MMO Grinder: TERA
The be-all-end-all of MMO combat? …ehhh… I wouldn’t go that far. Chaos delves into the recently F2P converted TERA.
The Exiled Realm of Arborea
Players: 1
Publisher: EnMasse Entertainment
Genres: Action, Adventure, RPG
Publisher: EnMasse Entertainment
Genres: Action, Adventure, RPG
Release Date: May 1, 2012
Developer: Bluehole Studios
MSRP: $FREE
Developer: Bluehole Studios
MSRP: $FREE
TERA takes the fight beyond whack-a-mole monotony with enhanced aiming, dodging, and tactical timing to create intense and rewarding combat. Unlike other MMOs, you can use your controller or keyboard and mouse to control the action like never before. With all the depth you expect from a traditional MMO, plus the intense gratification of action combat, TERA changes all the rules.
MMO Grinder: TERA
Posted By ChaosD1 about 2 months, 1 week ago
MMO Grinder: TERA, 
The be-all-end-all of MMO combat? …ehhh… I wouldn’t go that far. Chaos delves into the recently F2P converted TERA. Come grind to the community approved level for reviewing and see what’s got everyone talking, and Chaos yawning.
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TERA Review
TERA lands firmly upon American and European soil, but is it a perfect ten, or does the French judge hate everything again? 
MMO Grinder Sidequest: TERA Trial Impressions
Everyone’s fallen for TERA, but what makes the game so special? Chaos downloads the seven day trial to venture into the exiled realm of Arborea himself.
TERA Review
TERA lands firmly upon American and European soil, but is it a perfect ten, or does the French judge hate everything again?
No Posts
TERA Review
Posted By James C. about 1 year ago
TERA Review
MMO Grinder: TERA, 
It has been over a year since The Exiled Realm of Arborea (TERA) was initially released in Korea to insatiable applause as well as scornful looks from the rest of the world. While the game featured an action-adventure style of gameplay instead of the traditional point and click scheme that had made Massively Multiplayer RPG’s one of the pinnacles of PC gaming, the game’s Korean roots were apparent and hard to ignore as the game was an incredibly grindy experience in almost every aspect of character development.
Now that the title has surfaced on distant shores in both North America and Europe, there is much to do for those who waited patiently. But, is this an MMO that is easily conquered, or will the erosion of interest in the game dwindle before the task is complete?
| PROS | Top notch gameplay, Incredible visual quality, Guild/Dungeon/Party Finding systems |
| CONS | Still quite a grind at higher levels, Political gameplay only for a select few, Interesting but ultimately boring overall story |
| WTF?! | Why is the Argon so goddamn cool for a race so minor to the game? |
In the beginning, Arun and Shara, two titanic beings, fell asleep for some unknown reason and created the world of Arborea in the shape of their curled up, comatose bodies. As the two dreamt, 12 divine beings were born to the world, and with nothing much to do, started fighting with each other. As the titans’ dreams continued, mortal races like the Humans, Elves, Popori, Aman, and many others were willed into existence by the titans’ subconscious, and were subsequently drawn into the fray of the ongoing war between the deities.
In the end, the divine beings were either utterly destroyed, their essence consumed by other deities, imprisoned, or were lucky enough to flee and become gods to the mortal races. The mortals weren’t lucky as well, as some races like the Giants and the avian Sikandari were almost wrought to extinction, but some races rose to prosper in their place, the horned Castanics, the stout Barakans, and the whimsical Elin to name a few. As the fog of war lifted, the seven major races sought to work together as a federation of races, as one major threat to their existence still remained: The metallic Argon. Wrought seemingly by otherworldly means, this race of machine-like aliens seeks nothing but the extermination of all. As the threat of invasion grows ever larger from the Argon, a mysterious island appears between the two continents, drawing in the heroes from the Federation of Valkyon as well as zealots of a once powerful dead god.
Saleron, the face in the wall, was imprisoned under a mountain range for being a primadonna to the rest of the divine
As typical and straightforward as the presented back-story, the rest of the game’s plot fares no different. The story quests that guide you from location to location are fairly easy to figure out but are also the most rewarding campaigns in the game. While bits and pieces of voice acted cinematics are provided at certain key points, these instances lose their shine with the inclusion of the Korean lip syncing being out of rhythm with the VO.
