To find out more about the game’s current status and plans for the future, Gamingbolt reached out to En Masse Entertainment and the company’s Senior Product Manager Matthew Denomme provided the following answers.

"Since Open Beta we’ve launched the game fully and, with more players, we’ve identified a number of other issues that we are working with the game’s developers to sort out as soon as possible."

TERA has gone through numerous changes since its launch. What are your thoughts on the current status of the game and player satisfaction?

The TERA development team continues to support the game and is constantly adding new content for players to engage with, including new dungeons, classes, events, social features, and other quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes. TERA’s longevity and players’ continued engagement with the game I think speaks to the quality of Bluehole’s ongoing development support and En Masse’s live service support for the game, though there is always room for improvement. Non-gender-locked classes and overall support for PvP content I think are two areas where players would like to see us improve, and we’ve made some strides recently in those areas with the addition of battleground leaderboards and the male brawler in March 2018’s Counterpunch update.

We recently got some insight into what Bluehole has in store for TERA for the remainder of 2018 and beyond, and we are really thrilled with what they’re planning…and we think players will be too!

What kind of feedback did you received from the Open Beta of the console versions and what kind of fixes players can expect in the future?

The Open Beta revealed some bottlenecks: areas where players cluster during leveling or shared social spaces that contributed to poor performance, and in some cases crashing and client freezes. We remedied this during our second Open Beta a week later by adding more channels (think separate instances of the same area) and that seemed to help a lot. While these areas still suffer some performance issues, they are no longer a roadblock to players.

Since Open Beta we’ve launched the game fully and, with more players, we’ve identified a number of other issues that we are working with the game’s developers to sort out as soon as possible.

What can you tell us about the rebalanced dungeons? How do the changes keep the difficulty fair while still rewarding players?

Every dungeon in TERA has a purpose, whether it’s introducing new players to group dynamics at level 20, or speeding you along to better gear at level 65. With the introduction of last year’s progressive enchanting system, we were able to provide players with that gear as soon as they reach level 65, which also allowed us to retune dungeon content that players were skipping into challenging and relevant end-game experiences.

As you mentioned, challenge versus reward is something our developers take very seriously, and when we take a dungeon out of the mix, it’s always with an eye to bringing it back with new and improved mechanics, and more rewarding gameplay.

When is the next major content expansion for TERA? When will we see new stories, quests and continents?

Every content release moves the needle a little bit farther, but to your larger question all I’ll say for now is: Keep Looking Up.

What are your thoughts about bringing TERA to consoles especially with how successful games like Neverwinter have been?

We’ve had our sights set on a console release for a while now, but our priority has always been making TERA the best game it can be. Moving to Steam was an important first step, as it helped us gauge the impact a wider player base would have on not only our servers, but the TERA play environment. With the lessons we learned there, consoles were the next logical step, but we didn’t want to rush in half-cocked. So we took a couple years to get our business plan aligned with the needs of the players, while at the same time rebuilding TERA from the ground up with consoles in mind. We like the result, and we know that players will too.

"Like all free-to-play games, we have cosmetic items available in our store for players who want to customize their look, or are looking for a snazzy mount to fly around TERA’s friendly skies."

In this age of newer competitors and the like, where can TERA go from here? Could a sequel possibly happen at some point?

Anything’s possible, but right now we’re still focused on making TERA the best game it can be. And really, after over six years of live service, TERA is kind of its own sequel!

Does the game have any sort of microtransactions or loot boxes?

Like all free-to-play games, we have cosmetic items available in our store for players who want to customize their look, or are looking for a snazzy mount to fly around TERA’s friendly skies. Our loot boxes have been carefully designed to provide value without disrupting either game play or the in-game economy and often include items with unique properties like the ability to be dyed different colors.

The game is now confirmed for the PS4 and Xbox One, which also means it will support the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. Can you please let us know the resolution and frame rate it will run at on the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. And the resolution and frame rate on the base PS4 and Xbox One versions?

TERA does not have any specific support for Xbox One X and PS4 Pro, though it does gain some passive performance benefits when running on both resulting in higher framerates and an overall smoother experience.

