Along with the Neverwinter preview, I also snuck in the opportunity to check out the F2P MMORPG RaiderZ with Mark Hill, Senior Producer of the game.
Hill demonstrated a few of the key characteristics of the game, then handed it over to me to stumble around in. I do have to agree with a fellow journalist in the meeting: this game is a wee bit complicated.
On the other hand, not everyone is a wuss afraid of a little hard-earned fun. Although an entry-level gamer like me might struggle around for a bit, I think that most people familiar with the general setup of a MMORPG won’t have too much trouble.
Plot
The kingdom of Rendel has fallen and vicious beasts, awakened by the contamination of the Prime Stone, roam the lands with an insatiable thirst for blood and a desire to claim Rendel as their own. A team of champions with weapons and armor forged from the contaminated beasts has risen to slay the marauding monsters.
Gameplay
Fans of Dragon’s Dogma and Monster Hunter should also be excited: you can both hack away at giant beasts AND turn into monsters, gaining different skills and abilities in your other forms.
You can team up with as many as 15 other adventurers at a time. As they say in RaiderZ (and on my frikkin awesome Tee they gave me): Hunt together, or die alone.
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(Side note: my first thought when watching this trailer was “OOOH! I wanna fight that monster!”)
Oh, and my favorite: when you beat up a monster, it may drop things like its horns or claws. These items can then be used to create weapons. How great would it be to slay something with it’s own horn that you hacked off and ran away with three days ago? This is awesome.
Other awesome things include the ability to play guitar, roast a pig, and serve a feast. Dude. You can then use the guitar or plates of food as weapons or consume the food for stats.
An interesting aspect of the character setup is the lack of set classes. You can really pick and choose among the weapons and skills and build out your skill tree the way you want it once you reach level 10. For example, you can choose to be a tank-healer.
Hill stated that his personal goal with this game was to completely change how people view F2P games.
“THIS is what you can get from a free game?” he said, enthusiastically showing off the crisp graphics. This game has both quantity and quality, which is pretty exciting based on my short time with it.
Lady Gamers
As I snagged a wonderfully covered female character, I asked about their views on female players and the design of their female characters. Hill mentioned that a good perccentage of their target players are female.
“We try not to overtly sexualize ANY of the characters,” he said, pointing out that the male characters are given the same treatment. They aim to make the goal accessible to everyone and to not objectify anyone.
“No girls have complained, which has been cool,” Hill said.
I must say I was immediately impressed and actually noticed right away, so kudos to MAIET for being Nerdy without being too Flirty!
Overall I think this is a game many MMORPG fans will be interested in, and one of my authors has already signed up for the Beta waiting list, so hopefully I will have a more in-depth review of that soon!
First appeared on NerdyButFlirty.com