Pre-View: TERA Online

Hey all, Little Miss Squish here! Sorry I haven't posted in... well, god knows how long. School has been kicking my butt with graduation and classes and all, so I haven't had much time for trying new games. I promise come summer I'll be a lot more active. I have, however, been keeping up with the up-and-coming games of 2012 that I'm interested in. One of these games is TERA. I don't know whether or not a lot of news related to the game has been circulating around MMO/game sites or blogs or anything. But I found it kind of by accident, to be honest. I had been looking for new up-and-coming MMOs to try out and this was listed on most of the sites I happened upon on Google. I looked it up and I WANT IT SO BADLY.

TERA Online is scheduled to be released May 1, 2012. I'm very, very excited. From what I've seen in interviews and videos, this game is supposed to be ground-breaking, similar to RIFT, but for different reasons. What separates TERA from everything else? Why would I want to play it so badly? Well, there are a few reasons.

1) It looks REALLY FRICKIN' PRETTY.

I mean, look at this screenshot! 

(taken from the TERA Online website)

There's an extreme level of detail in this world, very much like RIFT's world. I don't know if there's a general trend in the industry now toward more detailed, vivid graphics or if I just happen to find games that are really beautiful. Either way, the colors are very rich, very vibrant, and the world feels alive, which I don't really find in a lot of MMOs these days. The races that you play in game look like they belong to this world, which I appreciate. Not to say that others MMOs don't, but TERA really tries to make that happen.

2) Innovative Combat System ("Action Combat System", "True Action Combat")

As most of the TERA interviews/videos will tell you, the MMO combat standard is locked-target, auto-attack style combat. Basically, you click on a monster, you start automatically bashin' it upside the head, and you have the option of using skills if you so choose during the battle. TERA is completely different, or at least, that's how they're planning it. You have to react and act to the enemy before you as if you were actually the character in a combat situation; you have to move to dodge, aim your mouse/crosshairs to attack accurately, and be able to survive a fight. Interestingly enough, I saw in a Q&A interview online that TERA relies more on player skill than player gear and level. I appreciate this. I hope it works out well.

Check out this video which highlights the combat system in the game.

3) Race/Class Systems

This is what I really, really love. Of course, TERA has a variety of races-- 7 in total-- each with their own looks and benefits. What I like is that while there are the MMO standard Elves and Humans, there are also different approaches to other "standards" (if you can call them that?) of MMOs. There are demon-like, animal-like, and golem-like races, but they're not quite what you've seen in other MMOs before. The races really appeal to all sorts of player aesthetics where most other MMOs focus on a handful at most. There are the traditional figures, like Humans; there are more "cute" styles, like the Elin and the Popori; there are more sleek and sexy looks, like the Castanics and High Elves; there are more big-and-tough (like steak?) styles, like the Aman and Baraka. And despite the variety of looks, all of the races seem to fit into the world, like I said earlier. Some races in games just seem to be thrown in there for little explanation. But the best way I can think to describe it is that while other games seem to drop races into the environment, TERA seems to pull races out of the environment. At least what I've seen so far.

This is a comparison of the races available. Taken from http://teraguides.wordpress.com/

I find it interesting to note that the Baraka (third from the left in the photo) are labelled "genderless." I haven't seen that in an MMO before but I think it's kinda cool. The Popori and Elin (two most right, respectively), are gender-locked, unfortunately, but they seem to be... pedo-bait anyway, so I don't really mind. I like the look of the Elin, but I would have appreciated to see both races have both genders.


In terms of classes, there are obviously a lot to choose from, with 8 classes. There's a class for every play style, basically, from what I understand. What I like is that the classes are not race- or gender-restricted, like other MMOs. It was one of the first things I looked for when I was looking at the game, 'cause I wanted to know which races allowed healers, and if only females could be healers, as I have seen in the past. Thankfully, that isn't the case with TERA. Seeing as how BMB! focuses on healers in MMOs, I'll only cover the two healing classes in the game: Priests and Mystics.

In terms of which is the "better" healer, from what I've heard from player comparison guides, both classes can solo heal all content released as of this moment. What differs between the two classes is more their styles of combat and healing, obviously. Priests, from what I understand, are more AoE/burst healing types while Mystics have more HoT-style healing. Priests also have (I think?) more variety of healing skills available while Mystics sacrifice the variety of heals for crowd-control and buff abilities. I've heard Priests as being more "defensive" type healers while Mystics as more "Offensive" healers. As of right now, only Priests have shields, but I've heard that Mystics will also receive shields in the next patch release.

To be honest, I thought Mystics, hearing the name, were just other caster-classes. Glancing over their skills and others' information about them, they seem to be more of a jack-of-all-trades (sort of) class than straight-up healer; I see them as being more of a dps/heal class, where depending on how the player has geared and/or specced (or whatever the systems are in TERA) their character would determine what role they fill in a party. The Priest seems the more natural type of healer in my opinion, while the Mystic seems more the off-heal, "emergency" back-up heal. But then again, I haven't played either class, so I don't know just yet.

There are other things that are fascinating about this game, such as the political system, but I don't know much about them as of yet to talk about them. These three things I've discussed are what typically draw me into an MMO to start with (strangely in that order, for the most part...) and I look to see what else makes the game unique or interesting. I'm really, really anxious for this game to come out. It looks like it might set the bar for other games in the industry. I hope that I can participate in the next closed beta testing that's happening in roughly a week, I'd like to be able to look at it myself.

Hope that you are looking forward to seeing this game as much as I am! I'll try to make new posts more frequently, I swear! Anyway, I hope this entertained you for a little while. This is Little Miss Squish signin' out!