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My Opinion of TERA
SuperXero89
Member UncommonPosts: 2,551
I originally posted this as a response to the "Calling Out Trolls/Haters" thread which was locked before I could finish writing my post thanks to our infamous reactionary moderators. I didn't spend all this time writing this out for no reason, so here it is.
First of all, lets take a look at the questing. Speaking only from the first 32 levels or so, you only have one path. Every race/class starts out in the same starting area and embarks on the same linear quest chain as every other race/class with absolutely no deviation whatsoever. It would be hard enough for me to fathom rolling one alt much less two or three in the game's current state. It doesn't help maters that the quest in TERA are almost all kill x of y quests with little to no deviation in style or substance. Take a look at WoW, Vanguard, LotRO, Guild Wars 2, Warhammer Online, and SW:TOR. All of these games were released within the last five years except WoW which was released in 2004 and GW2 which has yet to be released and all of them at least have multiple starting zones. WoW has plenty of options as which zones you can quest in at different level ranges. Do you quest in Northern Barrens? Silverpine? At level 20 do you go to Duskwood? How about Ashenvale? Wetlands? Though SW:TOR has linear quest progression compared to WoW, at least all the classes have a unique storyline, and the zones offer completely different quests between Republic and Empire players. In TERA it's the same old song and dance for every single race and every single class.
The quests in TERA are a lot like the quests in other Korean F2P and even P2P MMORPGs that have tried to emulate WoW to a certain degree in hopes of finding greater success, just endless chains of kill quests to give the illusion that you're doing something other than grinding mobs for hours. Around level 30, you start getting quests that want you to kill 15+ of one mob or 10 of one and 10 of another. EnMasse spoke about improving the quests and the newbie experience. Aside from the 5 minute long tutorial after character creation, I can't tell that they've done much of anything to improve the quality of quests. Don't all MMORPGs have you killing mobs over and over again though? Sure they do, but the difference is in the way they do it. There are so many quests in both WoW and SW:TOR that are far more original and more fun than the endless barrage of kill quests found in TERA. In WoW, you can man turret guns on airplanes, you can drive tanks, and you can hyjack dragons flying up the peak of a mountain. Even with SW:TOR's kill quests, the storyline draws you into the quest and it feels more importan than simply going out to kill 10 generic hyenas. It's painfully clear that EnMasse and BluHole added these quests in an attempt at Westernization, and while TERA now has plenty of quests, that doesn't speak for the quality.
The much vaunted BAMs are just kill quests that you do with a group. I'm not even sure if they're repeatable. I guess some of them are, but for a lot of them, you group up with other playres, kill 2 or 3 BAMs then disband and turn in the quest.
TERA is grindy. Those of you spouting "LOLZ LEVELING IN TERA IS EZ!!!" only show you don't know what your'e talking about. The term "grind" does not only apply to leveling speed. In terms of progression your character, from the moment you log in to the moment you log out, you're killing mobs over and over again watching the mob count on your kill quests get suspiciously higher and higher. There is no deviation from this whatsoever. You're doing the same laborous task over and over again. That is still a grind. In that sense, TERA is more of a grind than WoW even though you can possibly reach the level cap faster in TERA than you can in WoW.
The graphics are overrated. Sure, the character models are detailed and the textures on the armor are top notch, but the environmental textures are mediocre and rely on superb art direction and cheap lighting tricks to give the impression that what you're looking at is a technical masterpiece. In reality, it's a lot like Aion in that the character models are detailed, but the world textures are sub-par. You may not notice this in TERA quite like you noticed it in Aion as it's not as prevalent. Some zones, particularly the new tutorial zone look absolutely amazing in every way, but others, most notably the various open field zones you enter such as Celestial Hills and Valley of the Titans are just flat green (or orange int he case of Celestial Hills) ground textures with blurry grey textures representing rocky mountainsides. Everyone goes crazy of the graphics in those zones because of the view distance and because of the lighting effects. The open beta test is over, so I can't log into the game to post a screenshot of a particularly telling area of Celestial Hills; however, you can at least look at the second TERA screenshot in my gallery. I'm standing in a desert, and while the art direction is nice, graphically, it doesn't look nearly as impressive as Vanguard or Age of Conan. It doesn't come close to touching the amazing graphics seen in the screenshots on the official site. I've yet to really see anything in the game that looks as good. Other western games like WoW, LoTRO, WAR, and SW:TOR may not have the greatest graphics, but at least their graphics are consistant. throughout rather than amazing in some places and half-assed in others.