On the base models as well as the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, the game runs at 1080p and targets 30fps, though the framerate is variable and can go up or down depending on what’s onscreen at any given time.

What is your take on the recent trend of games as a service model and the possible controversial monetization practices arising from it?

Games as a service don’t need to rely on controversial monetization practices necessarily. At the core of a service model is a dedication to the long-term commitment to a product both for developers/publishers and players. It’s about finding products that appeal to your audience and also fit your game design.

Is there anything more you’d like to tell our readers?

TERA’s got plenty to offer any gamer. The combat of a character-action game, the deep gameplay and customization of an MMO, stunning graphics, a soaring soundtrack, and epic enemy encounters. If you’re looking for your next gaming obsession, TERA may well fit the bill!

It doesn’t throw too much at you at the beginning, and sports a very clean UI that usually makes sense and can get you where you want to go in just a couple of button presses. These and many other elements make TERA make a lot of sense for consoles, which I’m sure is a delight for lots long-time players of the genre. TERA is indeed a fun game with lots of addicting gameplay loops and grinds that add up to an experience that doesn’t stand out as well as it did several years ago, but still holds up nicely if you’re looking for a neatly organized MMO experience with a decent story.

"TERA is indeed a fun game with lots of addicting gameplay loops and grinds that add up to an experience that doesn’t stand out as well as it did several years ago, but still holds up nicely if you’re looking for a neatly organized MMO experience with a decent story."

Speaking of story, TERA’s lore is pretty typical RPG-fare. The two characters of primary focus here, Arun and Shara, titans who wield quite intense power and whose fates became linked in an unavoidable way, so the story does have plenty of fantastical nonsense for enthusiasts of the genre to enjoy. Blue hole really went all out and clearly had too much fun when designing this world, and that’s a good thing.

The gameplay is pretty easy-going for quite a while, as you can do quite a large chunk of the story missions without much help before things really get difficult and force you to get serious about the ins and outs of the classes and races. But once the difficultly does ramp up, it stays there, offering a good, relatively well-paced amount of challenge throughout. The classes you have to choose from is of a pretty solid variety, and there should be at least one class here that speaks to you.

Even though a lot of the character models look pretty good in terms of detail and design, the worlds themselves are somewhat bland in that department, and rarely bring you any designs or aesthetics that you haven’t seen a thousands times before. That being said, I wouldn’t say any of the worlds or dungeons quite cross over into boring territory. they’re just… unremarkable. For as detailed and interesting as the characters can be, I feel like it’s an odd juxtaposition to play them in such a bland-looking world.

"Leveling, crafting, learning new skills all feels pretty good overall. There’s also a fairly good amount of skills to dive into, which is nice."

That’s not to say there isn’t diversity in the areas though, there certainly is, I just couldn’t help but notice how shallow they ultimately are. That said, a lot of the effects are nice and really make me appreciate them, particle effects during combat in particular. I say some though, because every time I see something I like, I see something else that looks like it would have made more sense in a game from a decade ago. So overall the presentation ends up being pretty mixed, with nothing really blowing my mind one way or the other, but I do lean toward favorability of the graphics considering how old the game is and how well it seems to be holding up compared to other, newer games in the genre in terms of detail and design.

The technical performance of TERA itself doesn’t fair as well though, with a inexcusably inconsistent frame-rates that probably bring the average FPS to under 30, and rampant texture and asset pop up even on the Playstation 4 pro. When the action settles down the performance certainly improves, but once things get busy, as they often do, expect the game to start chugging quite a bit. Thankfully, even though I found the performance drops unpleasant to look at, the gameplay largely remained in-tact and that’s what really matter I suppose. I have heard lots of talk about crashes, but personally, in my experience, I rarely encountered this. Leveling, crafting, learning new skills all feels pretty good overall. There’s also a fairly good amount of skills to dive into, which is nice. Lots of gold can be had without too much grinding, and the skills are mostly fun to discover and learn once you gain access to them. On top of that, there’s lots of weapon skins other cosmetic options for things, if you like that kind of thing.

