Tag: En Masse Entertainment

TERA Boasts 1.4 Million Users In North America


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When TERA announced that player numbers had doubled, and that number was now “over one million,” I had a feeling that since Gameforge was making the announcement that the figure did not include regions outside of Europe. Turns out I was right. In a press release by En Masse Entertainment today, the publisher has revealed that free to play has similarly risen to over 1.4 million users. Maximum concurrent players has also risen dramatically, increasing over ten times its previous number.

“We’ve been blown away by the waves of players logging into TERA, and we’re seeing amazing growth in both registrations and daily users. It’s always great to eclipse the one-million-player mark, and at our current rate, it won’t be long before we hit two million,” said Chris Lee, CEO of En Masse Entertainment. “This success is pushing En Masse even harder to deliver more content and improve our service, so stay tuned!”

To celebrate, from March 20th through the 24th players will be able to hunt Big Ass Monsters for high end equipment and rare drops.

(Source: En Masse Entertainment Press Release)

[Taco Tuesday] TERA’s Ingenious Plan To Burn Out Prospective Customers


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It is Tuesday and that can only mean one thing: The greatest day of the week, at least as far as lunch is concerned. Taco Tuesday will always stand as the best day because it has something everyone can enjoy, whether you prefer beef, chicken, vegetarian, or even fish. Now, someone once asked me “Omali, do you ever wish Taco Tuesday could be every day?” And I said no, homeless man who walked into my high school cafeteria, I don’t wish Taco Tuesday was every day. Because then it wouldn’t be special, and tacos would simply revert back into meat in a shell.

And I feel that the same should apply to TERA, or any video game for that matter. If you hadn’t heard, En Masse Entertainment recently announced an event called “No Sleep Til 60.” Running from March 12th through March 26th, new accounts (does not include existing accounts) will be rewarded the further they are able to level their characters.

The event, open to anyone who creates a new account after 12:01 a.m. PDT on March 12, will help get you and your friends ready for TERA’s exciting endgame. To enter, all you have to do is start a new TERA account. (Existing players can certainly help the new folks level up, but they can’t start new characters to earn prizes.)

So sixty levels in fourteen days to hit the highest tier. Considering how well my past power leveling stunts have gone, I’ve decided to preempt the inevitable and sit this one out. More often than not for me, these power-leveling events wind up becoming more of a job than a game (which already happens enough writing for MMO Fallout), losing much of the fun of playing it in the process. By setting a goal and forcing users to play in a style that is likely outside of their norm, you risk running the player ragged and burning them out on your game much earlier on than if they had simply joined and started playing normally.

The other risk factors are the players who do reach level 60 by the time the promotion ends, and then they either burn themselves out or run out of things to do and quit anyway. Of course, you also have the risk in cases like this of alienating your existing community by excluding them from an event that could potentially reward $60 worth of cash shop rewards, which En Masse apparently recognized because they completely backpedaled on the terms of the offer and not only included existing accounts and characters but also dropped several rewards from the event entirely.

Then again, I could be entirely wrong on this. If TERA is truly one of those games where the first fifty nine levels are just there to add fluff while the real gaming starts at 60, this could be incredibly successful.

[Taco Tuesday] TERA's Ingenious Plan To Burn Out Prospective Customers


TERa1

It is Tuesday and that can only mean one thing: The greatest day of the week, at least as far as lunch is concerned. Taco Tuesday will always stand as the best day because it has something everyone can enjoy, whether you prefer beef, chicken, vegetarian, or even fish. Now, someone once asked me “Omali, do you ever wish Taco Tuesday could be every day?” And I said no, homeless man who walked into my high school cafeteria, I don’t wish Taco Tuesday was every day. Because then it wouldn’t be special, and tacos would simply revert back into meat in a shell.

And I feel that the same should apply to TERA, or any video game for that matter. If you hadn’t heard, En Masse Entertainment recently announced an event called “No Sleep Til 60.” Running from March 12th through March 26th, new accounts (does not include existing accounts) will be rewarded the further they are able to level their characters.

The event, open to anyone who creates a new account after 12:01 a.m. PDT on March 12, will help get you and your friends ready for TERA’s exciting endgame. To enter, all you have to do is start a new TERA account. (Existing players can certainly help the new folks level up, but they can’t start new characters to earn prizes.)

