MMORPG: For those who haven’t been keeping up with TERA lately, can you give us an overview of what The Argon Queen will include for the game?
Chris Hager: The Argon Queen update brings great new content to the world of TERA. Three new level 60 instances, a 20-person raid accessible through our nexus events, battlegrounds, and a lot of changes and enhancements to our existing classes. There’s also a ton more, all aimed at giving players new experiences and enhancing what they already have.
MMORPG: How will the new changes make sure Warriors are actually viable tanks from here on?
Chris Hager: Warriors will get a new defensive stance that allows them to block damage directly, similar to how lancers currently tank. This will allow them to take damage head on like a traditional tank and, for less-experienced warriors, will be a great way to contribute to a group. They’ll keep their offensive stance, too, so if you’ve mastered dodge tanking, you’ll still feel at home. Warrior and lancer attacks will also do more damage, which will make them better solo classes as well.
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MMORPG: The Lancers are also getting a bit of a tweak this patch, right? How will you be making them more mobile while still retaining their core role of tank?
Chris Hager: Lancers are getting some sweet skills that will make them much more agile in combat. With Wallop, lancers leap forward and smash their shields into the ground, damaging and possibly stunning opponents. With Backstep, they can leap backward to avoid an attack.
MMORPG: Tell us a bit about the Battlegrounds, and what’s involved.
Chris Hager: TERA’s battlegrounds are going to pit two teams of 15 players from the same or different servers against one another in a shootout to see whose team can earn points in an arena-type setting. It’s all about strategy; earning points quickly through either capturing and holding the three bases on the map—defeating boss monsters and BAMs scattered throughout—or going head to head against your opponents. The options and strategies go on and on, and there is no one superior way to win other than to earn points faster than the other team. The rest we leave up to the players! After you’ve won (or lost), you’ll earn Bounty Honors that you can turn in for a wide array of gear and consumables.
MMORPG: How has this system of PVP changed since we last saw it in the beta stages?
Chris Hager: There have been a lot of behind-the-scenes coding changes and implementation such as a Bounty Honor system (currency for competing in battlegrounds) and new gear to win. The map has also been revised, and on top of visual changes BAMs are now a part of the map and point-scoring process. The scoring process has been revised to take into account several new strategies for how to win (killing BAMs, capturing locations, killing other players, and so on), so there’s a whole new dimension to how you fight and what your strategy is.
MMORPG: Will the Battlegrounds play any role in the political system as well?
Chris Hager: We’re still evaluating how effective the guild-versus-guild system is on our live servers for vanarch positions. As we continue to track and tweak the system, we also know that we can instead incorporate battlegrounds. There are a few hurdles we would have to jump through to hook them up, though, so for now they’re completely separate from the vanarch system.
MMORPG: What can you tell us about the Argon Queen’s new dungeon and the lore behind this fight? Where will the story go from here?
Chris Hager: There are three new 5-person dungeons and an all-new 20-person raid with The Argon Queen update. Argon Corpus is the ultimate fortress of the argons—this is where the argons are constructed and will make their last stand. Manaya’s Core is the inner sanctum of Shandra Manaya, who is the Argon Queen (that fight won’t be hard at all). Lastly, we have Sirjuka Gallery, which is one of Thulsa’s labs when he was pretending to be the Mysterium researcher Malachai. The first two are traditional dungeons, but Sirjuka Gallery is a timed defense instance.
MMORPG: Lastly, let’s go into some detail about the new 20-person raid being added to the game: Nexus Traverse.
Chris Hager: The Nexus Traverse uses TERA’s new raid system and can only be accessed after a successful nexus event. Going inside this instance will send your raid group to a cross-dimensional fortress where the nexus creatures come from.
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MMORPG: Thanks so much for your time! Looking forward to my Lancer’s new mobile nature.
Chris Hager: We are excited to see how players adapt to the new changes in tanking, and also the new dungeons. I’ll keep an eye out for you in battlegrounds, too…
