Tera Online News

Hey, TERA Fans! Today our translator Kalsteine translated a "sneak peak" of what's to come to K-TERA throughout July and August. There's some interesting stuff in here, so it's definitely worth a read. Enjoy!

July's Sneak Peek

1. Increased Rewards for Shara continent:
We will be increasing the rewards for all types of quests in the Northern & Southern Shara continents.

2. Re-balancing Monsters:
Some monsters have been balanced to be of an appropriate difficulty for their level range.

3. Token Item Distribution:
We changed the way dungeon tokens are distributed. Right now the token items only go to the player who wins the roll. To address this issue, we will be distributing token items to all party members who successfully clear the dungeon.

4. Increasing Dungeon Drop Rates:
On July 7th we’ve made changes so that the end boss of any instance would drop a Unique level items on a 100% ratio, we will also be increasing the drop rate of Legendary items so it feels more rewarding for the players to complete an instance.

5. Lowering the difficulty on the “Black Tower and “Labyrinth of Fear:
Everyone who recently hit level 58 has been complaining that the above two dungeons were too hard; to address this issue we've decided to lower the difficulty on some of the lower tier dungeons. We will try to make a gradual increase in difficulty to help players be able to practice on lower tier dungeons, then conquer higher tier dungeons as well.

6. Battleground abuse:
Battleground abuse has become a big problem and we have been working on some ways to fix it. Some of the fix will be applied within July and we will continue to work to solve this issue.

7. Changed Instance cooldown period:
Currently, dungeon reset timers last 24 hours from the last time you cleared the dungeon and this makes organizing groups difficult. To make it easier on people to gather groups, we'll implemented a reset time that is shared by everyone.

8. Relocation of named monsters:
Having some named monsters spawn near normal leveling areas caused massive amounts of PK and other abuses so we've decided to relocate named monsters that caused those issues.

9. Raising the level bar for voting:
We've made the voting level 40 so people can't abuse the voting system by just hitting level 20 to cheat.


August's Sneak Peek

1. Warrior & Sorcerer class, rebalanced:
Many of you have been asking for this and we will bring it to you: the rebalancing of Warrior & Sorcerer classes. The warrior class will be reborn as an offensive class with the upcoming August patch. They will still do some defensive work but in parties they will be taking on offensive roles much more often.

Sorcerers will have an easier time maintaining their mana during battle with skill balances and MP Leech skills; also they will get some new devastating spells that will aid them.

More precise notes will be available with the August patch notes.

2. New method to gain items:
We will add new methods to gain items, not only the dice rolling option but also an option for party members to bid against each other for a dropped item.

3. Bind on Pick-up items:
We will be adding a bind on pick-up quality to items that are extremely hard to get.

Filed by TERA Fans News at 10:55 pm under Uncategorized  Tagged Battleground, Black Tower, Boss, Continent, Continents, Dungeon Drop, Interesting Stuff, July 7th, Labyrinth, Last Time, Monsters, Party Members, Relocat, Reset Time, Rewards, Sneak Peek, Tera, Timers, Tokens, Translator
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Hey, TERA Fans! Today our translator Kalsteine translated a "sneak peak" of what's to come to K-TERA throughout July and August. There's some interesting stuff in here, so it's definitely worth a read. Enjoy!

July's Sneak Peek

1. Increased Rewards for Shara continent:
We will be increasing the rewards for all types of quests in the Northern & Southern Shara continents.

2. Re-balancing Monsters:
Some monsters have been balanced to be of an appropriate difficulty for their level range.

3. Token Item Distribution:
We changed the way dungeon tokens are distributed. Right now the token items only go to the player who wins the roll. To address this issue, we will be distributing token items to all party members who successfully clear the dungeon.

4. Increasing Dungeon Drop Rates:
On July 7th we’ve made changes so that the end boss of any instance would drop a Unique level items on a 100% ratio, we will also be increasing the drop rate of Legendary items so it feels more rewarding for the players to complete an instance.

