Why did TERA fail, and is there any hope of escaping that fate for its launch in the west?

MMO.Maverick

It's not often that I hear news regarding TERA because I'm not actively following everything about it. But when I hear news, it's often no good news at all.

From what I read, it seems to have been surprisingly a disappointment in its own home country, Korea: it failed to deliver on expectations of both players and its company, there have been several server merges and it never came anywhere close to the success that Aion enjoyed and still enjoys.

Frankly, reading about it, it doesn't bode well at all for its launch in the west, reading those developments about it.

 

This left me with a couple of questions. From what I saw, its most distinguishing feature was the action oriented combat. Most of the other stuff that the game actually offered has already been seen in other MMO's, but on the other hand I also couldn't see what'd make this game less appealing than an Aion. Yet, apparently it does, seeing the enthusiastic reaction of MMO gamers in the east upon Aion and its healthy retention, compared to the lukewarm reception of TERA by MMO gamers and quick follow ups of server merges not that long afterwards.

 

My questions: do people here who've been following TERA more closely know the reasons why TERA failed so quickly after its launch and didn't do as well as Aion? What made the difference? And a speculative question, if it failed to capture the MMO playerbase that strongly in Korea itself, what would prevent it from experiencing the same fate when launched in the west? Wouldn't the same reasons that made it fail in Korea apply in the west as well?

Skymourne

This may sounds nuts, but I would almost be a bit giddy about a western launch, as Eastern games haven't done terribly well over here, with the exception of a possible few.  My reason being, that maybe if it failed in the East, it might just do well over here.  That may seem like a longshot, but i sure as hell wouldn't be surprised.

I have no rooting interest as far as this game goes, however, i would silently chuckle if the game did well on this side of the globe.

 

tank017

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

It's not often that I hear news regarding TERA because I'm not actively following everything about it. But when I hear news, it's often no good news at all.

From what I read, it seems to have been surprisingly a disappointment in its own home country, Korea: it failed to deliver on expectations of both players and its company, there have been several server merges and it never came anywhere close to the success that Aion enjoyed and still enjoys.

Frankly, reading about it, it doesn't bode well at all for its launch in the west, reading those developments about it.

 

This left me with a couple of questions. From what I saw, its most distinguishing feature was the action oriented combat. Most of the other stuff that the game actually offered has already been seen in other MMO's, but on the other hand I also couldn't see what'd make this game less appealing than an Aion. Yet, apparently it does, seeing the enthusiastic reaction of MMO gamers in the east upon Aion and its healthy retention, compared to the lukewarm reception of TERA by MMO gamers and quick follow ups of server merges not that long afterwards.

 

My questions: do people here who've been following TERA more closely know the reasons why TERA failed so quickly after its launch and didn't do as well as Aion? What made the difference? And a speculative question, if it failed to capture the MMO playerbase that strongly in Korea itself, what would prevent it from experiencing the same fate when launched in the west? Wouldn't the same reasons that made it fail in Korea apply in the west as well?

Wow,this comes as news to me as I had no idea that TERA was struggling in its origin country.Though I was having my doubts with it as news of the game would stop for long periods of time.Also,not saying this is true,but it just seems like they are struggling to get the game over here...in what seems like forever now.

Anyway,I think the MMO tastes in Asian countries and countries like the U.S. differ so much that what might seem like rubbish there could be successful here and vice versa.I have no idea what the Korean version is like,but maybe it has such a Western flare that it completely turned the Korean playerbase off? pure sepculation here.

 

Though, with its hack and slash action style gameplay I can see it finding a niche crowd here in the states.

 

 

DannyGlover

I was under the impression that it launched in Korea with very little content. I may be way off the mark though.

dreamsofwar

Maybe its because Tera isn't your generic cookie-cutter asian grinder?

stayontarget

I have been playing Ktera sence July and have been following its development for about 2 years now.   Tera launched way to early in Korea,  there was very little end game.  For most Asian games this would not be a problem due to the fact that most Korean games are grinders and have a ton of time sinks....not so with Tera.

