We've been putting Perfect World Entertainment's RaiderZ to the test over the past several weeks. Today we offer up our final review. Check it out and then leave us your thoughts in the comments.

Graphically, RaiderZ is great. The engine that is being used provides great visuals, although some elements can seem a bit off sometimes. Zones are well crafted and each one has its own theme which provides for some variety when crossing through to the next zone. Much like Tera scenery, characters are very vibrant and colorful. Each armor set, weapon and area are all blasting with vibrancy, making good use of the games "anime-ish" art style, standing quite highly amongst free-to-play MMO's in the Aesthetics department. The UI is very simplistic, I didn't encounter any problems with it. All in all very easy to navigate through menus and the like.

Read more of George Dimmock's RaiderZ: Equally Fun & Frustrating.

Forgot to comment about the gear dupping that ruinned the game economy? And what about glitched characthers killing bosses in one blow? Forgot to comment about that either?

Terrible review.

I'm not super high level and just play it occasionally, but I do find it a pretty fun game.  I pretty much agree with the review across the board, but I probably would have rated the social a 7 instead of 8.  It's kind of early in the game to rate the community in my opinion.  That is something that has to grow a little.  The bugs are annoying, especially for combat.

Good review.  Thanks.

I agree.  The game is good, just not anything I would make my main game.  But I find it enjoyable.

I would have given less for aesthetics.

Sure things look good but it's a hodge podge mess. You have a sort of medievi armor and sword thign and then some of the armor looks a little anime bondage and then you have ships and a town that look like the 1700. At one point I just stopped as the ship I was looking at just didn't seem to belong.

It's just a mess of good looking stuff. For some that won't be an issue but to me it seemed a bit junky.

There are some nice things like the crafting showing up in the quest tracker and a list of what beasts drop what parts. It essentially felt like a cheaply made Tera but without some of the more cohesive elements. I took it off my computer. However, I can see some people enjoying it.

I liked how sometimes the monsters would drop parts which you could pick up and use as a weapon during that fight. That was a bit novel. I also liked how sometimes health powerups would drop so that you could get into the next fight without waiting too long.

@DukeDu

Or how about given time, and through supply and demand, the prices will normalize.  Cry elsewhere.

Let me sum up RaiderZ:

It's the little Monster Hunter game that couldn't.

Originally posted by OG_Zorvan

Let me sum up RaiderZ:

It's the little Monster Hunter game that couldn't.

 

Well said.... Heres hoping Capcom makes a Monster Hunter MMO,.. Wishful thinking i guess

Originally posted by Xstatic912

Originally posted by OG_Zorvan

Let me sum up RaiderZ:

It's the little Monster Hunter game that couldn't.

 

Well said.... Heres hoping Capcom makes a Monster Hunter MMO,.. Wishful thinking i guess

 

They have/had one. In Japan only, though.

Originally posted by DukeDu

Forgot to comment about the gear dupping that ruinned the game economy? And what about glitched characthers killing bosses in one blow? Forgot to comment about that either?

Terrible review.

Actually it's a pretty decent review. It's about the game, so it isn't necessarily focusing on something happened a week ago and hopefully will get some solution as we speak (there's a maintenance right now, exploits are fixed previously, and if all is going well exploiters will be banned too. Or not.)

True, the game and the economy is not in a top shape right now... but it doesn't effect the mechanics, or the gfx, etc., all the parts that are detailed in the review.

I have only one problem with the review:

Originally posted by Po_gg

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.

So, I'm not quite get it when George wrote:

It's also worth mentioning that as of now, there's no competitive PVP at this time outside of duels. Players looking for that sort of action, won't find it here.  But whether PVP is important or not is purely subjective: just note it's lacking in Raiderz.

I wish... since I don't pvp. Too bad that's not true.

There IS a mandatory open pvp area, which is sadly pretty populated. It's not rare to see a 10vs10 clash there (or a 5vs1 gankfest...) It's strange you didn't noticed, so far the luckiest pve guy I know was ganked there "only" 6-8 times until he finished the questing in that area. I wasn't that lucky, I didn't even counted in the end my deaths, I was glad if they were gracious enough to let me use / talk / pick up my quest object and only after that ganked me... At least this way I could advance the quest.

Originally posted by Po_gg

I have only one problem with the review:

Originally posted by Po_gg

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.

So, I'm not quite get it when George wrote:

It's also worth mentioning that as of now, there's no competitive PVP at this time outside of duels. Players looking for that sort of action, won't find it here.  But whether PVP is important or not is purely subjective: just note it's lacking in Raiderz.

