Originally posted by Eir_S
Buy?  No, but I'll play it when it goes F2P or the price lowers, I'm not paying another sub, been there done that.

If that day ever comes i do hope you roll on BC...Because I will be waiting for you,  with duel swords in hand ^^  (yes I know it was you).

I bought the game and love it. The  world is amazing and i just want to keep logging in. Quest wise i don't mind grinding when i having so much fun. Pity SWTOR didn't implement a world that acctually feels alive instead of some dead carcass. Seriously i think this game is a massive sleeper that will get better and better. I played GW2 beta and Tera for me looks and plays so much better.

A nice short article. But I tried Aion and hated it, but yet I love TERA, are the games really alike? I'm not so sure, if that was the case, I would have liked Aion?

Originally posted by tachgb
A nice short article. But I tried Aion and hated it, but yet I love TERA, are the games really alike? I'm not so sure, if that was the case, I would have liked Aion?

In the article it states "Thats the rule, but there will be exceptions", i think thats a fair statement, as the article is address the mass, for the most part i think thats correct, most people won't like the style, and play of TERA if they didn't care for Aion, some will... but those the exceptions, as are you.

In regards to that article i tried Aion too and hated it. Tried Rift, SWTOR and hated them too. Also i'm an ex wow player and love Tera. So work that one out.

Originally posted by RogueTroopa
In regards to that article i tried Aion too and hated it. Tried Rift, SWTOR and hated them too. Also i'm an ex wow player and love Tera. So work that one out.

Out of millions that were introduced to MMORPGS through WoW ~ Hundreds, if not thousands will be the exception, we are talking about big numbers here, i think it was a fair statement ~ Thats me.

Should you buy? A few questions would help narrow it down:

Do you plan to play one MMO? if you like to jump around titles then F2P might be a better option. Hopefully TERA will remain P2P for a looooong time. If you answered yes:

Do you like the combat and art style? Don't go by just the beginning mobs, it's not all kitty cats and unicorns throughout the game. Did you like the overall tone of the graphics/animations. Funny thing is for as shiny as the graphics might be, it's "grittiness" comes from it's combat. You'll die and fast if your not paying attention. It's fun in that regard as it's not not faceroll to max level.

Do you like PvP and if so open OWPvP? There are PvP and PvE servers. The PvP server is "on" all the time, you can be cut down at any moment outside of town and rest areas. This might be a huge deciding factor, people love the PvP in TERA because of this feature and EME has seemed to respect the wishes of it's PvP community. If you want more structured PvP then a PvE server would be a better option but not at this moment. Battlegrounds and Guild vs Guild wars are not on the PvE servers and won't be until "late summer" (BGs, not sure about GvG).

Do you need a complex quest system? TERA has a standard quest system though it sports a variety (main story, side, guild rep, faction rep and of course dungeon. You're not required to do the quests to level but for some questing is integral.

Is a large amount of group content important? TERA has dungeons with a dungeon finder. Outside of that are a ton of BAMs. Elite boss type mobs meant for group content. Some can be solo'd by classes paying attention but it can take 10-15 minutes lol.

Is an open world important to you? TERA can be walked from one end of a continent to the other, the body of water between is not passable at this time. The first 20 levels or so will be linear and a bit closed in, not sure why lol, then the zones then open up. There are "channels" for areas that could be removed at some point after launch but that's not guaranteed.

If you answered yes to all of those I would say buy it. TERA is a quality, AAA game worth the sub for those who enjoy what it provides.

Side note: If I've learned anything from TERAs release it's that "review and opinion" sites are just as relevant as posters here. There are so many these days. In fact, I'd guess some posters here have played more MMOs for a longer period of time. Just as with the opinions here take them with a grain of salt.

Edit: colored the tl;dr portions.  Sorry for the rant lol

Originally posted by RogueTroopa
I bought the game and love it. The  world is amazing and i just want to keep logging in. Quest wise i don't mind grinding when i having so much fun. Pity SWTOR didn't implement a world that acctually feels alive instead of some dead carcass. Seriously i think this game is a massive sleeper that will get better and better. I played GW2 beta and Tera for me looks and plays so much better.