5. Lowering the difficulty on the “Black Tower and “Labyrinth of Fear:
Everyone who recently hit level 58 has been complaining that the above two dungeons were too hard; to address this issue we've decided to lower the difficulty on some of the lower tier dungeons. We will try to make a gradual increase in difficulty to help players be able to practice on lower tier dungeons, then conquer higher tier dungeons as well.

6. Battleground abuse:
Battleground abuse has become a big problem and we have been working on some ways to fix it. Some of the fix will be applied within July and we will continue to work to solve this issue.

7. Changed Instance cooldown period:
Currently, dungeon reset timers last 24 hours from the last time you cleared the dungeon and this makes organizing groups difficult. To make it easier on people to gather groups, we'll implemented a reset time that is shared by everyone.

8. Relocation of named monsters:
Having some named monsters spawn near normal leveling areas caused massive amounts of PK and other abuses so we've decided to relocate named monsters that caused those issues.

9. Raising the level bar for voting:
We've made the voting level 40 so people can't abuse the voting system by just hitting level 20 to cheat.


August's Sneak Peek

1. Warrior & Sorcerer class, rebalanced:
Many of you have been asking for this and we will bring it to you: the rebalancing of Warrior & Sorcerer classes. The warrior class will be reborn as offensive class with the upcoming August patch. They will still do some defensive work but in parties they will be taking on offensive roles much more often.

Sorcerers will have an easier time maintaining their mana during battle with skill balances and MP Leech skills; also they will get some new devastating spells that will aid them.

More precise notes will be available with the August patch notes.

2. New method to gain items:
We will add new methods to gain items, not only the dice rolling option but also an option for party members to bid against each other for a dropped item.

3. Bind on Pick-up items:
We will be adding a bind on pick-up quality to items that are extremely hard to get.

Filed by TERA Fans News at 10:55 pm under Uncategorized  Tagged Battleground, Black Tower, Boss, Continent, Continents, Dungeon Drop, Interesting Stuff, July 7th, Labyrinth, Last Time, Monsters, Party Members, Relocat, Reset Time, Rewards, Sneak Peek, Tera, Timers, Tokens, Translator
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K-TERA Patch Notes | 4.7.11


[System > Politics]

• Vote counts will no longer show and instead will just show a ‘Contending’ mark.
  - The voting UI will no longer show the vote counts.
  - Between candidates with similar vote counts they will show ‘Contending’ mark for them.
  - This patch is to stop people from just voting for the candidate with the highest vote count.

• Changed the placements of the candidates on the voting UI.
  - The candidates are placed randomly on the list instead of in the order they signed up.

• Limited vote number per account.
  - 1 account can only vote once with 1 character on the entire server.

• Changed the voting requirement level
  - Now you only have to be level 20 to vote.

• Changed the time of Archon’s Battlegrounds competition points given
  - The times when archons will receive their battlegrounds competition points:
  - Weekdays: 21:00 ~ 23:00
  - Weekends: 21:00 ~ next day of 14:00
  ** This new political system change will take effect on the next upcoming election.

[Zone > Monsters]

• Lowered the attack power of some monsters in the Ancient Castle of Evil.
  - Cursed Clown’s basic attack damage reduced by 54% and its other attack damage reduced by 36%.
  - Twin Clown Lektown’s basic attack damage was reduced by 22% and its other attack damage raised by 9%.
  - Jester Taruruk’s damages were fixed from where some of the skills used to hit for 0.

[ETC > Bug Fix]

• Fixed the bug where the chat window disappeared
  - Fixed the chat window disappearing on a low chance.
  
  
• Fixed English to Korean transition
  - Fixed the issue where you couldn’t change Korean to English in the chat box.
  
  
• Fixed tooltip errors on some restore items
  - Fixed the added effect text on equipment from ‘Instant cast healing skills amount 9.1% increase’ to ‘Healing amount increased by 9.1%’
  - It is only a tooltip text change and the gear still acts the same.
  - If you use bandages the heal amount is also increased by the above effect.
  - Heal spheres and Life Elemental skills are not affected by the above.

