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TERA: Launch at Long Last
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
The day has finally arrived that TERA fans have so long anticipated. Today marks the official retail launch of TERA. We've got a few thoughts to share about TERA so keep reading!
Maybe you’ve read my first Review in Progress column, but in case you haven’t TERA is growing on me. In honor of their launch today, I think we’ll compile five things that really make me smile when playing, and to be fair: a few that make me /sadpanda as well. Please feel free to list your own ups and downs below! See you guys on Dragonfall!
Read more of Bill Murphy's TERA: Launch at Long Last.
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Comments
My view on Tera:
Not to be...stereotypical, but I think that Asian games have a certain art style flare to it that does not appeal to me. In Tera, it is there but not that bad. I think, like everyone else, the combat is amazing and makes grinding feel like not grinding(even though there is just as much grinding in this game as any other game, including all mighty WoW). Quests are basic. I do follow the story and lore. The lore is OK at best, not terrible, not jaw dropping. The cut scenes, after the Vekas cut scene (that was horrid), are pretty good. The graphics are great, performance is great for the most part, even on my mid-level machine.
5 Things I love about Tera:
Combat - Very well done and polished. A mix of nice offensive animations, chain skills and combos, as well as a nice mix of defensive abilities to get out of harms way.
BAMS - 'Nuff said. First time I did a BAM that was the same level as me, it got my heart pounding. They are really well done. I sometimes think that BAMs that are the same level as me, are a bit overtuned (at least for my measely Warrior trying to tank for my Archer buddy). I just love the BAM fights, and will have a blast BAM hunting and getting all of the solo achieves eventually.
Graphics,World,Ambience - Everything that is around you, the sounds, graphics, etc, just emmerse you. I truely feel part of the world. Not to mention, in town, NPCs that really mean nothing to me in terms of leveling and questing are busy bees going about their day.
Crafting - I thought crafting in WoW was SO boring. I think crafting in Rift is ridiculously time consuming, boring, and difficult. Crafting in tera is VERY nicely done. While out in the world I find MORE than enough nodes to level crafting. Not to mention, I almost feel that the buffs you receive from gathering a node are a must have. Reduces downtime so much.
Velika - The major city is growing on me. They could add a few more NPCs walking around, but it is a huge gorgoeus city, with an awesome area to craft. I also like the fact that if I am just sitting there, I hear wind blowing. I know it is a small thing to notice and appreciate but it makes me feel like I am actually there. Other than hearing random chatter that I cannot make out, just the simpleness of wind blowing makes you feel like you are in the world.
5 Things I dislike/wish would improve
Female casting animations - Why did they need to make female casting animations so...racy? Some might like this, I think it is not needed in a game. I havent rolled a female yet because of this, and I usually do in MMOs.
Popori - What the heck are these things? Marmits? Racoons? Pandas? Why are they in the game? They dont fit, in my opinion. If I wanted a panda-like creature, Id have MIsts of Pandaria on pre order, which I do not.
Female side saddle - So ridiculous. Another reason why I havent rolled a female toon yet.
Death penalty- Wow, so this one is a big one. You are fighting a BAM, you die, your group is struggling to survive. If you cant get rezzed, you ressurect at the closest town, which is at best 4-5 minutes away from the fight. Now, your stam is down and must sit by a campfire to regen, pay a cleric of restoration to restore it, use a pot, or go in without any stam. Rezzing so far away from where you died is a GREAT deterrent not to die. But it is SO annoying and it is a constant complaint in my guild.
Pegasus portal - As a kid, I had epilepsy. I feel epileptic episodes (say that 10x fast) approaching when I enter a pegasus portal. This is another common complaint in my guild.
While the above negatives are legit negatives, none of them are deal breakers for the game. My guild from WoW has almost entirely come over for Tera, even though they will be heading back to WoW for Mistst (at least for a while until they realize how much better Tera is than WoW, and WoW is old).
Just one more negative to add: Class variety. There needs to be another caster dps, with different spells than the sorc. And another positive, chaining skills together such as Combative strike-Traverse Cut-Blade Draw, or Triple Nemesis-whatever that spell is my priest just got...Really fun stuff.
I love Tera.
Actually, one negative I wanted to note, and this is a hard one for some of my friends to swallow, ARE the dungeons. Gather up the entire room, aoe everything to oblivion. While the boss fights are pretty good, some are boring tank and spanks. Theres not much more to dungeons, so far. Granted, Ive only seen BoL and SM, but I've been unimpressed and it is a great issue for my buddy who is seriously considering dropping WoW all together.
