We continue our series of articles about RaiderZ that will culminate with our final and official MMORPG.com review. This week, we examine the cash shop and RaiderZ's end game. See what we have to say and then leave us your thoughts in the comments.

Free-to-play titles will always have a cash shop; I don't think I have ever come across one which does not. Whether the cash shop is imperative or not, is down to the publisher. A memorable moment, for me, where a cash shop was essential to progressing through the game was, Allods Online. A game which I'm sure many people will agree enraged a lot of us.

Read more of George Dimmock's RaiderZ: Review In Progress - Part 3.

1st...

OK so I tried the beta and kinda liked the crafting and almost everything else - but stopped playing at about lvl7 so I will enjoy the game when it is out

I just reinstalled it (official launcher - removed beta one ages ago), and I cannot see/find any EU servers (only 2 US ones) - which is a bit annoying....

Will try both - let’s hope LAG is tolerable,,,

Interesting review series so far.

The rough spots so far:

• Polish: The game still needs polish.  The controls and fluidity of combat still needs improvement.  Many system features are fairly rudimentary (eg: no way to ignore players that I've seen).
• Spam:  The in game spam is obnoxious.  Fortunately I can turn off the two channels the gold sellers spam on, but there is no way I've found to ignore and or report them.  By this time in the genres evolution this should be a standard feature of any major (or even minor) title.
• Grouping:  The grouping system is very old school and rudimentary.  After playing games like RIFT and GW2 with fluid dynamic grouping systems, the old system of manual grouping and exclusion just feels dated.  I'm there, helping you kill something, I should share in the reward and also be able use my buffs, heals, and boons to help you more directly.  The idea that a "formal" group means my skills not work for you better is a kludgy throw back.
• Tapping:  This sort of goes with grouping, but again, after using shared rewards tapping systems in GW2 and RIFT the old way feels dated.
• Social / Community:  The community has a very young feel to it and by that I mean age/maturity level.  On one hand it's fun to see people sparring and goofing around in town.  On the other the quality of conversation is generally "fast food" at best and juvenille at worst.
• No Copy / Paste for the password field.  For those of us who use more complex passwords there is no copy/paste into the password field.  It's very annoying and does nothing to add to security.
• Game Guard:  I hate this program.  I have to say it hasn't interfered with my system so far, but our history together is checkered at best.

• Action Combat:  The action combat is fun.  The dodge system is a little better than the GW2 version where you only get two dodges before having to let the meter refill.  The game just feels more action oriented than the partial action system in GW2.  One thing I really like about the RaiderZ system is how I can still move in the middle of a cast to dodge an attack.  It doesn't root me, but it can also waste my cooldown for that skill, so there is a tactical choice to make: take the hit and launch the skill or evade damage and waste the cooldown.  I didn't play Tera but I'm curious how the two systems feel by comparison.
• Gear:  I really like how gear and crafting are integrated.  I like that monsters drop ingredients and not entire pieces of ready to use gear.  It adds an interesting layer and integrates crafting with adventuring.  Crafting could be a lot deeper with more diverse and hidden recipes where you must find the ingredient combos to craft, but it's still a nice system.
• Cash Shop / Game Play:  I like how the cash shop is setup and how the game is provided without system locks.  This is my preferred F2P style as opposed to those "freemium" styles (AoC, EQ2, LotRO, TOR).  I don't really mind a little P2W in F2P, hell P2P/Sub games are all P2W.
• Character Customization:  The game has pretty good character customization.  It's not the greatest, but still pretty good.

To ignore the spam botst, you type /block <name> or /b <name>.

Originally posted by Shaike

1st...

OK so I tried the beta and kinda liked the crafting and almost everything else - but stopped playing at about lvl7 so I will enjoy the game when it is out

I just reinstalled it (official launcher - removed beta one ages ago), and I cannot see/find any EU servers (only 2 US ones) - which is a bit annoying....

Will try both - let’s hope LAG is tolerable,,,

There's actually 2 EU servers, are you sure you've got the EU one at raiderz-europe.com.