Filed by TERA Fans News at 3:24 pm under Uncategorized  Tagged Ancient Castle, Archon, Bandages, Battlegrounds, Chat Box, Clown, Damages, Instant Cast, Jester, Monsters, Placements, Politics, Spheres, Tera, Tooltip Text, Transition, Upcoming Election, Vote Count, Vote Counts, Weekdays
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K-TERA Patch Notes | 3.31.11

[Class > Archer]

• Play Dead skill’s bug fixed.
  - Fixed a bug where the Archer’s play dead skill was canceled after being hit though the status icon remained.
  - The status icon of Play Dead will disappear once character is hit.
  - Tooltip for the skill icon was fixed.

[Zone > Monster]

• Monsters HP tweaked in Flaming Mountain.
  - Now you can hunt in Flaming Mountain with more efficiency.
  
  Burning Abysmal Flame’s HP was lowered by 14%
  Burning Earth Elemental’s HP was lowered by 15%
  Raging Hellfire’s HP was lowered by 15%
  Burning Shadow Viper’s HP was lowered by 10%
  Abysmal Hell beast’s HP was lowered by 20%

[ETC > Bug Fix]

• Archon Quest bug fix
  - Fixed an issue where relogging after being elected would disable the ability to do Archon only quests.
  
  
• Archon Guild’s White Warhorse skill bug fix
  - Fixed an issue where the White Warhorse skill disappeared after the server restart.
  
  
• Battleground resurrection bug fix
  - Fixed an issue when you had 1 sec cooldown on resurrection when you died in a certain situation.
  
  
• Climbing and relogging.
  - Fixed an issue where you would relog to a weird place after you climbed something.

Filed by TERA Fans News at 2:36 pm under Uncategorized  Tagged Archer, Battleground, Beast, Burning Earth, Cooldown, Efficiency, Flame, Hell, Hellfire, Hp, Monster, Monsters, Resurrection, Status Icon, Tera, Tweaked, Warhorse, Weird Place
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First and foremost, I've updated the TERA Fans wiki to include up to date (i.e., taken from the CPE) skills and glyphs for lancers, and also updated the starting stats on the lancer page. For this post I'm going to talk about my thoughts and opinions on a few of the officially translated glyphs (but not the skills as I did that in my previous column) and then some of my thoughts on (low level) PvP, mainly duels.

Glyphs
Glyph of Polish (Stand Fast) - Reflects 20% of blocked damage. This one caught my eye straight away. Most likely to be a staple for PvP of any sort. If you have this glyph enabled and you block, say, a sorcerer's firebomb attack the reflected damage will be a good chunk of the sorcerer's health. Not only will it be good for damaging ranged classes when you can't get close but it could even scare your opponent into not attacking you. Imagine a sorcerer being too afraid of you blocking (thus reflecting 20% of the damage) their biggest attacks to even use them. Or a berserker too afraid to do the same.

Most of the other glyphs are nothing special except perhaps Glyph of Energy (Leash) - Reduces cooldown by 20%. Leash is an amazing skill to use against those pesky kiters who just refuse to stay in close proximity to you for longer than a second or two. With this glyph the cooldown will be reduced from 40 seconds to 32 seconds, quite nice.

While not eyecatching, two glyphs deserve honourable mentions. Glyph of Threat (Challenging Shout) - Provides 10% additional aggro. While 10% isn't much extra, threat issues with the lancer's low default threat and healers inciting rage in monsters like you've never seen dictate this to be an essential glyph for PvE. Not so useful in PvP.
Glyph of Spirit (Combo Attack) - Increases MP regeneration by 20%. Lancers eat up MP like there's no tomorrow. At the state of the CPE client version, lancers need all the extra MP regeneration they can get. Recent changes to the kTERA client may have absolved this need for extra MP regen, but extra couldn't hurt. Right?


Level 17 PvP
Lancers are pretty beastly in 1v1 PvP, at least against melee classes. I found slayers to be the toughest melee opponenents merely because just by using their standard attack they can get behind you and, even if they're facing the other direction, their weapon swings will hit you in the back - quite a pain when you're trying to block. On the other hand mystics and sorcerers can cause big problems for a lancer. They each have a good keepaway game which works extra well at level 17 because the only way lancers can close distance is with Charging Lunge, which has a 10 second cooldown. While 10 seconds may not seem like much, it feels like forever when you've got a sorcerer pelting you with fireballs.