Currently, he plays an Archer and he thinks dungeons are so boring. He is a very skilled MMO player, and can do these without thinking. He stands at range, goes through the motions, hardly moves because he doesnt need to. I tell him to move in closer to get rid of the damage penalty for being at range, and you'll have to dodge a little more. This will make it more interesting for him, and increase his damage.
I hope dungeons get better.
Unlike some gamers, I actually am glad to see female characters riding side-saddle. Its not surprising that some dont like it because they are not used to seeing it. But it would do some good if people did a little research into the era when side-saddle was more common in RL. Women were more feminine back then and I think it adds great contrast to their being less than modest with appearances.
Which brings me to another topic of similar nature which is that many gamers seem to be overlooking when they are complaining about appearances in the game. The backstory of Tera is that it is the dream of two gods and I don't remember too many novels or movies involving dreams that can be realistically compared to RL.
It is a great mmo game with a nice twitcth.
Godspeed Tera!
At the early levels every class seems OP
Starts to calm down at about 32+ when you hit tier 6 gear. You need to start gearing up properly and paying more attention in battles.
It becomes really important to have the correct glyphs and crystals later on, which is good! Especially for pvp
^ This and GW2 is a refreshing change from the standard MMO formula, Tera's only innovation is it's combat.
I agree here, my Lancer was unbeatable at lower levels. Hit lvl 38 last night and I'm starting to struggle soloing quests my level (have to heal after almost every fight, or I spend half my time blocking instead of dealing damage), need to keep the crystals and gear up to date, picked up the yellow chest piece from CR last night, hopefully that helps
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
Played the open beta to lvl 31 and would only consider playing agin if it whent the same route as aion.While i realy like the combat,after you have systamaiticly cleared out 7-8 areas and 2 dungeons it just felt like a total grind and i wanted no more.Playing Guildwars 2 made Teras case even more less appealing since i can scratch that "real" MMO itch without a monthly fee.Also i like the idea of fast travel i hell of alot more.
Guild Wars had almost as many performance issues and bugs than SWTOR did in beta. It is FAR FAR FAR from being polished, SO very far. I know its a beta. But it was an unoptimized engine, overflow was upsetting people, story quests were at times bugged, major survivability issues between melee/ranged and this was publically ackknowledged by Jon Peters. The game is SO far from being polished. That said, it has great potential and I am still excited for it. Way less excited than previously, but still looking forward to it.
In terms of Betas/Launches that I have participated in and their respective "smoothness", I rank:
1. Tera - Ive seen no problems...at all. None.
2. Cataclysm
3. WOTLK
4. Burning Crusade
5. SWTOR
6. Guildwars 2
7. Aion
8. Warhammer
? Right, riding side saddle while you are suited up for fighting. The only reason women rode side saddle is because of the skirts they wore. You jump a horse riding side saddle and you have one sore backside. Completely impractical way to ride a horse. True it is a game and who cares how they ride in a game.
Tera is a fun game. Just personally don't feel it is worth the $50 with a continuing monthly fee. I don't want to spend 3 months on a game and move on, which is exactly what I would so with this game. I also feel the women's outfits are way over the top.
To those playing have a great time, but remember all those SWTOR people who were gushing about the game, they are pretty bored now. TERA has even less end game content than SWTOR. If you like short term games, then this one is perfect for you.
I think it is a pretty safe bet this game will be f2p before the year is out. Might fool around with it then.
Oh and don't even try to compare the TERA beta with Guild Wars, TERA has been out for over a year in Korea, the only thing TERA had issues with in BETA was localization bugs. Like trying to compare apples and oranges.
Not True, the political system is also innovative.
And since 90% of your time in all MMO's is 'in-combat' then your statement is very flippant
Its like saying "yea, we've only re-invented the wheel"
But I suppose if your the kind of person to not care about combat you probably wont notice how clunky GW's combat is in comparison.
Not to diminish Guildwars though, being able to pay for gold with cash is quite innovative too. Oh and a cash-shop centric game that has (a very steep) box price... well, thats very innovative
I can't comment on end-game because I'm not there yet, but comparing it to SWTOR is like comparing an apple to a turd (SWTOR being the turd).
TERA is polished as hell and the combat system is great.
I think if people went into the game without so many preconceptions, I think it would do so much better.
If this game had half the hype Aion had going for it, it would be blowing up sales records. Everyone's fixated on GW2 coming out, though, so this game is getting overlooked by many.
I disagree with the f2p and think it will be a sleeper hit if people actually try it out.
This is the one MMORPG I've played since WoW where I feel it could actually follow the WoW trend in subs- in that it will INCREASE over time, rather than a steep quick decline. The game's just too good.
I fail to see what relevence this hasq to the topic, other than YOU personally will not be playing Tera, which btw is not pertinent info either.