The music is pretty good, with some nice melodies sprinkled around the soundtrack. Even though you might not be rushing out to buy the soundtrack for your car, it does get the job done by providing nice, emotional, sub context to a lot of the battles and the tracks usually really kept me motivated. Some of the tracks teetered into momentary greatness before retreating back into more generic RPG-style chord structures, but I did enjoy the good moments enough to overlook the generic ones.

"If you’re an experienced dungeon crawler whose looking for the next step in complexity and depth, TERA might not be your jam, at least not in this day and age."

Voices are also good, while I would have appreciated more of them, what is here is well voiced and voices fit the characters well and there’s a good amount of variation in the tones and delivery styles of different characters. The sound effects coud have had more of a punch to them, though. Lots of the samples for various sounds are tacky and generic, and I feel like slightly more effort in this department could have gone a long way to helping establish some more personality for the game, which is another missed opportunity I think they could have easily addressed for the console version.

Thankfully what we have here is a well-designed game that nails the fundamentals of action-based online RPG gameplay. What it lacks in performance it makes up for in design, and what it lacks in complexity it makes up for overall fun-factor. If you’re interested in TERA, you have very little to lose by trying it out on consoles thanks to the “freemium” model it finds itself in. The world is nearly seamless and huge, the graphics are well-designed and fun, and there’s lots to do in TERA without spending a dime if you don’t want to.

I personally got a little bored later on, as the repetition definitely started getting to me, but as long as you keep your expectations in check and stop yourself from applying 2018 standards to it, there is fun to be had here. I just wish there was more of a reason for those who have already played it 3 years ago on their PC’s to return.  If you’re an experienced dungeon crawler whose looking for the next step in complexity and depth, TERA might not be your jam, at least not in this day and age, but if you are mainly a console gamer and interested in dipping your toes into the MMO genre, the console version of TERA is a great place to start.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

Bluehole Studio’s non-Battle Royale title and long-standing free to play MMO TERA will be coming to consoles soon. “Soon” being next week – publisher En Masse Entertainment has announced a release date for April 3rd. Check out the trailer below for some console gameplay footage.

Though TERA will be free to play, you can also purchase a Founder’s Pack for $29.99. This will include some items and early access to start playing on March 27th, a week earlier than the official release date. If you’re worried about it being a straightforward port, then it’s worth noting the many new features it will have.

Control schemes for different characters, a revamped UI with Smart Inventory, quick chat and guild options and a new targeting system for combat have been included along with other options. TERA still has its share of players on PC but whether it will have that same level of influence on consoles remains to be seen. Stay tuned for more information on the game regardless.

Bluehole Studio’s TERA is coming to consoles following a lengthy stint on PC. Lest you think it’s a direct port without any optimization, a new video has been released to showcase the numerous changes. Check it out below, if only to get a fair idea of how it looks on PS4.

As the video explains, there are new features like control schemes for each character; a new lock-on targeting system; a redesigned user interface along with Smart Inventory to presumably help in managing the plethora of items available; a radial menu that can be completely customized; quick chat and in-game guild system; and much more. We’re quite frankly amazed at the effort that’s gone into the console ports.

TERA is expected to launch later this year for Xbox One and PlayStation 4. As a free to play MMO, it became fairly popular alongside Vindictus and Aion: Ascension. TERA is still fairly active on PC so it should be interesting to see the reception on consoles.

The MMORPG space for consoles is ripe for the picking, and En Masse Entertainment has revealed via press release that Xbox One and PS4 players can check out TERA, their 2011 PC hit’s new console port, completely free, for a few days early next month.

From 6 AM PST on March 9th to March 12th at 12AM PST, console users interested can simply download the client from their storefront and have full access to the test. The full game comes out sometime later this spring, but this is likely the only time you’ll get to try out the game before launch.

En Masse Entertainment published the original 2011 PC game, which was developed by Bluehole. Bluehole having their focus on other things now leaves En Masse to take the helm on the console port for TERA, which will likely launch a little behind the PC version in terms of expansion content.

