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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We’ve spoken with them, convention after convention. We’ve talked about it in several of our Lore Cast episodes. We even went to them during PAX Prime ’11 to speak with them. Finally, after months of coverage, multiple interviews, and just side-line anticipation; we’re pleased to announce the date of TERA‘s release in North America: May 1st, 2012.

Here’s the official release statement from En Masse Entertainment, themselves:

SEATTLE – January 17, 2012 – En Masse Entertainment™, a publisher built by gamers, focused on delivering fun and innovative online games, announced today that its award-winning and highly anticipated action MMO title,TERA™, will launch on May 1, 2012. The upcoming release of TERA will be available in Standard and Collector’s Editions at retail and online stores. Marking a new era in gaming, TERA sets a new standard by delivering true action combat to players who want more than the stale and repetitive gameplay that exists in today’s MMOs.

The recipient of multiple industry honors and accolades, including “Best PC Game” and “Best MMO” at last year’s E3 expo, TERA is a new breed of online game that combines all the depth of a traditional MMO with the visceral gratification of an action game. In TERA, players must actively aim, dodge and block, as the game’s real-time combat system takes into account player position and skill, not stats alone.

Players begin by creating a character from seven races and eight classes as they join in an alliance to save the world from bloodthirsty armies of monsters who threaten to destroy the very gods who hold their world together. TERA also introduces a revolutionary political system in which players wield power in their province based on their in-game political prowess or player versus player combat skill.

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Editors Note: This guest article was written by Beararms.

During PAX Prime 2011, I was given the chance to sit down (finally), and try out En Masse and Bluehole Studio’s new MMORPG, “TERA.” TERA takes place on the world by the same name where the Amani, Barakas, Castanics, High Elves, Humans, Poporis and Elins have gathered together to fight against the Argons.

As Mordil and iTZKooPA conducted their interview (coming up soon), I was offered the chance to join a few of my PAX media brethren in playing one of TERA‘s many dungeons, “The Necromancers Cell.” The developers sat me swiftly down in a room with three other media members, and one of the developers then briefly explained that the dungeon we were in was one that is found sometime later in the game, and that we would be going after one of the bosses in the dungeon.

As fate would have it, I would be providing the role of the tank, playing as an Amani Lancer. The Lancer class is one of the eight classes you can play in TERA, sporting heavy armor, an over-sized shield, and of course, a lance. I was pretty sure that this guy could take more than few blows. The team was a classic five-man team consisting of me as the tank, the three other PAX media members as the DPS, and the developer playing the role of the healer.

As we started, one of the first things I noticed was TERA‘s amazing art style and smooth textures, although we were in a dark and “spooky” dungeon, everything  just looked top notch – even each character’s armor looked very in-depth and detailed. As we started our first pull to get us accustomed to the controls of the game and to get a general feel for it, I realized that this was not like any other MMO I had played before. Continue Reading

Sometimes it helps to take the honey with the vinegar, but not even the announcement for an impending third-quarter Diablo III beta test could soothe the sting of losing around 600,000 World of Warcraft subs over the past couple of months. It is now around 11.4 million, down from over 12 million. Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime had to break the news during the company’s quarterly conference call earlier today.

Like anything else, popularity ebbs and flows and the spikes and valleys on the sales charts can usually be linked to periods of new content or players losing interest in the old. The real problem is that the peaks aren’t lasting as long as they used to. Losing 600k is one thing, but the fact that it has happened faster after Cataclysm than it has following any previous expansion is the real kick-in-the-pants.

Undoubtedly, everyone will have their own take on the news and opinions as to why precisely people are leaving the game in such sizable chunks, but what it comes down to at the end of the day — the one idea that seems to remain constant — is fatigue. I don’t believe that people are tired of MMORPGs or even the story of Azeroth itself, but rather the way that Blizzard conducts itself and the ever (d?)evolving philosophy that shapes the game’s continued development.

World of Warcraft would not have reached such insane numbers of subscriptions if it weren’t for the casual players and as the Farmville-addled masses flooded the channels with their girth, Blizzard was forced to compensate. Always pushing towards equalization and homogenization; making things simpler and easier to understand; removing those elements from the formula that, while perplexing, also made WoW interesting. And we, the fans and media, are complicit.

Why? Well, we encouraged it. For better or worse, this is kind of what we wanted, but we didn’t know any better. Changes to the game over the past few years have been a double-edged sword, and Cataclysm has proven to be the sharpest, shiniest double-edged sword yet. Allow me to elaborate with a broad example: we’re tired of leveling through the same old vanilla content, so we get a vastly modified 1-60 game. Zones are more engaging visually, travel is streamlined, quests are given a spitshine to ensure that not all of them are simple “kill x/gather y” affairs (though many still are). And yet, for a better and more polished game, we also get a less “fun” experience. It’s okay one time through, but it becomes so damn easy and there is no sense of exploration left.

How else have we done it? We’ve killed any difficulty with boss encounters and completing quests beyond pure execution. We’ve created mods and posted comprehensive strategies on very high-profile websites, which has in turn prompted Blizzard to incorporate elements of such helpful third-party resources into the game itself. And yet that does not absolve the company’s reliance on casual players of blame, because an absolutely amazing number of players, even with all this help, still do not understand how to play. Continue Reading