So far I'm lvl 23 and it's been fun. As I understand the EU & US version are controlled by different companies, just like many other titles. In this case, so far i've seen that the cash shop is behind in the EU version. I've a feeling the US version will get more updates etc. which bothers me.

Originally posted by cyber7chink

To ignore the spam botst, you type /block or /b .

That is really helpful. Thanks.

Originally posted by Dreamion

Originally posted by Shaike

1st...

OK so I tried the beta and kinda liked the crafting and almost everything else - but stopped playing at about lvl7 so I will enjoy the game when it is out

I just reinstalled it (official launcher - removed beta one ages ago), and I cannot see/find any EU servers (only 2 US ones) - which is a bit annoying....

Will try both - let’s hope LAG is tolerable,,,

There's actually 2 EU servers, are you sure you've got the EU one at raiderz-europe.com.

So far I'm lvl 23 and it's been fun. As I understand the EU & US version are controlled by different companies, just like many other titles. In this case, so far i've seen that the cash shop is behind in the EU version. I've a feeling the US version will get more updates etc. which bothers me.

LOL ty

had no idea

but sorry - this game isn't good enough for me to reinstall it twice.

gonna remove it for now and maybe come back to it in a few month once it gets MUCH MUCH better (or not...)

Spam: as others said you can block them (/block <name>). Sadly it's character-based, so if you have more alts, you have to copy the list manually under their names too (it's in your folder, blocklist.xml). But it's easier to simply create a tab with only party, guild and whisper, and switch onto that when you go to Ingen, since at higher levels you mostly just jump back for some crafting.

Eu server: same with me, I used my PWE acc and it downloaded the US client. But when I saw that in Eu it's Gameforge, I rather stayed on the US East servers :)

Cash shop: the review is right, it's not forced onto casuals. I think in most PWE games they're doing the same, you can play free (or with slight shop usage) if you are a casual, and the heavier player you are, the more spending you need. Up until you reach pay-to-win land...

I hope in the summary review you'll note the forced pvp part in the middle of the game. I had great fun up until that point, it's a pretty good game.

Originally posted by Po_gg

Eu server: same with me, I used my PWE acc and it downloaded the US client. But when I saw that in Eu it's Gameforge, I rather stayed on the US East servers :)

THIS. No matter what one thinks about PWE, gameforge is around ten times worse. 

Also what I found surprising is that even though I am playing on US server, I am NOT experiencing any lag at all. Game is just as fluid as if I was playing on gameforge's servers, which is commendable. 

For those that doesn't know this. PWE's "official" release is always under the open-beta phase and they also said that they wouldn't wipe the characters under the open beta so just go nuts. 

Now, when it comes to latency on the us-servers. I have so far experience little to no latency issues and personally prefer the US-servers over the EU ones. 

The downside I see is that magic or ranged attacks are lock-on and not skill-based. If they change it then the game will be quite solid and much more entertaining.

Originally posted by Bakoryo

For those that doesn't know this. PWE's "official" release is always under the open-beta phase and they also said that they wouldn't wipe the characters under the open beta so just go nuts. 

 

Now, when it comes to latency on the us-servers. I have so far experience little to no latency issues and personally prefer the US-servers over the EU ones. 

 

The downside I see is that magic or ranged attacks are lock-on and not skill-based. If they change it then the game will be quite solid and much more entertaining.

Official release: didn't that just happened 4 days ago? :) I mean there was a Live launch announcment, they remove the halloween stuff from the game, etc. It's live now and not open beta.

Ranged and magic are not lock-on, you can easily miss, especially a fast-moving mob. (I hated when harpys under Mt. Eda jumped all around, I missed a lot :) ). But some quick spells are definitely hard to dodge, maybe that's behind your experience.

Its Monster hunter with a legit open world.

I think its ok, sure it has the cheap korean f2p vibe to the character graphics and animation but overall i can see myself playing this on and off for a while.

wil prolly get removed, i think of the site with a heavy censor on anything negative...

This game is the definition of shit, haha.

