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TERA did flop in Asia
What are the reasons that TERA did flop in Asia i.e. Korea, Japan. I did read they merged 35 servers into 15 just in Korea.
And if the game did flop already why is this game with the highest rating on this page such a new hope on the horizont for many players ?
Comments
Hope of something better I guess. Although I think with some games you can tell beforehand if you'll like it or not by the features they have. If there are people enjoying Tera more power to them!
I guess it is about cultural taste for games... we "western" have a bunch of people that love grind and farming endless times to get one iten or just have easy to do quests like kill x of y... thats why they tried to bring tera here.... this kind of culture for me its because of WoW influence.
Note: i dont like any of these things like intense grind and the same old quests but there are lots of oeople that do like it
every new game is the great hope of those playing it.
I think they call it fanboy syndrome. it is only cured after 4-8 months of blindly playing a bad game.
As for Tera, the designers suffered from a bad case of not knowing what they want.
Its a pay to play game with a pay to play game sized world yet Its content and gameplay is free to play quality.
It has Asian graphics and story quality yet Its gameplay style is targeting western MMO players.
Its FUBAR...and a lot of it.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
It was incomplete at launch. Plus it's not as grindy as big hits over there like Aion. Plus maybe they just didn't like the action combat.
Who knows.
I don't think it's the grand hope to save the MMO universe or anything but I sure as heck am having fun playing it.
TERA is currently the third most played game in Asian markets... how exactly that a flop? Does flop mean that it is not number 1? Well then every single game is a flop.
In any case, TERA was launched prematurely because the ideas behind it were from Lineage III, and there was an ongoing case that almost closed it's doors. With a premature launch, alot of the dungeons and features that were needed for launch in the game were missing, and people rightly left the game in a huff.
Most MMO players, once they leave a game will only seldomly come back to it for a few stints, and hence the need to reduce the server sizes. For the NA release, the game is doing exceptionally well, and hence the high hype (which I really dislike btw). I would put TERA a few spaces before the current top games, as that is what i feel it deserves. With that said, TERA is an exceptional game, with an exceptional battle mechanic.
What sets it appart from the F2P games, is that it is not hub oriented. It actually has a full world (Currently divided into 4 big Areas). You can go anywhere in these 3 areas without encountering any zoning ala WoW. The quests are also linear and very common to all sub based MMOs. Right now, the only common thing that TERA has with F2P asian games, is the combat strategies. Check out Dragon's Nest, Vindictus, Continent of the Ninth ect ect and you will see TERA's fighting style there, but it is F2P with a Cash shop that requires its use if you want anything decent. That is not the case in TERA, and all the mats you will ever need to progress are in game, and can be bought with in game currency. So while people in F2P game have to, and usually do dish out a few thousand dollars, we only have to give out about $12 a month, and get everything.
Completely false, Games with the style of Tera started in the East NOT the west and if anything, they produce more games like that over there.
East Vs. West. You are going to have to elaborate on what each of these terms means in the context that you are using it.
To me:
Eastern style gameplay: Alot of effort for minimal reward, rewarding those that have made the most effort the best stuff.
Western style gameplay: Many rewards, in a fast and furious manner. Little grind, here and there, but nothing astronomical.
By this definition, TERA was designed with a Western style gameplay as you can get many rewards very quickly, and can reach maximum level with minimal playing. The best items still require much time investment, but that is also true of all Western MMOs.
I agree with you, but the one that i quoted seemed to be talking about Action RPGs as the style of gameplay.
No, it isn't. We would know if it was. A game company would be foolish not to release numbers if the game sells well.
It still has about 140,000 concurrent users or something like that, like 140,000 people that sign in at least once a day. Considering a month after launch it had 1,000,000 that's not saying much though.
However it's been at around 140-155k concurrent users for a long time, it was initially after launch that the game fell in subs really quickly because the max level was 50(you know how easy that is to get), they only had the Akashas lair level 48 hardmode to do for gear, no GvG, no nexus, no daily quests/cosmetic items yet and only horse mounts. The game launched with nothing lol...
Regardless all games are starting to lose players in Korea, to one big game, League of Legends, that game has taken over completely.
Lastly, it failed in Japan I think because the sub fee was $35 USD/month.
Also what do you mean flop already? It's been out in Korea for well over a year now and holding 140,000 concurrent users is not bad, it's just like SW:TOR here over there, it was hyped a lot and launched incomplete so although it still had a good amount of players, it's not what people expected so it's considered a flop.
Idk how many time i have to fucking repeat this but here goes.
It failed at launch because of lack of content. The game was launched incomplete in Korea with lvl cap of only lvl 50 and 2 dungeons to run at end game. Everyone cap quickly and ran out of things to do. However since then cap is already 60 and there around 5-7 dungeon with hard modes at end game. It is currently the 3rd most play mmorpg in Korean idk how its a flop.
Because your definiation of well is at least 1 million sale. Tera is a niche game its not going to sell over a million copy, so there is no point for them to release number because now day like to call anything that doesn't sell that much fail. So while its success for the game, people going to call it fail so why bother?
Your strategic placement of the word "did" in this post is very amusing.
I've been shot with so many mmo "bullets" that I think I'm finally learning my lesson. (Vanguard, AoC, WAR, FFXIV, SWTOR)
It feels nice to haved dodged one for once.
wait...having 15 servers is a flop now? I mean this isnt a massive gaming studio out of korea right...15 servers has got to be decent...or at least i would think so. Would it have been a success if they started with 10 server then added 5? Also is this p2p in korea or f2p? That would definately influence its populaity
Anyway, i would expect this game to be more niche here than a huge raging success. The more people want something diffrent the more excuses they find to not like games offering something diffrent...thats how i see it.
