So, I was able to Beta test this game over the past week, after following the development for like over a year and was given a free code to get in. Woot for wins. I don't know if you guys are interested in this type of MMO but let me lay out some of the Pros and Cons I've witnessed so far. PROS: Customization - the character creation is fantastic. This is only Week 2 of beta testing and there are already so many options on face/body/hair that is crazy. You can literally make your own face if you are dedicated enough. Unless you have a cleft chin...then you are SOL...for now. Fighting style - I tried out 3 different classes: Summoner - (Lyn characters only) I like it. But have decided that it isn't really for me, more in the Cons section. Blade Dancer - (Lyn only again...what can I say? They are so freaking cute) I loved this fighting style. Very mobile, great combos. I think this will probably be the power I choose to play with unless I discover another class I like better. Kung Fu Master - (Jin -one I made, Gon, Yun) this is considered one of the more difficult powers to master, but I really liked it. Very in your face, nice combos. I didn't spend too much time in this class since I really loved the Blade Dancer... Graphics - very smooth, very clean and the worlds/areas are just so polished. Questing - I really liked the side quests, they were well laid out and hard to miss. Since I am a fan of side quests this was great. Story - I liked the story, the bad guys (or gal mostly) are bad while the good guys are great. CONS: Customization - At least for the Lyn characters the ears and tails cannot have the color changed, totally should be able to change the colors. Fighting Style: Summoner - it was a bit "too easy" and cutesy. As of now, you can only choose a cat for your familiar, and I would like more options, maybe they have different familiars later in game, but I don't know. They have an all female race, but they do not have an all male race. I know that it is probably too late to add in another race all together but I do not like this. As of now, they do not allow spaces in names, I hope they change this in the future. Someone had already created a "BlackDawn" I had such an enjoyable experience that I bought one of the founders packs...thus giving me access to the rest of the closed beta testing weeks. My husband says I'm a sucker since companies used to have to pay people to beta test...I think he is right...I just don't care.
Your husband is right and you should care because you're helping the gaming industry become even greedier than it already is! But yeah, BnS is cool I played for 6 months on the TW servers with BD and KFM. I ended up focusing mostly on my Blade dancer because with 350 ping, PvP with KFM is just impossible. Im kind of surprised you listed questing in your pros list, for me it was so boring and repetitive, just like any other MMO and the story was nothing special imo. Maybe I've been too spoiled by Blizzard when it comes to stories so I expect each game to have the same quality in their lore. I think the biggest pros of the game are the PvP balance, combat mechanics, no P2W cash shop, each class feels and plays different and the skill tree system which lets you customize your combos and augment your powers. Biggest cons for me were: endgame PvE is underwhelming, most of the time I was doing 6 man dungeons solo because I just didnt want to wait in the queue lobby which doesnt let you do anything, so you just stare at your character while the dungeon finder does its thing. I dont like the artstyle of the game, but Im probably in the minority here since most people love it. Gender and race locks for specific classes annoyed me, oversexualized characters and outfits, but it seems all Asian MMOs do this so ... a friend of mine was right when he called it Boobs and Soul I think the pros heavily outweigh the cons and people interested in fighting style MMO with semi action combat with more focus on PvP should give it a chance.
Ah I really value your insight. I wasn't able to get to end game so that is valuable to know. The PVP did catch me a bit off guard since I wasn't paying attention...and not smacked down lots of times. I was also uncomfortable with the sexualization of the characters which is probably why I liked making Lyn characters since they are more cute than sexy. And made a guy for my Kung Fu Master. I do need to play more to get to end game, to really test out what the game is like, but for now I'm enjoying the leveling.