Oh wait, nevermind, I see what you did there, derailing the thread to instigate a "gw vs tera" war. Sneaky you are...
I didn't play the GW 2 beta but i did play the Tera beta but what you stated above is truth to all MMO games.
I thought that DIablo 3 as wel has the same, no subscription.
But then againt with the "competitive" PVE and later PVP environenemt and the Auction house it wil be pay to win, only blizzard won't make the item but it wil be ramdomise and ends up in the player market. This will push player to pay to get their better items (and to sell ofc what they found and don't need)
Anyway, long storie short Guild war 2 seems to be the only game not trying to get players to pay unnecessary cost.
I do hope that a lot of player will be carefull with spending unnecessary money to fuel the dark side of the gaming industry.
FIrefall and Guild wars 2 FTW, it's not about not liking Tera but about the economic reality of now, which is bad and anybody that can spare to spend on unnecessary cost is stepping into the future.
All games should inspire to play not inspire to pay.
Ps: AH yes people saying that economic crysis is a myth or maybe they don't notice it or... whatever can be said about being blind, if you don't wanna look.
Diablow 3, it sucks ...
One of the best lines I've read on this forum.
Totally agree, if you are looking forward to GW2 and you want to talk about it, it's totally fine. But why are you doing it in a post about Tera?
Kind of a duh, but the more I play my lancer, the more I fall for TERA’s combat.
Yeah, I'm a sucker for playing a class that feels "right" for me. I used to think I was a mage person until I started playing games where the "mage" character didn't feel right. Then I thought something had changed in me and I was a "melee" peson. Though that again changed in GW2 beta when I fell in love wiht the elementalist.
But on topic, I LOVE the lancer. Love it. Just like I loved my swordmaster in Warhammer, the lancer feels right for me. From my first block where you can see the character brace the legs, slightly bowed, shield held high and lance jutting forward like a challenge, to when the character does a lung and the entire character sprtings forth like a beatiful line, I just love playing the character.
But you know? I have seen and tried most of the classes and each one has that "thing" that hooks you.
From the huge world to the BAMS which are fun but exhausting to fight, the entire game is just fun.
and I really love that parties can sprting up at the drop of a hat. Yesterday I was doing quests and went over a ridge so I could go down to a beach (trying to find my way back to turn some in) when I literally smacked rigth into a crab giong the other way. I decided to fight it (solo) and after about 2 hours had fought many of them because players were traveling over the ridge and asking to join, dropping party after they were done or helping for "1 or 2 more" and a chunk of my evening was spent on that ridge just tanking these things.
And yes, lancers can die. I was in the Labyrinth when I saw that a guild mate was looking for some help. I was fighting some BAMS down there so though "well, I'll hold my shield up and try to reply while typing with my left hand". That wasn't bright.
So not being bright makes you die.
Also, a slight bit of lag or just one mistep can roll you, shake your confidence and you have to fight to recover.
But that's what I love about Tera. I can fight a monster or player and possbily make a mistake and not have it be an insta kill.
I can accidentlally get mobbed by 3 groups of mobs and their minions and even though I'm at 5 hp recover and win if I'm patient and skilled.
Heck, I killed Johnnyh Depp solo because I was juxst determined enough.
er, Johnny Depp is the Prince in Sinestral Manor.
I just love this game. And even though that seem gushing and I DO have complaints (though none that would be shared by many of the players today, my complaints would want the game slightly more hard core for my tastes) it's refreshing to play something that I WANT to play, not something where I'm trying it out and biding my time until something better comes along.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I've surprised myself and am enjoying this one (at least through first 12 levels... I'm a slow leveler and precious RL time to play some weeks).
My 2nd unexpected hiccup was last night finishing the Dark Revelation quest. Being a Lancer and going in solo against Karascha I didn't realize you need to score 51%+ dmg or no quest kill acknowldegement (thanks to Old Timers Guild(ies) for heads up). Then it wasn't obvious how to reset the quest until I hit Tera support FAQ. Reset, went in using no blocks and score, LOL. Not aggrevaited... just unexpected.
Otherwise... enjoying!
GW2 is many things, but polished certainty isn't one of them. Quit trolling. TERA is polished and I'm having a great time with it. GW2 will have its day, but today.belongs to TERA!!!Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
F2p games are definatly really good quality nowadays.
Except GW2 isnt free to play, you have to buy it. Then you'll have to buy additonal DLC. Sorry but if money is your issue then your already being ripped off, in my view. There isnt even a release date and you already have to buy the whole product upfront just to get into the beta.
Having no cash shop in a new MMO like Tera is going to be a bit of a releif, while I dont mind cashshops for ailing MMO's Im a bit sick of cash shops tbh, I'd rather just pay the sub and get everything.