I log into TERA for a couple hours a day, and I have fun, but I'm burned out on World of Warcraft, and I've already played through all the content in SW:TOR that I can play through without a steady, endgame focused guild. I see TERA as a stopgap between SW:TOR/WoW and Guild Wars 2. I can think of no redeeming qualities whatsoever sans the unique, Monster Hunter-like combat system that will keep me playing TERA over Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, ArcheAge, or even that F2P Neverwinter MMO that's coming out soon.
Comments
Yes its linear through 20 but more zone do open up, i know i skip good 4-6 zones from 20-38. I only notice them as we went there for GvG.
Also has anyone EVER EVER consider the constrant mmorpgs companys work with? I'm sorry but every be fucking realistic for one second and think about it. To make a mmorpg cost over 30m+. Tera cost roughly some where between i think 40-50milion. Most of you will never even see 1 million dollar. This is A LOT OF MONEY for a brand NEW developing company. So you have limited money means you have limited resource and time to use that money to make a game (thats decent) so you can sell it before you go bankrupt.
So Tera combat is something very well polished and new. So programing it was proabaly hell to say the least. Full collison detection, aim base combat, and class balances. I'm sorry but doing something first usual require a lot of money so its not hard to see most of the funding for Tera went in to polishing up its combat. So because of limited resource, they decide to stick in a more linear quest line. Do all of you think quest are programmed in w/o cost or something? The amount of work to put in a new zone? Hell swtor spend 200m to make quesiton great in their game. WoW from what i heard started out with boring quest and slowly patched it over time to its current state. So would people have like it better if it had multi starter zone, many quest route but the same old combat? No it be horrible.
As for GW2, not many people have even played it so not going to talk about it. While the DE sounds nice, the combat is more close to same tab targetting. Which shows even with funding you can only do so much. Also GW2 couldn't do full collsion, only collsion with monster your fighing because full collsion was too hard/too costly for them to program. Just show how hard Tera's combat was to make.
All BAM quest are repeatable and they stack up to 10 times. So quest to kill 2 BAM you can kill 20 and turn in 10 at once.
The grindy thing, isn't that ever other mmorpgs? In WoW you kill thing to progress, in rift you kill thing to progress, even in GW2 you kill thing to progress. MMORPG are grindy by nature, their whole purpose is to eat up as much time as you have to make you keep playing it.
Graphic wise might be your setting, what do you have your setting on? And the lighting is over bright on defult i always tone it down, feel too fussy with the heavy brightness.
Just because combat isn't a redeeming quality for you doesn't mean its not for other people. For me I don't think GW2's DE or none progression is redeeming quality for me to buy the game, why? For one PvE is all the same to me, either I grind or quest. DE to me is just other grind, honestly could care less about how it effect the world, i probablly be annoyed as hell by it because if DE mess with where i need to go and i end up having to spend hours clearing a damn DE to do certain things in an area. And well i like progression, so GW2 lacking that sucks for me. At least progression make it feel when I stop playing and look back felt like i did something than just sat done and wasted 8hrs of my life (i mean its a waste but at least it doesn't feel like a waste with progression)
very good, rational review. I appreciate that.
Yep, in a much longer way of saying it, it will be a stop gap for many people. The newness of Tera wears off, very quickly IMO. As I said before, I would rather take the $60 X 2 and take my wife out for a fun night then play Tera.
