Spot on in my opinion.  Combat, animations, graphics were all breakthrough.  I didn't feel like I was grinding, I felt like I was fighting.

Main problems were the lack of depth in pve or pvp and limited character development.  If they had taken more time to develop the content before launch this could have been a game changer.  My slayer was just like every other slayer at end game.  Couple that with my friends moving to GW2 and that ended my affair with Tera.

Would go back in a heart beat and sub if I thought they were going to develop the content at a decent pace.

English have been ganking weaker countries for centuries. The psychological need for this kind of game play should be nothing of a surprise, especially to an englishman.

Security on the mod is terrible,  hacks galore and not just aimbot, radar.  Warping, spawning, godmode, etc have all been prevalent.

If the stand alone has pb or vac then I'll try it, otherwise it's pointless.

Originally posted by mWo4life

Originally posted by spiralpen

Great review, feel the exact same way about GW2 release :P There will come a time, when ill be very torn about what to play.. You feel about same way I did about the game!

He is an idea: why not play both TERA and GW2? 

 Wife, kid, job, life, etc.  I barely have time to keep up with progression in one mmo.

I expect this game to lose subs for two reasons:

1.  Weak newbie experience - I can see how en masse tried to show everyone how great the game can be by starting you at 20, but the problem is it's overwhelming for most and they don't really guide you well enough to see the forest through the trees.  Then when you do make it out of the level 20 test drive area, the starting zone is very, very basic and has a been there done that feel because now you only have like 1 or 2 skills to fight with.  En masse really needs to work on that new player experience to show gamers what the game is capable of while not overwhelming them.

2. End game content - No bg's, no raids, just a gear grind.  I realize they are working on all these things, but you don't get a second chance at a first impression.  It was a huge mistake to launch this game without at least BG's and a handful of raids.

That said Tera is a very impressive breakthrough for the mmo genre.  It's not a breakthrough in innovative gameplay, but it's a huge breakthrough in mmo performance and shows off what can be done.  Unreal 3 engine, amazing graphics and animations (don't confuse this with art style), hit detection, collision and the proper net coding to make this all happen with 50+ players in one area with minimal lag?  I haven't seen a developer come close to pulling this off so well.

Regardless of what you think of the game play, I would hope most gamers can appreciate the level of polish and performance that Tera brings to the table and demand this from future mmo's.  Those Korean's may not have the style and creativity we're looking for, but they are damn good coders.

LVL 60 Review - Placeholder

Ok, so let me premise my review so you know what to expect.  Started playing Tera three weeks ago with a buddy, he's a Mystic, I'm a Slayer and we're playing on a pvp server VoT medium/high population.  We both hit 46 last night and we play roughly 5 nights a week for roughly 3-5 hours each session.

Graphics - The graphics are top notch, the art style I'm not crazy about, but the actual quality of the graphics are excellent.  The art style is very high anime, asian mmoish, think Aion on steroids.  The animations are simply amazing, they really did a great job with combat animations.  Environments and landscapes are also well done, lots of critters and partical effects that make the world feel alive.  Monsters/mobs are also amazing from the little minions all the way to BAM's (big a** monsters) they are very impressive and also have cool animations.  Once again, I'm not into anime art style, but you can't deny the game is damn pretty to look at.

Performance - The feel and control is very well done and is on par with WoW in terms of character responsiveness.  The hit boxes and collision are also working very well for me so far.  I have noticed issues with rubber banding and clipping here and there, but nothing game breaking.  Also considering how impressive the graphics are, I'm very surprised how well the game performs.  Note:  I've only been in pvp battles with 10-15 people in one area so far.

Combat - So here's one of the big innovations/selling points of Tera.  At first I wasn't really crazy about the combat, but the more I played it the more I enjoyed it.  Having the combo system and hit box detection really adds that hack and slash style fun as an alternative to tab targeting systems.  I'm a little worried that this will just be gimmicky and I'll eventually get bored, but so far the gimmick is working for my friend and I.

Questing/Dungeons - Standard quest types, go fetch this, go talk to this dude, go kill this other dude, etc.  No innovations here, but so far all the quests have worked.  Dungeons/instance work just like WoW, queue up or put a group together, kill some trash, kill a boss, kill some more trash, kill a boss.  A standard dungeon will take about 30 - 40 mins to complete with a average group.  My buddy and I have managed to do several runs without a tank because of the combat system and ability to dodge attacks.  The fights can be harder without a tank, but they can be done easy enough.

Grinding/Leveling - You can grind BAM's or do quests, those are pretty much your main options for leveling.  So far I think the pace is fine even for a casual gamer.  Like I stated above, my friend and I have duoed the entire time aside for instances/dungeons and we are level 46 out of 60 after 60 hours of gaming.  I can tell it has started to slow down, but not nearly as bad as other asian grinders.  I'd say the game is appx 10-20% slower then WoW in terms of play time to max level.

