[Megathread] Tera Online - Now Free-to-Play

[Solarsting]

Note the city of Velika, the human kingdom in the topleft corner, if you wanna go there on horse then prepare for a 10 minute gallop

The only things that dissapear into the distance are static meshes like trees, houses, walls, and smaller rocks. but that makes sense afterall. So actually, in the desert area on the right there is a whoel settlement ( you can see part of it ) full of markets and stuff, and on the field to the left there are plenty of farms with farm machines gone haywire ( tastes like Westfall dont it? Guess we could call it Southfall then )

[georgevonfranken]

Solar if you could pm me details on playing live also thatd be awesome.

[Fooliecoolie]

Well it looks much better than Rift's dull graphics, probably try to sign up for beta if there is a sign up page.

[Solarsting]

There is, on www.tera-online.com over at the forums.

[Jabbaprime]

Those images look stunning I can't wait to give Tera a try, Q4 get here already

[Bearshield]

*snip*

Thanks for all the info, Solarsting. Overall sounds interesting, my question would be, how complex is the combat system? I realize that seems to be one of their bigger focus points, that it is very action driven but for someone who generally does not play action type games on the PC, would I be able to easily get the hang of it in a pve environment or am I probably just going to find myself frustrated and wanting a control pad?

Also, I know you're saying they plan to add more end game content than the 2 dungeons currently in the game, but is it really looking like they have no intention of implementing larger dungeons than 5 man? I do like the idea of elite quests because I think removing the group quests from WoW was yet another blow to the social interaction of the game as grouping allows you to meet new people. I would agree that having nothing but group quests for 3 levels would get annoying though.

Last question and that is, how gear-focused is the game so far? What I mean by this is, WoW is a very gear-focused game, upgrading your gear is everything whereas for example in Age Of Conan which also focused on having a more proactive combat system, your gear didnt really matter a whole lot. (at least this was the case when I last played it which was at launch)

Thanks again for the info!

[Duckie]

Tera looks like an incredible game. The art and graphics are just mind blowing, but to be honest the thing that is keeping me from trying it out is what made me quit WoW for good. The MMO part. Not the game, so much. But the players, and their stupid arrogance and rudeness over a game. Just completely ruined the whole experience that a game is supposed to create, which of course is, fun. It's only gotten worse with each expansion. Guilds get more elitist, people get more arrogant, and the game slowly becomes less fun because instead of sitting down of an evening and picking it up and playing to relax, I have to put up with stupid kids and their egoes about server firsts and all this bullshit. I think Tera might start out modest enough, but I'm sure eventually it'll get plagued with shitty people like WoW has who have nothing going for themselves except being the first person on their realm to get a rare item.

[Solarsting]

Hey Bearshield,

Let me keep it short, dont wanna bombardyou lot with a wall of text in every post I make when I explain things.

The compelxity of the combat system, this first of all depends on your class, every class is rated 1 to 5 stars in difficulty ( displayed when choosing a class inagme ) most easy to manage classes are 2 stars like Archer, berserker and Warrior ( altho warrior should have 3 ) and the harder classes have 3 stars, such as the sorcerer, slayer and lancer, the Priest has 4 stars, and the Mystic has a 5 star rating, being the hardest to master, and manage class.
With each star increase, the number of active skills increases, mystics have a lot of situational skills for example ( sleeps, stuns, fears, drains, replenishes, heals and attacks.
A quick overview of all class skills where you can see just how much you have to play around with: http://www.gamerriot.com/forum/forum...ledge-base.14/

Obviously it gets quite hard to play mystic on a gamepad, given the very nature of the class's role ( heavy support, dps AND healing, multitask ftw! ) but i havent mentioned that actually I am playing with just a gamepad! and a keyboard for support fucntions ( like opening bags, chatting, and hotkeying certain potions ) but the actual combat i do with a windows xbox controller ( but every pc controller works ) and this is a viable option, the game has been designed fromt he start to work with both mouse+keyboard AND gamepad. whichever you prefer, having the pc setup to my tv and using a gamepad, it feels like the good old days, YET im playing an mmo, for the win!
The combat will not stress you out neither will you feel like you have too many spells, the cooldowns are extremely short from 7 to 30 seconds, but its not like you have to keep a dot up for max dps, the game is very forgiving, and very movement heavy, so its not like wow where you have to be static and push for rank high on the meters, its about having fun and playing smart, a dead player really is more of a burden in this case then a player who is only playing at 50% effeciency.

