TERA, En Masse’s new MMO has just been released and so I’m taking it for a spin. As usual, here’s my First Opinion on it.
TERA (yes, the game name is capitalized, like you’re supposed to yell it each time you read it) is a more action-based MMO then usual, requiring you to use crosshairs to aim and manually move to dodge attacks. My experience is so far with a sorcerer, archer and slayer (a melee class with a big sword), so that’s what we’ll focus on today. The game ranks it’s classes in level of difficulty, with the ranged classes being rated easier in general, and in my experience that’s almost more about engaging your enemies then the actual combat difficulty. It’s almost too easy to steal mobs from slow-moving melee classes as an archer or sorcerer, and trying to claim a mob as ‘mine’ as a slayer is a tedious process. On the other hand, combat is more active and fun as a melee class. Starting out as an archer for example, you spend allot of time just keeping your enemy in your sights and firing away with your abilities, whereas my slayer involves moving, dodging and just more interaction in general.
The first zones of the game is the same for every single race and class, making me not look forward to trying any other race/class combos. Everyone does the same quests, from the same NPCs, and kills the same monsters for at least the first 10+ levels. Compare that to World of WarCraft or Star Wars: The Old Republic, with their unique starting zones for different player types and you can see the shortsightedness of this. I don’t have much hope it’s going to diversify in the future, either since those other MMOs tend to funnel players back together later once out of their starting zones.
This isn’t the best start for an MMO, but the combat and the late-game political system it offers make help it garner a strong following nonetheless. I’ll post a follow up at a later date.