I also had some clipping problems with dueling, where I would stun an enemy and then my Combo Attacks would just go right through the opponent. I'm not sure what was causing it though - it's either a hit detection bug or it's lag related. Perhaps a hit detection bug caused by lag.

I won't be writing about what it was like to fight every class as a lancer, as some either weren't very notable or I didn't get enough experience against them to write an informed paragraph. I did get my conqueror title though. :D

Sorcerer
They're like rabbits, always hopping around. If I get in close, they jump away. If by some miracle I get in close again within a few seconds, they have another jump to use. While this did cause problems, it was easily solved by doing nothing but blocking. While it's not a permanent solution, it can make an impatient sorcerer get closer to you so they can attack from your side or behind you. That's when you hit them with a stun. With HP/MP regeneration enhancement crystals this is not only a way to force the sorcerer to get closer, it grants you a small reprieve to generate some more HP/MP, and wait out the cooldown on Second Wind while not having to worry too much about taking damage.

Mystic
Mystics just have too many options. They can kite you all day long. If they're in danger of dying? They'll just sleep you and heal up. If they need to heal while you're right next to them and they don't have sleep? They have a summon that heals them while they avoid you. It's possible to kill this summon, but trying to do that can just leave you open to attacks by the mystic or, even worse, give them a chance to heal themselves up properly and/or drop orbs. That's not to say that mystics are unbeatable - it's just a long, tedious battle. Their damage output isn't the greatest but their survivability tools more than make up for that. They strike me as like lancers in that regard. Just try to stay alive and slowly whittle away at your enemy. In one of my duels against a mystic, I got 3 knockdowns in a row. Unbelievable, right? Unfortunately I ended up losing that duel, as fun as it was.

Berserker
Heavy hitters, but easy to block. With one exception. Their spinning attack, if aimed a little to the side of you, will just spin right past you and start hitting you from behind. If you don't react fast enough to this and turn around to block the other way, you could potentially be taking a lot of damage from just this one attack. Other than that berserkers aren't really anything special at this level. Their guard is easy to get around and the rest of their heavy hits can be easily blocked if you see them coming. Which shouldn't be hard as they have to charge them.

Lancer
While I didn't get much experience against other lancers, I felt I had to write here about them because of how fun it was. Perhaps the most fun I had dueling was against another lancer. Though I don't imagine it was too much fun to watch - 50% of the duel was either me or the other lancer blocking. It helped me learn to get around opponent's blocks though. Shield Barrage, while being a decent damaging tool, makes you dash forwards a little before the attack and then you can change the direction for your second attack with the shield. Aim the first swing a little to the side of the blocking opponent and then aim towards their back for the second swing. Not only will it get you behind them and do a decent amount of damage, you'll have a chance to stun them. They're blocking, they think they're safe, then all of a sudden you're behind them and they're stunned.

Deathmatches
Personally I didn't enjoy deathmatches all that much, I feel that at least at level 17 lancers have no place in them. Our damage output just isn't good enough to hurt multiple opponents at once, and it's certainly not good enough to keep people afraid of going after our healer. While having a certain stun and a potential stun is helpful in group PvP, I just don't feel it outweighs the cons of lancers at this point. Later, perhaps, when we get our Leash and AoE slow, we'll find our place in group PvP.



Thoughts? Opinions? Dissenting or otherwise?