TERA makes up for the poor showing in the story category with an impressive display in gameplay, bringing eight types of action RPG gameplay that are completely unique to each other. The MMO role trifecta (Tank, DPS, and Healer) still applies, but there are distinct differences on what each class can do. If you seek to be the immovable rock in battle, then the Lancer is the class for you, able to absorb obscene amounts of damage and keep the enemy facing away from the more fragile classes. The Warrior, on the other hand, is a dual blade master, able to either tank via dodge rolling away from enemy harm while still applying the pain or applying certain attacks when evasion is impossible to mitigate damage, or as a damage dealer, slicing away health with a unique resource bar that applies to all warrior skills.
Wait…when did the Scions of Lok employ Chaos Marines?
What is interestingly absent, and one of the more attractive features marketed about TERA, is the lack of being able to click-lock targets like in more traditional MMO’s like World of Warcraft and The Old Republic. This function is done by keeping the crosshairs in the middle of the screen on the target of choice, which will direct your blows or allow for lock on abilities for certain classes. This makes gameplay for healing classes like the priest and mystic all the more challenging, as it requires you to be a certain distance from your target and have him in your line of sight, most likely putting you in harm’s way when it comes to the large creatures, nicknamed Bad Ass Monsters that usually require 5 people to defeat.
TERA keeps the action adventure style gaming to heart, as the title can be played either with keyboard and mouse or with an Xbox 360 controller. The default user interface for hotkeys is fairly small, only allowing for 15 skills (1-6, F1-F6, LClick, RClick, and Tab) and allows for two extra hotbars, but the extras cannot be bound to any keys. Even more so, TERA will not allow you to customize key bindings, which severely hinders the game. What they offer in recompense is skill combos; a user interface that can bind a skill to be performed with the spacebar after a move is done. This can lead into very long strings of combos that only require the spacebar to execute and is in fact extremely helpful later on when players have 20+ skills.
7/10
TERA Review
TERA lands firmly upon American and European soil, but is it a perfect ten, or does the French judge hate everything again?-
June 17, 2012 at 02:21am
The game is rigged, most of the so called players I was adventuring with were no more than paid employees directing me game’s novelty store. “look at the pretty costumes, you can buy one too” as if 20 bucks a month ‘after’ we have already bought the game for 50 wasn’t enough. is just an insult to the average gamer. The game its self however was amazingly similar to every RPG-MMO ever created. I will say that the combat system is very refreshing. However, it’s merely a great new spin on a very old genre. If you’re looking for a real change, you won’t find it here.
The game starts out well, but then you get to the first cut scene (and every forced dry acted cut scene after) which will make you rapidly hit the escape button before it forces your eye to twitch sporadically. There is no doubt that this genre has potential but gathering random quests for a weak story line was rather dull.
All joking aside though, who cares about the story line? We want end game content. Vanarch of the realm? I’m afraid the elections there have been rigged and you’re going to be stuck with what they give you. Don’t forget to sell the novelties!
My final words-
Memorial lol -
June 11, 2012 at 02:34am
LOVE the combat mechanic in TERA, hate the questing….for the most part. The BAMs and instances are pretty fun, especially when you run with a competent party. While TERA does innovate in a very important aspect of gaming, it lacks in others, namely story/writing. The art, however is gorgeous, even on a sub-par machine like my own. I recommend it to anyone who likes action and adventure but can not recommend it to people who like story driven games.
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May 21, 2012 at 10:11pm
I’m enjoying TERA..and i normally HATE MMOs. Though i guess it helps when you’re playing with a Freind/Freinds.
The crafting system -does- disappoint me as it’s expensive as hell and the first pieces of gear you can make are for low levels but the cost and stuff needed you don’t have or can’t afford or not high enough crafting skill. Leaving it as more of a mid to late game thing to craft goodies for lower leveled characters (your own, friends or other people)
As far as the community goes, it’s…meh to disturbing.. though i actually don’t mind partying with strangers in this MMO…then again i’m playing a healer when i do that and everyone loves a healer. The disturbing part of the community is the first words i see on Area/LFG chat: “ELIN P#*IS” ….wtf.
regardless, i like this MMO..i don’t feel regret paying cash for this like i do with other/free MMOs i’ve played.
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May 19, 2012 at 07:24pm
Yeah i played the beta with a friend, we enjoyed the gameplay was good but the text boxes we didnt really care about. There are ingame cutscene but since we didnt read the texts, we really didnt know what we were seeing. So i didnt care much about tera after the beta testing.
