Feb 10, 2012 was the first closed beta event for TERA. A new Action Combat MMO coming out on May 1, 2012. I’ve been waiting a while for this one because of the difference in combat styles from most AAA MMO titles out there that use tab targeting, hotbars and crappy AI mob packs. Now remember this is BETA – so things will change so please don’t judge the game from my first thoughts. Prepare for a long post and lots of pictures!
I started my Friday night excited to try TERA out. First smart thing they did was limit you to ONE character per server – out of two servers. This way people played the game instead of trying out all the classes to see what they were going to play in 3 months…and actually made them advance to test the game. I was disappointed when I got into the game that it had no bug reporting tools…just an email address to send reports. I think ease of reporting should be a beta test’s #1 concern. So I basically opened up an email window and wrote down things I found wrong and my opinions and they got it all at once today in one big grouping. I hardly found any bugs at all! No crashing either.
Lets start with some of the highlights: The graphics are beautiful, characters are good looking, outfits are skimpy (not that that is always good). They added a bunch of really nice features that many MMOs dont have off the bat. You can dye your armor…you can pick out a favorite armor look and remodel ugly armor to look like your favorite with the new stats.
All mining and herb nodes can be harvested by your entire group at the same time using the person with the highest skill to determine what you all get. You can gamble with your craftables too! Stick 5 in a box and try your luck at doubling….then tripling, and beyond…but you might lose it all!
Don’t like battlegrounds or dueling…how about creating a Deathmatch of 3 v 3 or 5 v 5 – a free for all battle wherever you want in the world…and then placing bets on the winners! Anyone can walk by and join too if you open it up.
Some armor and weapons can be enhanced several times as in +1 +4 +7 like some MMOs let you…of course it can fail but it lets you be able to collect and create some nice stuff. I didn’t get into enhancing or crafting yet. Other things they have are an achievement system, guild banks (i know right, guild banks from day one…how odd) and they will have guild housing eventually. I heard there is a placeholder in existence already.
The starter area for Tera was not very good. Let me explain. I just came from Star Wars: The Old Republic where I didn’t have to read any quests…they were all read to me, so I am a bit spoiled from that. I had to read all the quests now which I found to be boring. I didn’t get engaged in the story at all and quickly found myself skipping reading quests except for the key parts. This isn’t a good thing. They need an opener that makes you want to dig into the lore.
Second thing is they made the starter area too easy. This is an action game, so people need to learn to get out of the way when something is attacking. There are no dice rolls to see if something hits or dodges. But the mobs are so slow and weak in the starter zone that it made it not so fun. A tree attacking every 10 seconds giving you way too much time to get out of the way and if they do hit you, it is for hardly any damage (see above screenshot for the combat log). I know people need to learn – but this was too simple. Mobs also live longer than in most games so you throw your fireball at them 10-15 times till they die and none of them are aggressive to you the whole time. Risk in games make them more fun and the starter area offered no risk. First time I died was at level 17 when attacking a higher level boss out in the world with another person and I died at the last possible second. How many games have you played that it took that long for your first death? If they add more risk, the starter area can be fun.
After you get out of the starter area and to the main city and onto the next area (and get your first horse for freeeeee), things begin to pick up on the fun factor. There are packs of mobs, but not the boring 2 or 3 standing still doing nothing but waiting to be killed. The groups wander around and patrol. It may be a single mob, it may be a pack of 3 or 7 or 12. Mobs will dodge back or side to side…charge you, knock you down, run away and other neato stuff.
The combat is pure FUN. No using tab to pick a target… just walk up or aim your recticle and swing or shoot. If you swing and there are 10 things right in front of you – you will hit them all. Take a few whacks and dodge out of the way quick and rush back in from behind. Ranged classes can take a leap backward if things get too close. Run around a pack of mobs to get them more clustered together and then charge in.
You do have a hotbar for skills but you cant click them while fighting. It’s all keystrokes and mouse clicks. I am a clicker by nature but have gotten use to action games like Dragon Nest, Vindictus, and Hellgate. People that are clickers can play these games…you might need a new mouse though. That is what saved me. I bought a Razer Naga Gaming Mouse 
As you gain new skills, some can be chained together but you don’t have to activate them with your buttons, you can use the space bar for many of them. EXAMPLE: I have a nasty opener attack on my warrior that takes a bunch of swings at a mob…by the time i’m done they will probably attack back so I would hit my next button to jump over them and attack from behind, but I don’t have to find that button because the dodge and jump are chained to my opener attack, and on the screen a little note appears to hit the spacebar to activate X. After jumping there is another skill that chains to my dodge, to twirl around low to the ground if I hit the spacebar. I don’t have to though and it gives you a few seconds to activate it. Same with a retaliate attack…if I get knocked down, I have a skill to spin attack when I get back up. I don’t have to keybind that at all…the game lets me know to hit the spacebar to active that skill. At level 17 I use my left and right mouse buttons (simple attack and the other my flip dodge) and 2 or 3 number buttons on my mouse. I have other skills mapped but I don’t use them often or not in combat.
Over the weekend I played a Sorcerer to level 12 or 13 and a warrior to level 17. I had the most fun on the warrior flipping, slicing and dicing. Character creation is pretty good. They have quite a few presets to start from, then you can choose hair style and color, face and skin color, face details like eye color and makeup/tattoos, then you can fine tune your eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. No height, thickness, or breast sliders.
So what started off as me not really enjoying the game eventually turned out to be fun. If they increase the fun factor by adding some challenge to the starter area and engage people with the quests a bit more, I think it will really grab people and be a nice addition to the large list of MMOs. Come back in 2 weeks for the second closed beta update!
Looks pretty typical of a the Asian MMO class. I just can’t get into the doe-eyed characters that are so popular there. Looking at your screenshots, E would never want to play a toon that was that skimpy. LOL
[…] started feeling overwhelmed with all the buttons I needed to press. Like I said in the first post -Beta Week 1- you don’t click skills on a hotbar – they are all mapped. I am horrible at using the […]