There’s a Diablo-shaped hole in my soul. With Mythos gone and Dungeon Runners going, there is a giant opportunity for a action-oriented RPG to swoop right in and make a grab for the crown. If there is a game like that out there, Cronous might be it… but on the first quick look, probably not.

You get a choice of four classes — Warrior, Valkyrie, Mage and Savage. But whichever class you choose, you’re dumped nearly naked in the middle of a busy city.

A city full of people hawking their wares — the prime indicator of an Asian import. I found no obvious quest givers or clues as to what to do, so I wandered out to the newbie grounds and left clicked on monsters.

They died pretty well, and after a few minutes, I dinged level 3 and had found some armor I need to be level 10 to wear.

Any MMO these days needs something to do besides merely level to interest me. I need to be part of a story, or an adventure. But this is a closed beta and there’s not much you can say for sure about it. There are bits of graphical brilliance that implies more to come. Quests can, and likely will, be added. The graphics will be punched up. I have seen people use some higher level techniques and they are pretty impressive.

But at this stage of the closed beta, if someone asked me if there were any good Diablo-like MMOs around that could take the place of a Mythos or a Dungeon Runners, I would hesitate to mention this one.

But I’ll be keeping it on my hard drive to take another look later.

I just got into another beta, but this one has an NDA, so I’ll have to check carefully what I can say about it. More when I know.

Since not playing since the Dungeon Runners beta, I figured it was time to give it another shot. It gives me that WoW experience — cartoon characters with huge weapons and armor, humor, ability to solo, fast levels and quick upgrades and the occasional group — far cheaper.

Free’s cheap, right? Though I went ahead and paid the $5 for the membership package, which includes being able to stack potions, use the bank, and wear/wield the best stuff.

Dungeon Runners is an MMO stripped to the bone. You have one main town — Townston (though you can port to the newbie town and, once you’ve discovered it, the base camp for Algor’s Terror-Dome… and likely others I haven’t seen yet). You have two main dungeons — Algernon and the group-oriented Hellish Dungeon of Doom — and each of these have myriad sub-dungeons, which themselves could have dungeons off them.

In fact, the main industry of those in the Townston area is making and filling dungeons. That’s what the NPCs in Townston do. Only sometimes the monsters they import get a little more rambunctious than they were hired to be, and that’s where the quests come in.

See, the dungeons were supposed to be filled with what they call “fodder” — numberless minions, easy to kill and not that dangerous. Trust the more intelligent monsters to see what was going on in Townston and start invading the dungeons themselves in order to trap and kill unsuspecting adventurers who thought they were just coming down for a good time and that was that.

It’s all good fun, the game doesn’t take itself seriously and even the boss monsters themselves, interlopers that they are, aren’t that tough. The dungeons and loot scale to your level and the size of your group, so for the best loot imaginable, group up with a couple of people around your level and head into Algernon. Or just go solo. The game will adjust so that no matter how you like to play, it’s okay.

There are half a dozen servers, one of which is PvP, another one of which is members only, but even the most popular server had just a few hundred people at peak (like EQ2, it spins off instances if things get too crowded). You can log into any server and your characters will follow.

Quick play, wicked sense of humor… for fast, cheap fantasy MMO fun, you can’t go much wrong with Dungeon Runners. It’s earned a permanent place on my hard drive.