RaiderZ Exclusive Interview

FreeMMOStation interviewed RaiderZ Senior Producer Mark Hill about the development and ideas of this popular monster hunting game, as well as future plans. Read on to find out more about RaiderZ.

Can you introduce yourself to our readers?

Hi! Thanks for having me. My name is Mark Hill, and I’m the Senior Producer on RaiderZ. I’ve been working with the developers of the game for the last two years, and I’m extremely excited to finally release it to the public.

RaiderZ just entered open beta. How are you seeing the number of registered players? Is it within your expectations?

In regards to registered players, it’s actually past expectations. We’ve been blown away by the positive reception and interest in RaiderZ following a successful closed beta period. There have been some small technical hiccups, which is to be expected following the launch of an Open Beta for any MMO. But thanks to our strong working relationship with the developers at MAIET, we’ve been able resolve issues as they arise so that players can enjoy playing 24/7!

RaiderZ is getting a lot of great feedback on the official forums. Which features do you consider to be the selling points of this game?

I think the game’s more action-focused combat system offers a nice change of pace from traditional MMOs. In RaiderZ, you’re blocking, dodging, striking, and stringing together attacks in a way that feels more similar to a third-person action game than a standard MMO, where you’re just mashing number keys as you run through the same rotation of skills.

Related to that, RaiderZ features many truly unique boss encounters. There’s this one gigantic frog boss, Eluga who has an attack where he springs high into the air – so high, in fact, that he kind of disappears in the distance before he comes crashing down on you if you don’t dodge in time. These kind of extreme vertical attacks is just one way RaiderZ’s boss encounters differ from the typical tank ‘n’ spank model. In many cases, players are rewarded for identifying and striking the boss’s weak spot, breaking off a limb and using it as a weapon to deal extra damage. Imagine facing a dragon, breaking off its horn and beating him down with his own limb.

You decided to abandon the usual character classes in favor of different weapons and their fighting styles. Was this a challenge and was it an easy decision to make?

I do want to clarify that it wasn’t my own personal design decision. The credit for that goes to the developers at MAIET. But as someone who’s been working closely on RaiderZ from the publisher end, the game’s “classless” system something I really dig.

Locking players into specific roles, play styles, and sets of skills just feels like a dated holdover from early MMOs that we shouldn’t necessarily feel beholden to when creating a new title.

A few players are saying that the game should be more about fighting huge monsters and less about killing normal, small animals. What can you say to this?

It’s about pacing and the overall experience. If you are watching a big budget movie that has nothing but expensive explosives and CGI effects flying in your face with no time for character development or story, those amazing visuals don’t really affect you as much. Sort of like a Michael Bay movie!

But seriously, the big bosses in RaiderZ are meant to be special – and some of that value would be lost if players didn’t have the opportunity to explore, quest, adventure, and meet friends.

What is your favorite monster in the game, how can you take him down and with how big a party?

I’m partial to the Chimera. The RaiderZ Chimera is an amalgamation of a lion, serpent and dragon. The only way he could be more deadly would be if we also made it part shark. But that would just be silly.

A full party of five is recommended for taking down the Chimera, which is true for just about every major encounter in the game.

Gold sellers are a plague of most free-to-play MMOs, and RaiderZ seems like a new target. What measures are you taking to fight this problem?

Gold sellers and spammers on forums and in-game are certainly a concern to us. We ban such folks whenever they are brought to our attention and are always in close communications with our live operations team of engineers to keep these kinds of folks out of our games and forums.

If any of your readers finds themselves pestered by a gold farmer or spammer, we ask that they please notify our customer service department with as much information as possible.

Can you tell us a little more about the future of RaiderZ? Do you plan on adding more monsters later on?

It’s a little too soon to go into specifics, but players can definitely look forward to regular updates and new content. At Perfect World Entertainment, we think of MMOs – not just as titles, but also as a service to our players. So regular updates, patches, fixes, and exciting updates is definitely something you can count on.

Thank you for your time!

Thank you very much for the interview. Please head to www.playraiderz.com to try out a new breed of monster hunting MMO gameplay.