Grouping vs Solo - Yes, you can solo, but grouping is definitely the more efficient way to get things done in Tera.  I like that I can get stuff done on my own, but since this is an MMO I appreciate that En Masse has focused on rewarding those who group up.

PVP - (I'm on a pvp server) The only pvp I have encountered is open world pvp and duels.  Outside of towns and quest hubs it's basically FFA pvp, you simply flag up and that allows you to attack or be attacked by anyone.  Guilds can declare 24 hour wars on each other, autoflagging everyone involved until a leader forfeits or one of the guilds scores enough kills to win.  The instance pvp/battlegrounds are currently offline and I've heard that En Masse is working on improving them for release later this summer.  So far I don't see any incentive to pvp aside from just having fun killing another player.  I think the performance and hit box combat of Tera would really shine with some organized or incentivized pvp.  Depending on the battlegrounds and incentives that En Masse puts in place for pvp this could make or break the game for pvper's.  Even if I let my Tera sub fall off for GW2, I'll definitely come back and check out Tera when/if they add battlegrounds.

Standard Features- Tera has most of the standard features you'll find in WoW, guild management, instance matching, trade brokers, banking, maps, quest guides, tons of chat channels.   All these features are working fairly well, they just recently fixed the instance matching and so far so good.

UI - Standard UI is standard, group windows, chat windows, mini maps and interfaces for everything in the game.  You can resize and move things around as necessary.  It's not the holy grail of UI's, but it gets the job done.

Character Customization - Appearance wise I'd say Tera offers some pretty extensive ways to customize your character.  The cash shop offers additional ways to change your looks if you're willing to pay real cash.  As far as builds or specialization I'd say Tera really lacks in this dept.  They have a glyph system that allows you to choose how and which skills to buff, but at the end of the day I think there are going to be cookie cutter glyphs that everyone will use making my Slayer play the exact same as every other Slayer.  I normally don't get into customizing much until I hit end game so I'll revisit this after I've been 60 for a couple weeks. 

Crafting - I haven't done enough of this to comment yet, but crafting does exist, it seems fairly easy and it appears that you can do all professions if you so choose.

Overall - In my opinion it really shines in three areas, combat system, graphics, and performance.  These three things make the game fun for me and the more I played it the more it sucked me in.  My primary concerns are end game pvp and pve and if there will be enough content to keep folks interested for too long.  Getting battlegrounds in the game asap will be critical for En Masse to keep subscribers around.  I'll be updating this review again after I have a couple weeks of end game under my belt, but for now I'll say this game was well worth the price of admission and I'm actually hoping GW2 doesn't release any time soon to give me more time with Tera.

Originally posted by trash656

Originally posted by jensen_34

I just dropped about $500 last saturday on hookers and blow...that's one night, appx 12 hours.

I'd say $105 for 3 months of random entertainment is a pretty good value.

You should be proud of yourself bud. If you need to pay for it you must be hurtin pretty badly if you can't get a real woman. I'm sure your family would be very proud of you. *pets you on the head*

 Attention walmart shoppers:  We have a great sale on "Sense of Humor" and "Sense of Humor Deluxe Version" in our Low-Ego  and Kids departments.  Please stop by and remember to have a great day!

I just dropped about $500 last saturday on hookers and blow...that's one night, appx 12 hours.

I'd say $105 for 3 months of random entertainment is a pretty good value.

Here is Funcom's MO: Launch with tons of bugs/exploits, lose most of the subs in the first couple months, fix the game a couple years later when nobody cares and pops are dead. 

Enjoy the ride kids, already been on this one twice.

The market for a pvp sandbox with full loot is just too small.  Adding mechanics is absolutely necessary if a developer wants to hit mainstream.  I honestly don't know why this seems like such a hard task, I'm guessing it has alot to do with corporate bullsit and politics.

There are always politics involved once you get someone to pay your bills. You are now at their creative mercy.  I'm guessing a lot of big mmo's being developed are getting force fed input from non-gamers and board room retards that think they know best.

Just give it time, either some rich nerd will shell out the money for a proper game to be built or indy software dev tools will progress to a point that a garage team can push out the next big thing.

I actually encountered the speed hacks in huttball last night, but that's it so far.  Reported the players last night so we'll see if Bio does anything about it.

{mod edit}

No, although I understand your theory it is not based in reality whatsoever.

Fact is any success in the MMO market only improves the chance for another MMO venture to receive funding.  Just because it's themepark don't think every venture capitalist or software publisher is only entertaining WoW clones. The market is only so big and they know you can't take significant market share without innovation.