It takes a great combat system concept and ruins it with shitty content. The game looks terrible, is not optimized, and is managed by one of the worst F2P publishers out there today.(both NA and EU)

Not to mention PWE(NA) their fake 50% sale a while back? GG at paying $60 for a mount, it was never that much. From day 1 they said it was on 50% sale but it’s a really sad attempt at scamming people into paying for junk.

I give the game a rating of “Meh” No immersion at all watsoever its a game where you kill mobs for the sake of killing mobs. The story if u even bother to read the text & listen is more painfull not to ignore. MAIET pretty much pawned this off to PWE & Frogster and they deserve it for being such pay to win/pay for fun assholes

played alpha, got to the end of Mt eda(around 30) in the closed beta and only to about 20 in the open beta before i had enuf. Guess it takes longer for some people to realize how bad the game is

Originally posted by rommello

wil prolly get removed, i think of the site with a heavy censor on anything negative...

This game is the definition of shit, haha.

It takes a great combat system concept and ruins it with shitty content. The game looks terrible, is not optimized, and is managed by one of the worst F2P publishers out there today.(both NA and EU)

Not to mention PWE(NA) their fake 50% sale a while back? GG at paying $60 for a mount, it was never that much. From day 1 they said it was on 50% sale but it’s a really sad attempt at scamming people into paying for junk.

I give the game a rating of “Meh” No immersion at all watsoever its a game where you kill mobs for the sake of killing mobs. The story if u even bother to read the text & listen is more painfull not to ignore. MAIET pretty much pawned this off to PWE & Frogster and they deserve it for being such pay to win/pay for fun assholes

played alpha, got to the end of Mt eda(around 30) in the closed beta and only to about 20 in the open beta before i had enuf. Guess it takes longer for some people to realize how bad the game is

Monster Hunter is considered one of the best games around and all you do is kill monsters for materials, build weapons/armor with those materials so you can kill biggers, stronger monsters for more materials.

RaiderZ is basically a mmo version of MH.

If you dont like that type of gameplay why are you playing RaiderZ? 

I've played RaiderZ to level 35 (defender) and level 34.5 (zerker).  I really enjoy the combat system, and the graphics, while not nearly as good as TERA's are quite good.  The quest system is standard for these types of games, but thats to be expected. 

Having reached level cap (35) I also found little to do.  Sure, I could endlessly grind epic dungeons, but thats never really appealed to me. 

I was REALLY disappointed that "launch" day came and went, with no new content, and no patches for many of the major "issues" the game has suffered from for months.  

One of those issues is the stuck at loading screen problem. At random (but happening more frequently after playing for awhile) you would get stuck at the loading screen, when zoning or enterting a town or dungeon. The only way out is to alt F4 out of the game. 

Thats just one of many issues that make the game difficult to play.  As it stands, I've moved on to other games. When/if they get around to adding new content and fixing some of the major problems, I may try the game again.  But for now, I can't recommend it. 

Originally posted by Po_gg

Spam: as others said you can block them (/block ). Sadly it's character-based, so if you have more alts, you have to copy the list manually under their names too (it's in your folder, blocklist.xml). But it's easier to simply create a tab with only party, guild and whisper, and switch onto that when you go to Ingen, since at higher levels you mostly just jump back for some crafting.

Eu server: same with me, I used my PWE acc and it downloaded the US client. But when I saw that in Eu it's Gameforge, I rather stayed on the US East servers :)

Cash shop: the review is right, it's not forced onto casuals. I think in most PWE games they're doing the same, you can play free (or with slight shop usage) if you are a casual, and the heavier player you are, the more spending you need. Up until you reach pay-to-win land...

I hope in the summary review you'll note the forced pvp part in the middle of the game. I had great fun up until that point, it's a pretty good game.

What's the pvp part in the middle of the game?  I haven't got there yet.

You should try tera out, its an amazing game, the environment is just stunning, i have played plenty of games and tera had the best graphics and environment. Tera is doing a F2P action " you can play the game until lvl 28 F2P", just try it out you will not regret it. Just to compare them, you will see the tera battle system is great it is so smoothly compared to others. I am not a fanboy i just want you to make your review better, so you can compare to other great games, just like u are doing.

I am enjoying your review, keep on the great work !