TERA (video game)

TERA
File:Tera online box artwork.png Original North American cover art
Developer(s)	Bluehole Studio
Publisher(s)	En Masse Entertainment, Ubisoft, Gameforge, NHN Corporation via Hangame, NHN Japan Corporation via Hangame Japan
Distributor(s)	Atari
Designer(s)	Yong-Hyun Park Byung-Gyu Chang Huang Cher Ung
Composer(s)	Inon Zur Rod Abernethy
Engine	Unreal Engine 3
Platforms	Microsoft Windows
Release date(s)	KOR 20110125January 25, 2011 JPN 20110818August 18, 2011 NA 20120501May 1, 2012 EU 20120503May 3, 2012 RUS 20150226February 26, 2015
Genre(s)	Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

TERA is a 3D fantasy themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Bluehole Studio. The game was released in South Korea on January 25, 2011, in Japan on August 18, 2011, in North America on May 1, 2012, in Europe on May 3, 2012, and in Russia on February 26, 2015, with closed and open beta testings taking place before the launch dates. NHN Corporation, NHN Japan Corporation, En Masse Entertainment and Frogster Interactive Pictures publishes the game in these regions, respectively. In February 2013 the game was renamed to TERA: Rising concurrently with the game's launch to the free-to-play model.

Gameplay

TERA has typical MMORPG features such as questing, crafting, and player versus player action. The game's combat uses a real-time battle system that incorporates third-person camera view. The player targets an enemy with a cross-hair cursor rather than clicking or tabbing an individual opponent (which is called the "Non-Target battle system" by the developer). The Players need to actively dodge enemy attacks. A keyboard and mouse or a control pad can be used to control the character.

The developers collaborated with CCP Games and their successful use of "PLEX" for Eve Online as a way of deterring gold farmers. As a result, TERA released a currency called "Chronoscrolls" that works similarly, as it allows game time to be purchased with real money and sold for in-game gold. The use of Chronoscrolls is only available to users who have purchased the game either digitally or physically. Those with the "Discovery Edition" cannot use Chronoscrolls.

In February 2013, Tera in North America and Europe transitioned to "Tera Rising", which changed the subscription model to a "freemium" design (free play plus purchasable premium status and customization options). The developer has promised no time, level, or content restrictions for free players after this update. Players who purchase a 30-day "Elite" status will receive increased dungeon rewards, in-game discounts and other metagame advantages. Due to the new model, the "Chronoscrolls" mentioned above are being phased out, and are no longer sold by the developer, nor usable to extend game time. Existing chronoscrolls can be sold to merchants for 2,000 gold.

The Japanese and Korean versions of Tera also became free to play in December 2012 and January 2013, respectively.

Races

Characters may be one of seven races:

• The Aman, a race of draconian humanoids
• The Baraka, a giant, intelligent race
• The Castanics, a demon-like race
• The Elins, an innocent nature loving race
• The High Elves, a race of traditional and elegant humanoids
• The Humans, a race of good leaders and the curios.
• The Popori, an animal-like race.

The Baraka, Elin, and Popori are gender locked (only male Baraka and Popori, and female Elin exist). Both males and females are playable for the rest of the races. The Elin were originally projected as Female Popori in the early stages of the game creation.

Each race has a set of unique "racial skills" that gives them minor advantages. For instance, Elins and Popori have skills that increase out-of-combat movement speed, while High Elves can restore all of their MP on a long (2 hour) cooldown. Races also have their own unique animations for many class-specific skills, leading to small advantages and disadvantages in framerate, animation speed, movement distance, attack distance, or other attributes for each individual skill depending on which race the player has chosen.

