Originally posted by I_Return

Finito, doesn't quite end the conversation for the lack of depth in the review. So much missing in most mmo reviews and readers never get any information in a review about the end game. Doing a mid level raid is nothing like end game raids, mid level pvp is nothing like end level pvp, ect and so on.

 

I think your review is incomplete, and it has failed your audience, in my opinion. I personally am not going to be overly excited about the score, cause I'm not playing the game, but  fans will. That is where the trouble lies, cause once that bond is broken between reviewer and fan or readers, it is never resealed.

 

I don't even play the game and can easily see from here that is is an 8.0 or higher. The ammount of detail and respect to character development makes SWTOR look like a board game.

This review is the summary of five separate pieces. Please see the previous articles linked at the introduction. Though, I'm sure you read that, right? 

Originally posted by BillMurphy

This review is the summary of five separate pieces. Please see the previous articles linked at the introduction. Though, I'm sure you read that, right?

I read what is on the side of the review. Linking to articles with in a review is like dragging along a scape goat in my opinion.

It would be like me saying here is your apple pie, not follow this link to make it yourself ? ... oesn't quite work well when everyone expected some fresh pieh.

Originally posted by BadSpock

TERA does very well at being an extremely mediocre game.

7.7 is perfect.

 The game itself is not mediocre, it just doesn't provide what you specifically want in a game.

Originally posted by n3v3rriv3r

Originally posted by DarkPony

Seems to be a very fair review. And people, ... 7.7 is NOT bad!

I hope mmorpg.com will keep up this realistic scoring habbit. All gaming sites that ride the waves of player anticipation and accomodate fans in reafirming their hype with very high scores lost much of their credibility in my eyes.

In that sense some of mmorpg.com's scores of the past might have been a tad on the high side compared to what Tera gets now but this a good precedent.

We should stop expecting scores only in the 8.5 - 10 bracket.

heh. Hillaroius You know what you are suggesting? This is like changing game rules on the fly:

Ok 1:0 for red team. Well 1 is kinda a big number how about from now on we sign only 0.5 for a score.

7.7 is super ... only all games have 8 and higher XD

*shrugs* You have to start somewhere.

Pretty on par with metacritic, this, by the way.

Originally posted by I_Return

Finito, doesn't quite end the conversation for the lack of depth in the review. So much missing in most mmo reviews and readers never get any information in a review about the end game. Doing a mid level raid is nothing like end game raids, mid level pvp is nothing like end level pvp, ect and so on.

 

I think your review is incomplete, and it has failed your audience, in my opinion. I personally am not going to be overly excited about the score, cause I'm not playing the game, but  fans will. That is where the trouble lies, cause once that bond is broken between reviewer and fan or readers, it is never resealed.

 

I don't even play the game and can easily see from here that is is an 8.0 or higher. The ammount of detail and respect to character development makes SWTOR look like a board game.

Honestly, I disagree.

I've played the game, and I think his score is about where it should be. The main problem seems to be how high he rated SWTOR (which I would agree was way too high). This game is basically a solid C. Even on the most populated servers, it's a quest or mob grind. There's not much in the way of PvP atm (even on jagged coast), and it can be hard to find groups to run even the earlier dungeons. A lot of it's issues come down to the simple fact that this game does almost nothing different aside from the combat (which is a lot of fun).

Even with just diablo3 released, the longevity of this game is starting to show. There's been a noticeable drop in players. The game doesn't have many servers to begin w/, and the game is barely a month old. With even more AAA titles coming down the pipe, we can expect to see even more drops in population, and given that TERA is a sub model, I'm not sure how many will want to come back after such a long break.

Originally posted by DarkPony

Originally posted by n3v3rriv3r

Originally posted by DarkPony

Seems to be a very fair review. And people, ... 7.7 is NOT bad!

I hope mmorpg.com will keep up this realistic scoring habbit. All gaming sites that ride the waves of player anticipation and accomodate fans in reafirming their hype with very high scores lost much of their credibility in my eyes.

