Posts Tagged ‘TERA’

TERA Early Start gets a Whole Lot Earlier

10 April 2012 | No Comments » | Mike


Huge news for TERA fans, as today En Masse revealed the open-beta and launch schedule for its upcoming MMORPG. The biggest surprise being that players who participate in the open beta events can keep their characters into launch, meaning the real “early launch” begins next Thursday!

There are two open beta events planned, one strictly for pre-orders and one for everyone else. Characters will be limited to level 32 and no servers have been listed thus far, but I’m sure there will be both PvP and PvE servers available.

Pre-Order Exclusive Event

  • Begins: Thursday, April 19 at 12:00 PM Pacific
  • Ends: Friday, April 20 at 11:59 PM Pacific

Open Event

  • Begins: Friday, April 20 at 12:00 PM Pacific
  • Ends: Monday, April 23 at 11:59 PM Pacific

Starting this Friday, until Tuesday the 17th, players who have pre-ordered the game can log-in and start creating their characters and reserving their names.

The “official” head start begins on April 28th and will limit players to level 38. With so much time available before launch, I’m sure we’ll already be seeing quite a few level 38 players on launch day.

 

TERA Closed Beta 5: Velika Invasion Event

8 April 2012 | 7 Comments » | Mike


This weekend was the fifth closed beta test for En Masse’s TERA, and the first time we got to see an invasion event, in the form of the capital city Velika being attacked.

To begin, I’m not entirely sure if this invasion event was meant strictly for stress test purposes, or if this is how some of these events will play out, but I have to say I was disappointed with it all around.

From what I heard and read, the first invasion event on Friday night was almost unplayable due to lag, luckly for me I missed that one and instead videoed last night’s invasion event, which seemed to run much smoother, although my framerate never got over 15.

I got to the event about 15 mins after it started and was pretty surprised how many people were there; easily over a hundred, although most people were invisible, which is one of the things that really bothered me. I get that servers can’t have hundreds of players and NPCs on screen at the same time, but making most of the people invisible really kills the fantasy of it all.

A few times I had to sit there and wait for mobs to show up on screen, which wasn’t so bad, but it also caused me to die a bunch of times, since I was running into invisible mobs that could kill me in one hit.

The invasion itself was pretty chaotic, but it didn’t feel like an invasion. Groups of mobs would just randomly appear one after another and once dead, the next wave of mobs would appear. Again, I’m not sure if this was just a stress test or if this is how invasions will work after launch, but in the current form, it needs work.

My archer was level 16 and I found myself to be pretty useless. The current beta level cap is 38, but in the video you can see for bosses, I was only hitting for 1-2 damage with my normal attack and 9-10 with power attacks. I fared a bit better against regular mobs, hitting them for 8-9 with normal attacks and low 20′s for power attacks, but it’s clear these events are going to be tailored for higher level players.

I also didn’t notice any drops, rewards or even XP for kills during the invasion, but I’m going to assume there will be after launch. Another question I have is what happens if there are not enough defenders to repel the attack? Is it possible to actually lose an invasion event and if so, are there any consequences? I sure hope so, otherwise I’m not sure what the point of invasions are, other then to add another form of PvE grinding.

Check out the video below of the TERA Velika Invasion Event from Saturday.

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TERA Battlegrounds delayed; Political system on-time

30 March 2012 | No Comments » | Mike

En Masse announced on their forums a few days ago that their PvP Battleground system would not be making it in-time for TERA’s launch, but instead would be added sometime during the summer.

On a brighter note, they did confirm that the political system would be ready and they’ll “showcase the political system at launch with popular voting as the initial election method for all provinces“. I can only assume by “showcase” they mean it’ll just be a mock election or demo of sorts, as no one would really have enough time to buildup a reputation in one to day start running for office.

Having completely lost interested in instanced PvP years ago, I could care less that the Battlegrounds are delayed, I’ll just do my killing in the open fields as it’s meant to be.

TERA: On Top of the World

14 March 2012 | 2 Comments » | Mike

This past weekend was the third closed beta test event for TERA; but since it didn’t really include any cool new features, I decided to just explore and see how far I could climb up one of the many mountains.

I wasn’t originally going to upload this video, but since it’s a slow news day, and I don’t really have anything of interest to write about, I figured why not.

The video below shows my character near the top of one of these mountains.  TERA uses invisible walls to keep you from climbing up, but after some trial and error, I was able to get around most of them: until I approached the summit and couldn’t go any further. TERA is one of the best looking MMORPGs ever, so the views were quite breathtaking. Even though the video is only a minute long, I was probably there for about ten; albeit, I was trying  to climb up further most of that time.

It’s also pretty cool how far you can actually see from the top. Most games won’t let you see any further than the zone you’re in, but in the top-right screenshot, that area you see in the distance is actually another zone. Pretty impressive. Anyway, check out the video below.

