Our guild community has been watching the development of Tera for the last several years. The drama surrounding the theft of trade secrets from NC soft’s Lineage III project have been frequent topics of conversation on our ventrilo. The recent revelation that Tera will launch as the most expensive mmorpg ever created further peaked our interest.
Naturally we’re curious as to what all of the money, legal intrigue and corporate espionage has amounted to. In an increasingly crowded mmo market Enmasse has to produce a truly exceptional and innovative game in order to capture our interest. With the launch of Guild Wars 2 around the corner and World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria well into beta Tera must make a compelling argument through gameplay, content and features.
Is Tera Online worth playing?Firstly Tera is an undeniably pretty game, few mmorpgs can compete in terms of raw graphics and presentation. Attention to detail, gorgeous environments and eye-candy armor are part of Tera’s distinctive style. In addition to flashy next-generation graphics Tera offers the usual spectrum of tried and true mmorpg features, quests, dungeons and exploration as well as some more revealing “battle bikini” armor for the females. There are clear Asian themes in the presentation and artistic style of Tera. In most respects Tera online does not radically differ from other popular mmos currently on the market. Features such as a dungeon finder and end game hardmode content are present. However, Tera has a conspicuous lack of traditional Raiding and instanced pvp content. Though the introduction of “The Nexus” shows that open world dynamic PVE may be the direction Tera follows. Tera also does not currently offer more traditional pvp instanced warzones/battlegrounds that are found in World of Warcraft, SWTOR.
What sets Tera apart?Active targeting and dodging From Enmass Entertainment: In TERA, if you don’t bring your A-game, be prepared to get smacked down! Unlike any other MMO, TERA’s combat relies on your skill as a player, not luck.
Playing the Politics GameAfter level 50, a new kind of prestige opens up for TERA players: the honor of becoming a vanarch and running a province for the Valkyon Federation. This part of the game is not for everyone, and it’s certainly not a casual commitment. Vanarch candidates must first prove themselves as a guild leader, and will then need to campaign across the server in periodic elections to garner enough votes to reach office. Once there, though, vanarchs have the power to set and collect taxes on transactions, add (or remove) features and services in their provinces, and even enjoy a few personal perks. And it’s not just the vanarch that benefits from the process—the vanarch’s entire guild gains access to special quests and cool mounts. Guild vs. GuildThe ultimate kind of PvP is server-wide Guild vs Guild battles. Duels and Deathmatches have their place, but being able to attack opposing guild members on sight takesTERA combat to another level. Only a guild leader can start a battle (and only on a PvP server), but it will take every member doing their part to finish one! Once started, Guild vs. Guild battles last until 24 hours have passed, one guild scores a set amount of points, or until one guild’s leader forfeits. Your guild can be involved in up to three battles at once, but once a battle is finished you must wait a while before fighting that guild again. Both starting and forfeiting a Guild vs. Guild battle require a special item available form vendors in major cities. Dungeons 5 manOur fourth installment of TERA’s dungeon video series features Saleron’s Skygarden, situated among floating islands and populated with flying terrors. The NexusFor 60 levels, you’ve battled across the continents, taking on cultists, traitors, monsters, and madmen. You’ve stared down basilisks, giants, and even gods—and come away ever more powerful. Basic training is over, soldier. Time for you to fight on the front lines! Across Northern Shara, the very fabric of existence is warping as the argons secure their foothold on our world. When a nexus opens, all characters in the area can join a multi-stage raid event, earning rewards for every enemy defeated and reputation with an important faction. There’s plenty of action to go around. Each nexus raid has automatically generated quests, and a party matching system to group you with other players for mutual benefit and maximum carnage. Additional Tera Info:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exiled_Realm_of_Arborea Most Expensive MMO Ever Created: Official Youtube Page: http://www.youtube.com/user/enmasseentertainment End Game: http://tera.enmasse.com/game-guide/endgame Massively Tera Coverage: http://massively.joystiq.com/category/tera Trade Improvements TERA’s May release date is less than a month away now, and En Masse Entertainment is filling the days leading up to the big event by unveiling a series of new launch features. Today’s piece is focused on a number of adjustments that have been made to the game’s economic system. For starters, the trade broker has been vastly improved with “robust search features,” while private stores have been abolished in order to make the broker the true hub of the game’s economy. Enchanters will be pleased to know that the penalty for failing an enchantment has been removed, so while an enchantment can still fail, it won’t weaken the target piece of equipment in the process. And to top it off, the currency demoninations have been changed up to prevent players from having to deal with astronomical amounts of gold. The full details, as well as previous new launch features, can be found over on the game’s official site. Dungeon Finder Love it or hate it, the dungeon finder has become synonymous with the modern-day MMO. Further evidence in this regard comes via En Masse Entertainment’s latest website update, which trumpets the addition of dungeon finder mechanics to TERA. En Masse says that in addition to the standard group-making functionality, its version of the dungeon finder will give players “significant bonuses for grouping, and even send [them] extra rewards when the last boss falls.” TERA’s dungeon loot drops have also been increased across the board, in some cases up to double and triple the rates from past beta weekends. Hit up the official site for more details, including a comprehensive list of the game’s dungeons. World Bosses http://massively.joystiq.com/category/tera En Masse Entertainment is highlighting something it calls improved early play, which in a nutshell means that fresh-face Arborean avatars won’t be killing 10 rats or delivering 10 rat tails while serving time on the TERA equivalent of a newbie island. Instead, the game’s playable prologue “starts you right in the middle of the action: a beachhead under assault by demonic forces. It’s not just a cutscene,” En Masse says. “You’ll be fighting big-ass monsters within minutes, learning the controls as you go.” The piece goes on to talk about how challenge in TERA is actually challenging thanks to new tactics and deadlier attacks from low-level critters. Read all about it on TERA’s official site. Lawsuit En Masse Entertainment has issued a response to yesterday’s developments in the long-running NCsoft vs. Bluehole Studio legal drama. A posting on the official TERA blog says that the upcoming action MMO will launch as scheduled on May 1st despite “baseless accusations” and “unfounded rumors” regarding the theft of Lineage III assets by former Bluehole employees in Korea. The piece states that “after extensive Korean proceedings, Bluehole Studio was not found to have made any use of any NCsoft trade secrets in the form of source code or game design.” It also notes that NCsoft product performance has suffered since TERA’s Korean launch more than a year ago. |