Filed by TERA Fans News at 5:59 pm under Uncategorized  Tagged Aggro, Berserker, Chunk, Close Proximity, Duels, Fans, Glyphs, Honourable, Lancers, Monsters, Mp, Opponent, Pve, Rage, Regeneration, Shout, Sorcerer, Spirit, Staple, Tera
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When I heard there was new information pertaining to racial skills, I was in high spirits for sure. Alas, it was just as I had thought – the developers want to force certain races onto people who want to play the class they want. For example, if you wanted to play a Popori Lancer then you’d have to deal with and make up for the small stature of the race, which would make it harder for a Popori to block a choke point than for, say, an Aman. Now this in itself wasn’t exactly a deal breaker – not for me anyway – as while it would make some Lancer duties harder to perform, there are advantages to being smaller such as avoiding ranged attacks would be somewhat easier (assuming you wanted to avoid the attack rather than tank it) and hiding in a thicket to prepare an ambush would be significantly more effective. The new racials, on the other hand, are huge middle fingers to hopeful Popori Lancers. Let’s compare Popori racials to those of the Aman.

Aman - Veteran Fighter (Active): For 30 seconds, lowers the chance to get knocked down / paralyzed by 70%.
vs.
Popori - Friend of Nature (Active): When used before you are in combat, you will not be attacked first by monsters for 3 minutes. The effect disappears when you enter combat and cannot be used during combat.

A 70% resistance to knockdown/paralyze against what looks like a 3 minute immunity to monster aggro. Both are good in their own right, for what they’re designed for, but I have to give this round to the Aman. For running away, or just for putting up a last stand, that 70% resistance is too good to deny.

Aman 1 – Popori 0

Aman - Descendant of Davan (Passive): When your HP goes below 30%, your defence increases.
vs.
Popori - Joy of traveling (Active): When used, for 3 minutes your out of combat movement speed is increased.

Extra defence in a time of need? A must have for any aspiring tank. As for the Popori, a 3 minute running speed boost would be excellent for rushing to the aid of your Priest/Mystic – unfortunately it’s an out of combat skill.

Aman 2 – Popori 0

Aman - Strength (Passive): Increases the chance to resist status ailments.
vs.
Popori - Child of the Lake (Passive): Swimming speed increased by 50%.

Yet another must have for aspiring tanks. Status ailments can be extremely detrimental to the Lancer’s battle plans, be it a defence reducing ailment or even a damaging poison. Swimming speed? Good for an underwater getaway I suppose.

Aman 3 – Popori 0

An outstanding victory by the Aman.

I personally can’t imagine any of the Popori skills being useful to any class inside of combat, be it PvE or PvP. In part due to two of the three being unusable during combat. Lore wise, the Popori racials are good and fitting. Gameplay wise, they’re incredibly disappointing. Unless of course you plan for your only Popori character to be only there for gathering materials, in which case the racials are superb. 3 minutes of aggro avoidance could be infinitely helpful in picking up gatherable materials in the middle of a pack of high level monsters or group content monsters.

These racials obviously aren't confirmed as the final versions, so here's hoping for some more combat-worthy racials for the Popori in the near future.

Filed by TERA Fans News at 8:38 pm under Uncategorized  Tagged Aman Aman, Ambush, Descendant, Developers, High Spirits, Immunity, Knockdown, Last Stand, Middle Fingers, Monster, Monsters, Movement Speed, Outrage, Popori, Resistance, Small Stature, Speed Boost, Tank, Thicket, Time Of Need
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Update: Added a new cut scene and description!

Hello, TERA Fans! Today, TERA Fans member Cori sent me three videos from TERA's Korean client. One of the videos may be the first scene of a Velika based questline and the other two scenes are probably from an Allemantheia questline. If you don't want potentially major questlines spoiled for you don't watch! Also always keep in mind that these clips are still under development, I'm sure.

All the videos are subtitled in Korean, so I've sent them to our fantastic translator, Kalestine and he's helped me understand the story conveyed in them. Remember that it's possible the story could be different in Korean TERA than it is in the West's TERA.

Check them out and enjoy the scenes!

• Introduction to Velika
  - This first video introduces the player to Velika.
  
  
  
  
  The narrator does not give his name, but describes Velika as the center of Arun, protected by the goddess Velik. The city is the capitol of the peace-keeping Valkyon Federation, however the Federation currently faces opposition from the Argons. Because of this, the Valkyon Federation has deployed much of their army overseas to fight the Argons.
  