Of course most of the things you wrote are your opinions, so i won't comment on them.
There are some points though that are presented more as facts, I'd like to comment on those.
1) "TERA is grindy. Those of you spouting "LOLZ LEVELING IN TERA IS EZ!!!" only show you don't know what your'e talking about."
No actually you both don't know what you are talking about, grind is the act of repeating a boring task, usually killing mobs, with the purpose of leveling up. You don't have to belive me, you can read it here: Wikipedia.
So it really come down to what a player find boring, if you like the combat system in Tera and therefore you like to kill mobs you are not grinding.
2) Every BAM has a repeatable quest associated, but usually the killing pay a lot more of the quest in both experience and loot.
3) You assessement of the graphic is a really funny.
Let's say that the engine is Unreal Engine 3 the same used for: Batman Arkham Asylum, Gear of War 1/2/3, Homefront, Mass Effect 1/2/3 just to name some. I think this speak volume of the quality of this engine.
Then you say that the art directions is great.
So since the graphic of the game be broken down to two main element the first being the techincal aspect the other the artistical aspect, you are really making no sense.
"...cheap lighting tricks to give the impression..." Games are illusions, if an art director manage to convey the sense of disbelief by the use of light color or in whatsoever way is called talent, not a cheap tricks.
The world texture are in no way sub par, they are well defined, there are some point in the world where they are stretched and they lose definition, but this in no way marks them as being sub par.
I can't comment on AoC, cause i dislike the art style of that game so I will be biased, but comparing Tera graphic to Aion from a techincal stand point is ludicrous.
1) "TERA is grindy. Those of you spouting "LOLZ LEVELING IN TERA IS EZ!!!" only show you don't know what your'e talking about."
No actually you both don't know what you are talking about, grind is the act of repeating a boring task, usually killing mobs, with the purpose of leveling up. You don't have to belive me, you can read it here: Wikipedia.
So it really come down to what a player find boring, if you like the combat system in Tera and therefore you like to kill mobs you are not grinding.
I like killing mobs, but doing the same repetitive task for hours on end simply isn't very much fun at all. Even if you played a game like Lineage II in its prime, I doubt you went through the entire game without ever once feeling burnt out by killing mobs over and over again. You do it long enough, it becomes a grind. TERA's quest progression is grindy. The only difference is how much more of a grindy certain players can stomach than others.
Again, for something to be considered grind it has to be boring, so you can say FOR ME is boring and so it's grind, you can't say "people doesn't know what they are talking about Tera is grindy".
3) You assessement of the graphic is a really funny.
Let's say that the engine is Unreal Engine 3 the same used for: Batman Arkham Asylum, Gear of War 1/2/3, Homefront, Mass Effect 1/2/3 just to name some. I think this speak volume of the quality of this engine.
TERA looks nothing like any of those games. Saying TERA's graphics are overrated isn't speaking at all about the game engine.
Actually, it does from a technical standpoint.
Then you say that the art directions is great.
So since the graphic of the game be broken down to two main element the first being the techincal aspect the other the artistical aspect, you are really making no sense
They are two completely different things. When people say the graphics are some of the best they've ever seen, they should be referring to the art direction unless they really haven't played a whole lot of video games before.
People say that it's one of the best graphic they seen in a MMORPG and i tend to agree. And trust me i played a lot of MMORPG. So again is not a fact is pure opinion.
"...cheap lighting tricks to give the impression..." Games are illusions, if an art director manage to convey the sense of disbelief by the use of light color or in whatsoever way is called talent, not a cheap tricks.
Play a game like Vanguard then come back and talk to me about graphics. Some zones in Vanguard suffer from a different sort of texture issue, I'll give you that, but even though you can see way off in the distance in every direction, everything you see in front of you is modeled in real time with razor sharp texture quality. A mountain in TERA is just a poorly textured lump in the geometry with a blur effect pasted on, and honestly, because I see it for what it is, it doesn't always impress me that much.
