ChaserZ - RaiderZ Review

   RaiderZ is an action-RPG created developed by MAIET Entertainment and hosted by Perfect World Entertainment Inc. You take control of one of four classes (a fifth on its way), and go out into the world, slashing and bashing as you complete stupid quests for stupid people inbetween trying to save the land from evil.

Chocobo!

   It's a pretty fun game that avoids a lot of the problems I see in other MMORPGs. Good graphics, good gameplay, but let's look at the specifics...


   RIGHT
   Gameplay: Fun
   Unlike most other free roam MMORPGs, RaiderZ is not a "click to attack" game. You go up to a monster, you pull out your weapon, and you slice/bash/magic the crap out of it. You must manually aim, dodge, and block attacks when fighting and there are no dice rolls to save you. Combined with comfortable controls, smooth animations, and nice combos, this makes battles significantly more dynamic and exciting.
   RaiderZ also features something rarely seen in video games in general. Parts of many monsters can break off during a fight, and this isn't restricted to bosses. Often, picking up these pieces will result in a stat buff that lasts around 10 seconds, but some monsters will actually drop their weapons when defeated. You can pick up these temporary weapons to use them for a limited time, and usually they will do significantly more damage than whatever you're using. Not only that, but some areas feature temporary weapons just sitting around, though these areas are rare.

I want to use this ALL the time.

   Surprisingly, this game is primarily built for PvE (Player vs. Environment), not PvP (Player vs. Player), but I'll get to that later.

   Skill Tree: Well Done
   Each class has it's own skill tree, together with their own selection of weapons they need to use to be able to use their skills. However, when you choose a class during character creation, you aren't exactly locked to that class. Each class has a "Style Mastery", which means you spent at least 10 skill points on that class. Once you have spent that much, you can choose to start learn ing skills from the other class trees, limited only by the fact that it is a tree (meaning that you must start at the bottom of that tree) and the weapon requirements.
   This means that you can create your own hybrid class! This does not mean that every mixture of skills is a good one, however, so you can easily end up creating a mix that doesn't work. What is awesome about this is that the game doesn't restrict you or force you to go one way. In fact, at a certain point in the game, you will be given two mastery reset books, in case you weren't satisfied with what you started with. No reason to make a new character, those reset books effectively let you switch classes, with the only cost to you being that you will possibly have to craft a new weapon. I enjoy freedom in my games, and RaiderZ provides it.

   WRONG
   Spammer Bots: Annoying
   The first thing you will see when you start the game will probably be something about free blah if you go to blah. They make it very hard to hear what people are saying.

It makes me so angry I want to destroy this cat!

   A spam filter would be really nice to see. Not a lot else to say about this, so let's move on.

   Loot: Frustrating
   The first person or party to hit a monster gets all the loot from that monster. This also applies to bosses. Since there will often be multiple people ganging up on a single boss, fighting it and not getting a reward when it dies can become a nuisance. If you were fighting it for a quest, the quest will still count the kill and finish, but if you were fighting it for the reward then you will be lost unless you're either alone (which will make the fight very difficult), or in a party.
   This also means that helping other players is discouraged unless you are in the same party, as you will only be helping them and not yourself. Not to belittle the virtues of being a good person, but you should know about the nonexistence of the rewards involved.

   PvP: Imbalanced(?)
   After fighting a couple of players and watching a few fights (my class being Berzerker), I concluded that the PvP seems to be heavily geared towards Sorcerers. Not wanting to make an absolute statement based on minimal experience, I Google'd the issue and found that this was a hot topic on the RaiderZ forums. Surprisingly, though, instead of what I was expecting (all the noobs screaming "OP", and all the pros screaming "NOOBS"), it seems that a lot of people do seem to agree that there is something wrong with the PvP system. Fighting other players does require a degree of skill, but the amount of skill required for each class differs noticeably.

Don't mind me, you two go at it...

   Final Score: 4 out of 5

   Like I said, RaiderZ is built for PvE, and that is where RaiderZ shines. If you play this game with the intent of beating up other players... I think I've given you enough information on how to do that. However, I wouldn't suggest playing RaiderZ for that purpose. All the game needs is a little fine-tuning, and it will only grow as time goes on. Will it grow in the way the players want it to? Only time will tell. For now, though, this game deserves checking out.

   Extra Things to Know
   - The skills in the skill trees give extra stats. This means that getting more skills for a single class will buff the stats that class uses more. Be smart!
   - You can challenge anyone on the field to a duel for fun. There are also open-PvP areas later in the game, starting from Mt. Eda.
   - Finished an instance? Just want to get out fast? Walking is for noobs. There is a button at the top of the screen you can use inside of instances to leave at any time, unless you're in a fight.
   - Hit Z to sit down and recover quicker.
   - You will spend a large amount of time at the beginning of the game on foot. Don't get discouraged, you will have access to a mount later.