  The narrator explains that many of his friends are currently fighting for the Federation and that monsters have begun to attack nearby villages, harming innocent people. He asks you to be brave and work with the Federation to try to restore peace, telling you that one day you may be able to be as strong as the hero Elleon Kubel. (Not making that up, Kalsteine says that in this clip, he's referred to as Elleon Kubel, one name and definitely not two people.)
  
  
  
  
• Allemantheia Questline
  - This second video is a bit long and complicated, but Kalsteine and I have made the best sense of it we can! Unfortunately, this one doesn't have sound of any kind.
  
  
  
  
  The video opens with a High Elf commander, beginning to explain the history of Allemantheia. She calls it a city of magic, saying that "the Core" is their pride. She explains that the High Elves have been fighting against the army of a nefarious being, Doolsa, who wants to destroy the High Elves and Allemantheia. Doolsa has retrieved a magical device, located in Essenia, north of Allemantheia, which could, if needed, protect the High Elves from Argon invasion. Because of that, the Commander has sent most of her army North in order to reclaim the magical device. In attempt to win over the player's help, the Commander begins to explain information she considers classified.
  
  Allemantheia is apparently completely dependent on the Core and without it, the city would be destroyed. The Core is controlled by a powerful archmage called Cerion (the High Elf in the dark colored hood) who has been alive since the War of the Ancient Gods. Cerion used the burnt Flower of Life to protect the High Elves from annihilation during the war, creating the Core. However, currently, Cerion is missing and the commander fears he may be in the hands of evil. If this were so, Allemantheia could be destroyed at any time. She tells the player about a young Aman warrior who gave a pendant she's holding. As long as the pendant is still shining, Cerion is still alive and she begs the player for their help in finding him.
  
  At 3:30 into the video, a new scene begins. It seems that the player has led the commander to Doolsa and the two have a brief exchange. The commander demands to know where he is keeping Cerion, but Doolsa does not falter, mocking her instead. An ally of Doolsa's, Akasha, cuts the confrontation short, when she teleports in and saves him from an attack by the commander.
  
  Another scene begins at 4:56. Apparently, Elleon has begun to help as he teleports members of the Valkyon Federation into a room where Cerion is being held. Immediately, Valkyon priests begin to try to heal and protect Cerion and they let the commander know that his health is failing and that she has to make a decision because the fate of Allemantheia rests within Cerion's life. The commander and Cerion discuss the situation and the commander tells Cerion she believes it is her duty to take his place after his death. Though Cerion is initially against this, the commander convinces him that it is what she must do, recounting past events and thinking towards the future. In his final moments, he takes the commander's hand and passes his power on to her. The commander appears to physically change, appearing as she does in the G-Star trailer with extremely pale skin and dark features.
  
  
  
  
• Allemantheia Questline Fight Cut-Scene
  - It seems to me that this scene takes place somewhere towards the end of the Allemantheia questline from above, so I'll describe it as such!
  
  
  
  
  At this point, the player has lead the Valkyon Federation to where Cerion is being held. Doolsa's ally, Akasha, is walking with him and she is joined by an army of monsters. Elleon flies in, catching the group of them off-guard and knocking the powerful monster off the the bridge and into the lava. Akasha and Cerion flee and the monsters charge towards where the commander is waiting. She and Elleon easily disperse of the monsters, leaving only Akasha, Elleon, Cerion and the commander to face off. Akasha powers up a spell and the commander jumps out of the way to reveal a Valkyon mage, charging a similar attack. The spells combine, knocking Akasha back and leaving her and Cerion cornered between Elleon, the commander and the Valkyon mage. Akasha taunts them, spawning more monsters.
  
  
  
• Save the Hero of Westonia Cut-Scene
  - No sound in this one either :(
  
  
  
  
  The scene opens with a woman proclaiming that the player has gotten in "his" way before she teleports off. Next, a goddess like figure emerges, introducing herself as Mystel. She shows the player a vision of the High Elf commander's young Aman friend, referring to him as the Hero of Westonia. She says he's trapped in a nightmare and she asks the player to save him.