There is also a neat thing called the combo system, each skill you use MIGHT have a followup combo, for instance, sorcerer: if i use Ice needle, the combo system suggests i hit spacebar for the next spell in line, namely magma bomb, who in turn, after use, might suggest another skill. what benefit has this? namely to bring back the number of keybinds you use ( perfect for gamepad players! ) but this is ofc optional, you can choose to ignore it, like i guess keyboard players would, but for us gamepad enthousiasts its all so perfect. the gamepad doesnt fall behind in terms of responsiveness or accuracy compared to keyboard mouse, since the game plays a bit like an fps ( you walk in the direction you aim at ) so if you have experience with halo, cod, or whatever on a console, youll feel right at home. but since you dont have to snipe a target at a mile distance, its of coruse much more viable.
BOTTOMLINE: the combat keeps you very involved, you wont worry about cooldowns, because if you cast spell or skill A, and then B and then C, the cooldown on spell A will be over already. simply perfect, and then theres the combo system as explained above, and in more detail if you google a bit. And the gamepad works phenomenaly well, played with both mosue and keyboard, totally satistfied with both. But a good player uses them in complete harmony ( like, you still have to chat )

About the endgame dungeons and sizes,
There hasent been any talk on raid-size dungeons yet, more then 10 men in an instance simply isnt really discussed yet, and when peopel ask teh devs about future raids, the devs reply that At The Moment, they are focussing on finetuning their 5 mans, and the feedback provided might or might not be used to implement dungeons of a grander scope, but the feeling is scope is merely a trick of the mind, having 10 or 25 people around you naturally makes you assume youre doing something big ( raid ) but tera manages to pull this off with 5 men aswell, as seem to be the direction theyre going in for atleast year #1, instead of being an army of heros, you are more or less a special forces unit from the Valkyon Federation, i wouldnt say its a missed oppertunity, im labelling it "refrshing" but you really should have played first before you can form your opinion about this aspect. so far, everyone is pelased with this size, including my guildies. what teh future holds, remainds to be seen, im sure we will be able to get back on this later in the year

And about the gear focus,
Endgame gear is pretty easily obtainable, there are basically 2 endsets you get from questing, and 2 dungeon "Raidish like" sets, these are simply the most badass lookign sets every and have the best stats obviously, having said that, the 2 tiers below these are simply just as good, sure, lower damage, lower hp, lower mp, BUT if you, as a ranged damage dealer, fail to hit your target, because you missed, because that incomming warrior is so evasive and so pro, then what is that +50 damage on your weapon going to accomplish? simply nothing.
And thats teras philisophy, gear helps you stay alive, and punch harder, but its not going to do it for you, youre gonna have to be on your A-game, or that horribly outfitted lowbie is going to hand your ass to you.

Hope that explained it well, sorry for wall of text again guys, i just get enthousiastic writing about it all.

Cheers, Solar

[Lobstarrr]

Now this is what a game should look like. Epic.

It looks pretty bad to me.

[Solarsting]

and Duckie, I understand what youre saying, except in the case of Tera, your epeen isnt measured by what you wear, but how you play. nobodys going to be a legendary realm character when hes the first to bounce around in a legendary dungeon set ( gear is only 3 parts anyway, with soem accesories such as jewelry ) but people will remember you for being that awesoem warrior that never gets hit during the last boss of Dungeon X, where so many other warriors have failed due to lack of skill.