So sixty levels in fourteen days to hit the highest tier. Considering how well my past power leveling stunts have gone, I’ve decided to preempt the inevitable and sit this one out. More often than not for me, these power-leveling events wind up becoming more of a job than a game (which already happens enough writing for MMO Fallout), losing much of the fun of playing it in the process. By setting a goal and forcing users to play in a style that is likely outside of their norm, you risk running the player ragged and burning them out on your game much earlier on than if they had simply joined and started playing normally.

The other risk factors are the players who do reach level 60 by the time the promotion ends, and then they either burn themselves out or run out of things to do and quit anyway. Of course, you also have the risk in cases like this of alienating your existing community by excluding them from an event that could potentially reward $60 worth of cash shop rewards, which En Masse apparently recognized because they completely backpedaled on the terms of the offer and not only included existing accounts and characters but also dropped several rewards from the event entirely.

Then again, I could be entirely wrong on this. If TERA is truly one of those games where the first fifty nine levels are just there to add fluff while the real gaming starts at 60, this could be incredibly successful.

En Mass Entertainment Offering Refunds For Subscribers


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Yea, this is directly following my article on TERA becoming free, but I felt this topic was important enough to warrant its own commentary. Generally when an MMO goes free to play, you don’t see the developer lining up to hand out refunds for existing subscriptions. More often than not, any additional paid time is simply converted into whatever premium service that is rolling out with the transition. In the case of TERA, however, En Masse Entertainment will be refunding any additional game time on an account should the user request it.

From the FAQ:

On the day TERA’s drops its subscription fee, if you would like a refund you may submit a ticket and request a refund for your remaining game time. We will then refund your remaining subscription after the current month ends. For example, if you purchased a 90-day subscription and have 65 days remaining you will receive a refund for 60 days of game time. The remaining 5 days will stay as elite game time.

It appears that this is only for the North American version of TERA, through En Masse Entertainment. The FAQ for the European transition does not make any reference to refunds.

(Source: FAQ)

TERA Heading Free In North America And Europe


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With all the effort that En Masse Entertainment put into telling us that TERA would not be free to play in North America or Europe, the latter of which was contradicted the exact same day by Gameforge staff, I feel we as gamers could at least pretend to be surprised that the hiring of Nexon’s former Vice President as Chief Operating Officer at EME had anything to do with a possible transition. Too far? Alright. Everyone saw this coming. I did, you likely did, even your dog could figure out that TERA was going free to play. Starting in February 2013, you will be able to log in to TERA 100% free.

There are three tiers of membership: Free, Founder, and Elite. Elite is the current subscription model, while founders are anyone who activates a full copy of the game. I know what you’re thinking: What is going to happen to Chronoscrolls? They will be removed from the game and no longer redeemable. Any in-game merchant will buy them for 2,000 gold.

  • Free/Elite players are limited to two characters per server, founders have eight characters and an exclusive “founder” title.
  • Free/Elite players are limited to 72 bank slots, founders are limited to 288 slots (max)
  • Elite/Founder players can send unlimited gold via parcel, free are limited to 10 gold per message.
  • Free players are limited to 10 broker postings, Founders to 30, Elite to 50
  • Free/Founder players have a 5% broker register tax.
  • Subscribers have half of the cooldown rate for dungeon entries, as well as double entries each day.
  • Subscribers can claim 10 crate keys, a flaming halo, NPC teleport scrolls, and a village atlas which allows quick travel.
  • Subscribers receive daily XP, Reputation, and Gold boosts.
  • Subscribers receive an Elite Mount, Founders receive their own exclusive mount

(Source: En Masse Entertainment)

TERA Closer To Free To Play? En Mass Entertainment Shuffles Executives


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With TERA going free to play in just about everywhere but North America, stateside fans are no doubt beginning to ask when their time is coming. The latest news from En Masse Entertainment was a post from Minea on the forums stating that TERA will remain subscription based in the United States. A definitive answer, one that sparked mixed reactions on the main forums with some players applauding the announcement and others not as satisfied.