Filed by TERA Fans News at 11:19 pm under Uncategorized  Tagged Argons, Army, Arun, City Of Magic, Elf, Faces, Fans, Goddess, Hello, hero, High Elves, Monsters, Narrator, Nearby Villages, Opposition, Peace Keeping, Pride, Questline, Tera, Translator, Video Player, Videos
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Hey TERA Fans! We've had a very busy week around here with all the news and interesting information out of G*Star 2010. If you missed any of it head over to the compilation thread and check out all our translations, videos and screenshots :D

We got lots of new TERA information from various G*Star articles, videos and screenshots this week. I'll re-cap some of the most interesting pieces of information we've gathered!

UI Improvements
Although we've been hearing about the infamous new UI for a while now, G*Star was one of the first times we were able to see all of the improved UI elements in action.

• Movable UI Elements
  Currently each element of the UI is movable! Although TERA's UI is sleek and unobtrusive by nature now players can customize their UI to taste.
  
  
• Target Frame
  A big issue during previous TERA tests was that players had a lot of trouble seeing enemy health. Though there were enemy health bars in the game, often times on large monsters, the bar would be out of the player's view. With that in mind, one of the most important features of the new UI is the new target frame.
  
  The target frame displays the health and level of the last mob you've hit. By default, it seems to be set to the top left of the screen, under the player's health bar.
  
  
• New Menu Icons
  Though we've seen these new menu icons since San Diego Comic Con this summer, their official sort of debut to the public was at G*Star where they looked great :] These new menu icons make up the game's UI mode, which can be accessed by pressing "alt" or "esc".
  
  
• Graphical Effects for Buffs and Debuffs
  As seen in the screenshot above, debuffs and buffs now have visible graphics that appear above effected character's heads.

Content Additions
Since CBT3/FGT2, TERA's seen some major content additions.

• Mounts
  TERA's first mounts appeared at G*Star 2010! Although at the convention only Valkion Warhorses were available, the developers mentioned that other types of mounts would be added, including special mounts tied to the political system. Currently, the warhorses are instant spawn out of combat and instant despawn in combat and there's no word on whether this will change or not. As an interesting note, it seems that female Castanics and High Elves always ride side-saddle.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• All Classes Open to All Races
  As you can see in the above example, all classes were available to all of the races during G*Star 2010! Since this is the client BHS will be using for the server stress test at the end of this week, it seems very certain that all classes will indeed be available for all races. Yay!
  
  
• Combo System
  One of the more controversial additions to the game was the new combo system. With the combo system, if a skill is the first step of a combo, once it's executed, the icon of the next skill in the combo pops up on the screen. For as long as the icon is up, a player may press their space bar to continue the skill combo.
  
  The controversy in this addition lies in the fact that combo chains can be executed by the simple press of the space bar. The community on TERA-Online.com was concerned that such a simple maneuver was trivializing in-game combat. Not long after the discussion began, CM Scapes commented on the issue.
  
  

  Quote

  Originally Posted: by bygeorge
  Just because the spacebar option is there doesn't mean that it will always be the best option.
  
  ---
  
  This.
  
  What the dynamic spacebar is very helpful for is catching proc skills, ones that become available given a status or prerequisite.
  -- Scapes
  
  
  What do you make of that, TERA Fans? Too easy, or just convenient? Personally, I think we'll need to do some testing before we can say for sure.
  
  
• No Large Scale PvE Content at Launch
  At the end of the G*Star Press Conference Q&A, the BHS representatives stated that end game launch PvE would be limited to challenging 5-man dungeons. The reason for this is that when they tested a larger number of players fighting bosses with appropriately scaled HP, the content became far too hack and slash and far less strategic. The team is first looking to balance 5-man PvE content which I think is a step in the right direction!
  
  
• The Political System
  BHS developers confirmed that the political system is indeed in the game, but due to the short demo time players had, not much of it has been tested yet. It is very likely that we'll hear about this kind of thing more once the Korean OBT starts.
  