Also i didnt feel that the combat was the “True-Action-Combat” that it stated to be. When i hear those words i thinking DMC, God of War, and Vindictus (Mobinogi: Heros) style and pace but in those games you only have a split second to see if the monster is gonna attk you. in tera they give you a warning or even does some lil animation showing they are going to attk or do a skill. That makes the action in the game predictable and easy to read rather then “What is he goin to do next and what should i do?” that split second mentality that you should have in a real action game. Dont get me wrong, its still a good game its just that it didnt meet my expectations that its portraying in trailers and reviews.
P.S. I also played FFXI and story is a VERY BIG THING for me, no story, they dont get my money XD
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May 18, 2012 at 06:49pm
“TERA will not allow you to customize key bindings”
Options>Shortcuts. You can change every single binding and bind keys to those extra bars you said were not assignable.
Very curious how one made it to a higher level than I am without noticing that.
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May 18, 2012 at 11:41pm
I love the fact that Key Mapping, the option a few down from shortcuts, is just a display page and not the ACTUAL PAGE for shortcuts.
Also, I leveled a lancer. I made it all the way up there because all you have to do is hold down right click and press space bar when someone hits you.
I admit my folly in writing, but I’m not going to change it. If you’re going to have something like Key Mapping, which displays the default key bindings, and have shortcuts buried in the options menu, then someone in the Production/UI dept needs a talking to.
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May 18, 2012 at 05:49pm
The quest system bored me in this game. I couldn’t invest myself or care about the story, leaving only the combat… which means it only left the grind.
I think maybe Final Fantasy XI spoiled me. Even the slowly-getting-better Final Fantasy XIV. Both of these games present 75% of their quests in cutscene form, or end in a cutscene. MMOs like TERA, Aion, WoW and the like are mainly giant text boxes while the character your talking to is just… standing there.
Like I said, maybe Final Fantasy MMOs spoiled me, but if an MMO these days can’t be bothered to present it’s world in a way where you feel like you play a bigger part and not just “yet another adventurer doing quest #57,” then I’m going to pass. And this is ultimately what made me pass on TERA after playing the beta.
I hear The Secret World is going to be far more immersive, so I look forward to that.
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May 18, 2012 at 11:35pm
I’ve played the Secret World beta. That stuff is as dry as sandpaper left out in desert heat.
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May 19, 2012 at 09:47am
yeah pretty much my feelings, if the elin wouldn’t be that cute and the fighting wouldn’t give me my monsterhunter-ish fix i would have stopped playing already to be honest, it just feels lifeless for me with only your 08/15 quest-grind MMO wall of text exposition dumps. plus frogster has been the WORST publisher i played an MMO from so far (deleting critical posts in the forums without an statement frequently reeks of censorship, treating all players that didn’t buy the digital download copy from their own shop like 2nd grade customers), meh not much choice here in Europe thou
FFXIV is and will remain my main MMO
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May 18, 2012 at 05:25pm
Bad Ass Monster? Coulda swore it was Big Ass Mo…*cough* hrrm I mean…Yes, accurate enough description I suppose. I’m actually holding my breath on this one. I played the beta and I admit, I thoroughly enjoyed the combat gameplay – the core of any MMO more than any previous one I’ve played (a rather long list I must say).
That said however, I really am not quite ready to commit an additional 15$ a month until I get my grubby fingers on GW2 and see how it plays. That’s gonna be the deciding factor for quite a few people I think.
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MMO Grinder: TERA
The be-all-end-all of MMO combat? …ehhh… I wouldn’t go that far. Chaos delves into the recently F2P converted TERA.
MMO Grinder Sidequest: TERA Trial Impressions
Everyone’s fallen for TERA, but what makes the game so special? Chaos downloads the seven day trial to venture into the exiled realm of Arborea himself.
Of course Derek the Bard (http://blip.tv/chasingthemuse) would ask that question…
So, out of curiosity, and given the predictions during the video, how’s your inbox looking so far?
My site’s a bit of a mess… but I’m still waiting for my inbox to explode.
I find it interesting the game taxes your system this much, given that (I believe?) you’ve played/play Guild Wars 2. While I could run TERA maxed out even on my old machine at rock-solid 60fps, GW2 still brings the framerate down on my new one when in cities. I’m guessing one taxes the graphics card and the other the CPU more.
