TERA Time – Rising to the Occasion (Part 2)

This is part two of this edition of TERA Time. Click through the link to read the first part if you haven’t yet. Thank you!

After having played every day over the past week, I can say that being an Elite member was a good decision. The Village Atlas is extremely convenient if you’re sick of sitting on a Pegasus, and the daily boosts really do make a difference in how quickly you level and experience the game. Not even going to mention the other things you get, because they are all equally convenient.

The keyword here is “convenience”. For a game that was already streamlined and easy to get around in, the Elite perks sort of push that over the edge — though I’m not complaining.

You get four daily, one-hour boosts:

• 100% EXP boost
• 100% gold drop increase
• 100% quest gold increase
• 100% reputation increase

It doesn’t sound like much, but the EXP and gold boosts make a huge difference, even if they only last an hour. That hour could be a level or two, depending on your character’s level.

I’m not complaining, but..

Something does need to be done about the MW alkahest issue. I, and several other players, have only been seeing one or two MW alkahest drops per dungeon run. Even during this past double loot weekend, it’s only been up to four per run. To say this is not enough would be an understatement.

GM Knoxxer has acknowledged (post #23) that they are going to be looking at how they can change it to be less of a massive time and money sink. As it stands, you need some deep pockets to even attempt to reach +12 — and good luck with that.

Strongboxes also do not drop enough MW alkahest as a whole. It’s possible to get a few from the new boxes, but it is by no means enough. Not to mention the cost of strongbox keys.

Baldera! Well, not really.

This probably doesn’t mean anything at all, but it’s odd.

I’ve been to Baldera three times in the past two weeks. Once before and twice after TERA: Rising launched. In case you need a refresher:

This province is closed off, as anyone who has tried to ram themselves into it via the broken entrance in Oblivion Woods. If you want to know how to get there, there are a few places online with full image walkthrough to make your way there. This on its own is nothing new.

During my time there before the Rising patch was released, there were no NPCs. There were NPCs there in the past (as seen in the link to the walkthrough above), but I don’t know how long they were absent from their posts.

I didn’t get pictures of where the NPCs would be, because I’m no psychic.

After TERA went free to play, the NPCs magically returned to their positions to be just as useless as they were in the first place.

The NPCs themselves are not the strangest part of this change. Behind this town is a fairly large, flat area surrounded by cliffs. Before Rising, this area was cut off — one of the many “end of the world” spots sprinkled about the game. This area is now intact once again and can be seen in the imgur album mentioned above as well.

It’s just odd that the NPCs and a huge chunk of land in a closed-off area would disappear and reappear between one patch and another. I would love for Baldera be opened up sometime soon, but I wouldn’t count on it. Still, it’s something a little more lighthearted to think about. Better than whining about enchanting all day.