Koreans got to end game (lv50 at the time) within a month and some got there even sooner.  Koreans just did not see the point of paying a sub for very little end game content when they had a ton of f2p games to choose from. 

Another hit against the game was alot of Cafe's did not carry the game due to its sub model which was bad because most Koreans don't play computer games at home.

As for the West,  BHS & EmE have made a mutrial agreement not to make the same mistake  in the west.  The western launch of the game has been delayed inorder to add atleast lv58 content with a new pvp rule set and GvG pvp.   I don't expect the west to be launched with lv60 content next spring (hell even Korea does not have that content yet),  but lv58 content is more than enough.

 

 

~hope that helps~

nationalcity

I was under the impression it wasn't grindy enough.

Which actually mean's it will probably do well over here...

MMO.Maverick

Originally posted by stayontarget

I have been playing Ktera sence July and have been following its development for about 2 years now.   Tera launched way to early in Korea,  there was very little end game.  For most Asian games this would not be a problem due to the fact that most Korean games are grinders and have a ton of time sinks....not so with Tera.

Koreans got to end game (lv50 at the time) within a month and some got there even soon.  Koreans just did not see the point of paying a sub for very little end game content when they had a ton of f2p games to choose from. 

Another hit against the game was alot of Cafe's did not carry the game due to its sub model which was bad because most Koreans don't play computer games at home.

As for the West,  BHS & EmE have made a mutrial agreement not to make the same mistake  in the west.  The western launch of the game has been delayed inorder to add atleast lv58 content with a new pvp rule set and GvG pvp.   I don't expect the west to be launched with lv60 content next spring (hell even Korea does not have that content yet),  but lv58 content is more than enough.

 

 

~hope that helps~

Ah, I see. So it was too fast leveling speed and too little endgame content that made the difference.

I can certainly see why that'd make a difference with Aion, Aion has a leveling trajectory that takes twice as long as in other MMO's to reach level cap, and they had some interesting endgame mechanics in place.

If they manage to provide more content in the higher levels though plus some of the features they've been talking about but not implemented yet, then this migh go differently in the west than how it went in the east: Aion's leveling was considered too glacial and grindy, so if TERA can evade that hurdle, it'll be better to retention, under the condition that their endgame content is sufficiently enough implement ofc.

yaminsux

Why did it fail? Players dont give it a chance to grow, like western MMO scene. And stayontarget is right, it was launched too early.

Golelorn

I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Seems like those guys will play even the worst games.

Do they just like games that Westerners would consider bad due to cultural differences? Or is this game so bad even the Asian crowd won't touch it. <Yikes>

stayontarget

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

Originally posted by stayontarget

I have been playing Ktera sence July and have been following its development for about 2 years now.   Tera launched way to early in Korea,  there was very little end game.  For most Asian games this would not be a problem due to the fact that most Korean games are grinders and have a ton of time sinks....not so with Tera.

Koreans got to end game (lv50 at the time) within a month and some got there even soon.  Koreans just did not see the point of paying a sub for very little end game content when they had a ton of f2p games to choose from. 

Another hit against the game was alot of Cafe's did not carry the game due to its sub model which was bad because most Koreans don't play computer games at home.

As for the West,  BHS & EmE have made a mutrial agreement not to make the same mistake  in the west.  The western launch of the game has been delayed inorder to add atleast lv58 content with a new pvp rule set and GvG pvp.   I don't expect the west to be launched with lv60 content next spring (hell even Korea does not have that content yet),  but lv58 content is more than enough.

 

 

~hope that helps~

Ah, I see. So it was too fast leveling speed and too little endgame content that made the difference.

I can certainly see why that'd make a difference with Aion, Aion has a leveling trajectory that takes twice as long as in other MMO's to reach level cap, and they had some interesting endgame mechanics in place.

If they manage to provide more content in the higher levels though plus some of the features they've been talking about but not implemented yet, then this migh go differently in the west than how it went in the east: Aion's leveling was considered too glacial and grindy, so if TERA can evade that hurdle, it'll be better to retention, under the condition that their endgame content is sufficiently enough implement ofc.