Well thats good if you enjoy the leveling, you'll probably like PvE endgame as well. The thing with endgame PvE is that once you are comfortable handling your class at a high level you can solo the dungeons. Since there's no haler class, all mechanics revolve around dodging, blocking, kiting and killing fast. This is extremely challenging but it got boring for me after some time, so I ended up PvPing all the time. But that's just me, I get bored easily ... Once its released next year, I'll probably start playing on the EU/NA servers, depends where my Tera guildies want to play, so I can experience the game with normal ping. My plan was to play Tera while Im waiting for BnS' release in the west, but I kind of started enjoying Tera more ... probably because its got much better PvE and the combat just feels right for me. Lyn master race, I'll jut leave it at that
OK I'll try to make a good list of what imo is good and bad. Huge text ahead The highest selling point of Tera its the combat system, its just so good. In many ways its very similar to BnS, it revolves around combos, skill chains, dodging, aiming, countering and outmaneuvering your opponents. You have the holy trinity of DPS, Heal and Tank so dungeons have more diversity than BnS. But it takes you to get to level 30 or so until you really start experiencing it with the chains and combos and then once you reach max level and start running end game content you'll realize that you know practically nothing about your class. This for me personally was the thing that kept me in the game, I had so much to learn and explore the world and my character. Diverse classes, tons of ways to customize stats on your characters, you can theory craft about what build is better until the end of times, basically there's no cookie cutter option everyone uses. The game is too beautiful, but at the same time, it requires a good PC to run it on high settings. Any PC can run it though, but for good settings you need a good PC. Its got a good balance of solo end game content and group content, as well as PvP. You got built in 5 armories in your character screen so you can change gear and skill points for different scenarios. They offer a BuddyUp program, basically an existing member sends you a code and as you level up you get rewards, you have to be on the same server though. Once you reach max level you get a +12 scroll, which is basically a free enchanting to +12 on any piece of gear. This is like someone giving you nearly 50k gold or thats like the equivalent of 2 weeks of grinding, and that's huge in Tera. On top of that you get 3 days of subscription so you can experience the game with all the bells and whistles. Free members can enjoy the game in its entirety, you are not capped after a certain tier, all dungeons are opened to you, except paying members can enter each dungeon 4 times a day, free players can only do it 2 times a day and they receive half the credits (same as MoV in DCUO). So practically paying members receive 4 times more credits per day. There are other small differences between free and subs, mostly quality of life improvements, but these two are the main ones. Leveling dungeons are easy and you learn very little from them, but end game dungeons are very challenging, you are always fighting huge bosses with lots of mechanics and environmental mechanics as well, that require good team work. There's a very wide range of randomness in the dungeons, so they rarely feel the same. Lots of ingame help for new players. The official youtube channel has guides for every class, the official website has all the info you need for gear, dungeons, classes, guides, you name it. It can be overwhelming for new players though as the game has many layers. Leveling has moderate difficulty, not too hard, but not too easy. You have BAMs in the open world (Big *** Monsters, yes thats how they call them officially) that are very challenging, you can try solo them which is possible, or you can group up with others. Its got huge open world. Dungeon portals are spread across the world so everywhere you go you see people in the open world, which is nice. You can either queue for dungeons and test your luck with pugs, or make your own group and take a teleporter, each dungeon has its own teleporter. You cant queue in low level dungeons, you can only go through a teleporter, so you'll never end up with high level player carrying you, unless you ask someone to. Yep I'm not taking a jab at DCUO at all here Each guild can upload their own icon and its displayed next to your character, which is so cool. Diverse races, some gender and class locked, but only 3 out of 10. Same as in BnS, the most popular race is tiny cute girls, called Elins. Its advisable to pick an Elin because the size of the character matters in this game, hitboxes are smaller and they give you a very small advantage in dungeons and in PvP. There is no score card, this is the first MMO im playing without a scorecard and I have to say there's less toxicity. You have a addon for DPS measuring though, but a tiny fraction of leet players use it. Bad things: leveling sucks, its just as bad as BnS, but if you liked it there, perhaps you'll like it in Tera as well. When you start the game you have a very stupid tutorial until you reach level 11, I cringed trough it, but once you're pass that (which takes like 30-40 minutes) the game picks up on the pace. Community can be ridiculous with the dungeon requirements, its very newb unfriendly, you need friends or guild to show you the ropes, at least for the hard mode dungeons. This is the same mentality in every MMO, so its not surprising. Tera is no different. I've always held the belief that if you want to play a MMO you need to grow a thick skin, dont ***** and whine just get good. Its got P2W elements because you can buy crafting materials from the cash shop. Good thing is that everything from the cash shop is tradable, so if you're good at making gold in the game you can speed up your gearing up process, which is what I do for instance. Subscriptions are also tradable so you can buy them from the ingame trade broker. Basically the ingame currency is worth quite a lot because Tera has a very good ingame economy, so like I said, if you're good at making ingame gold you wont have to spend a dime for the game. I just buy my subscription and then everything else from the trade broker. Not sure what else to say, except that never ever go on the EU version of Tera even if you're from EU, download the game from the NA publisher EnMasse. If you pick the Ascension Valley server, I'd be happy to show you the ropes, I can give you a BuddyUP code for those sweet rewards I mentioned earlier. Perhaps these 2 videos can give you a better idea of what to expect . It touches upon the early levels and give you a good idea of how to progress. The second one gives you an idea of how the different classes, races and mounts look like.
Gotta say that looks pretty cool. I may have to think about picking that up. Thank you for the write up, I love the fact that leagues can create their own emblem. (side question: do they have to be "approved" or does anything go? If anything goes, are people gross about it or take it seriously? Just curious) I have a pretty great rig so I'm not too worried about graphics, maybe I'll see about getting the husband to try this out with me. Thanks for all the information!
