gemstones can be crafted into sacrestones by a jeweler. A sacrestone is what grants players the ability to use magic. Given the lack of adventuring, sacrestones are rare.

Changed Artificial Intelligence

This is not detailed in the currently available books, but the worldbuilding documents have been updated to be consistent with the unpublished books. Yeah, I know, it confuses me too.

AI characters can be Blessed or Hollow, which indicates how advanced their system is. A Blessed AI is quite lifelike, able to feel emotions and think for itself. A Hollow AI is a basic game piece programmed to behave in very specific ways.

AIs are not immortal like players. Most mobs are hollow.

There are, understandably, debates concerning what the players are in relation to AI. To understand a bit more about how everyone was digitized, consider reading my free short story, The Pink Knight & Daughter Princess.

Changed Attribute Reset Cost

This has been changed from 50 scyl to 5 scyl.

Changed Cursing

The first version of Dungeon Runner used all of the normal swear words. I changed this because Entin started sounding too much like my other characters in other books. I also decided to keep this story PG.

I feel that the censorship I forced on Dungeon Runner made the “bad” language not feel very interesting. There are a few unique curses, such as dulick and phrases related to Redeemers. I’ve since added more words related to machinery, the most popular being Cogs.

Other words you may see include sprocket, rag, rack, screw, and cogging.

Changed Economy

You can’t have a 2.0 update without me tinkering with the economy. . . .

The economy uses three different coins: chyp, scyl, and gyl. A scyl is worth 100 chyps, and a gyl is worth 100 scyls. I recently converted Arachnomancer to have denominations of 10 instead of 100, but I’m keeping Dungeon Runner’s system as is. The biggest change, however, is that chyps are worth more, and gyls are rarely seen, given how much they are worth (10,000 chyps).

The result of these changes is that most money is shown in chyps or scyls, and the number of each has been reduced by a lot.

Changed Rarities

The original worldbuilding documents did not use normal rarities. At some point, however, the books ignored this. I’ve decided to go back to the original as a way to keep this series feeling more unique.

Instead of Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, and Legendary, we have. . . . Junk, Standard, Unique, Exquisite, Diamond, and Celestial. Just go with it, haha.

Changed Skill Tree Names

The original story inconsistently used the names Primary and Secondary for skills. I’ve removed these terms and now use the correct names for the four existing skill trees: Weapon, Magic, Utility, and Profession.

Changed Skill Triggering

Dungeon Runner 1 briefly shows Entin using a skill button with an icon to trigger a skill. But Entin is a big liar. There are no visual buttons. . . .

I’m changing skill triggers back to how they were designed in the original worldbuilding document. The player can assign anything as a button, including their own fingers, if they want. For instance, pressing your index finger to your thumb could trigger a skill.

These trigger conditions are incredibly flexible and can be changed on a per-skill basis. Skills can have multiple conditions and multiple methods of triggering.

In addition to triggering a skill, there’s also activating a skill. This is often the state of a skill before it triggers (unless disabled). When a skill is activated for the first time (usually with a softer button press), information about that skill will materialize. Activating a skill provides visual cues to best utilize the skill, such as a crosshair or guiding line.

Changed Style

The style of the book, the chapter headings, etc., have been updated to match all of my books. This also includes the way in which I display game mechanics. Update your copy and see for yourself!

Changed Traits & Debuffs

All negative traits are now called debuffs.

Changed Utility Skill Leveling

A lot has changed here, but it has minimal impact on the story. Before, any activity that used Stamina granted XP to the general “Secondary” skill tree, which we now call the Utility skill tree. This is no longer the case.

Everyone loses Stamina by simply being awake. To gain XP because of that wouldn’t make sense. The idea of implicitly gaining XP came about because Runners were always sprinting, whether or not the skill was triggered. This used Stamina and thus granted XP. Tracking this was very difficult.

Now, all Utility skills level individually based on their use. The XP gained is 2x the Stamina cost. To learn new Utility skills requires an item or training from a master of that skill. There are no skill points for this tree.

Changed Waypoints

These circular platforms were described as having gemstones form an arrow in the direction they sent you. This is incorrect. A waypoint stone can connect to any other previously-unlocked waypoint. Instead of an arrow, the waypoints have a symbol of a sun.

Removed Dungeon Level

The difficulty of a dungeon is now determined by its rarity and rank. Mobs will still have their level information.

Removed Living Armor

The Speed attribute used to grant Living Armor. I’ve removed this as a way to simplify the game mechanics and balance the attributes.

Changed Entin’s Level

Given how XP requirements for Utility skills have changed, Entin is now level 2, not 3. This means his Max Stamina has been reduced from 130 to 110. His Sprint skill is level 2.

Changed Loot Reclaim Time

Ruben says the dungeon will reclaim loot after an hour. For dungeons, this is actually three hours. It would be an hour out in the Wilds.

Changed Loot Drops

• Slime drops 13 chyps, not 37
• Skeleton drops 6 chyps, not 18
• Chest drops 18 scyl, not 56
• Chest drops an emerald gempiece, not emerald

Changed Payment Amount

In the original version, Entin ended the first book with 10 scyls. This has been reduced to 5 scyls, which have been given to the orphanage.

Added Dungeon Information is Valuable

Entin mentally remarks how valuable it would be to sell dungeon information to others. This contributes to the many possible ways Dungeon Runners are able to make money in future books.

Changed Loot Drops

• First dungeon chest drops 14 scyl, not 48
• End-of-book diamond chest drops 42 scyl, not 3 gyl, 53 scyl
• The golden fishing lure is worth 17 scyl, not 5 gyl

This represents the largest change in the book. A gyl is a significant amount of money. For Entin and his crew to gain over 3 gyl in one low-rank dungeon—not counting the loot Mentof is selling—didn’t make sense and completely disrupts the balance of the economy.

Earning 42 scyl is still a lot of money and something they’d be very excited about. Of course, there are many more treasures to find!

Conclusion

And that’s it! Or, at least, most of it. There were a lot of small changes, adjusted words, fixed typoes, extended sentences, cut sentences, etc. I did whatever I could to make these stories more fun.

Grab a new copy today!