I personally enjoyed TERA a lot. The combat felt like a faster paced version of Monster Hunter, where it’s all about learning enemy tells and recognising when it’s safe to commit to your big attacks whilst juggling your mana for your oh-crap moves. The questing and story are beyond shallow and the reason I never play the game for extended periods of time, but then, that’s how I played CoX as well, in week-long bursts every few months.
In fact, I enjoyed the melee combat so much I ended up being disappointed with that aspect when I finally got into GW2. The super-wide target lock makes its aiming aspect feel only barely different from target&click MMOs we’ve all been playing for a decade and while I applaud the idea of essentially building your own set of tools using weapon choice/kits, the end result is that once you’re familiarised with your kit it ends up feeling somewhat shallow and repetitive due to the small pool of tools, Engis and Elems aside.
I remember beating the Basilisks on my own around Level 22 Sorceress or so… First time I had real trouble beating things, but still doable… Got a little annoyed by the repeating quests and minor story orientation…
The game also doesn’t hold a candle action-wise to Guild Wars 2 and PSO 2…
Funny thing; the countries with the most acceptance of loli’s and a thriving community of fake child porn… are also the countries with the least actual sexual child abuse.
Similar to the countries with the least objection to porn, are the countries with the least rapes.
And the countries with the most violence in their media, especially video games, are the countries with the least actual violence.
This is because the most primitive part of our brains, our emotional parts, are not equipped to differentiate between real and imagined. This is because evolution rarely replaces old brain structures, it just tacks on new stuff; indeed even in non-brain physical trains, evolution prefers to not replace it, just tack on new stuff or appropriate old stuff to do new stuff without changing the old stuff. Outside of the brain physical necessity eventually lead to replacing/changing, but if you know where to look, you can see it even there.
So, stimulate your primitive part with a fake something; those primitive parts like your reptile brain evolved to deal with a world that existed millions of years, and can’t grasp present day realities and morality; and fool that part into believing all is as it expects things to be. It being satisfied with the fake, it’s influence to get the real is kept down to a minimum, allowing your higher brain functions to function properly.
And yes, this evolution reality also means, that that primitive part of your brain gets to deal with your sensory input first, then your mammal brain gets a say, and only finally does your higher cognitive functions get deal with it; and the lower brains emotions. The result sadly is that most people use their higher brain function to merely rationalize their emotions; with all the bad results.
So if you are against fake child porn, you are promoting actual sexual child abuse. You might want to think about next time your emotional “children and sex is BAD!” reaction pops up; and start using your brain to counter your primitive brain’s emotional reaction.
Cool story, bro.
You forgot to include a picture of Hercules giving the Thumbs Up.
“So if you are against fake child porn, you are promoting actual sexual child abuse.”
Whenever you tell someone what they believe/promote on their behalf, it never goes well. As for the rest of your post, some references/citations would be nice given the kinds of claims you are putting forth.
I played Tera during the open beta. I was really interested in the combat system AND the graphics. I’ve tried playing wow but being a PC gamer with a highish end machine I really couldn’t stand the low quality graphics and I’m not a big fan of its combat. Tera looked to be everything I wanted in the MMO genre. It was, but I really got bored with the copy/paste questing and the level grind so I didn’t buy the game on release and doubt I will go back to it. I agree with the “you can’t tell unless you are at least level x”. Its just people justifying the time they put in. The Elin are plain creepy and as you get all the same emoticons as the other characters (and there are some really dodgy ones) its gets worse. It was another reason I chose to no go from beta test to release.
(now the off-topic part, sorry, have to mention it)
Chaos, what are you running? I got some pretty cheap parts in 2011 and have no trouble running even the latest games at highest quality settings…
If you have an nvidia GPU and are getting overheats you may need to find a BIOS upgrade and “overclock” software, most cards fix their fan to a max of 80% capacity and don’t rev the fan high enough the BIOS upgrade usually removed the limiter and the software lets you manually set the fan speeds higher (i wouldn’t actually overclock)
Also, if you are running a stock CPU cooler, I would swap it with a zalman, they aren’t expensive and do a much better job
I have to say the combat system is really overrated. It just feels so sluggish. Vindictus has far superior combat system. Sure it’s not open world, but at the end of the day you are just going to be dungeon grinding at max level anyway. If you really want open world GW2 is also a superior game to this. I’d rather play DCUO to be honest, just to see some superheroes. This game really has very little charm.
The combat is a step in the right direction and easily one of the best parts of the game…sadly everything else is as stale and dull as every previous MMO that came before.