Yeah the game looks fantastic, characters are so detailed, costumes are amazing, animations are so cool and dynamic and if you have a good rig then you'll experience the game so much better. One thing which I forgot to add as a pro is that the UI is fully customizable, which I find very useful. Emblems dont have to be approved, but I'm pretty sure inappropriate emblems can be reported, though I've never seen an inappropriate one so far. I think guilds usually want to present themselves in a good light rather than a bad one, so they are taken seriously by most guilds. Guilds take pride in their emblems, especially those who compete for Sky Castles (same as League Halls in DCUO) that float above the major cities and everyone can see them, except here you have to earn them through competing with other guilds, top 10 guilds get a Sky Castle and they keep it for a month, so if they stay in top 10 for the next month they get to keep it for the next month as well, and so on. Plus you get a fancy laurel around your emblem. Guild competition is real in Tera in both PvP, group and solo PvE and I love this aspect of the game because it gives you something to strive for.
That's really great. I love it when people take pride in their league seriously and have pride in their accomplishments. Those Sky Castles sound sweet. DC needs a UI update so badly, it made me so sad when it was put on hold "indefinitely".
Personally, the problem have with most 'emblems' is that there are only a small number of 'pieces' to work with, and even with different colours (again, usually only a small number to choose from) you end up having to get really complicated and 'cluttered' if you want to stand out
I thought this sounded familiar, but not strictly because of the game. I remember hearing about it when there was an announcement on the Anime News Network site back in February of 2014 about an anime based on the game being made. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=15893 It was just released in the US in October of this year
So, being that this is created by NCSoft, who also developed Aion, a game I previously played for a few years, I have some expectations of the game's future. I've kind of been aware of this game for what feels like about 2 years now, due to the fact that I'm a habitual forum rat, and the Aion forums had a lot of discussions regarding BnS. Firstly, although I haven't actually seen any videos, the claims of a robust character creation is not the least bit surprising. Aion had quite an impressive character creation screen as well, so this would seem to be par for the course with NC (although it sounds as though they've improved on Aion's already amazing character creator) Secondly, I know from watching videos, that BnS looks to have a fast paced, fluid, fun combat system, and a great setup for PvP. Which is great, as this is definitely a PvP-centric game. Again, given what I was used to with Aion, fast paced combat is no surprise. BnS certainly appears to have once again trumped NC's previous title in this category. For me this, and the lacking PvE, kind of creates an issue for my type of player though. I tend to lean more heavily towards PvE content, and only occasionally willingly delve into PvP. Now, for NCsoft itself, you can probably expect great things... if you play on the Asian servers. NCWest, even though it is under the NCSoft company umbrella, essentially operates as a publisher. They don't have inhouse devs, so if you're playing on western servers, fixes for bugs, glitches, and exploits will be slow, as NCWest has to go through a process of gathering info on the issue, then contact NCSoft asking for a fix, wait for said fix which will usually be lower priority than whatever is on their plate for the Asian servers at that moment, get fix sent back to them, which then has to be tested, implemented, and probably have more bugs worked out after its live. You'll feel extremely disconnected from the developers due to the many layers between player and dev, and their tendency to view the western market as less important tends to bleed through to player morale. All that said, if you're a PvP hero, and you just want something good to whet that appetite, and don't care much about the devs side of things so much, this could be a fantastic game for you.
The good thing about BnS is that its been out for 4 years on the Asian market. Most of the bugs and glitches are already fixed over there, so they will probably be ported here with the fixes. There's little room for new glitches because the western game will be playing catch up with the Asian version, so patches hitting the western release should be clean of bugs and glitches. I wouldn't be worried about that to be honest.
Thing is, if aion is any indication, the eastern and western versions wont remain exactly the same, so even if there 2.0 update has been fixed, the port will have differences that could cause new bugs. Reason being western gamers have different ideals for what they want from a game. Even if the devs dont grant every wish from the western market, a few here and there alters the game just enough to allow for issues
Yeah that could happen, those are localisation changes to the game client and its possible that there could be some minor bugs, but unlike Aion that was published by other publishers, BnS will be published by NCSoft's western division. So I think there is little room for worry.
Aion is/was published by NCWest, NCSofts western division, for the North American region. This is where i am giving first hand experience from. Europeans had their version of the game published by Gameforge (i think thats the name), and as i understood their delays were even worse. Im not trying to be a wet blanket, but i think people should have a realistic expectation of this company, and how they work. If they exceed expectations, great. If none of this matters so long as you can pew pew, cool.
I wasnt aware that Aion in NA was published by their western division, I assumed that since the EU version was published by Gameforge (same publisher that is for Tera and they suck so much) that they have a NA publisher as well. Guess I was wrong. You're right, Gameforge does a terrible job with the games they publish, too greedy and so late on updates. Now you got me curious about the EU publisher of BnS, I sure hope its not Shitforge
Unfortunately, EU may have to settle for Gameforge or some other terrible publisher. Originally NC had an EU branch, but maybe 4 years ago, they closed it as far as I know, and sold off rights to their properties to publishers in the region. So unless they still have an office and resources over there, then I don't see any other option beyond forcing EU players to play on NA servers.
