Inside The Creative Minds Behind RaiderZ - An Interview With Mark Hill Part 1

Imagine living in a world where you and your friends can mob together and beat the hell out of everything around you that dared take a breath in your presence. Then, during a huge feast in glorious honor of your victory, a meat fight breaks out, steaming roast legs of lamb spattering their succulent juices in the faces of those you hold most dear to you. When the aggression is finally out of your system, you and your friends jam out a little tune before going to bed. To me this sounds like a typical Saturday night. But to those of you who do not want a long police rap sheet Perfect World Entertainment brings you their newest and most exciting game yet. RaiderZ is the name, and it promises to be everything the name suggests and more.

I was fortunate enough to run into Mark Hill, the Senior Producer for Perfect World Entertainment while I was panhandling to fund my nano tube laser project. In what I could only assume to be great and heart felt pity, Mr. Hill agreed to do an interview with me, but because I had previously bathed in marmoset placenta to give my panhandling some realism and the scent was not indoor safe, we decided that I would send the questions and he would answer them. From there I would bring all the nummy little details to you, my loyal and delightfully manipulable fans. I know how eager you are to find out what is in store for you before the beta event starts, and I bring it to you like a squirming virgin sacrifice, ripe for you to drive the dagger into the heart of. so, without any further delay, I bring to you my very first, and most likely last, interview with Mark Hill from Perfect World Entertainment.

Sephris: I'm not exactly what you would call an exemplary gamer. While videos of my rage have not yet appeared on YouTube, eventually someone will escape with footage. I'm obviously someone that likes open community standards. So how open are yours? Do you allow profanity? Do you allow bots? Would you allow a Taiwanese midget prostitute with open toed shoes on your servers?

Mark: We’re all about being open, too -- and will never drop the ban hammer or punish players without warning or for no reason. However, we want to provide a fun experience for ALL players. As long as a player is not trolling other players or using exploits that disrupt game balance, making it unfair or unpleasant for other players, there should never be a problem.

Sephris: The good gaming companies out there offer all sorts of in game support such as tutorial features, in game links to FAQs and even in game links to their wiki. While I see you have not stolen my idea of using the side of the moon that faces us as a visual propaganda tool, I must wonder then at just what you do offer to support my in game needs? I am a needy person. I need your teat of wisdom to nurture me every now and then. Do tell me I will grow up fat and rosy cheeked from your nourishment.

Mark: Don’t forget about logos and websites. All the good gaming companies out there have those too -- and so do we! Head to www.playraiderz.com if you don’t believe me. Of course we will also have a robust Wiki, new player guides, tutorials, support forums, and anything else players might need to succeed, and if players want more, we are always willing to expand on it.

Sephris: Free to play games are turding all over pay to play games such as World of Warcraft. Will RaiderZ be free to play? And if so, what sort of micro-transactions can we expect to see from you to help keep your servers running?

Mark: RaiderZ will be totally free to play. But in regards to micro-transactions, we’re not ready to discuss that topic in depth yet. However, I can tell you that as an online games publisher, Perfect World Entertainment does not believe in the pay-to-win model common in many free-to-play games. So don’t expect to be able to buy your way to victory. On the flip side, don’t expect paying players to have an unfair advantage over non-paying players.

Sephris: RaiderZ will have no character classes, nor did you try to cheat this by having skill trees that cowardly gamers could go climb into and hide in so they can make character classes through selective characterization. You do offer over 350 skills anyone can have. And this makes me think of Guild Wars and their failure with the skill system they created. Eventually you will get some serious tech geeks who will figure out ways to use those skills to unbalance the game. Are you prepared to go through the shame Guild Wars did and tweek, or "nerf", the skills when you see this happening? Or is game balance not a huge issue in RaiderZ?

Mark: I’m trying to think of a single MMO ever released that did not ever make changes for game balance reasons after launch. Can you? Games like the aforementioned Guild Wars and even League of Legends are constantly tweaking the balance of the game to enhance the player experience and make it more fun for everyone. Balance is supremely important to RaiderZ and we are prepared to make the balance tweaks necessary to optimize the game.

(To part 2: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos... )