TERA Hands-On at E3

We do a little pirate hunting in the world of Arborea to see what all the fuss is about in Bluehole Studios' new fantasy MMO.

After hearing so much about a particular game, anticipation can build. You get this little tingling in the back of your brain telling you it’s itching to try it, while a different part of your brain argues that you'll just be let down again if you buy into the hype. The only sure fire cure is to play the final version.

Unfortunately, TERA isn’t quite ready for prime time yet, but I did get some hands-on time with it at E3 and even playing an unpolished version made my anticipation justified. A handful of media was led into TERA's darkened booth, off the show floor, where four people got to experience a pre-arranged session, led by game Producer Sam Kim and Associate Producer Stefan Ramirez.

Our party of five was comprised of a High-Elf Berserker as the party tank, an Aman Warrior, a Human Slayer (yours truly) and a Castanic Sorcerer (ably played by ZAM's Mike "Fony" Bailey). Our healer was a Baraka Priest player by Kim, who acted as guide through this particular quest designed for a low 30s level character. To add a bit of ambiance, Ramirez acted as color commentator, to give us a blow-by-blow of what was happening on the screen.

To set the stage for the quest, we learned that a certain Red Lash pirate named Marduck had been enslaving humans and selling them to the game's resident bad guys, the Argons. Our party had been tasked with stopping Marduck at all costs. As we arrived via ship at Marduck's base on Mistmoar Island, we were greeted by the first of several mobs that would impede our path to the pirate's mountaintop hideaway.  The Red Lash Dreadnaught is a giant-crab like creature that the developers call a party mob. This creature is not designed to be fought solo. Even with our group, this creature was designed to be a tough fight.

It was here that Kim and Ramirez gave us some of the basics for each of our classes. We had the choice of playing with a keyboard and mouse or a gamepad. Being the PC player for years, I stuck with the keyboard and mouse and immediately began learning my hotkeys in order to dodge, attack and do special abilities. We were instructed to dodge and roll any time we found ourselves in front of a creature and to attack from behind as often as possible. Attacking is a bit different from the "select target, mash hotkeys" style of MMOs. In TERA, players actually have to keep the targeting reticule on the mob they are trying to hit. There is no snap to target, so every move, roll and dodge forces the player to keep the target center screen to land attacks.

Since the combat system was a bit different than I was used to, it took me a while to master the target and attack, as well as how to utilize my specialty Slayer moves. We moved in on the Dreadnaught with the Berserker leading the way and our healer keeping us alive. The color commentary called out each dodge or savage hit, giving us verbal pats on the back for successful moves and attacks or gently prodding us with tips on how to attack and move if we got hammered too hard. It took a good couple of minutes to down the huge Dreadnaught, but our healer did a good job, despite the self-professed "healing newb" tag he hung on himself.

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Interesting thought
# Jun 24 2010 at 2:22 PM Rating: Decent
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149 posts
You know, imagining this fight in my head made me remember the scene from Lord of the Rings (the first movie) where the fellowship is fighting the cave troll inside the Mines of Moria. I think boss fights in this game are going to end up being a lot like that fight. Anyone who gets hit by a raging cave troll is going to be very badly hurt, so you're going to need to do a lot of crazy dodging, hiding behind poles, etc. Occasionally some adrenaline junky with a shield (Lancer) might throw himself in front of the mob to save some dumb DD who fell down.

Fighting like that is a lot more realistic way to fight a troll than one guy tanking him by standing there trading blows while archers shoot from the walls. Also, I noticed that big fights in TERA seem to come with a lot of additional little mobs, in addition to a boss that can kick your ***, so the similarity between the game and the cave troll fight are even closer.
NOOBS!???!
# Jun 24 2010 at 10:03 AM Rating: Decent
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Are you calling Dark and Fony noobs?! :)
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NOOBS!???!
# Jun 24 2010 at 12:02 PM Rating: Decent
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149 posts
I didn't say "like these noobs", that would have been insulting :)

My point was that, unlike a lot of other games these days, success isn't automatically assumed just because a group of players in level-appropriate gear are fighting a level-appropriate encounter. From the description of the last fight, because a key dodge was missed (standing in fire) and because quick (enough) healing wasn't performed, the group wiped quickly (with the exception of the guy who thought he could outrun the boss). It wasn't like most games where if someone accidentally pulls aggro, fails to get off a nasty debuff, stands in fire, etc, they can take a few hits and live.
NOOBS!???!
# Jun 24 2010 at 12:19 PM Rating: Excellent
We could have easily wiped on the party mobs if the healer had not been pro (he is the producer after all). But I see your point. The mobs hit hard and you can't stay in front of them so it forced the dodge key to be my best friend.
Cojones
# Jun 24 2010 at 8:05 AM Rating: Decent
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149 posts
You know, it takes some pretty big balls to show off a section of your game to press in which, after an epic struggle to finally reach their goal, the entire party wipes.

Back in 2005, I went to E3 and was given a chance to play Hellgate: London in one of these closed-door sessions. However, we were all max level characters with legendary rocket launchers fighting bosses half our level. There was NO chance of us even coming close to dying.

I hope this is a sign of the unforgiving nature of this MMO and obvious requirement of skill required by players who make it this far. I would hope that by the time a party of 5 makes it to level 30 from starting at level 1 that they are able to play significantly better than 5 strangers who pick it up for the first time, but I also hope that the game is just as likely to kick their *** if they stand in the fire like noobs!

Edited, Jun 24th 2010 9:06am by Maarg
Cojones
# Jun 24 2010 at 10:40 AM Rating: Excellent
We were geared to the level of the encounter. And seeing that four of us, including the tank, had never played hands-on before, we did farely well. The healer was pretty good, but he couldn;t keep us up because of silly mistakes from seeling the encounter for the first time, while at the same time still trying to master some mechanics. There were groups that downed him, but we also weren't the only group to wipe.
Cojones
# Jun 24 2010 at 12:05 PM Rating: Decent
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149 posts
I'm just glad to hear that it was at least possible to fail. This is a skill-based game, so if y'all were level 30 players who had played the game since level 1, you would not have likely made the same mistakes (unless you were noobs!...), but I like the fact that if major mistakes are made, punishment will be quick and severe.
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