MMORPG.com is committed to giving our readers the best and most informative reviews of today's hottest MMOs. With that in mind, we're taking a new tack with TERA and giving it a multiple week timetable for review. In today's installment, we continue our journey in TERA. See how we're progressing. Read on!

The Bastion of Lok (BoL) is really a straightforward tank & spank sort of experience, but obviously the combat of TERA makes such olden activities feel fresh and new again. Melee DPS is about ducking, weaving, dodging. Ranged DPS becomes about aim, timing, and knowing when to back off. Healing is all about AOE targeting heals, and no longer just about clicking party health bars off to the left. And tanking? Oh man, tanking becomes about holding agro, timing your shield raises, and keeping your mana up between the chaos… oh and keeping the mob facing you so your friends can get behind them and go all stabbity-stab.

Read more of Bill Murphy's TERA: Review In Progress - Part Two.

Thanks for the /stuck command tip, but most races have an innate hearth spell to take them to their city.  1 Race doesn't get the spell until they discover their city, I heard... the demon guys?

When does the the battlegrounds and server pvp come out?

Still enjoying the game also, have a level 29 beserker on the Feral Valley (pvp) server.

Theres 2 things I'd like changed in the game though.

1. Please add ingame voice chat in the way Lotro has done. This game needs a way to chat without hooking people up to mumble, vent, TS or whatever. Particularly when grabbing randoms to do BAMs.

2. The use of channels on pvp servers. It is way too easy to avoid reds by going to one of the other 8 channels. I'd prefer a system where all people must be on channel 1, when that is 50% full, channel 2 becomes open etc, not have all 8 channels open all the time. PvP servers effectively become PvE servers.

These things aside, I still look forward every day to logging on.

PS: you'll enjoy the second dungeon :)

  yes thanks for the unstuck tip.  I have been playing on a PvP server and it is fun, but I do have a question about the PvE server-do they have GvG on PvE?   I do disagree with the other commenter about the channels-the other day a trio of lvl 45's were blocking a bridge and killing everyone who came across so I switched to low channel crossed the bridge and switched back, also there are times when you want to complete a quest and not be jumped from behind so it is nice to switch to a low channell, this is not avoiding PvP iit is avoiding being ganked.   The outlaw thing has not worked out as people who become outlaws do not really care about infamy so that needs to be fixed.   Rewards need to be implemented also.   Al in all good review for a good game, these developers seem to listen to their customers so I feel they will change and add what is needed

Originally posted by marcust

2. The use of channels on pvp servers. It is way too easy to avoid reds by going to one of the other 8 channels. I'd prefer a system where all people must be on channel 1, when that is 50% full, channel 2 becomes open etc, not have all 8 channels open all the time. PvP servers effectively become PvE servers.

This is only a leveling feature.  There's only 1 channel in the level 60 zones, so you will not be able to "choose" when to PvP or avoid ganking, like the poster above me wants.  And I'm glad for it. :)  It might make you angry, but it binds you emotionally to the game and the feeling of killing gankers is so much better.

Also, some of the author's concerns shouldn't be an issue.  Gold ramps up very quickly later on and you'll find yourself sitting on extra rez/teleport scrolls all the time.  I've never bought a teleport scroll, but I have 14 in my inventory right now and 100+ gold after wasting it on enchants/gear/full bag slots/etc. 

After 20 or so, you get more options in terms of leveling.

The game is great for sure and I enjoy playing it. However, it seems that Bluehole Studios really has En Masse's hands tied when it comes to content or even bug fixing in the game. That being said, I really hope that either BHS gives EME some room to work or they pick the pace themselves.

I am having a blast in this game so far. The sad part for me is that my guild mates dont want to play tera they want to wait for gw2 :(. So im on a pvp server alone.

It gets better and better as you go.

I just learned today that although there is no pvp on pve servers, once the political system is in place, the vanarch can decree that pvp is allowed in his or her zone.  So that will add a whole new dimension to the server as those zones will become pvp hotspots.

"The first real BAMs you’ll hunt are Basilisks around 20, and it’s fantastic to see players in chat just looking for group or using the LFG menu to find people to play with.  Because the game doesn’t punish your XP gain for being in a group, even traditionally solo players are learning to be friendly."

This is one of the things I've been noticing a lot more in TERA, the amount of people grouping is great. Not only that but because TERA really does provide incentives to group, even duoing solo content is very efficient and fun. At first I thought the queue-system would kill people trying to find groups for instances on the same server but NOT SO!!! And I also thought the channel system would make it so you don't see anyone else, and again NOT SO!!! 

Amazing that an MMO with instanced dungeons and instanced regular zones (channels) that this amount of group play is experienced.

I don't think I've had a decently populated friends list in an MMO in a long long time...

**edit**

I'm not being emo with my last statement, just saying in other games I felt no need or want to add people to my friends list, for the most part I couldn't care any less about the people I grouped with. 

Sounds like you have rediscovered Everquest Circa 2001.......