Classes

Archer

The Archer is a “Ranged Damage Class,” using a bow and wearing leather armor. They have the lowest health pool with no defensive advantages to compensate, making them more challenging to solo with. This class is known to possess a wide range of abilities to help control the fight by using traps and ranged attacks, which reduce attack speed, snare, and stun. Archers' damage scales based on the distance to the target. Within 10 meters, damage is unchanged. For every 3 meters past 10, damage is reduced by 15%. The exact scale is 11–14 meters, 15%, 15–18 meters, 15% The basic Arrow attack extends to a maximum range of 19 meters, but suffers a 1.5% penalty from the damage dealt at 18 meters. Despite this scaling, the biggest benefit to Archers is that they have the choice to remain at a safe distance, as most incoming Area of Effect attacks have an effective range of 10 meters. Their two charged attacks actually have a "kickback" component of pushing the Archer back 2–4 meters (depending on charge), meaning a well timed attack with an incoming AoE would create a simultaneous evasive maneuver and attack. In PvP, their stuns and high damage from their stances make them arguably the best PvP class.

Berserker

The Berserker is a “Melee Damage Class,” using a two-handed axe and wearing heavy armor. This class is the heaviest hitter in the game but also the slowest. They can stay in the frontlines of a battle by blocking any attacks with their axe and provide powerful burst damage with charged attacks, where they unleash a single massive strike. Berserkers eventually become relatively fast at dealing massive damage through the use of certain glyphs and skill rotations. They are similar to the Sorcerer in speed and damage dealt, but have greater mobility and defense. In PvP, Berserkers are a constant threat as they can potentially one-hit KO a player with a big critical hit from their charged attack. As such, they are able to bully and keep other melee classes in check.

Lancer

The Lancer is a “Blocking Tank,” using a shield with a lance and wearing heavy armor. The Lancer is the most defensive class in the game as they can use their shield to completely guard themselves and allies standing behind them from incoming attacks. Possessing the highest survivability of all the classes, Lancers also have the lowest damage output in the game, excluding the healing classes. In PvE, Lancers are generally accepted as the main tanking class as they are able to mitigate all incoming damage without any risks, compared to the much stricter dodge timing required by the Warrior. Lancers have two key skills that allow him to hold the attention of the enemy: Shield Counter with the extra threat glyph is their main skill, which can only be used after a successful block; Challenging Shout is their second skill, of which its large range can be used as a way to pull enemies from a distance. In PvP, Lancers serve to support the party by constantly harassing the enemy's support classes with stuns and interrupts while mitigating as much damage as possible to the party. Most notably, Baraka Lancers can make use of the game's collision detection by simply being large enough to block off key doorways with their body.

Mystic

The Mystic is a “Support Healer Class,” using a scepter and wearing cloth armor. The Mystic provides more utility than the traditional healer by being able to create health and mana pickups instead of directly healing the party. This means that skilled parties who proactively avoid damage by dodging will actually benefit much more from a Mystic healer as the mana pickups will allow damage dealers to use their skills without any downtime. However, this means that Mystics are constantly running around the battlefield to keep the party optimized with heals, mana, or buffs. Between Mystics and Priests, Mystics are much more difficult to play. Mystics are most notable for being able to summon temporary minions to help with healing or to draw aggro while soloing, and for their powerful crowd control abilities which makes them invaluable for initiating team battles in PvP.

Priest

The Priest is a “Primary Healer Class,” using a staff and wearing cloth armor. This traditional healer class uses a stationary style of healing, where healing doesn't require as much mobility on the Priest's part. This makes Priests much easier to play than Mystics, who must move around constantly to keep the party optimized. While Mystics specialize in boosting a party's offense, the Priest excels in keeping the party alive. Priests have all kinds of heals for any situation, and can cover the entire party with a temporary damage absorption shield. In PvP, Priests take on the tank role as the entire enemy team will naturally focus on the Priest. Their many heals gives them immense survivability and makes them quite difficult to finish off as the Priest's party will be picking off any pursuers.