In that sense some of mmorpg.com's scores of the past might have been a tad on the high side compared to what Tera gets now but this a good precedent.

We should stop expecting scores only in the 8.5 - 10 bracket.

heh. Hillaroius You know what you are suggesting? This is like changing game rules on the fly:

Ok 1:0 for red team. Well 1 is kinda a big number how about from now on we sign only 0.5 for a score.

7.7 is super ... only all games have 8 and higher XD

*shrugs* You have to start somewhere.

Pretty on par with metacritic, this, by the way.

aha the only problem is that 

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/star-wars-the-old-republic

game has 5.7. So now compare the score on the same site with Tera.

I hate games that i generally have to "yawn" till lvl cap and then be surprised by lack of content.... somehow Tera aint the worst. Its just i seen it all since 2000 and just combat system wont make up for it. 7 is the proper score imho. 

Sorry. I came to this game for pvp (since i am burnt out of pve). Games released... my char is lvl 33 archer and i barely find strength to do more "kill x mobs" quest (i did around 300 of those till lvl 33). Cant even do BAM quests since channels are on low. If i think i have to do another 600+ of those and have only meaningles pvp (pk and gvg-pk with no rewards) at lvl cap i am not really excited to even log in.....

Originally posted by I_Return

Originally posted by BillMurphy

This review is the summary of five separate pieces. Please see the previous articles linked at the introduction. Though, I'm sure you read that, right?

 

I read what is on the side of the review. Linking to articles with in a review is like dragging along a scape goat in my opinion.

 

It would be like me saying here is your apple pie, not follow this link to make it yourself ? ... oesn't quite work well when everyone expected some fresh pieh.

So, you didn't play it, you didn't read the previous articles on which much of this review is founded yet you are accusing the writer that the review isn't complete?

"Innovation 6/10

This is probably TERA’s main weak link. For all of its fantastic combat, Blue Hole does little else to push the genre forward.  Some may claim that Vanarch (the idea of voting in “rulers” of zones on a monthly basis) is a new twist, but it’s something that’s been done before with games like Archlord as well.  The rest of this is stuff we’ve seen before.  Even the BAMs, fun as they are, are ripped straight from titles like Monster Hunter.  The combat is fantastic, and it really does make tab-target combat feel archaic.  But that’s about all TERA really does to push the genre in any new direction worth tracing in future titles."

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You voted for the Archlord ? Really ? I don't think so. Archlord is created through beating sdown the archlord in combat.

Monster Hunter ? Released in America ? I don't think so . Maybe if the majority of us played MH Online, we would be saying "yay you are right"

Guild War pvp ? not mention.

End game pvp ? Rewards ? ect...

This is the problem, reviewers expect innovation to leap out at them , instead of actually having to play the game to find them.

If you would of made comparison to character development between Tera nad Aion, it would of made more sense. Archlord and Monster Hunter you are way off the mark, so off that your innovation segment makes 0 sense, voiding the score entirely.

Originally posted by Pivotelite

Originally posted by BadSpock

TERA does very well at being an extremely mediocre game.

7.7 is perfect.

 The game itself is not mediocre, it just doesn't provide what you specifically want in a game.

 

 

 What exactly can it provide besides combat and the constant LFG spam.  There really is nothing else to do in the game but quest and bam grind.  Even the PvP is not that good.

[mod edit]

Though I don't agree with a few things in the review like the UI customization as a whole. But I do agree with the customization when it comes to the Guild UI.

Hi guys,

Just wanted to step in and remind you all to stay on-topic. This thread is for the discussion of our TERA review. If you'd like to discuss other reviews we've done please do so in their appropriate comment threads. If you have general feedback on our reviews or review process (and some constructive suggestions to go along with it!) please check out our Site Suggestions board and leave 'em there.

We WILL remove continued off-topic posts from here on out.

Thanks everyone!

Originally posted by cyress8

Originally posted by Pivotelite

Originally posted by BadSpock

TERA does very well at being an extremely mediocre game.

