Tera Online

Feature video by shadeypwns on youtube
 

TERA is basically Warcraft 2.0
It has many of the good features from Warcraft minus the 2D cartoon graphics
It is free to download an play from the Tera Official Website

Some of the great features in TERA:

– Unreal3 graphics engine
The environment and monsters are amazing

In-game Collision with all players and monsters
No more walking through mobs like your a fake ghost
Everything looks and feels real!

– Loot
Each mob only has 1 loot table
When you kill something
The loot falls to the ground
And everyone in the game can see the loot lying there
But only the player or group that first attacked that mob can pick it up
If your in a group
Then everyone has to roll
The in-built roll system gives priority to a class by default
Its a great traditional loot system
It means loot is harder to attain
But that is what makes loot more valuable and desirable

– Action combat
You need to aim all of your attacks with a cross-hair
Strikes and blocks feel real
They have weight and take time to complete
Your weapon will impact with monsters
Blood will spray to the ground
Monsters also behave more realistically
You can wait for them to strike and then run around them
They won’t always face you like a robot
Overall the combat feels very real
While your still spamming 1 2 3 4 5
The animations of your Character are real looking for each key press
You will see a sword swing down with one key press
Or it can chop across with another
Unlike in World of Warcraft
A fluro lion will attack with random chewing animations
And the visual indication that you have used an ability like Rake or Rip
Will be some red claw marks on the screen
The downside to Tera’s Action Combat is latency
You are heavily disadvantaged with latency

– World PVP No one is Safe
There are no Factions in this game
You may choose from 6 Races
But everyone starts in the same starting area
So everyone can play this game together!
However once you leave the starting zone
Anyone can kill you!
When you press your PVP button
The name of your character will turn Red
This Flags you as a Hostile Player
Now your attacks will damage both Monsters and Players
Only Party members or Guild members will be safe from you
However while in PVP Mode other Players can attack you
Without needing to activate their PVP button
This is what identifies Noble players in the game
Who only fight in self defense
From the Evil players
They are known as PK’s or Player Killers
If you kill Players lower level than yourself
You will gain INFAMY
The more low level players you kill the more Infamy you will gain
You can only turn off PVP mode when your Infamy is 0
Killing 1 player may set you to 100 Infamy
And Infamy only decreases by 1 point per minute
Turning off the PVP button
Does not stop anyone from attacking you
But it makes you name white again
Your Sins have been resolved
There is also a Political system in the game
Where Guilds fight one another for Power over Cities!
Once they Govern areas
I believe the Guild takes a cut of all vendor sales for that area
There is also Battleground PVP for level 60 players
And another amazing feature to PVP is that groups of players of any level
Can duel other groups of players
And you can fight over Gold
Prior to the fight each Party can put in a set amount of Gold
And the winning group takes all
I don’t know all of the PVP features in the game
But these features set it apart from other MMOs i have played

– Server Channels
Each Server has 1-10 Channels for every Area/Zone
The default is Channel 1
And the number of Channels is determined by the number of players in an Area
If an Area is over crowded or someone is camping you
You can manually jump into a different Area Channel and those players will not be there
Enemy players can switch Channels to find you also but usually its not worth their while
Its just a nice feature
This is not to be confused with the Automatic Phase Technology alot of new MMOS are using
To avoid having to manage real Dedicated Servers
These new Mega Phase Servers claim to have everyone on a single Server
But that is a hoax
Their Mega Server just Auto Files Players as they travel from 1 Area to another
Into mini Phase Severs
So small manageable numbers of Random players will constantly phase in and out around you
The Tera Channels are different to that
They are manual Phase Channels you can choose to switch between
The Tera Servers are real Dedicated Servers
It creates the feel of a persistent world where a real population needs to grow
The drawback to Dedicated Servers is you may choose to play on a Server
That is underpopulated or has a community of players you do not like
But after 30 days you are able to transfer to another Server
 