En Masse CEO Chris Lee states, “We’ve been blown away by the waves of players logging into TERA, and we’re seeing amazing growth in both registrations and daily users. It’s always great to eclipse the one-million-player mark, and at our current rate, it won’t be long before we hit two million.”

Of course, other new features like a new dungeon, three on three battle arena and additional servers helped bolster that change. Many other new features are on the way, including a five-day Dracoloths Rising event featuring special item drops and monsters to celebrate the current milestone, a 20 person raid, player driven alliances and 20 versus 20 battles this coming Summer.

Gameforge has announced that the free-to-play model for its fantasy MMORG Tera will be released on February 5. But players that already paid to purchase Tera before it went F2P will not be left feeling stupid. Gameforge will provide them with special perks.

That’s not to say the F2P players will be ignored, though. They will get all the in-game content that is on offer right now, and will be able to play the game in its complete entirety. However, paid players will be given access to extra content.

Everyone will have access to Tera Club, and will be given a special mount, a daily selection of boosts as well as different types of scrolls in the game.

The F2P players will be called Free Users and the players who already paid for the game will be called Veteran Users, just in case you might want to know.

Are you looking forward to playing Tera for free, if you hadn’t been willing to dish out money on it so far? Tell us in your comments.

Posting on the official forums, En Masse Entertainment community manager Catherine Parks stated, “As you may have read today, NHN (the publisher for TERA in Korea) has decided to change TERA’s business model to be free. The industry has shifted in this direction and the Korean gaming market has always been on the forefront of this shift. NHN’s decisions are their own as is every territory that services TERA. TERA currently remains a subscription-based game in North America and Europe.

“Regardless of the news from Korea, the good news is that TERA will continue to grow and improve with new game content in North America, and all content will be available for us should we decide to evaluate their use. We know you are full of questions but that is all we have for now. Enjoy the holidays and look to January for more information – 2013 is going to be huge for us and we can’t wait to get started.”

Source: GIBiz

In conversation with Penny Arcade, Bruusgaard states, “Unfortunately I think that in order to be a success in today’s market, you need to make the game a bit more commercial. I think you have to consider what sells. You just have to. Not doing it is a huge risk. Yes, you might get lucky and everything works out great, but I would not do that again.”

Of course, having heavy-weights like Guild Wars 2 didn’t do any favours.

“I think it was a very difficult window to launch in, between Star Wars and Guild Wars and TERA. A lot of big MMOs out there. I think we also could’ve done a better job when it comes to marketing and making sure people know there is a game called The Secret World. I think too few people had heard of it, even though again, our numbers seemed like we were tracking really well.”

Source: GamesIndustryBiz

Ever since the release of World Of Warcraft back in 2004 the MMO Genre has been starting to bloom. The MMO market has been getting quite saturated for the past few years with titles like Star Wars: The Old Republic, Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, Rift,  Lord of the Rings Online, and Dungeon of Dragons Online., and Aion. However, most of the titles listed above are going the free-to-play route with micro-transactions due to a huge loss of subscribers.

2012 is shaping up to be an amazing year for MMO players out there, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria is releasing on September 25th 2012, and ArenaNet’s Guild Wars 2 is right around the corner later this month. Rift is also getting it’s very first expansion later this fall. Rift is also one of the survivors among other MMOs, and it had one of the most smoothest launches in history of MMOs.  Tera came out in May with astounding graphics, and state-of-the-art real time combat system that works very well, and is a lot of fun.

So what do each of these MMOs have to offer, and how are they different? Let’s take at each one, and see how they differ.

World of Warcraft is a huge game right now, it’s packing 3 expansions, and a forth one coming up in September. The game has changed in so many ways that I won’t be able to talk about it in this article. World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria adds a new race, class, continent, and  lot of new PvP content with new style battlegrounds, and 3 new raids for the raiding junkies straight on launch day. Blizzard is finally bringing back world bosses into the game, that many players have been asking for. For people who played at launch, this feature will be nostalgic due to the fact that world bosses have been missing for the last 2 expansions.