I don’t get where that “you have to be level 35″ argument came from. You can get a good feel for the game by the time you finish Noob Isle which takes about 3 hours.
You can change scale individual UI elements. I don’t you can rescale everything, but most major elements can be stretched or shrunk.
Censorship is wrong. Censorship done with shitty, lazy re-texturing is worse. Switching their normal underwear to the hotpants solved nothing as far as the implied sexualization goes and just made a number of their armor pieces look sloppy. Same with the voice changes. It didn’t “fix” the issue, if anything it just brings more attention to it like you’re trying really hard to hide a pimple and just making it more obvious.
The community is pretty awful, especially now with the F2P since it’s a mix of the hard-cores and the people who just get on to bitch about how WoW or GW2 are better or troll about Elins.
I like the game.. in theory. I’m playing it now that it’s F2P but I quit shortly after launch back in the day. With the questing being as shallow as it was, it just isn’t worth $15 a month just for access. It’s one of those games you basically NEED to make a couple good friends and play with them all which is something most MMOs don’t do anymore. I also like that the game has a degree of self-awareness and silliness. Too much stuff taking itself too seriously these days.
I really enjoy the combat. There is something incredibly rewarding about beating a challenging creature cause you actually fought well, not just because you were a few levels higher than you should be. You pick on the tree-monster but really he’s the first enemy you can easily die to if you’re just dicking around. I think he deserves his stupid cut-scene.
I have founder status since I pre-ordered before launch. It gives you basically all the major bits (bank slots, alt slots, etc) that you’d have to pay for. If you’ve started playing this game since the f2p change and like it enough that you’ll stick with it for a while, I strongly suggest trying to track down a Tera box still sitting on a store shelf somewhere and get a CD key to get founder status.
I got that first sentence, VERBATIM, from right here. I was going to insert it into the review, but I didn’t have time to hunt it down before my deadline. http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/978283-tera/63380054
Also, I thought Vekas was a joke. I beat him on my Berserker and Archer by holding down the left mouse button and NOTHING else. He is considered the first *shudder* BAM, and while not as easy, he’s still pretty much no real threat unless you just don’t bother trying.
My main problem with the way the game shoehorns references and goofy jokes is that you can tell they were often never there. It reminds of when I’d watch certain Anime dubs by ADV, where they’d change the entire meaning of scenes and scripts in an effort to throw in gay jokes and pop-culture references. If you want a good MMO that doesn’t take itself seriously, Champions Online does it wonderfully, without having to sacrifice the integrity and tone of an original work. The approach taken with TERA comes across as immature and disrespectful. (See also: Nexon’s “contributions” to Vindictus)
I wasn’t saying you were wrong about people saying that about the level. I’m saying the people who said it were wrong. The game does evolve to a degree once you hit your 30s, but not in any way so significant I’d say you NEED to be 35 to give a proper impression. Now if you were giving some deep mechanical analysis and needed to factor in glyphs and all your major skills.. then yeah. But not for a first-impressions type of thing.
I just wanted to showcase that the line wasn’t me pulling a number from the ether, and did have a very literal origin. I felt that this game wasn’t going to show me anything new after level 20 and when I saw that “level 35″ remark, I couldn’t help but think, “Man, ya’ll are never happy, are you.” I understand someone saying you’d at least want to get off of the Island of Dawn, but when they start tossing in arbitrary levels as if that’s some magic number and turning point in the game that will convert everyone, I can’t help but wonder who they’re really trying to convince.
That whole thing about having to reach Level 35 before you can review it: it reminds me of all the arguments about Final Fantasy XIII that basically boiled down to, “But the game gets good after 30 hours or so!” So what? A game should be fun all the way through: I shouldn’t have to slog through hours and hours of tedium before I’m allowed to enjoy it. The same here: having to attain a certain level before the game gets good isn’t a sign of a good game, but a poorly designed one.
You pretty much touched on all the problems I had with this game, and why I stopped playing it even though one of my good friends really wanted us to tag-team the entire campaign.
About the only things it had going for it, for me, were the graphics and the combat system. Though like Chaosdirge I had much more fun with the GW2 system than I did with Tera’s. Other than that I found it to be a rather shallow experience that eventually became rather painful to continue with. I desperately wanted to stay with it because my friend, but I just couldn’t do it. To the best of my knowledge however he’s still continuing with the game.
I have to agree, I just don’t like the game, and I think that the combat in Guild Wars 2 is better.