  Most of what has been confirmed about the political system came from En Masse Entertainment's G*Star release:
  
  

  Quote

  The political system is designed from the ground-up to be a fun, community experience:
  - Provinces have leaders called Vanarchs
  - Vanarchs can run for the office of Exarch
  - Political power includes adjusting tax rates, instituting in-game rules, and more
  - Politicians receive special privileges and equipment such as mounts (much like real life)
  
  
  Although we already knew all of this thanks to a talkative Frogster employee, it is nice to have the basics of the system officially spelled out :]

What didn't we hear much about?
Surprisingly, even though TERA is set to go into OBT in Korea very soon, there are still some things we know next to nothing about.

• Crafting
  From BHS, we learned that crafted gear can be enchanted and from EME, we learned that crafting is now apparently a "one step process", but what does it all mean? Neither company has really come out with exactly what TERA's crafting system will look like at launch.
  
  
• Battleground System
  In their G*Star information announcement, EME said that "Battlegrounds are large-scale group matches where commanding officers direct and influence the battle." That is basically all we know about Battlegrounds. How mysterious!
  
  
• Housing
  Guild housing was mentioned in EME's G*Star release and during their G*Star press conference, BHS mentioned a few other kinds of housing. However, aside from those shout-outs, we have no information about how housing of any kind will specifically work.

Community Reaction and the Future
Overall, G*Star attendees seemed very impressed with TERA. In various Korean articles, the press praised the game for its improvements since CBT3 and a reoccurring theme throughout reviews was that the combat was much more fast paced.

BHS talked a lot about the future of TERA at G*Star. In the immediate future, the company will be hosting a server stress test this coming weekend, from Friday to Monday. If the stress test is successful, BHS will announce an OBT and launch schedule for TERA. Yaaay :D

Interestingly though, the developers explained that they've already begun to think about the game's long term content; stating that they have already begun to plan updates for up to 8 months after the game's initial launch. They hinted at some kind of flying addition for the first time as well as a system they're calling "server invasions" which will allow guilds to invade other servers and pillage rival guilds!

Things are getting very exciting as we move closer to launch. TERA Fans will continue to bring you the latest, most relevant news from both BHS and EME as we find it; beginning with the stress test and OBT!

Thank you so much to everyone who helped me make the TERA Fans coverage of G*Star so successful! Your screenshots, videos, article linkage, ideas, support and everything else are what really fueled our fast coverage :3 And of course, extra special thanks to Kalsteine, who worked with me to translate 7+ articles this week, lightning fast!

Filed by TERA Fans News at 4:42 am under Uncategorized  Tagged Buffs, Compilation, Content Additions, Enemy Health, G-Star, Graphical Effects, Health Bar, Health Bars, Improvements, Last Mob, Menu Icons, Monsters, New Menu, San Diego Comic Con, Screenshot, Star Articles, Target Frame, Translations, Ui Elements, Visible Graphics
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This is the Lancer G*Star gameplay footage thread! Please PM me with any videos you may find!

Inven.co.kr has uploaded bideo of a female High Elf Lancer. In this video, the Lancer charges and grips her enemies. At about 1:45 in the video, a lion crest pops up in the upper right corner of the middle of the screen; this is a glyph activating! Also, watch the monsters-- they do some pretty nifty things like running off and throwing bombs.

Filed by TERA Fans News at 2:41 am under Uncategorized  Tagged Bideo, Bombs, Elf, Enemies, G-Star, Gameplay Footage, Glyph, Kr, Lion Crest, Monsters, Star Lancer
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This is the Lancer G*Star gameplay footage thread! Please PM me with any videos you may find!

Inven.co.kr has uploaded bideo of a female High Elf Lancer. In this video, the Lancer charges and grips her enemies. At about 1:45 in the video, a lion crest pops up in the upper right corner of the middle of the screen; this is a glyph activating! Also, watch the monsters-- they do some pretty nifty things like running off and throwing bombs.

Filed by TERA Fans News at 2:41 am under Uncategorized  Tagged Bideo, Bombs, Elf, Enemies, G-Star, Gameplay Footage, Glyph, Kr, Lion Crest, Monsters, Star Lancer
No Comments