A new race is also joining along with the Horde, and Alliance, the Pandaren. Pandaren is the very first neutral race that let’s you pick which faction you want to join after you finish the main story quests for the Pandaren. This is the first time where the same race is going to be in both Horde, and Alliance. The Monk class is a brand new melee class that gives you many different ways to play, whether it be tanking, healing, or damaging.

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria is also adding Pet Battles. Pet Battles let your pet companions duke it out against other pets, aka Pokemon style. This feature just adds something new to the game, it’s not meant to benefit your character anyway, but rather just a fun activity to do.

One of other new features in this expansion are the account-wide-achievements, and account-wide-mounts. People who are achievement hunters can finally not worry about doing the same achievements again on their alternate characters, and the same goes for the mounts. This is a really nice feature for those who put in a lot of time, and effort into earning different achievements, and acquiring rare mounts. Look for the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria review sometime next month, for the in-depth verdict.

Rift is a fantastic game in my opinion, it’s beautiful, has a lot of exploration, it has a ton of content to do since launch, and raiding is a ton of fun. Rift launched last year in March 2011, and had one of the most smoothest, and successful MMO launches in history. Rift has 2 different factions, the Guardians, and the Defiant. Each faction has 3 different races which is is a total of 6, the Guardians have the Dwarves, High Elves, and Mathosians, while the Defiant have Eth, Bahmi, and Kelari.

One of the most unique features in Rift are the “Rift Events”, occasionally you will see different swirling circles on the map of the zone. Those swirling circles indicate rift events. When rifts open up they release creatures from different elemental planes, there are life rifts, death rifts, water rifts, air rifts, earth rifts, and fire rifts. In order to close a rift, you need to follow the objectives in the rift event, once all of the stages of the rift event are completed, you are rewarded with different currency loot that you can spend on gear, and of course you gain a good amount of experience.

Trion has been very good at keeping their customers busy with the game, there is just an enormous amount of stuff to do. I think one of my favorite features about Rift is after you hit level 50, you can still progress in Planar Attunement levels, and beef up your character past 50. This motivates the player to keep on questing, do dungeons, raids, dailies, and pvp to keep themselves up to date. The best part about leveling Planar Attunements is that it does not feel grindy, because everything you do lets you gain experience.

Rift: Storm Legion is the first expansion that is coming out sometime this Fall. Rift: Storm Legion add new souls to each of the 4 classes, level 60 player cap, some sort of player/guild housing, 3 new raids, bunch of new dungeons, and epic interactive world bosses. According to Trion, the expansion will be more than 3 times bigger than the current world, adding a whopping of 2 whole new continents, with a new hub city.

The expansion has been recently announced, therefore we don’t have that much information to give you, other than what’s know.  It sounds like Trion is really passionate about this expansion, and have a lot of ambition going for it. All we can do now is wait, and see, Trion promised to everyone that new information will be released during Gamescom later this month.

Tera is one of the newest MMOs that launched in May 2012. This is mostly well known for it’s amazing real-time combat where precision, and aiming actually comes into play. Whether your playing a melee class, or ranged, the combat is very fun. One of the first things attracted me about Tera was the astounding graphics, it just looks beyond beautiful, this is defiantly the best looking MMO on the market right now hands-down. Graphics is smooth, no frame-rate issues, monster designs are fantastic, the dungeons, and outdoor scenery is just flat out gorgeous.

The questing in Tera is your typical run of the mill, kill this, get that, and so on. However, other games seem to break-down the questing a bit better, in Tera it feels like every quest is almost exactly the same, and that creates the feeling of a monotonous grind. However, the very first content patch is coming out sometime this month, adding the very first raid tier to the game, new skills for Warrior, and Lancers are being added, and the patch also adds in battlegrounds.

Overall, these games all have something unique to offer, but I don’t think every game is for everybody. They all have their qualities, and faults, no MMO is perfect. Pick, and choose, and have fun wherever you decided to take on your virtual adventures with yourself, and your friends.