Put it this way,  I have 17 characters spread out over 3 servers, most of them are way over half way to cap (35) a hand full are within lv40's and 1 I pushed to cap.  All done within 5 months.  Also note that I work night shift so that means I play the game for around 3 hours a day on weekdays & around 6 hours a day on weekends.

IMO leveling in tera is too fast.  This is not a problem IF there is end game but if end game is lacking then people will question the reason to keep a sub active.  I guess you could say that for any sub game^^

stayontarget

Originally posted by Golelorn

I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Seems like those guys will play even the worst games.

Do they just like games that Westerners would consider bad due to cultural differences? Or is this game so bad even the Asian crowd won't touch it.

No the game is quite awesome IMO...read my above 2 posts about retention.

 

 

DexterMMO

Korean game launched open beta a while ago and I jumped in. They launched with zero pvp until end game, without the last few levels which they still have yet to implement, which means no ingame. Hit boxes were retarded at launch. It's a skill based fps that mobs will charge forward when you're behind them and still hit you. Balance will be a chore when pvp/end game finally come in. All end game features and content yet to make it in. Been like a year.

I should explain TERA is the source code of lineage 3 remodeled into TERA after the NC soft lawsuit they had to rush launch.

free2play

Pointed out already, not enough content to make it to the next expac.

I haven't been "following" Tera but I have resigned to the fact that I will be pre-ordering it. What I have been able to establish is it sold over 400K copies in South Korea and for a country of 48 million that converts to around 3 million North America just as a raw statistic. That's a respectable number though it won't shatter any records. If it does hold its statistical success and sells 3 mill here I don't know if it will keep those numbers. Tera is a very "pretty" game. Alot of people will buy it because it's "pretty". (I'm one of them) but in reality, that won't be enough to keep a sub going. 3 months at most and even a pretty game starts to look old. It's kind of like the drop dead beautifull blonde. Once you get to know her, even if she's a nice girl if you have absolutely nothing in common with her it's going to end. Tera might be the hot blonde everyone wants to date but very few want to marry.

As graphics in games get better and better I expect to see more of this. I also expect to see it used in western MMO sales. It will be an effective fad as long as the graphics are visibly a cut above the rest and I would view Tera graphics as just that. It was made with DirectX 10 and 11 is supposed to be much better than 10 so I think we are about to enter hollywood level gaming and Tera is going to be in the frontier of that.

 

"I should explain TERA is the source code of lineage 3 remodeled into TERA after the NC soft lawsuit they had to rush launch."

--

That's interesting. That they have a grudge against them. Hmm

snapfusion

Originally posted by Skymourne

This may sounds nuts, but I would almost be a bit giddy about a western launch, as Eastern games haven't done terribly well over here, with the exception of a possible few.  My reason being, that maybe if it failed in the East, it might just do well over here.  That may seem like a longshot, but i sure as hell wouldn't be surprised.

I have no rooting interest as far as this game goes, however, i would silently chuckle if the game did well on this side of the globe.

 

I was actually thinking the same thing.  Every asian themed, developed game Ive played has been corny, boring and bascially annoying on all fronts.   If the Asians hate this one then I just might like it.

stayontarget

Originally posted by DexterMMO

Korean game launched open beta a while ago and I jumped in. They launched with zero pvp until end game, without the last few levels which they still have yet to implement, which means no ingame. Hit boxes were retarded at launch. It's a skill based fps that mobs will charge forward when you're behind them and still hit you. Balance will be a chore when pvp/end game finally come in. All end game features and content yet to make it in. Been like a year.



I should explain TERA is the source code of lineage 3 remodeled into TERA after the NC soft lawsuit they had to rush launch.

How do people still think this,  Tera does not use the source code from Lineage.  It's true that the code got taken by a former employee and tried to sell it to a Japanese company,  A court order dictated that the source code had to be returned to NC and it was.   Tera uses its own orignal source code of the UE3 engine. 

