A few months ago, we talked about area restrictions in MMOs, as a few select incidents brought up questions of legality and responsibility on the part of the publisher. Due to legal agreements, the publisher for an MMO in North America cannot allow players from Europe if another company has publishing rights in that region, otherwise they risk negating their agreement. In cases such as Aika Online, the two companies may come to an agreement allowing existing players to continue using their accounts, while more controversial incidents resulted in players being blocked with no reimbursement even after they had paid sums of money in the cash shop.
Luckily for players of TERA, the community manager Scapes has revealed that players will not be region restricted, although they will have to purchase the correct client. In short: A player from Europe will be able to purchase a North American client, and play on the servers, and vice versa.
Our goal is to give players the choice as to which server they are going to discover the world of TERA. In a time that players are becoming more connected around the world, we believe that IP blocking has no place in a world class Action MMO. Note that accounts created with one publisher will not be able to access the other publisher’s servers. Additionally, player data such as characters or progression will not be shared or transferrable between different publishers’ servers.
So there you have it. Find a server and stick with it.
More on TERA as it appears.
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