– You cant change your class
I think every MMO has this restriction
Class change restrictions are a measure to prevent leveling areas from becoming ghost towns
By forcing players to re-explore the whole game over
This helps re-fill low level areas with Players
It also reduces the number of Players sitting at the top level just baying for more
However
A better solution is allow Class change
Make the game totally bad ass beyond belief
Allow us to only require one Toon
And just make the game bigger and better!
And endless new players will flow into the game
However as it stands,
If you want to try a different fighting style
You must start the whole game over
Which means re-doing every quest in the Game
I think you should be able to change your class at any level for a fee
There should be a Class Talent tree
That you can enter Talent points as you level
As well as the Glyph tree
Have both!
Its more fun being able to customize your class
Than be dealt stock class with 0 options
And then also be able to change it completly
This would allow you to try different fighting styles
You may have to start with easy raids to acquire that Classes gear
But that’s much beter than starting from level 1 again
And having to redo every quest in the game
I love completing all the quests and achievements in the game
But I only want to do them once
I fear the reason this feature may never be introduced
Is it would be unfair to all the goofballs who have already leveled 5 different Alts
Class change would render Alts worthless
Perhaps they could be compensated
With an Alt Merge Process where all Toons become one
And they could receive a couple of rare pets for all the countless hours of quest duplication

– There are no damage meters
Luckily TERA does show your Damage as a number when you hit a monster
We need numbers to know that a higher level sword
Is actualy doing more damage than a low level sword
To know one enchant is doing more damage than another
Or that a potion plus a certain combo sequence does even more
Without numbers you have no idea what damage you are doing
You just have to use your imagination
That’s a cheap combat experience
TERA has the numbers but we need Damage, Healing and Threat meters too
These are very important PVE tools that increase the experience for each combat role
The meters let you know as a player how you are fairing to other players
They showcase your skill combined with your gear level
Without meters no one knows what your doing
It devalues you as a player and devalues the gear your trying to acquire
Your role in a group is about your skill plus the gear you have attained
The Meters represent all that in the game
Without meters noone will ever know how badass you are
The chump next to you could be playing with 1 hand
Pressing 1 button and eating a cheeseburger
Thinking he is the Arnold Swasnegier of MMOS
While your busting up your fingers up
Spaming 15 combinations of attacks
Why even bother
No one is going to know what your doing either way
Raiding should be the Formula 1 race of MMOS
And without meters its just a poorer experience
The argument against damage meters
Is that it encourages elitist players
Well those people are always going to be elitists
And they are still going to kick you from raids
With most End Game content being about
Maximum skill, awareness, strategy and dps, heal, and threat numbers
The only thing they will have to judge you by is your gearscore
Then that’s what you will be judged by instead
Its simple if you don’t like Elitist mofos
Then don’t play with them
But even for casual raiders
Meters are very useful tools to help work out whats going wrong
Or how you can change your strategy to defeat a boss
The real reason some game companies don’t introduce meters
Is they highlight class imbalances
They pressure the game to balance every class at every level especially end game
And do that simultaneously for both PVE and PVP!
And that’s not easy to do
If they get it wrong people will rage quit
Without Meters the company can focus more on just balancing the PVP damage and abilities
And not worry so much about the PVE balancing
You simply cannot know without meters
But TERA should just get to work on this and make things right
It would add so much to the already awesome action combat

– Boss Mechanics
I overlooked a mechanic that seemed to be in every BAM (Big Ass Monster)
As i was leveling because everything else in the game was so great
I was a bit in awe with the whole MMO
But now that I have completed a few dungeons and have nearly reached 60
I see a real pattern with the mechanics on every Boss fight
I question weather i really want to play a game
Where giant 40 foot monsters sole mechanic
Is to randomly leap or flip flop all over the place like a circus clown
Its unnecessary and ridiculous!
Great Boss fight mechanics would be
To have the tank hold a monsters threat and face him away from the raid
Or everyone dies
Or Kite him from 1 area to another
Or everyone dies
Or a straight up DPS race to kill the boss
Before everyone dies
With Cleaves or Tail swipes for mellee range
And Fireballs or Lava pools for ranged members
Or Waves of Minions
Or Imunity Pillars that need to be destroyed
Or Special Areas to run to to avoid certain wide range abilities
Or everyone dies
But why does a 40 foot monster need to flip flop through the air
On every single fight
A 40 foot badass monster
Doesn’t need to fall over itself or randomly jump all over the place
Like it has no control over itself
It happens on every Boss fight in the game
Its really worrying
I’m going to wait till 60 and see if this continues
But this is a very big let down for my expectations for End Game PVE
Having awesome monsters and graphics with real time action combat skills
Was just too good to be true
Some goofball had to throw in this random flip flop garbage mechanic to every boss fight