DexterMMO

Originally posted by stayontarget


Originally posted by DexterMMO

Korean game launched open beta a while ago and I jumped in. They launched with zero pvp until end game, without the last few levels which they still have yet to implement, which means no ingame. Hit boxes were retarded at launch. It's a skill based fps that mobs will charge forward when you're behind them and still hit you. Balance will be a chore when pvp/end game finally come in. All end game features and content yet to make it in. Been like a year.



I should explain TERA is the source code of lineage 3 remodeled into TERA after the NC soft lawsuit they had to rush launch.

How do people still think this,  Tera does not use the source code from Lineage.  It's true that the code got taken by a former employee and tried to sell it to a Japanese company,  A court order dictated that the source code had to be returned to NC and it was.   Tera uses its own orignal source code of the UE3 engine. 

 

Not at a computer so I can't google all the information for you but TERA launched in a horrible unfinished state due to the lawsuit from NC soft. I have no reason to lie or slander blue hole studios the dev team trying to develop a strong unique idea. It is what it is. Still no open world pvp in Korea because of the missing content.

google "blue hole sued by ncsoft?" follow the link to Tera-fans thread where they copy pasted the courts order of 2 billion won to ncsoft in damages.

JT

Originally posted by Skymourne

This may sounds nuts, but I would almost be a bit giddy about a western launch, as Eastern games haven't done terribly well over here, with the exception of a possible few.  My reason being, that maybe if it failed in the East, it might just do well over here.  That may seem like a longshot, but i sure as hell wouldn't be surprised.

I have no rooting interest as far as this game goes, however, i would silently chuckle if the game did well on this side of the globe.

 

Exactly what I was thinking.  Maybe they westernized it too much for the Korean release.

BigBadWolfe

I'm glad to see a lot of people jumped in and cleared the air about Tera's problems already.  It's exactly true that Tera had a poor launch and was didn't play like a traditional korean MMO to succeed.  A lot of people took the initiative and just created accounts on K-Tera to test the game out for themselves, and the reactions are mostly positive, especially after the recent Evolution update patch.

 

The real issue is this game is being delayed too long, and there's too little info inbetween, so a lot of people are relying on stuff that happened when the game first launched.  Also about the PvP,  I also originally felt that there was going to be an issue with PvP balance due to how the classes were designed. However the PvP that's an issue is mainly the Battlegrounds PvP, and Tera devs are restricting it on purpose because they want to promote this game as a World PvP MMO.  The Guild vs Guild PvP is very nice compromise of getting a large volume of players to consent to World PvP without forcing players to get ganked.  Server vs Server PvP has not been implemented yet, but with those two, and some BG on the side, Tera should be fine PvP wise.

 

I really want to emphasize that the only thing keeping this game from being an overwhelming success in the west is time.  March would have been perfect as players would have gotten bored with SW:TOR by then, but Spring 2012 is pushing it as then it will have to deal with both Guild Wars 2 and Secret World.  All the compeition will hurt Tera's subs but it will be a win overall for the MMO community thas went a good, what, 3 years without any quality MMOs to play?

stayontarget

Originally posted by DexterMMO

 Not at a computer so I can't google all the information for you but TERA launched in a horrible unfinished state due to the lawsuit from NC soft. I have no reason to lie or slander blue hole studios the dev team trying to develop a strong unique idea. It is what it is. Still no open world pvp in Korea because of the missing content.



google "blue hole sued by ncsoft?" follow the link to Tera-fans thread where they copy pasted the courts order of 2 billion won to ncsoft in damages.

2 billion won = 1.7 mil USD

 

I would hardly call that a reason either way,  esp considering BHS's got a grant from the Korean gov.   The reason why Tera released early is the same reason every MMO releases too early....Pressure from Publishers.

DexterMMO

Originally posted by stayontarget


Originally posted by DexterMMO

 Not at a computer so I can't google all the information for you but TERA launched in a horrible unfinished state due to the lawsuit from NC soft. I have no reason to lie or slander blue hole studios the dev team trying to develop a strong unique idea. It is what it is. Still no open world pvp in Korea because of the missing content.



google "blue hole sued by ncsoft?" follow the link to Tera-fans thread where they copy pasted the courts order of 2 billion won to ncsoft in damages.