You're also not counting on what I call the garage factor.  Right now there are probably hundreds if not thousands of super nerds working on the next big thing because just like you they are sick of the same old same old.  One of them might end up being the next "Steve Jobs" of MMO's changing the face of the market forever.  That's the great thing about creativity mixed with the power of technology, it changes everything at the speed of the internet.

PS Your post is longwinded and repetitious, could have been a couple paragraphs.

First off this is not a "Tor population is doomed" post, just something odd I've noticed on the last 4-5 planet's I've been on.  Playing on Darth Bandon server which is usually full/heavy, empire side.

Look up at the pop number and usually see 50-80+, but what I don't see is the actual players.  It's usually just me and the two other guys I'm leveling with.  We might spot one or two others around here and there, but for the most part it's just us.  Even at quest hubs I'll only see maybe 4-6 people around doing turn-in's, etc.

I do realize these last few planets are big, but still seems kind of desolate for 50 to 80 players.  So far I've just been writing it off as the instancing used for many of the quests, but even still the numbers don't add up to me.

Just for the record I like TOR, having fun and have subbed.  I could care less if the server pops drop, my buddies and I are just trying to figure out why the numbers don't seem to jive.  Anyone else seeing the same thing? 

Agreed, the game was really ahead of it's time.  Maybe too far ahead for the market, but as far as NPC's and AI being included I disagree.

At it's core I think any game like PS should push people to want to play against other players not some NPC, however I also think that NPC's and PVE can be used to make PS or PS2 that much better of a game.  I always hated when some stealther or solo player took an entire continent uncontested because everyone else was fighting on another continent.  I wouldn't mind bases having some NPC defenses to at least slow this down or stop it that solo player all together.  Make it so you need at least a full squad to take a base.  This way you buy the defending faction some time to respond/defend and it's also not so boring for those that would rather skirmish then fight a huge battle.

I think it also would enhance the game and make the world feel more alive rather then having empty bases on any continent that didn't have active battles.  Bottom line I don't think it hurts anything to add the NPC's as long as you make sure the best XP/rewards are only given to players that partake in PVP.  Something like capturing 20 NPC defenced bases being the equivalent of taking 1 player defended base is a pretty good balance, scaling it higher for larger battles. 

Same thing for killing NPC's I would make it count even less, so killing an NPC would be like 1 xp vs killing an average player would net you 100 xp.

I was a big fan of PS, I was always disappointed that they never really developed the game further other then Core Combat (crap) and BFR's (even bigger crap).  So much they could have done with the game especially since they literally owned the MMOFPS market, hopefully SOE doesn't make the same mistake with PS2.

Originally posted by SpottyGekko

Originally posted by Robsolf

Ah... do we have another "how dare BW do something exactly the same way every other MMO(including my favorite) does!!!" thread?

I wouldn't say the OP fails miserably.  I'd say it fails spectacularly.

Just because everyone else does it wrong, still doesn't make it right ;)

 

It's just sloppy business practice at best, or has a hidden agenda (at worst).

 

You have already paid a certain fee, which includes the right to 30 days of free play (the same as 30 days of subscription).

But to take up that right, you have to choose a subscription plan.

To activate the subscription plan, you have to either:

• agree to have your cc auto-billed at a future date
• enter a valid GTC code 

Notice the subtle difference ?

To use GTC as your billing option, you have to buy one first (catch-22). So no access to your already paid-for 30 days until you pay for at least another 30...

 It's not sloppy, but you could argue it has a hidden agenda.  Just like any business that provides something free initially and then has a subscription that automatically kicks in, they know one thing very clearly.. people are lazy.

They know that a certain percentage will simply forget to cancel that auto subscription at the end of the freebie.  They know that only a fraction of those that get charged will ask for a refund.

Is it right?  I guess not if you're a lazy tard, but people like myself get tons of free stuff so I'm fine with it.  Free gift certificates, free services, free sammich, just don't forget to cancel the day before you get charged.

While I agree that I shouldn't have to provide CC info until after my first 30 days are up, Origin/Bioware clearly printed it on the box and the agreement I digitally check boxed that I would need an active sub to play.

This is pretty much a standard no matter how delusional you are, most games require you to sub with a credit card before they let you login period much less give you a couple days.  I can think of Aion, EQ, EQ2 off the top of my head where I had to setup a sub even though the first 30 days come included with my purchase.

Also, posters here stressing over identity or credit theft, welcome to the internet I suggest you get credit protection.

Also, I got my email at 1:07 est.  I think they have quite a number of emails going out so the wave isn't over.

12th I'm in, wanna say I preordered some time late in the morning, but that's just a guess.