This doesn't make sense. TOR is much more alive and is less restricting than Tera. Even the background environment is better. In Tera it feels like the clouds are only 200 feet away and there are a lot of invisible walls.

 

Above poster has some issues(complex questing and open world). Some listed in orange are things Tera doesn't have and are reason why not do buy it because it isn't there.

I did mess up on questing, if you read the rest of that section it would have made sense. Please list what you think is wrong if you take issue with it.

Tor less restrictive? I think everything about that game is restrictive. Level progress, zone tunneling to name two major ones. The fact you have to quest to progress is a major turnoff for me. TARA only tunnels you for the first 15-17 levels so I assume you got no farther than your mid teens.

This doesn't make sense. TOR is much more alive and is less restricting than Tera. Even the background environment is better. In Tera it feels like the clouds are only 200 feet away and there are a lot of invisible walls.

 

 

 

 Are you kidding? Tor's world was static. Mobs didn't move, cities that felt like graveyards. In comparison i've chatted in Tera like the old days in the barrens. The world looks and feels alive and the cities are brimming with players.

Buy:  new genre in the making   THEMEBOX MMO

Nr. 1 pro tip: adjust brighhtness between 20-30%

Originally posted by RogueTroopa

This doesn't make sense. TOR is much more alive and is less restricting than Tera. Even the background environment is better. In Tera it feels like the clouds are only 200 feet away and there are a lot of invisible walls.

 

 

 

 Are you kidding? Tor's world was static. Mobs didn't move, cities that felt like graveyards. In comparison i've chatted in Tera like the old days in the barrens. The world looks and feels alive and the cities are brimming with players.

Mobs do move around actually and in most areas there are patrolers. NPCs will be weilding, spotting, scanning, or chatting with other NPCs. The NPCs are always doing something even if they aren't all moving around. Tera? Standing there idlly. Tera mobs do wander more but they are all monsters that don't interact with the world itself.

 

Originally posted by Deron_Barak

Tor less restrictive? I think everything about that game is restrictive. Level progress, zone tunneling to name two major ones. The fact you have to quest to progress is a major turnoff for me. TARA only tunnels you for the first 15-17 levels so I assume you got no farther than your mid teens.

Yes I didn't get very far yet but right from start Tera is very much a tunnel which makes it feel not as open. I was unhappy with this because fans keep saying that it is such an open world game. I think Vanguard when I hear open world, and this is no Vanguard world. Not even close.

How is Tera much different than TOR's leveling progress and zones? Tera you start off with continously getting kill quests with an occasional harvest quests several of which want you to go back to areas you have already been or kill things you killed already. Both games you can choose to kill stuff over and over or the better method, do all the quests. Atleast with TOR you keep seeing new things, fighting something different, doing missions that have more variety in tasks.

@mmoguy

To be honest you can't say what TERAs world is if you didn't get that far. I agree that the first few areas are tunnel and linear, I don't like it either, and I'm a VG fan as far as the world goes. Right now at level 16 I am in a zone that is not a tunnel like Fey Forest/Oblivion Woods but very open. I am glad for this as the majority of the zones from here on out are supposed to be open as well.

In Tor I felt like to progress I had to quest and it drove me nuts. I didn't notice the per mob kill xp rates that TERA has. At level 16 I have only done 2 yellow side quests (both level >5) with all the rest being main story. All the mobs stay one to three levels above me which is a great challenge and I haven't outleveled the main story in at least four levels. I don't really grind other than for guild rep which the turn in gives no xp, it's the perfect fit. You may be able to skip side quests in Tor as well but TERAs combat makes it fun and not a grind.

Ok -- this is the tipping point for most people thinking about Tera -- and I have done a lot of contemplating over just why and how it fails for me and how it succeeds.

The answer is simple:

This game is a grouping game in the old style.

What I mean by that is simple.  The game may be beautiful and yes you can solo from 1 to cap -- BUT it is NOT FUN SOLO.

