TERA ONLINE INTERVIEW:
POSTED BY ANTHONY O'SULLIVAN
DATE : 26.11.2010.
This week's Editor's Interview is with Christian “Raven” Witte (pictured on the right) the Community Manager for TERA in Europe. TERA is a very exciting and stunning looking MMORPG set for release in 2011.
1. Can you give us a little background into the story of Tera?
è The story of TERA is quiet complex, but I’ll tell you a bit of it. In the current situation, the players will face the return of the Argons, a metallic race from the Underworld of TERA. These huge and dangerous enemies want to wipe out all mortal races from the world. Due to this threat, all races banded together in the Valkyon Federation to fight against the Argons.
è All players will start their Adventures on the Island of Dawn. This Island rose from the deep sea and players will have to explore the place and find out more about the sudden rise of this Island.
è We have different background articles about zones, cities and races on our website at www.tera-europe.com, for every interested player who wants to know more about the world of TERA. More information about zones and cities will also be added on a regular base, so it is always helpful to keep an eye on the news section.
2. What can we expect in terms of game play is it purely an MMORPG or will we see any action sequences?
è TERA is both a traditional MMORPG and also filled with a true action based combat system. The combat works like in a typical 3rd Person Action Game. Archers, Priests, Melee classes, really everyone needs to aim with their skills or magical spells to hit the enemy, as there is no target lock available in TERA. If you cast a slow spell and the enemy moves out of range or the way the spell is headed, you’ll miss the target. So TERA is all about action, evading and active aiming.
è Players will still experience many other things, like story driven quests, character development, and the hunt for items, a political system, guild housing and much more. So TERA is right decision, both for the typical RPG fan and also for fans of classical action titles.
3. Can you tell us a little about the art direction in the game?
è This is a tough question. The art direction took a huge amount of time by the developer Bluehole Studio. TERA features many different races, classes, environments, weather effects in certain zones and a huge amount of items, type of buildings and different climate zones. All our players will also be happy to not only see some races which differ from the typical fantasy setting, but also to encounter totally new types of enemies on their journey. The gamers of TERA won’t fight against the typical rats in the beginning of their adventure. We want to make sure that players will feel really involved in the story and feel like a real hero.
4. So to the characters available can you run through the different classes and races of characters available for players to choose?
è TERA offers a great amount of races and classes, so every player out there should find a combination which fits his or her needs and wishes. We have 6 different races and 8 different classes available in TERA. Players will find typical classes and races, such as a Human Priest, but also classes and races which can’t be found in other games, like the Aman Lancer. Which not only looks different from high fantasy races, but the class is also another way to present a so called tank in an MMORPG. The Lancer is fighting with a shield and giant lance. Together with the collision detection, this will also be a new approach to the classic MMORPG genre. This is just a small example for the varity and possibilities in TERA. Our goal was to satisfy again the classic RPG fan with races like High Elves and Humans but also offer some new races like the cute Popori and demon like Castanics.
5. What character upgrades will be available and how will you handle obtaining these upgrades within game?
à The upgrade of the character and the whole character progression is one of the most important topics of a MMORPG. There are several ways in TERA to improve your character. If players progress in the level, they can buy new skills, they receive new armor and weapons as quest rewards and they can also obtain new items as loot from basic mobs and boss encounters. Crafting is another way to obtain better equipment.
à For further improvements players can use crystals and equip those crystals into item slots, which will for example improve the critical hit rate on a weapon. But there is much more behind the crystal system in TERA than simply improving stats. We recently published a sub-page dedicated to the crystal system, which can be found on our website (www.tera-europe.com).The glyph system is another way to improve and customize the class of the player, more details on this system will be revealed at a later time. Due to the latest player feedback from test sessions, the developer also decided to rework many skills and to add a huge amount of new skills for each class. The latest version of TERA already includes many new additions for the character development and we’re looking forward to show it to our players.
CHECK BACK FOR PART TWO TOMORROW