7.7 is perfect.

 The game itself is not mediocre, it just doesn't provide what you specifically want in a game.

 What exactly can it provide besides combat and the constant LFG spam.  There really is nothing else to do in the game but quest and bam grind.  Even the PvP is not that good.

 Not liking the PvP is your opinion, also some people like quest grind. But calling the game itself "mediocre" or saying it "screams" f2p like a poster way back is not fair to the game and it's developers.

The graphics are easily the best of any MMO out right now, art style aside, as that is preferential.

The world is larger than Vanilla WoW, easily, what titles release with a world that size lately? Not to mention that world has collision detection, full hitboxes and top tier graphics and is an open world, all while running considerably well on most computers with highest settings!

Animations are crisp and well done, character models are very high quality.

The UI is fully customizable, even more so than Rifts, it comes with a LFG tool and a very unique auction house. Same can not be said for some other games that released recently...*COUGH*.

Your preferences on the game aside and what gameplay it delivers to you, it's the things mentioned above that make this game anything but mediocre or screaming of f2p.

I still don't see why people are upset about this score being low.   It's a 7.7 or a C+, making it an "OK" game.   It's not the next big thing, but it's hardly a train wreck.   It's a working game with decent enough graphics.   In these parts that's actually an accomplishment.

The combat is an interesting step forward, but the content and game design in all other respects are the mechanics of old.   If you look at everything else outside the combat system, there is nothing to get overly excited about.  Another theme park quest hub grinder where everyone will spam clicking through the text to kill 10 rats or pick 10 flowers.  Honestly for a lot of people that's just fine but the genre is starting to change.

With the collapse of SWTOR and upcoming MMOs deviating a bit more, the market is may be unforgiving to TERA in the long term.   Some of my guildmates call it Aion with crosshairs probably due to the art style and whatnot.  This game will probably go the same route as Rift did.   A working and functioning theme park MMO with 1 twist that will have decent success for the next few months.  Depending what they do during these next months before GW2 rolls out will determine if the game and the devs behind it have what it takes to survive a long term battle against a game with no sub fee with a better presentation overall.  Despite what many will claim, these games are and will be competing over the same group of players.

Until this game get shadowbane type review scores, I probably won't play it. Why I say this is that Shadowbane was so amazing, reviews with their simplistic veiws on gaming couldnt wrap their heads around it. Tera obviously is to simplistic  for me if the reviewer got the majority of what the game did.

Originally posted by Paragus1

I still don't see why people are upset about this score being low.   It's a 7.7 or a C+, making it an "OK" game.   It's not the next big thing, but it's hardly a train wreck.   It's a working game with decent enough graphics.   In these parts that's actually an accomplishment.

OK. You gotta be kidding me. Repeating the same mantra gain and again.

No. Period. If all games are 8 and more then 7.7 is not a good game. Nothing can change the interpretation of this number.

ffs this is like reading a pamphlet  of a political party with their statistics and numbers

Originally posted by BarCrow

Originally posted by Vunak23

*snip*

[mod edit]

 

[mod edit]

Hear, hear.

Somehow it's a law of nature that as soon as scores are added to a review, the shit hits "the fan" (and sometimes the hater too).

Seems strong reactions to scores and trying to attack a writer's credibility are paramount for proper functioning of the universe or something.

Fun fact: It's most often the readers which have way too much vested interest in the hype or dehype of games. For them to accuse the writer for not having integrity is a textbook example of "casting the first stone".

@Those who are comparing the score to other games: mmorpg.com does re-reviews to be able to cover a game's long term value and growth or lack thereof. [mod edit]

a very fair review. after reading the previous impressions by Bill on TERA, i was disappointed because they was praising TERA a bit too much and not emphasizing enough on its glaring flaws as much. However, i realize those were only "impressions" and i am very happy that the actual review was well rounded and very objective.  Its good to know that even though Bill states he likes the game, he sill maintains that aspect of objectivity that a professional reviewer should