You are mixing everything now, if you are telling me that Vanguard is better than Tera graphically, we can stop arguing here, cause we are really wasting time.
If you are saying that from an art direction point of view you prefer Vanguard, fine but again, opinion.
The world texture are in no way sub par, they are well defined, there are some point in the world where they are stretched and they lose definition, but this in no way marks them as being sub par.
lol, whatever you want to call it. You just admitted certain environments look worse than others. Some look extremely bad. I don't have access to the game right now to show you, but the textures are quite inconsistant across zones. I'm tired of suffering through threads of people saying TERA has the best graphics of any MMORPG out there. I'm even tired of people saying TERA has better graphics than Guild Wars 2 because it doesn't.
I still have to find an enviroment that look bad (to me) on TERA. If a lot of people, even people who dislike the game, keep saying that TERA has one of the best graphic out there, don't you think you may be the one who see things differently? Or you are the only one who can see in a word of blinds?
I'm not going to comment on GW 2 cause i didn't play it yet, next week i'll try it than i'll be able to judge the graphic of the game. At the moment i can only say that from an artistic point of view i prefer Tera to what i saw of GW2, but that's a total personal taste, and it's based on video and screenshot.
No, if you think TERA has some of the best graphics yet seen in an MMORPG you either haven't played enough MMORPGs or you're simply biased, as if the fact that nearly all your recent posts were written in reference to TERA (currently browsing on my 9th page of posts). I don't see how you can claim objectivity yet say some of the things that you have said. Just look at both screenshots in my gallery. If either of those screenshots represent to you some of the best graphics ever seen in an MMORPG then you clearly haven't played enough MMOs no matter what you tell me. Right off the top of my head, Final Fantasy XIV blows TERA right out of the water, and it's not even a contest.
I don't think I'm the "only" person who feels this way, but even if I am amongst a world of blinds, I felt the same way about Rift when everyone was telling me that it's graphics were so amazing.
He said there are people who SAYS Tera has the best graphics, by no mean did he say Tera does have the best graphic while you claim it is over rated.
Also he never said he was staying objective. The whole point of his post was to point out that many thing you claim to be facts are not objective and are very subjective to what each indiviual feels about it.
I had to uninstall TERA after a day due to the stop to cast an instant was driving me insane. I devolved into a click fest with me standing in front of the mob...no smooth fluid combat to be found (As some have called it).
I like grinding, I love and still play EQ1...so that's not an issue. But make the combat stop/start clickfests and they lost me.
If you are asking me if I prefer this:
to this:
My answer is, you can bet on it.
PS: You are biased as well, you started to criticize this game long before you tryed it. The difference is that you like GW2 and dislike Tera. I like both, this put me in the position of not having an agenda.
In this regard, I received by BWE invitation, i started the download and i'm going to take a shower, so my next answer can not be on time
I played the beta..
PROS:
1. Awesome character models.
2. Beautiful graphics.
3. Cool combat system.
CONS:
1. Poorly designed quest system.
2. Repetitve gameplay.
3. Wacky UI.
4. Repetitve gameplay.
5. Boring open world.
6. Repetitve gamplay.
Just not my cup of tea. I had the same issues with Aion.
If you're trying to prove that FFXIV has superior textures then you did a great job. Here's more proof:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/76816219@N02/6965122274/
^^^^ not even max settings
THAT is part of what we're talking about here not whether you like the visual appeal of one screenshot over the other. This links back to what I said all the way on page 1. People who keep saying TERA has some of the most beautiful graphics ever seen in an MMORPG have to be refering to art style or they simply haven't played enough MMOs.
Next, how is it that you reached so far back in my post history to determine I had it out for TERA before I played it (can I have a link showing where you deduced this information?) yet you failed to see all those threads where I got blasted by GW2 fanboys for criticizing that game as well? Your post history, on the other hand, is 98% filled with posts about TERA, and you don't even have a single screenshot in your gallery not related to TERA.