Originally posted by Meltdown

"The first real BAMs you’ll hunt are Basilisks around 20, and it’s fantastic to see players in chat just looking for group or using the LFG menu to find people to play with.  Because the game doesn’t punish your XP gain for being in a group, even traditionally solo players are learning to be friendly."

 

This is one of the things I've been noticing a lot more in TERA, the amount of people grouping is great. Not only that but because TERA really does provide incentives to group, even duoing solo content is very efficient and fun. At first I thought the queue-system would kill people trying to find groups for instances on the same server but NOT SO!!! And I also thought the channel system would make it so you don't see anyone else, and again NOT SO!!! 

 

Amazing that an MMO with instanced dungeons and instanced regular zones (channels) that this amount of group play is experienced.

 

I don't think I've had a decently populated friends list in an MMO in a long long time...

 

**edit**

I'm not being emo with my last statement, just saying in other games I felt no need or want to add people to my friends list, for the most part I couldn't care any less about the people I grouped with. 

Don't get me wrong I love Tera so much, but the instance finder is horrid. They don't like Warriors queue as tanks, even though they can have a viable tanking setup if they do it right, they even have threat gaining skills and en masse has said they could be a tank if they wanted. They also will not let mystics queue as healers, even though they have healing skills and can throw down the healing orbs and mana regen orbs, they are a support class and they won't let them queue as one. Plus if you are a dps looking for a group, it takes close to 30 minutes to get a group, even though it is cross server. I have gotten a group on my own server for each instance, multiple times within like 5 minutes tops.

I do agree completely with the grouping statement though, for questing and such. BAM quests make it so a lot more people try to find groups, other than just skipping the group content because they want to solo. I have always been a solo player until endgame, unless it was a requirement like in FFXI. But in Tera I feel like grouping, I feel like going out of my way to get a group together to do content, it is fun. It is probably some of the best grouping I have experienced ever.

12 servers and they aren't loaded? 

I dunno, that doesn't seem like a very strong launch to me. I admit, anything out of Korea, manditory 3 months before I think of buying it so I can hear feedback on all aspects of the game. 

Last thing I'm gonna do is get burned by a grindfest that they managed to hide until level cap. And the fact that there's no raiding (say wha?) suggests a very questionable end game at best. 

Originally posted by umcorian

12 servers and they aren't loaded? 

I dunno, that doesn't seem like a very strong launch to me. I admit, anything out of Korea, manditory 3 months before I think of buying it so I can hear feedback on all aspects of the game. 

Last thing I'm gonna do is get burned by a grindfest that they managed to hide until level cap. And the fact that there's no raiding (say wha?) suggests a very questionable end game at best. 

12 servers each with 5 'channels' (instances) for 'every' zone that are always active.. not supply on demand. So it's sort of like 60 servers. PvP servers have 8 per zone I hear, not sure if it's true. If you go in channel 1 or 2 two on any server it is pretty much packed. That's just in US as well.. EU has more servers.

edit: oops.. quoted myself instead of edit

Gotta say the game just gets better and better as you level.. seriously.. in my most recent dungeon one boss is placed in a bunch of spike traps and won't leave it so you basically have to time your movements(as a dd) to find an opening near the boss while avoiding those traps.. our healer blinking this way and that to make sure people get their health while trying to stay alive himself.  He died once but was rezed by a nearby party member while the rest of us madly tried to stay alive without running out of the spike trap area so as to not reset him... nothing like this is in anything I've played recently on normal mode mid level dungeons(41) and from the vids I've seen later on.. it gets better.. 

Originally posted by umcorian

12 servers and they aren't loaded? 

I dunno, that doesn't seem like a very strong launch to me. I admit, anything out of Korea, manditory 3 months before I think of buying it so I can hear feedback on all aspects of the game. 

Last thing I'm gonna do is get burned by a grindfest that they managed to hide until level cap. And the fact that there's no raiding (say wha?) suggests a very questionable end game at best. 

 

 

It's a PvP game, and most of the PvP servers are full (besides the new one which just opened.)  If you're only playing for PvE because you don't like ganking, you're selling yourself short.  The end game content rests on PvP and politics, and if you've only played WoW, it will simply be impossible for you to understand how open PvP works.

The closest WoW ever had to it was fighting for green dragons and Kazzak, and even then you were still limited to fighting another faction.  In this, you wage war on other guilds and you'll have to PvP in order to gain access to PvE.  Either that or be on friendly terms with them (which plays into the election system.)  It makes for a far more compelling experience than raiding, and I come from the former US Horde #1 guild, Overrated.

Of course being on a PvP server will make you tear your hair out at times, but you'll become more deeply entrenched for it.

TERA really is the best MMO I've played in the last couple of years. It's beautifully made, I look forward to seeing what the next mob and BAM looks like, what each new zone will be like and the dungeons also look stunning. The glyph system is very interesting and I like slotting crystals, so there's quite alot of customisation to suit your playstyle, they've really thought out the game well. Plus, PVP is really good and the new content over the next couple of months will only add to this brilliant package.