En Masse – MMO Fallout

[TERA] Want Founder Status? Get It Before It’s Gone

[UPDATE: It’s dead, Jim. TERA’s digital edition has been discontinued. If you haven’t picked it up by now, you’re out of luck.]

TERA heads free to play in February, and if you intend on playing it you might have wanted to get your hands on a copy of the game back when Amazon had it on sale for $5. In fact, if you were thinking about buying it now, you’re too late. The TERA digital edition has already been removed from Amazon, but you can still buy it at En Masse Entertainment’s website for $20. Why would you want to buy a copy of a game when it is heading free to play? Simple: Founder status.

Players who had purchased a boxed copy of TERA (whether digital or physical) and redeem the account key will be granted Founder status, which grants rewards higher in some spots than a free to play account subscribing. Crazy, indeed. Eight character slots per server (compared to 2), a Founder title, an exclusive Terminus mount, 288 bank slots (compared to 72), and a few lesser restrictions over free players. So you’ll buy a copy from EME after the game goes free, you’re thinking. Well, you thought wrong:

When we launch, we will discontinue all digital sales of TERA, so any remaining physical boxes will be the only way to gain founder status. Please check with your local retailer. Boxes will be available only while supplies last, and no new boxes are in creation.

If you do get your hands on a copy of TERA post-launch, you’ll still be able to redeem the code and grant your account with founder status.

(Source: TERA FAQ)

[TERA] Want Founder Status? Get It Before It's Gone

[UPDATE: It’s dead, Jim. TERA’s digital edition has been discontinued. If you haven’t picked it up by now, you’re out of luck.]

When we launch, we will discontinue all digital sales of TERA, so any remaining physical boxes will be the only way to gain founder status. Please check with your local retailer. Boxes will be available only while supplies last, and no new boxes are in creation.

If you do get your hands on a copy of TERA post-launch, you’ll still be able to redeem the code and grant your account with founder status.

(Source: TERA FAQ)

TERA Will Remain Subscription Based In US/EU

Update: Gee that was fast. TERA’s European community manager has posted on the forums to confirm that more details will be released of the EU free to play transition in January.

Please understand that it is too early right now to talk about this but we will have more information for you about the EU version in January.

(Source: TERA Europe)

Original Story: Hold your horses, people. If you’ve been paying attention to TERA’s operations in Korea, you already know that NHN successfully launched a free to play server. Initially just a separate server and originally implemented as a temporary experiment, KTERA has announced that beginning in January, all servers will be converted to free to play:

Starting 2013 Jan 10th, TERA will go free-to-play, and with this start, new contents and changes will occur in political system, raid system, and massive pvp, with alliance and alliance training center?, 10man raid sorcerer’s fortress, and 20man raid kelsaik’s holyplace? and battleground of fire?.

What does this mean for the west, where En Masse Entertainment merged down to three servers? Nothing. TERA’s Community Manager, Minea, posted on the forums to state that TERA will remain subscription based in North America and Europe.

Regardless of the news from Korea, the good news is that TERA will continue to grow and improve with new game contents in North America, and all contents will be available for us should we decide to evaluate their use.

Korea isn’t the only country to be taking TERA free to play. TERA in Japan will also be heading free to play. The details of Japan’s transition are a little unclear, due to some poor translation, but the move appears to begin today (December 26th) with a single server and eventually open up the entire game in February 2013. There is little doubt that TERA will eventually go free to play in North America and Europe, despite EME’s insistence to the contrary.

(Source: TERA)

TERA Drops 7-Day Limit From Trial, Closer To Free To Play

TERA may be partially free to play in Korea, but for now you Western gamers are just going to have to deal with limited trials. En Masse Entertainment has opened up the TERA free trial from the original seven day limitation to unlimited play. Players are able to level two characters per server up to a maximum of level 28, with limits on crafting and gathering skills, as well as limits on gold and chat access. As long as you have an account with En Masse Entertainment, you should be able to log in and get started. No purchase necessary.

The Discovery Edition is the new free trial available for players interested in giving TERA a try. We have improved our previous free trial by increasing the max level players can play up to, as well as removing the 7 day restriction so you can play on your own time and not worry about using up the free trial time!

(Source: TERA Website)

TERA Beta Preview Part 3: Prisoner of Azerbaijan

[Editor’s Note: I highly recommend reading Part 2 before you read part 3]

I’ve mentioned before on Twitter and in discussions that I support a combination of a localized auction house and player owned shops that can be spread over the countryside. Granted, my business tactics come from a time where I could set up my shop NPC outside of a large raid dungeon and stock it with health/mana potions, buff potions, resurrection scrolls, etc, but that is a story for a different time.

For the beta, I want to say that it is working like a wonder. My Popori archer made it to level 16 this weekend without experiencing any bugs. There was one server outage this time around, but otherwise the connection in my server went along fine even at peak hours. Zones were once again overcrowded at all times of the day, however, but that is to be expected with only a few servers running and should space out at release.

First thing’s first: I was able to preview crafting and all I can say is that it is generic, but useful, and incredibly expensive. Buying the materials from the Weaponcraft materials vendor for my first weaponcraft quest cost me thirty thousand gold, of which I received one hundred back as payment for completing the quest. I did manage to get some real armor crafted, and considering the extremely slow rate at which looting mobs has been providing me with armor and weapons, crafting is looking to become a very useful asset.

Otherwise crafting is a simple method of gathering materials, buying stuff you can’t find on the field from vendors, and watching a progress bar load. And then once you no longer have use for a specific material, dump it on one of the ten thousand vendors carrying work orders for it. Crafting materials are in extremely high demand, and I hope that the outrageous prices that players are willing to throw for them in beta rolls over to the live game.