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TERA To Feature “RIFT” Like Invasions

9 March 2012 | 6 Comments » | Mike

Called the Nexus system, TERA will feature “dynamic” public events where portals will randomly open up in the game world, allowing monsters from the enemy’s realm to pour in. Pretty much the same thing that is implemented into RIFT‘s system.

When a “Nexus portal” opens up, a message will be announced on the server, and all players will receive a quest to help defend against the invasion. Players who successfully help defend will then receive rare and powerful items.

Being a MMO game with open PvP, I’m not quite sure how this will work,  as I’m sure some players, or guilds that are warring with each other, will take this as an opportunity to attack the defenders. Not that I will mind that; it’s a hell of a lot more dynamic then what RIFT has.

However, it’s still disappointing that En Masse is just copying what Trion has already done. Why not innovate some, instead of a boring scripted PvE event. Allow guilds to open up their own portals to attack players or enemy guilds? How great would that be? One guild might be in the middle of a group quest or raid, the guild they’re warring against learns where they are, teleports in, and all hell breaks loose.  That would be something to write about.

Apart from revealing the “Nexus system”, En Masse also revealed it will have a “PLEX” like system that EVE Online currently uses. An in-game item/currency will be available for players to buy, with real money, and can then be used to add game-time to their accounts. Like EVE‘s PLEX system, this will allows players to potentially play for free: if they collect enough of the currency. Although, this also creates a backdoor real money trade (RMT) market for those buying more than they need, and selling the items in-game for in-game currency.

Source: Massively

GDC 2012 MMO Run-down

9 March 2012 | No Comments » | Mike

The 2012 Game Developers Conference (GDC) is in its last day, and as it winds down, we take a look back. While GDC generally isn’t a big conference in terms of MMO games, there was plenty of game previews, and some big announcement made this year.

Below we have a full run-down of all the MMO gaming news revealed at GDC 2012. Any news that is released today will be added to the list later.

Announcements

  • Dark Legends beta within 2 months
  • Tribes: Ascend release date is April 12th
  • DUST 514 beta beings in April
  • World of Darkness is not “on hold”. A team of 60 devs are working on it
  • Repopulation expands alpha testing to the public in June

Previews

My Six Month MMO Game Plan – TERA, D3, GW2

1 March 2012 | 1 Comment » | Mike

There’s a lot of MMO games coming out in the next six months, some launching, others going into beta, and many that I’m exited to try out. So I decided to put a little release list together to see what I can fit into my schedule over the next six or so months.

Up first is TERA, launching on April 28th. Luckily there’s nothing else being released around it, so I’ll have some dedicated time to really get into it. However after the first two closed beta weekends, I’m not sure it’ll hold me for long, as it’s very grindy. This could be another SWTOR incident where I play for a few weeks and bale.

Up next we have The Secret World, launching on June 19th, and Diablo 3, probably also launching in late June. Now despite all the good things I’ve seen and heard about The Secret World, I have zero desire to play it, so I’ll be skipping it and instead go with Diablo 3. I absolutely loved D2, so I’m hoping for a similar experience, but since I haven’t yet been invited to the beta, I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

Then of course we have Guild Wars 2, our most anticipated game of 2012,  currently with no release date, but I’m guessing it might late July or August. So if D3 falls short, I’ll have GW2 shoulder to lean on.  Even if D3 doesn’t, I’ll still be switching to GW2 as the World vs World PvP system sounds amazing.

In terms of games in beta, we have Firefall, ArcheAge, Dominus and Planetside 2. Sony has confirmed Planetside 2 will be very late 2012 or possibly early 2013, so I’m safe there and I’m pretty sure ArcheAge and Dominus will also have late 2012 releases, if not 2013, so that gives me plenty of time to squeeze in the betas where I can. That just leaves Firefall, which is already in limited release and should be widening soon, hopefully within the next month or so as April 28th for the TERA release is still a long way off. I need something to play during the next two months that’s more then just a closed beta.

What are you guys looking forward to next?

TERA PvP First Impressions

26 February 2012 | 7 Comments » | Mike

The second round of closed beta testing kicked off this weekend; opening up PvP for the first time, and while limited, it gave us our first glimpse into TERA‘s PvP system.

In short, TERA features an open PvP system where anyone can attack anyone else, as long as they aren’t in a protected area. These areas include any towns or outposts that have quest NPCs in them, so there’s plenty of safe zones around the map.  In this second round of testing, only open PvP and Guild vs Guild were available, no battlegrounds (PvP matches).

While it is completely open, TERA uses an “outlaw” feature meant to discourage griefers; although, in the end, it’s kinda pointless. We’ll get to that later.  To initiate an attack on another player, the attacking player must declare they are an “outlaw”. This turns their name-plate red and they are free to attack anyone they want, however they received lesser stat rewards for PKing while they’re an outlaw.  On the other hand, players that kill an outlaw will receive greater stat rewards.

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