Ill agree with the anti-tera fanclub that beyond combat (either you like it or you dont) there really isnt a whole lot this game does well.
I think a large portion of the people who like this type of combat would lean towards the no thinking required quake style fps combat, which this game is nothing like.
The big +1 ill give these guys is that they didnt do the typical niche/indy technique of bringing a game to market with a shoddy combat system that is unfun to play. Think it would be easier to patch in content over trying to fix a horrible combat system like what happend in dawntide and earthrise.
Just a shame to see when a game tries something diffrent it gets shat on while another game repackages the same old stuff and get praised as revolutionary.
Personally i just with i could get this combat system into a good sandbox, possibly with full loot. The mediocre themepark appication is really a drag on the fun combat.
The person wrote exceptionally well. TERA is doing ok, but exceptionally well would mean that it was selling along the lines of Rifts first month. Which it obviously isnt.
This is way old news Tera is currently the no.3 game in korea, I dont think thats a flop.
From 37 to 15 in Korea. (at launch it was even bigger than Aion)
And from 10 to 3 in Japan.
I can tell you why it flopped in Japan. Lack of fitting servertypes.
I'm not saying japanese server do not have any jackasses or griefers. They do, but they are alienated from the regulars.
If a lvl50 got "outlaw" he was called out from anyone else on the map with a marker in public chat.
Other's immediately hunted him and there has been like 1 to zero outlaws most of the time ON A PVP SERVER. Yet it was annoying enough for them. The "old" PVP Server ruleset did not work out too much for the japanese community.
But they do love Guild VS Guild politics as much as the koreans, oh the forum metagame...(it's different than ours which only falls back to namecalling).
So what's up with the PVE Server types? Well ZERO PVP not even the beloved Guild vs Guild. Just hunting BAMs with no real politics metagame is too boring for them too. Japanese are also accustomed to many LIVE events with real world tie ins. Hangame JP didn't have many.
You know you couldn't go out with your smartphone and show anyone around what awesome tera did.
In short, hangame failed to "Japanisize". As for the koreans, i can't say exactly. I've spend to few time hanging out there. But as far as i'm aware, tera had a lot of swtor issues back in the end of 2010 and beginning of 2011. A LOT, they reworked whole gamemechanics and designs.
The game you play today isn't sharing much with the initial tera besides the graphics. (Whole hitbox / aiming got changed - the basic feature praised here).
But if i should name a thing i too would say "CONTENT" or lack thereoff. BUT not the kind of CONTENT like raids or instances like most would say, no, the lack of a real politic metagame.
Koreans need that more than we do need our instances.
It went like this.
2010 Korea
Tera is one of the big names at game conventions. The game is hyped as hell and fans wait for it like the second coming of Jesus: the game that will bring mmorpgs to the next generation with the new action combat.
The game is the most expensive mmorpg to date (until Swtor). The expectations are huge.
BUT Bluehole Studios is worried about the Ncsoft's legal troubles (former Ncsoft programmers stole Lineage III hardware and software).
So they feel to rush the launch of the game to outsmart Ncsoft. If the game is already out they won't be able to stop it and at most they will get some compensation money (as they did).
2011 January Korea
Tera launch. A big hyped launch. The game starts extremely well and tops the mmorpg charts having more players than Aion (and Aion is like the Korean WOW marketsharewise).
BUT
The rushed launch means an incomplete game.
There was literaly no endgame.
Just 2 dungeons and the owpvp. No rifts, no vanarchs and no battlegrounds.
The koreans got to max level in a couple of weeks, farmed the 2 dungeons and ... simply left the game. There was nothing else to do. The owpvp is useless anyway.
That's how the game got from 37 to 15 servers.
In the summer a big manager resigned because of the bad financial perfomances. The developers openly admitted that the game did not have the success they planned to have.
Since then the game managed to survive and it's now the 4th mmorpg in Korea after Aion, Lineage and Lineage II.
http://tera-forums.enmasse.com/forums/general-discussion/topics/En-Masses-TERA-Top-Amazon-Sales-Chart
Do we really need more than this for this thread?
It's doing well in all markets but Japan (which if you knew much about the JP market, the only online RPG's to -ever- do well there are FFXI and Monster Hunter. MMORPG do not do well in Japan, simple as that, especcially if PC only.)
It also was released incomplete over there and far far more polished here.
Hate to break it to you, but in that same link that you quoted, they mention that those numbers aren't the most accurate to use.
Going off the 'Amazon Sales Chart', one would think that each concurrent new game is a new all-time best seller. Which, anyone with a shred of common sense & access to Google would know is pure bullsh*t. It may be a decent way to compare games that are coming out at roughly the same time, but even then it's not the most accurate. It only takes into account for amazon sales, and furthermore it skews how each sale is weighed based on how new the game is.
Amazon's charts are anything but an accurate barometer for how successful a game is doing. It's about as accurate as using this site's 'hype-meter', only it gets updated more often.
Well, alot of the servers in TERA keep experiencing long que times and the game seems to be getting a good deal of positive words.
You also ignored the other bit of my post.
Honestly my only concern right now is whether or not I am enjoying myself playing the game, which I most definitley am. Whether or not it beats GW2 in subs or whatever other metric .. really means zero to me (beyond the hope that the game survives of course) but really , why stress over speculation , when you can just play and enjoy I say.
The main reason i failed in Japan is coz it cost 35 dollar a month to play -.- it was far too expansive for most people and i still have no idea why its so expansive.
That, and MMORPG simply DO NOT DO WELL IN JAPAN
Historically, the only MMORPG's or even Online games that do well, are those on consoles. If TERA was on the PS3 it'd be doing amazingly right now.