With an announcement gone out today, En Masse Entertainment has revealed that Christopher Lee has been promoted to the position of Chief Executive Officer, replacing Dr. Jae Heon Yang who will step down and continue his role as an executive at En Masse Entertainment’s parent company Bluehole Studios. Mr. Lee was previously Vice President of publishing. Additionally, former Vice President of Nexon America Soo Min Park has been hired as Chief Operating Officer, replacing Patrick Wyatt who had left the company earlier in 2012 but still acts as an external adviser for the publisher. Halo Group Marketing Manager Bryan Koski has been hired to Director of Marketing while TERA Senior Producer Brian Knox will be promoted to Executive Officer.

What does this mean for TERA? Some might see the writing on the wall with hiring an ex-Nexon VP as Chief Operating Officer.

(Source: Games Industry International)

TERA: Buy 1 Get 1 Free, Amazon


What is better than one copy of TERA? Endless shrimp at Red Lobster is not a valid response. The answer is TWO copies of TERA for the price of one. Moving along from the shellfish, Amazon is currently running a deal on the digital version of TERA:

Until September 22nd, you can pick up TERA for $9.99 USD (an 80% discount). With it, you will receive a promotional credit for $9.99 which can only be redeemed on TERA. The credit is good until October 15th, but you will have to actually buy TERA before September 22nd. An unusual, and rather unnecessarily complicated method of delivering the key, but what can you do?

The moves comes on the forefront of TERA’s server merger in North America, bringing the number of servers from eleven to three. En Masse is also introducing a new protection on accounts: deleting characters now requires a seven day wait if that character is above level five. The cool down timer for joining guilds is also being increased to two weeks.

(Source: TERA Website

TERA Merging Down To 3 Servers


Good news, TERA players. Since the MMO launched, you have created two and a half million characters, formed more than fourteen thousand guilds and over a thousand Vanarch candidates, and over three hundred fifty thousand of you newbies died on the starter island. What more, you newbies dying are precisely the reason why En Masse will be merging servers later this year. Of course I’m exaggerating. Due to low population metrics on a large number of servers, En Masse Entertainment has decided to perform a merger this fall.

But they aren’t seeing this as a bad thing:

Where some might look on this as a negative, I feel differently. By combining our servers, we facilitate a more unified community and give players a more full, alive world where finding groups, locating rare items (for lower prices!), and getting into dungeons quickly are the norm. Most importantly, combined servers will allow us to run more regular, player-focused events where we get to interact with our players.

There are plenty of plans for new content on the horizon, with player events and holiday events coming soon. The eleven current servers will be merged down to three: one of each game type (PvE, PvP, RP). Players will be required to delete characters if they have more than 8 on a server post-merge. Names will be offered on a first-come first-serve on who logs in first after the merge.

(Source: TERA)

(Also: Merger FAQ)

Can We Stop Asking If TERA Will Be Shut Down Now?


Back when I was covering the TERA beta, I received a lot of messages from players who wanted to buy the game, but were afraid to because of the lawsuit between En Masse Entertainment. People were afraid that NCSoft had a chance of winning the lawsuit, and would have the game shut down in North America (and possibly Europe) as a result. Well, according to a press release by EME, the lawsuit has been settled and TERA will not be shutting down. As part of the settlement, En Masse maintains its innocence and has stated that the company will maintain its focus on TERA in the coming future.

“En Masse Entertainment confirms it has settled with NCsoft over the TERA-related lawsuit in the US. In doing so, En Masse Entertainment maintains its innocence and looks forward to refocusing the company’s full attention to TERA, its fans, and its future.”

As for the full details of the settlement, you can probably expect to see those somewhere in the realm of never.

(Source: Press release)

TERA Introducing Chronoscrolls


What are Chronoscrolls, I can hear you asking. In Eve Online, CCP allows players to buy Pilot License Extensions, or PLEX, which act as one subscription. These are physical items that are traded in-game, making it possible for another player to play Eve completely free as long as they are able to generate enough income to buy PLEX off of other players, while the player selling the PLEX is technically buying gold but in a safe environment, and of course CCP gets paid all the same.

Chronoscrolls are essentially the same thing. On June 28th, players will be able to buy and trade Chronoscrolls through the game’s market. They cost $14.99 (naturally) and are available to purchase on the EME store. You cannot trade directly with another player, destroy them, put them in your bank, or sell them to a vendor. They can only be traded through the broker house.

Chronoscrolls represent a potentially large increase in revenue for En Masse Entertainment as long as a lot of players are buying them.

(Source: TERA Website)