2 billion won = 1.7 mil USD

 

I would hardly call that a reason either way,  esp considering BHS's got a grant from the Korean gov.   The reason why Tera released early is the same reason every MMO releases too early....Pressure from Publishers.

 

You are aware regions are different and their company runs on won not usd so to lose 2 billion of it might hurt them a bit more than you're giving it credit for. If they charged a us company that, it may not be so bad but they charged a Korean company 2 billion of their dollar.

bygeorge

Originally posted by DexterMMO

Originally posted by stayontarget

Originally posted by DexterMMO

 Not at a computer so I can't google all the information for you but TERA launched in a horrible unfinished state due to the lawsuit from NC soft. I have no reason to lie or slander blue hole studios the dev team trying to develop a strong unique idea. It is what it is. Still no open world pvp in Korea because of the missing content.



google "blue hole sued by ncsoft?" follow the link to Tera-fans thread where they copy pasted the courts order of 2 billion won to ncsoft in damages.

2 billion won = 1.7 mil USD

 

I would hardly call that a reason either way,  esp considering BHS's got a grant from the Korean gov.   The reason why Tera released early is the same reason every MMO releases too early....Pressure from Publishers.

 

You are aware regions are different and their company runs on won not usd so to lose 2 billion of it might hurt them a bit more than you're giving it credit for. If they charged a us company that, it may not be so bad but they charged a Korean company 2 billion of their dollar.

Unfortunately, the Terafans info is fairly old. Earlier this year, the results of the civil lawsuit were overturned.

http://www.thisisgame.com/go/2011/01/20/bluehole-is-not-guilty-for-lineage-3/

xKingdomx

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

This left me with a couple of questions. From what I saw, its most distinguishing feature was the action oriented combat. Most of the other stuff that the game actually offered has already been seen in other MMO's, but on the other hand I also couldn't see what'd make this game less appealing than an Aion. Yet, apparently it does, seeing the enthusiastic reaction of MMO gamers in the east upon Aion and its healthy retention, compared to the lukewarm reception of TERA by MMO gamers and quick follow ups of server merges not that long afterwards.

 

My questions: do people here who've been following TERA more closely know the reasons why TERA failed so quickly after its launch and didn't do as well as Aion? What made the difference? And a speculative question, if it failed to capture the MMO playerbase that strongly in Korea itself, what would prevent it from experiencing the same fate when launched in the west? Wouldn't the same reasons that made it fail in Korea apply in the west as well?

Well I don't think many games offer politics as gameplay mechanics, so that is something new as well, maybe not as distinguishing as action combat.

I think it failed because of lack of content isn't it? and many hackers/cheaters?

Asian gameplay style is focused on long game session eg: grinding, as long as they are doing something, they find it fun. So lacking in content certainly does not bode well for TERA. Other than that, I don't see the problem with TERA being underpar against games like AION and others.

 

Also, for a game, especially MMORPG, to succeed in huge proportions, they need to change a lot. WoW changed quite a bit from the previous MMO style, moving away from grinding and mob killing, they introduced player friendly system mechanics, less time consuming play style. These are just adding a flying system or action combat into a well define method, but needing to change almost everything, just like what iPhone did to the smartphone market, or Blackberry to the feature phone market. The only up coming game I can relate this to is Guild Wars 2, they aren't settle with changing small things, they are changing everything, or in better words, attempting to advance a lot of things.

Honeymoon69

it will probably fail again in the west b/c it coming out same time as GW2 and I would rather play GW2

Derza10

oh ok.. it will fail here because you would rather play GW2. Solid logic. But i think GW2 will fail because i would rather play Tera.... So what now?

Codenak

So what now?

 

You both politely agree to disagree and wait to see what actually happens.

Convincing someone else that your viewpoint is right and theirs is wrong on the interwebs is an exercise in futility.