Reaper

A new, Elin-only class added in 2014 (exact date differs depending on version). Reapers begin at level 50, but you may only create a reaper if you have another class that is already level 40 on your server. The reaper is a "Mid-Range Damage Class," using a pair of sickle-scythes attached to chains to damage their enemies. Reapers wear leather, but are defensively fragile due to their innately low endurance stats. Instead, they rely on short teleports ('flash steps') and counterattacks to keep themselves alive in both PvP and PvE. Reaper skills execute quickly and have extremely high sustained damage, make good use of immobilizes and stuns to win their fights. However, they have high cooldowns, necessitating cooldown and skill management.

Slayer

The Slayer is a “Melee Damage Class,” using a two-handed sword and wearing leather armor. This class naturally excels in soloing because of the innate crowd control capability it possesses through knockdowns. Their high chance of knockdowns is always a huge threat in PvP, while in PvE it provides breathing room for the group. Slayers hit extremely hard and move very fast in combat, which makes them powerful in any situation. This class is very popular because it's easy to play as well as being very reliable, which cements its position as a staple role in both high level PvE and PvP.

Sorcerer

The Sorcerer is a “Ranged Magic Damage Class,” using an arcane disc and wearing cloth armor. Sorcerers are capable of great sustained burst damage, and are able to restore their own mana pool relatively quickly with a very short cooldown. Sorcerers, as the traditional glass cannon, output the highest DPS in the game by maintaining a fast and continuous barrage of spells at the cost of survivability. In PvE, they are the most reliable source of DPS as they are generally out of harm's way and their spells hit very hard. In PvP, they are invaluable in team fights by forcing enemy groups to scatter to avoid their powerful AoE spells.

Warrior

The Warrior is an “Evasive Tank” or "Melee Damage Class," dual-wielding twin swords and wearing leather armor. Warriors are the other tank in the game, relying on well-timed dodges to avoid incoming damage. As a result, Warriors are the hardest class to play in the game as it requires the player to become familiar with attack patterns to dodge efficiently, while the Lancer can just hold block whenever they feel threatened. This causes many of the people playing warrior choosing a DPS centered build rather than a tank build, because of its demanding requirements. Despite their light armor, Warriors actually gain higher endurance ratings than Lancers in the endgame due to their extremely good gear scaling, which means they take less damage from hits. However, Lancers will still easily outlast the Warrior due to the reliability of their block mechanic. Despite the obvious advantages of a Lancer tank, Warriors are more than capable of tanking all endgame content; it just requires a different approach. In a damage role, Warriors excel at it as they have high mobility to stay on their targets, which also makes their play style feel like the traditional thief/rogue class. Warriors are very powerful in PvP as their tanking nature gives them lots of natural survivability while their fast attacks keeps the target pinned down. Casters are especially vulnerable to Warriors and have a very difficult time trying to escape.Warriors are one of the most popular classes in TERA, but you will not see many in the endgame. This is due to the difficulty of this class, and many lesser experienced players eventually give up on the class.

Gunner

The Gunner class was added with the release of the game on Steam. It is available to female characters only of the High Elf and Castanic races. The class uses a mystical based gun called an Arcannon, wears metal armor, and is able to summon two types of pets; one healing type and the other an offensive turret. It is a ranged damage class, which is designed to be fast and mobile. While all other classes use their skills with "Mana" and "Resolve", the Gunner utilizes "Willpower" instead of "Resolve". "Willpower", unlike "Resolve", does not gradually increase the more you wait, but does the opposite. If you don't attack, your Willpower decreases. Once you reach Max Willpower, your Arcannon starts glowing, and you can set off epic Wombo-Combos.

Brawler

The Brawler class was added during the 6 week Brace for Impact event, specifically on December 8th 2015 along with a Knockout release which brought new items and all sorts of free gifts for players. It is a class exclusive to Human female characters only. The class uses a weapon called Powerfists, which are part boxing gloves and part brass knuckles to pack a powerful punch. Brawlers wear heavy armor that allows them to go toe-to-toe with the biggest bosses without fear. She is an offensive dynamo with exceptional tanking capabilities, and her massive powerfists allow her to both dish out and block damage. The brawler gets a special "Rage" bar, and when it fills up she lets loose and demolishes anything in her way with the most furious attacks. With the ability to Punch and Counter, the brawler can fight relentlessly and recklessly, while every Punch landed alters the effect of the Counter. Effects from Blocks to Uppercuts will leave the opponent disarmed and disoriented to allow the brawler to go in for the finishing blow.

