The rumors of TERA going free to play on February 5 turned out to be totally true, and I am mega-butthurt about it.
I can understand that En Masse wants to get people playing as soon as possible, and that’s okay! But what’s not okay is changing the original date and pretending like the initial February 16 release date for TERA: Rising never happened. Is it because people are stocking up on Masterwork Alkahest because they’re being made a cash shop item? Do they want to roll out the new cash shop ASAP? I don’t get what the deal is here.
I guess I wouldn’t be upset if this were another publisher, but En Masse is so flip-floppy and — frankly — kind of shady that I’m inclined to take this very very poorly. And I am doing just tthat. Why are we so behind Korea, when EME doesn’t even manage any other games? Why have there only been a few real, meaty patches since the game’s launch less than a year ago? I have so many questions, and all they do is make me angry.
Would a logical person be more happy about the new date? Of course they would, but logical people aren’t sinking a ton of time into TERA anyway. Bloodthirsty neckbeards pretending to be Elins, however, are spending tons of time in-game.
Masterwork Alkahurr and Enchanting
TERA: Rising is bringing some big changes to the game’s RNG hate-lord, also known as the enchanting system. We all know that Masterwork Alkahest is being removed from specialty stores and moved to the cash shop (at a later date). We also know that MW Alkahest will be dropped in dungeons, but we don’t know how frequently or how much.
Taking a week and millions of gold to enchant a single weapon or piece of armor from +9 to +12 isn’t uncommon with the current system thanks to the low enchanting success rates. With the decrease in MW Alkahest availability, EME (Well, likely Bluehole Studios.) is probably evening out the amount of time it takes to enchant. While the success chance of enchanting is going up, the fact that Masterwork Alkahest is becoming so much more rare kind of stints the news.
The forum post explaining how enchanting will work in TERA: Rising is worth a read if you’re worried about getting your gear up to snuff. It basically states that your chance of success will rise each time you fail, and then will reset once you have successfully enchanted an item or move onto a different piece of equipment. There will be a chance for gear that is already masterworked to drop from dungeons, so that is a plus.
TERA EU, You Will Never Win!
It turns out that EME was just keeping their mouths shut about the login queue inquiry — players with Founder status will be given priority login queues.
This was something that EU announced a few days ago while En Masse vehemently denied that Founders would be given this privilege in NA. Much like the initial release date, that was wrong.
You won for a few days, European TERA players. Now we’re back to being almost-square. Sorry, guys.
New Servers and the Global Chat Situation
TERA will be receiving two new servers once Rising hits. PvP lovers will be able to start fresh on the Lake of Tears server (great name for TERA’s PvP community), while Ascension Valley will be rolling out for those of you who are more inclined to PvE action.
The LFG, area, and global chats are being given some new rules once Rising comes to town. Level restrictions abound:
- Area chat restricted to level 5+
- LFG chat restricted to level 12+
- Global chat restricted to level 20+
Global is, of course, the most problematic of those three chats. It’s hard to live with it, but boring to live without it. In many ways, global is the Barren’s chat of TERA. Most of what you get on there is garbage in word form — but it keeps the loneliness away. Sometimes.
Global, as well as the other chats, will be getting a timer to prevent spam once the influx of players arrives. EME better get some better GM coverage too, because global chat is only going to get more vile from February 5.
TERA.. Rising?
I don’t like the way En Masse handles the game. I can’t stress that enough. You will never see me say that again, so burn it into your brain. With that said, I’m still excited to see what’s to come in Rising. Sure, it’s not the Federation Update that the K-TERA got with siege battles and all that cool stuff. It’s something, damnit. It’s just not this:
The game launched with barely any endgame content, and that hasn’t changed much. The upcoming 3v3 area in Rising looks nice, but we need more PvE content to really stretch out our time with the game. I love TERA. Its combat system is one of the best in MMORPGs, but the rest of the game leaves something to be desired. If you’ve played the game to any extent, you know what I mean.
En Masse and Gameforge both can do better. Let’s hope there’s some improvement with the free to play shift. Some more transparency, at least, would be nice.
Published: Jan 31, 2013 10:01 am