– The crosshair vs the interface and cursor
One problem inherent with the design of the game
Is that both the cursor and the cross-hair are aimed with the mouse
So you cannot control them independently at the same time
So they give us either a cross-hair or a cursor
The default settings
Is if you move in the game you will automatically be given the cross-hair
And to get the cursor you need to press ALT
The cross-hair is used to aim your attacks or heals
And the cursor is used to select monsters or to interact with other players or the interface
The problem is,
Switching back n forth from a cross-hair to a cursor is a clunky an immerse breaking experience
You have to stop moving, manually press Cursor mode
And stand still like a chump while you position the cursor over a monster
Then you have to click on them 1 by 1 and wait for the portrait and health bars to show
Or for a player you have to click on them and wait for the drop down menu
In order to interact with them such as whisper or invite to party
You must stand still for all of this or autorun without changing direction
While riding a horse you get neither
You have to dismount and then stand still
As a new player I felt the interface toggling back and forth was completely ridiculous
After 55 levels its still clunky and ridiculous
All your combat abilities should still need to be aimed with the cross-hair
But let me choose whether I want a cross-hair or a cursor
So i don’t have to fight the interface which is more difficult than a boss
Pressing ALT once should give me the cursor
Pressing ALT again should give me the cross-hair
It should not automatically switch to a cross-hair whenever I move
The cursor itself should be a cool dragon claw instead of a windows 98 cursor
And there should more mouse-over features
Things like a small tool-tip for monster or player types and levels with a mini health-bar

-update
I didn’t realise until I got to level 60
But you can go into the settings and select ‘mouse for UI only’
And this option will stop the cross-hair from automatically toggling back when you move
You will now be able to use your movement keys and use the cursor when you want
So the toggle is fully manual. Just press alt to switch
I literally want to kill the designer who had this disabled by default
It was the single worst experience in the game for me

– Some missing features for the interface
Rather than the old school pop up windows
I would prefer a thin top hud and drop down sections for things
So you could see how many frends or guild memebrs are on
Then mouse over that to get an intractable list
Same with invetory or any of the menus
A mouse over drop down is cooler and faster

– The maps needs real time zoom and some more features

– Guild management is total garbage!
As a Guild Leader you are only allowed 1 line of text to write all of your Guild information.
You can fit about 7 words if your lucky, and links are not allowed so you cannot even link to your Guild website
Its ridiculous
The bank is worse,
You only have 2 settings
You can either allow a particular rank 100% full withdrawal access to all gold and items
Or 0 access
There is no in-between
You have 0 safeguards
Not even a way to give a few gold per day to low level players
Its all or nothing

– Lack of Australian, New Zealand, Late night USA players
Most players i have encountered so far are from Russia, Brazil or non English speaking Countries
Aussies are there but we are spread out at this point and hard to find
 

Tera is a great experience right out of the box
I really enjoyed playing it up to level 60
But I no longer play the game now
They have made no improvements to any of the features I feel are bad or missing
And the cash shop filling the game with childish fairy floss weapons
And board shorts for surfer doods is like the nail in the coffin
It just doesn’t seem worth playing beyond 60

Tera Official Website
Tera on Youtube
Tera on Twitter
Tera on Facebook

http://tera-forums.enmasse.com/forums/general-discussion/topics/Unable-to-Retrieve-ManifestDownload-MetadataFollow these instructions: 
Step 1: Right Click on your Notepad icon and select “Run As Administrator”
Step 2: Navigate to the HOST file directory: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc
Step 3: Set View to “All Files” so you may see the host file
Step 4: Paste this line below the existing text208.111.148.7 patch.tera.enmasse-game.com 
Step 5: Save the file
Step 6: Restart your TERA Launcher

If all that gets things working again and then weeks later it stops working,
Well just remove the line from the host file again.
The above worked for me anyways.