That looks like a great picture but a horrible game world. To me it doesn't feel alive at all, just a very pretty painting
I guess your just not an action combat person than.
@rex: I said that Tera has one of the best graphic in the mmorpg world and I stand by it, that doesn't mean is the absolute best, there are other really good engine out there technically speaking. Artistically everyne can have differente taste.
Just to be clear on grind:
Grinding is a term used in video gaming to describe the process of engaging in repetitive and boring tasks not pertaining to the story line of the game. The most common usage is in the context of MMORPGs like Final Fantasy XI, World of Warcraft, Tibia, or Lineage in which it is often necessary for a character to repeatedly kill AI-controlled monsters, using basically the same strategy over again to advance their character level to be able to access newer content.
So, reptitive and boring, since almost all Tera fans agree that the combat is fun and always different, they can't perceive the mobs killing as grind.
FFXIV looks great. Too bad the terain is copy&pasted all over the place and the engine is so horribly optimized that they are REBUILDING THE ENTIRE FKIN THING.
I didn't say it does not, I just said that the Unreal Engine 3 is superior to the FFXIV engine, i don't think there is any doubt here. I'm not commenting on art style case is subjective.
Heh.
Using it as examples, i can use SWTOR if it helps lol. SWTOR shings in the story, the story is on level with singler player games. I don't care much for compain because i see it as mean to a end. So to me SWTOR doesn't have any thing thats stand out for me. Does that mean it doesn't for everyone else? no because obvious some people loved it.
To the OP, stop getting a wedgie over this "linear" progression. Because every single game you mentioned has linear progression. Your only example you could come up with (and it's the same for all games) was that World of Warcraft had different BEGINNING zones.
So fantastic, play your first 20-25 levels in your own, personal fancy world, but after that all those games all come to a point and meet up and all start leveling in the same area. Stranglethorn Vale? Yeah, that's where both factions met up to introduce the potential for open-world PvP, and then from there 99% of where you go is a linear progression where everyone goes down the same line. The expansions? Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm? 100% linear progression with 0 room for deviation.
So every game has a linear progression, I'm sorry that some games can shroud it from you better than others. But remove your blinders and stop being so tunnelvisioned and realize that most of what you said is easily found in every other game.
This game just finished BETA phase and is going to Day 1 of release. Think of every game you've ever played at release and tell me if it's been 100% perfect for you. TERA is from a relatively new production company, give it time and let them make the improvements that every game makes over its lifetime.
It's a solid game with some cool innovative features and a lot more depth throughout the game that people give it credit for.
Yeah, that right there discredits you. Tera, just like all MMOs, even WoW, is just a game that picks up ideas and features of other games, and tries to execute them all to work together to make a really good product. Personally Tera didn't do it for me, but that's just my opinion and many, MANY people will disagree with me. But to say this game is innovative is calling WoW innovative.
WoW was innovative when it was released, how the hell do you think they manage to get such a huge player data base that no other mmorpg can even hope to touch? Accoring to your concept no game have innovatoin at all because if you boil down everything all mmorpgs are the same.
WoW was innovative whether you want to admit it or not. It was the first game to start alleviating what they called areas of player pain i.e. hour long corpse runs, losing xp on death, losing items on death, etc. Bringing more casual players into a previously very hardcore genre was innovative.
On topic: I agree that innovative is not the right word when describing Tera.
Every MMO has the same concepts and features as other before them. What made WoW spike so fast? Well, you have the Warcraft name itself along with Blizzard, so you get a lot of people hyped for the game right there (see TOR as well) but what they did great was the exection of such features, which features from other games they combined, and made them all work together. Tera, GW2, and whatever else will be coming out will be the same thing. Many different features from other games, combined in a way they see will work together, and how they do in the long haul depends on how the execution of the game is. Warhammer had great ideas, concepts, and features. Sadly, the execution was lacking badly.
Removing some of the more 'hardcore' death penilties doesn't count as being innovative. And bringing more casual players into the genre came down to how they executed the game.