I wish... since I don't pvp. Too bad that's not true.

There IS a mandatory open pvp area, which is sadly pretty populated. It's not rare to see a 10vs10 clash there (or a 5vs1 gankfest...) It's strange you didn't noticed, so far the luckiest pve guy I know was ganked there "only" 6-8 times until he finished the questing in that area. I wasn't that lucky, I didn't even counted in the end my deaths, I was glad if they were gracious enough to let me use / talk / pick up my quest object and only after that ganked me... At least this way I could advance the quest.

Yeah, I'm not sure why that part got missed.  Maybe he hasn't progressed that far yet.  I haven't either, but it's one thing I'm not excited about.

In a pvp game the whole environment and progression prepares you to deal with personal combat.  In ffa pvp games the community often develops a policing structure.  This is all missing from this game.  So people are playing the game one way and right in the middle of the game suddenly you're playing a completely different game?  That's not really good game design in my book.

Since I haven't progressed this far I'll wait until then to actually judge the experience, but overall it just seems jarring, odd, and bolt on.

Originally posted by Torvaldr

Yeah, I'm not sure why that part got missed.  Maybe he hasn't progressed that far yet.  I haven't either, but it's one thing I'm not excited about.

In a pvp game the whole environment and progression prepares you to deal with personal combat.  In ffa pvp games the community often develops a policing structure.  This is all missing from this game.  So people are playing the game one way and right in the middle of the game suddenly you're playing a completely different game?  That's not really good game design in my book.

He wrote about endgame, I thought he went to 35, that's why I put in my comment the lucky dude reference... since with some luck and logging in by off-peak times and constant channel switching one can go through Mt.Eda with only a few deaths (but not without noticing there's pvp)

Weak game desing: we discussed it lately, and I'm pretty sure it's there because of the money. Since until lvl22 the game is focusing on pve, you ditch the pvp-oriented skills from your skill tree. So when you reach the pvp part, and you decide you want to fight back, you need to retrain. Meaning, you have to visit the store... and it's not a cheap purchase. Then when you finish Mt.Eda, the game goes back to pve so if you don't plan to duel or stay there for some easy kill on the newly arrived players, you need to retrain again... clever :I

That's why I sucked so bad in there, my main is a full healer, with only healing and focused strike (-> not much dps) and I said -"no f*ing way I'm gonna retrain for only 3-4 levels of pvp..." 

It would've been pointless anyway, since pvp is all about stunlock (even the heavy pvp'ers are complaining of it, basically who stuns first, wins), and you don't get your "escape" skill until lvl25, so between 22 and 25 you're a free kill for the high level gankers.

There are two PvP zones... Mount Edna and the epic version.  In fact the main quest lines lead right into the middle of the war zone.  How did you manage to miss that?

You also didn't mention the stat stacking bug, that had people roaming around one shoting other players, and farming epic dungeons for epic weapon and armor upgrade mats. 

Nor did you mention the wide spread dupping  problem that was going on.  That allowed many people to end up with +9 armor sets and +9 weapons. 

Both appear to have been finally patched at this point.  But from the looks of it, PWE isn't going to take action against the accounts of those who seriously abused those various issues.

Its too bad, as I quite enjoyed the game.  The combat system is in some ways more flexible than TERA's. The graphics aren't quite as good, but are good enough.  But I totally agree about the lack of content.

Originally posted by Darklotus79
The Mt. Eda PvE quest in the PvP area is not that bad you can get them done in about an hour or so. Then bam! Your out of the pvp zone unless your grinding for the pvp armor set. People make it out worse than what it actually is. I was thinking damn I'm gonna have to spend days in Mt. Eda trying to get stuff done. Nope.. actually there was only 3 quest in the actual pvp zone and 2 were repeatable. If Tera was F2p I would probably choose it over Raiderz , but for what the game is its a nice casual experience that needs more content for sure.

Actually there's 5 (or 6) quests + the 2 repeatable, and you have to grind those 2 first until you reach Very Friendly with the chosen tribe, only after that can you start the other 5.

Or at least this was the case in the beta. I admit, after the live launch it became easier, but still no word from PWE that it's a bug or they listened the numerous complaints and changed it deliberately.

(since the live launch there's no gating on the 2 repeatables, you take them and right away you can hand in, regardless of your faction status, meaning you can continue with the 5 story quests in Mt.Eda. Who knows, maybe only a bug :) or not.)

So yep, after the launch, and after you know the ropes you can finish Mt. Eda in a few hours, if you find an empty channel.