Leveling is still a rather mind-numbing grind of quests asking me to kill X-mobs, but I’ve noticed the inclusion of a new quest type: Guild quests. There are also special “suppression order” (repeatable) quests, and they were my number one annoyance this weekend. As far as I know, this is an intended “feature,” that in each quest you are generally required to obtain “proof” of a kill, meaning a drop. For myself, the drop rate on “proof” is so low that I managed to kill somewhere around forty centaur before the quest ticker moved up by one.

Again, I complain but TERA offers some of the most fun I’ve had in a recently released MMO. The action-combat is still the highlight, and in case the pictures don’t say it, the game still looks absolutely gorgeous. There are two closed beta tests left, with one open beta in April. I will see you then!

I received a few complaints last time for not talking about the lawsuit between NCSoft and Bluehole Studios, some people saying I shouldn’t be promoting TERA until the outcome of the trial is determined. One important factor you should know with the lawsuit against TERA is that even though NCSoft won in Korea, the game was still able to launch. I have very little doubt that even if NCSoft were to gain victory in the states that the court would actually shut down or prevent TERA from releasing.

Stuck in TERA Queue? Enjoy Some Bonus Experience

I don’t know about you, but I hate queue lines, except in those rare moments when I find myself queuing in line for the gas station to open in the morning to buy a slushie. But enough of my small town stories. The point of my story is: I hate queue lines in video games, and if I’m going to be expected to sit around in my chair and leisurely consume carbonated beverages and watch television while I wait for a queue line to diminish, well by golly I better be compensated for it.

TERA has the right idea. I noticed while logging into the closed beta test tonight that the server was under around an 800+ person queue line, with a notice that if my time in line extended over ten minutes, I would be compensated with bonus XP. Ten minutes later, the notice changed to what you see above, and I was granted 13 minutes of bonus XP upon logging in.

See? Make it worth the wait.

TERA: Not Wiping After Open Beta

There’s a phrase I once heard that goes along the lines of “in MMOs, the betas are like the infantile stage of release. They need to be wiped, regularly.” The folks at En Masse Entertainment, however, feel differently and will not be wiping characters when open beta transitions to head start. Rather, their mantra is:

The feeling of playing a character you know will be wiped — it sucks.

In fact, if you take the Frequently Asked Questions thread by its word, En Masse might have considered keeping characters over from the closed beta, except the developer is implementing a brand new starting experience between closed and open beta. The FAQ continues to state that En Masse wants players to enjoy the open beta enough to pre-order (if they hadn’t) and be able to continue on with their characters.

This is hardly a big deal, all things considered. Open beta lasts for three days (April 19-22) with almost a week following before the game heads into a three day head start, so seeing this as a fractured six day (estimated, figuring in the inevitable server queues and down time) just brings it in line with most other MMO’s launch schedules.

(Source: En Masse Forums)

TERA Can't Escape Licencing, IP Blocks Coming

Back when Bluehole announced that TERA would have no region restrictions whatsoever, I was admittedly skeptical. An MMO without regional restrictions generally spawns from one of a few circumstances: The same company is publishing it in all regions ala City of Heroes, or there is only one worldwide server ala Eve Online and Mortal Online. In the case of TERA, back in 2010 Bluehole announced that while the clients are region specific, there was nothing stopping someone in Europe from purchasing a North American client and playing on those servers.

Not the case. If Bluehole truly wanted cross-oceanic play, this idea was met with a dead “negative” by the game’s publishers. Bluehole did make this statement to Massively:

We had to change our stance on IP restrictions due to licensing and security issues. While we can’t go into the reasons in detail, we would like to say that although these restrictions are not a panacea for preventing hacking, they are highly effective, and produce more positive results than might be expected.

So licencing reasons. Restricting IP addresses will not accomplish much in preventing gold farmers in Russia or China from accessing North American and European services or stolen accounts, considering ease of use in a proxy. Unfortunately, these IP restrictions also mean that certain regions aren’t able to play the game until a publisher picks up the title in that region. In many cases, the game just never releases in those regions.

Still, this is another example of what happens when you let the developers make announcements about decisions that should be handled by corporate. If TERA had announced from the start that there would be region restrictions (or had they not waited a year and change to go back on that statement) than this wouldn’t even be an issue (save for the regions that can’t play at all).

TERA launches in May for North America and Europe and is being published by En Masse Entertainment (North America) and Frogster Interactive (Europe). Read up on Bluehole Studios’ lawsuit with NCSoft here.

TERA Can’t Escape Licencing, IP Blocks Coming

Not the case. If Bluehole truly wanted cross-oceanic play, this idea was met with a dead “negative” by the game’s publishers. Bluehole did make this statement to Massively:

We had to change our stance on IP restrictions due to licensing and security issues. While we can’t go into the reasons in detail, we would like to say that although these restrictions are not a panacea for preventing hacking, they are highly effective, and produce more positive results than might be expected.

TERA Release Date: May 1st, 2012

Good news, everyone! After a long period of awaiting information from En Masse Entertainment, the publisher has finally announced today that TERA will launch in North America on May 1st this year. Players will be able to order a standard and collector’s edition from various retailers, as well as no doubt a digital version on Steam and other outlets.

The Exiled Realm of Arborea, or TERA for short, is an action MMO based on the Unreal 3 engine, that was released in June of last year in Korea. The servers in Korea merged following reports that the game was not meeting financial expectations, a response by players to a noted lack of end-game content and an overwhelming presence of bots.

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