Solo what you will get to do is do simple quests and kill simple monsters over and over again for no important loot.

Now if you prefer grouping the game opens up -- you get monsters that actually do things and you can kill them in a reasonable amount of time.  You have dungeons you can do for real loot, etc.

But while you can take down a BAM solo if you are good -- it will take you a LONG LONG time.  This is very much like the old days where yes you could kite that monster and kill it 15 minutes -- but if you had a group killing them they would go down in under 2 minutes and you could chain kill them.

I'm sorry I meant under-leveled the main story. The steps require a minimum level and with my chosen play style I might have to go hunting until I gain a level for the main quest to continue.

Just do not see this game being worth box price and $15 a month to play.  If it was F2P I would jump in.

Originally posted by RebelScum99

I'm not a fan of the Eastern art style myself, and yet I LOVE the world environment in this game.  I think it looks amazing.  My only qualm is in some of the character models (effeminate male elves and scantily clad females), but the world looks so incredible that I don't even think about how silly some of the characters look anymore.  

And as far as the article goes, I'm also a WoW-style themepark player.  And I think this game can appeal to that kind of player IF they are looking for something unique, but not too unfamiliar.  This game has WoW-style gameplay with an action hack-and-slash type of combat.  To me, that's a major plus and the type of game that could attract the WoW crowd.  Unfortunately, I think based on many preconceived biases against Eastern MMOs, the WoW-crowd probably won't give this game much of a look.  I know I wasn't the least bit interested in it until I got ahold of a beta key by dumb luck and decided to try the game out over the CB5 weekend.  I'm definitely glad I did.

I also don't think this game is very much like Aion, unless you consider that it is the type of game that Aion SHOULD HAVE been.  I've played both, and aside from obvious core gameplay similarities, they don't feel anywhere close to similar.  

I think this was one of the best assessments in this thread, and I'd have to agree with Rebel.

I think the level design is stunning, the game plays like a console RPG in some aspects, but I mean that in the best sense possible.  I'm really enjoying it, and I think there was a lot of thought put into the combat mechanics.

Someone else had written a thread calling this a "sleeper hit", and I think that summed it up.  I had no expectations going into this, but I keep finding myself pleasantly surprised by how fun the game is.

Actually my insight on the group game thing has opened my eyes to the why on some of the changes (westernizations) that have been done to the game.

I mean the institution of BoP is something that will make people need to get their own items in a group as they stop dropping long before the dungeons get easy enough to be soloed as opposed to being able to do solo activities and sell your wares to get enough coin to buy items that came out of the deep dark places.

The removal of the player shops is another thing that fosters group play in an odd way -- it makes it a lot harder to be a solo crafter // entrepeneur. 

Then there are the removal of the chaos boxes.  Again what they mostly did was allow people to turn the weak augments they got themselves say soloing into ones that really only drop from bosses -- if they get lucky -- now you have to go into the deep dark for the better augments.

Ditto the removal of the fortune eggs. 

It definitely leads to a pattern that En Masse seems to really want to make the game a heavily group favored game as opposed to one where solo is an equally viable way to play.

This is neither good nor bad -- it is just what is.

As far as the solo vs group debate in TERA I lean toward the "both" category. It's true you will get better gear faster in a group, and that makes sense, but solo play is not that bad. I will agree that TERA has an old school feel to it which I like a lot. It's an ingredient that's been missing for a while now. That said solo play is just as rewarding IMO if that's what you like.

I've had to solo up to 17 so far, mostly because of my shotty playing times, and I haven't done more than two yellow quests. Doing the main story and hitting guild rep quests along the way has worked great and I'm always fighting white/orange mobs. I'm already "out of the woods" as far as zones go. The last area that has a "tunnel" feeling was Oblivion Woods and I left there when I was 15-16.

Admittedly once I turn 20 I'll be focusing on BAM groups and dungeons but I'll still have nights of wandering the landscape finding little nooks of mobs for me to talk to :)

Originally posted by FrodoFragins
The art style is a total turn off. 

go back to your crappy west art then

wich so far a cant see any mmo out there better looking than tera..east or west