Development

Name Wipe

Because of its recent release on Steam, TERA decided that there were too many un-used names in its database. Players who where not online were keeping those names, and it was affecting new players, who had a hard time choosing a nickname. After many complaints, TERA released emails to all current players saying "Due to the recent surge of new players coming into TERA via Steam, we have decided to release inactive character names, making them available to new characters. Any characters that have not logged into the game since June 25, 2014 will have their names changed to placeholder names, freeing up their old names to anyone creating a new character or using the paid Character Name Change service. If you have characters whose names you want to keep, but you haven't logged into TERA with those characters since June 25 of last year, you should log in to TERA and enter the game with each of those characters before Thursday, June 25, 2015."

Reception

Reception
Aggregate scores Aggregator Score GameRankings 76.35% (17 reviews) Metacritic 77/100 (35 reviews) Review scores Publication Score Eurogamer 8/10 G4 4/5 GameSpot 7.5/10 IGN 6.5/10 PC Gamer 64/100 The Escapist 3.5/5

TERA has been met with generally favorable reviews, citing the action-based gameplay, huge and widely varied seamless world, the exciting and recurring BAM fights, the ease of using the game's auction house (called the Trade Broker) and lush, detailed graphics as the game's high points. The option of using a console controller also provided much satisfaction for players that wanted to play an MMORPG without relying on a keyboard and mouse. The game's musical score received praise for its varied and emotionally charged tracks ranging from epic orchestral pieces to more mellow tunes. Criticism is directed at the game's generic collect/kill/rendezvous quest grind to level up, with some quests backtracking simply to talk to the same NPC. Player killing is commonly done in the Open World and has been met with a lot of praise due to the freedom and constant action it can bring to daily questing and traveling. Critics have targeted the Nexus Wars feature as a blatant rip-off of Rift's system.

In March 2013, after switching to a free-to-play business model, the game passed 1.4 million registered accounts.

On May 5, 2015 Tera's new patch 31.04 was released in which the game became available on steam. Along with being available on Steam, the gunner class was released and new dungeons were added.

Adaptations

TERA short stories are available for sale as E-books in English at En Masse Entertainment's official site.

Trade secret civil actions

In 2007, NCsoft filed a complaint to South Korean gosu gamer authorities and brought a civil action for damages and an injunction to Bluehole. The Bluehole founders and employees, formerly employed under NCsoft and working on the Lineage III development team, were convicted by a Korean criminal court for the theft of valuable trade secrets from NCsoft in 2009. In 2010, a Korean civil court held these individuals, along with Bluehole, liable for misappropriation of trade secrets, awarding NCsoft about $2 million in damages and issuing an injunction against utilizing trade secrets for monetary gain. The damages were later reversed by an appellate court, but the injunction remained in place. Despite the injunction, Bluehole developed and released TERA in South Korea.

On January 9, 2012, NCsoft filed a civil action in the United States against Bluehole and its U.S. subsidiary En Masse. NCsoft was seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction prohibiting the launch of TERA in the United States, or damages for the substantial harm that the launch would cause NCsoft. They asserted claims for copyright infringement, trade secret misappropriation, breach of confidence, unfair competition, and unjust enrichment under the laws of the state of New York.

On April 18, 2012, En Masse Entertainment announced they were found not guilty in the Korean civil actions. However, three employees were found guilty.

External links

• Official North American website
• Official European website
• TERA at Bluehole Studio
• TERA at Frogster, former European publisher at the Wayback Machine (archived May 15, 2012)