Tag: TERA

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


TERA_ScreenShot_20120311_210446

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 Will Remain Subscription Based In US/EU


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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)

KTERA Free To Play Server A Success, Permanently Added


While we’re on the subject of TERA, let’s take a look back at its Korean counterpart. Earlier this year, I mentioned that the folks over at KTera were testing a free to play server. The server was originally set to remain active until August 9th, when the project would be pulled and Bluehole Studios would determine how viable TERA would be in the free to play market. Well, August 9th has come and gone (over a month ago) and I’ve received a few emails asking me to follow up on the previous article.

First of all, the server run was extended until August 30th, and according to mmosite.com, has been extended permanently. The free to play server, in addition, carries a permanent 2x experience buff as well as extra loot from quest rewards. Players are able to transfer their characters from the free to play servers to the subscription servers, although the article does not specify if the opposite is also true. It also notes that there is no cash shop on this server.

No word on free to play TERA in the western hemisphere, but given the apparent success of the server in Korea, an announcement seems just over the horizon.

(Source: mmosite)

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)

Korean TERA Major Server Mergers Coming, Free To Play Possible


Since TERA launched in Korea well before North America and Europe, players have come to see it as sort of a litmus test for the game’s overall performance. Back in June 2011, we reported that TERA was not meeting financial expectations, and the game was forced into a merger bringing the number of servers from 35 down to 15.

Fast forward to today and once again TERA is apparently still hemorrhaging players. In a post on the game’s Korean website, a planned server consolidation will go into effect on June 28th which will target all thirteen remaining servers. When the dust settles, KTERA will only have four servers remaining of the original 37 it launched with.

On July 4th, TERA will launch a test server to gauge the possibility of free to play for the title. The server will be open for four weeks with a level cap of 50, and is quite the indicator that TERA plans on heading free to play (at least in Korea) as a final saving measure. There is so far no word or indication as to TERA’s performance in the west, and whether or not other territories will follow with a similar model.

(Source: KTERA Website)

(Source: Free to Play Announcement)

Our Thoughts: TERA Gaikai


TERA is 50 gigabytes. That is as many as five tens and that is terrible. For some, fifty gigabytes may be too much of an investment in terms of bandwidth or time to give TERA’s seven day trial a go. Luckily this is where Gaikai comes in. Founded in 2008, Gaikai is an online cloud-based streaming service being employed by a growing selection of MMORPGs. The trials through Gaikai are currently very limited, both in time in and content. The benefit to this, however, is that the game can literally be booted up in seconds, playable directly through your browser.

You can’t beat Gaikai in terms of accessibility. You can play without ever having to sign up for an account, entering your email address or personal information, or linking your Facebook/Twitter/Bebo accounts. At the offset, you have three classes to choose from: Warrior, sorcerer, and lancer. The preview encompasses the introduction, starting the player off at level 20 with the associated class skills already unlocked.

As you can see, the graphics have been scaled back somewhat to function properly through the browser. Following a lengthy bit of running around talking to various NPCs, receiving equipment, and a lot of walking, the player is introduced to the combat mechanics and the demo ends with the player fighting one of the game’s big-ass monsters.

The demo is only disappointing in the sense that at least half of the demo is wasted on the most boring section: Tutorial. Once you get to the part where there is actual combat, the demo feels almost over and all you’ve accomplished is reading through quest text. For someone who has never played TERA, this is probably not the best presentation to make them transition on to the full seven day trial. All other systems except for combat are not mentioned at all.

I’m sure TERA will eventually support a better demo on Gaikai, but this feature feels rushed and ultimately is unsatisfying and poorly marketed as a result. Even with the scaling back of graphics, the game still looks great and handles just as well as it does in the full game, but overall it just feels half-baked.

En Masse Entertainment should create a Gaikai specific demo instead of simply plucking the first area and show off more of the game, including crafting, the political system, and broker.