RaiderZ – New Information Released On Official Launch

We all remember RaiderZ. It was one of the Action MMORPGs that got us excited for the genre – the genre that has since been dominated by Black Desert Online.
It released all the way back in 2012, when the Action genre was still in its infancy. Unfortunately for RaiderZ, that left it unable to grow – being a small budget free to play MMORPG pulished by a company that has a large history with pay to win MMORPGs.
This caused it to inevitably shut down in 2015, when Perfect World Entertainment were unable to keep the game running due to various issues.

People were aghast over RaiderZ’s shut down announcement, many of those players finding solace on the WildRaiderZ private server, launched by fans in an attempt to save the game.
WildRaiderZ found a lot of success and held on to the popularity that RaiderZ had, growing the game into one of the most populated non-WoW private servers online.

Due to this success, another publisher realized that there was still significant potential in the market and decided to purchase licensing rights to the game.
While at present – WildRaiderZ has suffered no substantial loss to its overall population, the fact remains that with the announcement of an official server along with a large company backing and developing the game..
Well, let’s not go ahead and say that WildRaiderZ will end up going down, but it doesn’t bode well for the private server.

Up until this point the new licensor of RaiderZ has remained silent on what their plans were with the game.
Now we have some additional information to share with you all on its release.
Masangsoft, the new company behind RaiderZ has posted what they are referring to as a “Development Roadmap” on the official RaiderZ Facebook page.
To be clear, what they posted was more of a “feature list” than anything else, but nevertheless, the features listed along with their descriptions are as follows:

Please note though that I will be rewriting a lot of this as the amount of broken English in their descriptions was almost incomprehensible. I will however include the original unedited text on screen.

One of RaiderZ’s most distinct features was its acion combat system.
Epic monster hunting, group activities, and PvP are some of the core features that attract players to the game, so we will attempt to maintain these features and improve them where we can.
By strengthening the pace of the action combat, the overall feel of the game will be improved.
Furthermore, we have adjusted the Evasion and Hit systems in-game to more reasonable levels.
Many skills will be revamped or overhauled completely, based off the weapon in use.
These features will not destroy the systems in place, rather, the systems in question will merely be refined and allow for a better player experience.

The existing class system was very limited. It left you unable to fully customize your character or playstyle, instead, forcing you to take a build that was deemed acceptable.
Our goal is to alter the class system by dismantling all of the existing classes to allow for significant change in how you build your character.
To allow for this, players will be able to choose items, skills, and individual stats to improve your charadcter.
Of course, the aforementioned classes and builds will still be accessible.
We are merely attempting to alleviate people’s feeling of needing to conform to what is generally accepted as the right way to build your character, instead, giving people the opportunity to choose the way they want to play.

Additionally, we will be introducing a new Passive Skill system into the newly revamped class system.
The new system will guide players into improving their stats through a variety of means, such as increasing in level, along with the use of different gear sets and items.
You will be able to explore a variety of different stat altering effects – both personally, and for your entire party by creating and combining items.

Trial Instances will be altered into the new HellHound system – something that is targeted towards endgame content.
This system will feature varied difficulties for players and groups to tackle, varying from beginner to expert.
Each difficulty shares the same environmental space, but not the same groups of monsters. Monster skills and levels also differ depending on difficulty.
The more difficult the level chosen, the more prepared you will need to come.
Cooperating with teammates is the most important part of the highest difficulty dungeons.

One of RaiderZ’s most significant problems were to do with its standardized items. Every player ended up with the exact same item at endgame for their class and it eliminated any form of choice.
Additionally, repeatedly increasing your stats without progressing through new gear and items caused severe imbalance.
We are hoping to even-off the figures on each piece of equipment along with giving players the ability to choose between a variety of equipment, effectively giving players a larger choice in how they craft their character.
By adjusting the overall stats on each piece of equipment, we plan on making the stat gain from skills be of a larger benefit to players overall.
Finally, crafted gear will receive various improvements as well, providing crafted gear with more clear features.

What we came to realize upon closer inspection of the game was that players have grown tired of the questing system.
Players were forced to engage in both the main scenario and side quests to progress through the game.
What we plan on doing is sorting through the side quests – finding the quests in question that players didn’t like or were overall unnecessary to the progression of the game and eliminate the need to participate in completing them entirely.
By doing this, players will no longer be forced to engage in quests they find boring – instead being able to focus more on the main scenario.
By participating in the main scenario, players find themselves enthralled in the story as opposed to running irritable errands for individual NPCs that hold no importance to the game.

We’re well aware that demanding excessive amounts of money be invested into the game for cash shop items is a risky business model.
Not only does that have the potential to ruin the economy – but it also runs the risk or ruining the balance of the game.
This, in turn, promotes distrust amongst the playerbase and will in the future prevent the players from trusting the company behind the game.
We are making every attempt to emply a fair microtransaction system that players can trust.
Most of the items – not all – but most, will be cosmetic such as the ability to alter your characters appearance, or adding in additional costumes.
We expect to satisfy long-time players by offering valuable items without fear or adding external pay to win mechanics to the game.

Storytelling remains the core of RaiderZ – in all MMORPGs, even action games.
While there are some people that enjoy the gameplay exclusively, there are others that have a deep appreciation for the overall story of the game.
RaiderZ’s story gives you a sense of purpose; it gives your actions meaning, the NPCs you meet a reason to exist, and the areas you visit a reason to actually explore.
We hope people will be impressed with our storytelling, as we believe reinforcing the game with an exciting, attractive plot is an important part of every game.

Now, Masangsoft is taking RaiderZ in a slightly different direction.
Instead of reviving the game in its current iteration, they are taking a.. strange approach, changing some of the mechanics that didn’t work out very well and making improvements on others that did.
There is nothing wrong with this – quite the contrary. I believe that personally, this is a good move as the game itself was quite pay to win, and quite honestly.. needed some enhancements to compete with MMORPGs in 2018.