I have no idea how the community on Ter NA/EU will develop, but people need to backup their words with deeds, if theyre gonna be elitists, prancing around in your full-set doesnt mean anything in wow either, just shows a lot of time invested, and sure you need skills, but in the end, a player in shitty gear, while possibly a better player then a player iin full tier 11 or something, will simply be overruled by default. not the case in tera, worse dressed tanks or dps get quite easily picked over full-legendary ones of the same class, since skill > gear. how much balls do you have? play safe and make a few hits before blocking or evading again? or waiting for the last second as a major damage spike is inbound and you do everything in your power to hack away, and try to evade in the last moment possible, this player, with worse gear, but with a set of balls, and skills to match, will be picked over mister Eltist

This will keep the community sane imo, no " LF DPS, 6000gs and achieve" but " LF skilled DPS to instance X" and thats that.

[The Doctor]

I'm more excited about this than any other game that's come out this past decade. I can not wait to try this.

[Bearshield]

Cool, thanks again for the info, Solar. The game certainly has my curiousity

[Solarsting]

Decent quality youtube video's are hard to spot, but I found another one that I thought had a good overview of how the combat looks like, again from the POV of a sorcerer ( sorry Melee enthousiasts )

I did not create this video, if you don't like Dubstep, I advise you to mute your sound and play whatever you like.



If you think the fights look hechtic, that's just appearance, There's a lot going on, but you can keep your attention on center screen, since you arent looking at cooldowns or "playing the ui" you are free to focus on whats happening around you, and respond adequately.

Note when the sorcerer died against the first boss, the Argon Army Destroyer, thats how tricky boses can get, luckily dying isnt the end of it, every class carries witht hem Ress Scrolls if they have um, and they can erss a fellow player if they can manage to stay out of combat for 20 seconds ( this means no hitting and no getting hit! something very tricky during bossfights, and demands some focus! like every other aspect, but id say this is a fair system, does this basically mean you can keep dong this to party members aslogn as 1 person is alive? no, ress scrolls have a 30 min cooldown, so basically everyone has 1 combat ress to spend, if they stick to the before mentioend criteria, which aint easy )

Edit: apologies for typo's, im currently blind typing at insane speeds, not my lack of grammar skills, but my hands ticking before my mind's done thinking :>

+1 video for the ones that enjoyed the other one, more solo gameplay and diverse environments, same class, same player. Oh and guys, just for the lols, compare the Volcanic area in the start of this video to the screenshots posted on MMO-champ frontpage about the Firelands iin patch 4.2 and note the difference, I know graphics don't matter, but it gets painfully obvious how old the wow engine is becomming. Just a "for the lulz" observation, nothing more.

[georgevonfranken]

Downloading this game now i will post my early impressions with some screens

Edit: Dont expect anything untill atleast tomorrow its gonna take a century to download the Korean version

[Solarsting]

20 hours of painfull anticipation, I can relate

[aejt]

It looks pretty bad to me.

What looks bad about that screenshot if I may ask?

[The Fiend]

I'd wait for a stable Western version first, it is said to be dramatically different in quest design and layout, more like WoW and less grindy due to Koreans loving the grinding part.

[CT001]

I'm anxious to try it, but I hope its not like Vindictus.

1st Vindictus combat was crap. HUGE input lag meant split-second timing went out the window (for example, hit attack 4 times and ur toon entered a 6+ second combo with no way of canceling or breaking out of it, better hope u didn't need to move in those 6 seconds...). Korean MMO devs need to play a few games of Street Fighter or Soul Caliber. I don't expect that level of gameplay, but thats what they should at least be trying for.

2nd, everything was instanced. Which was REALLY annoying. I don't play a MMO to play by myself (there are much better and cheaper single player games out there). I want to be playing with others, and not just in the babysit through a PUG for loot type playing (ie. barely a grunt uttered).

So we'll see, but I'll definetly try the beta, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't another crappy WoW wanna-be.

[Solarsting]

but I'd be surprised if it wasn't another crappy WoW wanna-be.

Not even close, this game has absolutely 0 comparisons between itself an wow, id say battlefield 2 and kirbys epic yarn have more in common then wow and tera.

Rift thread is the that way

[The Fiend]

Not even close, this game has absolutely 0 comparisons between itself an wow, id say battlefield 2 and kirbys epic yarn have more in common then wow and tera.

Rift thread is the that way

Hah, amusing comparisons but I'll say a more realistic comparison is Monster Hunter.