MAIET Entertainment – MMO Fallout

RaiderZ Getting Shut Down In August

When I interviewed Perfect World Entertainment back in 2013, we were assured that despite servers shutting down in Europe and Korea, that business would continue as usual. That business, I assume was solely predicated on the continuing survival of MAIET Entertainment, the game’s developer. Well MAIET Entertainment as a company is dead and buried, and unfortunately that has lead to issues cropping up in the game that cannot be fixed.

As a result, Perfect World Entertainment has announced that the servers will go dark next month.

We have significant news to share regarding RaiderZ. Over the past weeks, RaiderZ has seen a few different instances where the game has had issues with the server. In the past, we have been working with MAIET, the developer of RaiderZ, in order to troubleshoot and solve issues to keep the game available for the players. Unfortunately, MAIET is no longer operating anymore.

Back in 2013, PWE expressed interest to me in a license similar to that of Neowiz in Japan, who were creating their own content. Whether that would have permitted the publisher to keep going should MAIET go out of business is unknown, especially since the Japanese server shut down earlier this year in March.

From my interview:

That’s a great question, but it’s not something that we’ve considered at this point. We’ve heard great things out of Japan, and are always open to new opportunities in order to ensure the continued success of the game, and making a positive experience for the players.

(Source: Perfect World Entertainment)

Perfect World Talks: RaiderZ

RaiderZ is an action-combat game from the minds of MAIET Entertainment, the folks behind GunZ: The Duel and GunZ 2. Released in 2012 as a free to play MMO, RaiderZ features active combat which places an emphasis on dodging and blocking incoming attacks, as well as an emphasis on crafting and big boss fights. Sadly, RaiderZ has hit some hard times with the announcements that Gameforge and Neowiz would be shutting down their servers in Europe and South Korea respectively. What does this mean for RaiderZ? I had to know.

So naturally, I saddled up and went directly to the source with my pen, paper, and a box of Necco Wafers in case I needed a bribe. With Perfect World Entertainment as the only western host remaining, I wanted to know where RaiderZ stood in terms of support from its remaining publishers, and developer MAIET Entertainment. PWE was kind enough to hook me up with Senior Product Manager Mark Hill, who had no problem answering my questions.

Omali: RaiderZ has shut down in Europe and Korea, with both announcing their closure around the same time. How did Perfect World manage to come out unscathed?

Hill: We are highly committed to RaiderZ and to the fans of the game, so we haven’t even considered closing our servers at this point. We feel that we can build upon the current success of RaiderZ and continue to improve the game for current and future players.

O: What do you say to players who might be concerned over the fact that half of RaiderZ’s territories just shut down?

H: It is very unfortunate if they were involved in the closure of servers that they were playing on. As a gamer, I know how it feels when a game you’re passionate about is no longer available, and it’s not a good feeling. That goes double for MMOs, and for the players that dedicate hundred and even thousands of hours to the game, community, and the publisher.

While I wish there was a way that those affected players would be able to resume their progress on our servers, it’s unfortunately logistically and contractually impossible. However, we do encourage anyone that is able to start up a character on our servers. I think they’ll find a solid and dedicated community to experience the game with, and it may even give them a chance to level up a new character in ways that they didn’t experience before.

O: With Gameforge stepping out of the picture, has any interest been expressed in picking up European publishing?

H: We’re definitely always looking for new market opportunities, and seeing the feedback from European players that were affected makes it clear that they still want to play. There are license and contract restrictions still in place even after they closed their servers, but we have discussed the possibility of Perfect World Entertainment bringing RaiderZ back to Europe. Of course I can’t promise anything, but it is something we are interested in.

O: Is RaiderZ region locked to North America or are players from Europe capable of creating accounts and logging in?

H: European players are able to create accounts on the Perfect World servers. They can register by visiting raiderz.perfectworld.com.

O: Have you considered putting RaiderZ on Steam to bring in a wider audience?

H: Oh man, you’re reading my mind! Yes, we have considered it. But before we do, we want to make sure the game is in top shape in terms of bug fixes, player retention, and overall game experience, which is what we’re working on now. Keep an eye out on Steam, though!

O: Is MAIET still committed to developing content for RaiderZ?

H: Absolutely! As a matter of fact, we have big expansion coming soon that is current being QA tested. You can read all about it in the forums here. We talk to the developers at MAIET every day, and we are both committed to making the game a success.

O: If MAIET does cease development, is there any chance of Perfect World adopting a license similar to Neowiz in Japan, allowing for more in-house control of content?

H: That’s a great question, but it’s not something that we’ve considered at this point. We’ve heard great things out of Japan, and are always open to new opportunities in order to ensure the continued success of the game, and making a positive experience for the players.

I want to thank Perfect World Entertainment and Mark Hill for taking some time to answer our questions. You can check out RaiderZ for free at Perfect World’s website.

[Community] First Impressions Are Everything

Raiderz 2012-11-11 10-45-07-01

Jbuck1984 over on Reddit wants RaiderZ developer MAIET Entertainment to know that it took him ten minutes to decide that the MMO wasn’t worth investing the time into. Simple: Upon entering the game, Jbuck1984 was immediately greeted by a spam bot that could not be blocked due to poor UI and an impossible to read name.

Would have loved to give it a shot, but there was a random gold spammer with the name llllllllll. In game I couldn’t differentiate the L’s from the I’s and I couldn’t click in the chat window to block him. The only next logical step for someone like me who gets annoyed very quickly was to uninstall the game. Thanks Raiderz for making the interface so horrible. If you couldn’t develop a functional chat window I can only imagine what the rest of the game is like.

Some of you will likely see uninstalling the game as a bit of an overreaction, but that doesn’t make Jbuck1984’s point any less true. Walking into an MMO and being presented with an environment like the one described is a bit like entering a nice restaurant and having solicitors start berating you from the entrance to your table to try and sell you stuff. The food might be of five star quality, and odds are a good few people with higher levels of patience will stick around long enough to eat it. There are, however, others who will just get up and go to a restaurant that doesn’t tolerate solicitors.

The post over at Reddit was deleted before this article was published, so you’ll have to excuse there not being a link to the original post. If you have a thought you would like to submit to Community Concerns about RaiderZ or any other MMO, throw us a comment below.