Tera Online News

The twelfth installment of Screenshots of the Week explores Castanica situated in eastern Arun. Also known as the Shrouded Rose, the Castanic race's capital is bathed in the crimson light of glowing signs promoting all manner of services. The passionate, fierce nature of the city's residents is reflected in its dramatic architecture and dark atmosphere.



Learn more about Castanica in the World section of our website.
-- Scapes

The eleventh installment of Screenshots of the Week travels to southern Shara, the western continent of TERA. Beyond the fortified desert sanctuary of Ellenea stretches an arid labyrinth of towering plateaus. This is the eroded canyon of Val Ellenium, scarred by deep valleys carved through walls of sandstone. Locals claim that the desolate Valley of Nihil is one of the region's most forbidding lands, a superlative that its bloodthirsty inhabitants aggressively uphold.



Perhaps not surprisingly, exposure to the elements is the least common death experienced by visitors to this barren gorge.
-- Scapes

The eleventh installment of Screenshots of the Week travels to southern Shara, the western continent of TERA. Beyond the fortified desert sanctuary of Ellenea stretches an arid labyrinth of towering plateaus. This is the eroded canyon of Val Ellenium, scarred by deep valleys carved through walls of sandstone. Locals claim that the desolate Valley of Nihil is one of the region's most forbidding lands, a superlative that its bloodthirsty inhabitants aggressively uphold.



Perhaps not surprisingly, exposure to the elements is the least common death experienced by visitors to this barren gorge.
-- Scapes

We've reached our tenth installment of Screenshots of the Week! In the interest of more thematic titles (and because my keyboard doesn't have a "10" key), we'll start using the name of the region or focus of the installment in the title.

This week, we explore one of Southern Arun's hidden secrets: Azarel's Temple. Obscured by thick jungles and defended by fierce guardians, this golden ziggurat is a monument of foreboding. Many amateur archeologists have met their end before setting foot inside, stunned by the temple's shimmering glow as the sun's rays beat down upon it, and blind to the ancient sentinels charging toward them.



Shield your eyes from the temple's brilliant ruby beacon, guard yourself from the savage horrors born of nightmares, and perhaps you, too, will win entrance into this forbidden palace. It is then that your mettle will truly be tested.
-- Scapes

Hot on the heels of Electronic Entertainment Expo, En Masse Entertainment is excited to announce that we’ll be attending Comic-Con 2010 in San Diego from Wednesday, July 21st to Sunday, July 25th. TERA will be playable on eight computer stations within the Future Play booth (#4445) at the north end of aisle 4400.

Our Comic-Con away team includes myself, Associate Producer Stefan Ramirez, and other key team members. Are you planning to attend? Be sure to visit the booth to play and learn more about TERA! Additionally, En Masse will be holding a private event for the TERA community during the week of Comic-Con. We’ll announce more details on this soon!



Find out more about San Diego Comic-Con 2010 at the convention website.
-- Scapes

Game industry trade show E3 may start next week but TERA's new E3 trailer is available now!



Visit IGN.com to check it out.
-- Scapes

This is the third and final article in our series recapping what we learned from Focus Group Test 2. We’ve enjoyed sharing the feedback with everyone, and sincerely thank those of you who hopped on our forums to offer opinions on the subjects we raised in the first two articles: the gameplay experience and the Westernization process. This article covers an important and highly-anticipated —but oft-overlooked —part of the testing process: the technology behind the game!

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Technology

We’ve made references in the past to TERA’s minimum specs, and part of the great news from FGT2 is that the overwhelming majority of testers either had a rig to run TERA, or could find one to participate in the test. The general requirement to run TERA, at least in its current state, is a gaming rig made in the past four years. The test confirmed this and helped us take a peek at a few behind-the-scenes ways to optimize the code to make the experience better. TERA is a gorgeous game, thanks in no small part to the Unreal 3 engine and Bluehole Studio’s excellent artists, and we want as many people as possible to see just how amazing TERA looks.

For reference, the current system requirements are:
• Intel Core Duo 2 Processor (or equivalent) or better
• 2 GB of RAM or greater
• NVidia GeForce 7600 / ATI Radeon X1800 GTO (or equivalent) or better

We got a good deal of feedback on in-game voice chat as well. No huge surprise: voice chat is very important to TERA players. We polled focus group testers about third-party voice chat vendors, and they almost unanimously indicated that an in-game solution would be best, provided it outperforms currently available third-party voice chat solutions.

As a result we’re exploring options and deciding how to engineer a high-quality approach to TERA’s in-game voice chat. This will be an extremely important aspect of working together when your fingers are busy with TERA’s action combat, and unable to type messages!

Last, but certainly not least, we encouraged as many focus group testers as possible to try one of TERA’s best upcoming features: the use of a game controller. Controller support will be native to the release version of TERA, and quite a few testers gave it a whirl in FGT2 using free third-party programs. The consensus was positive: people found the controller provided an interesting experience, and most who tried it said they’d be willing to use one permanently—at least part of the time, swapping between the controller and the more traditional keyboard-and-mouse combination. The ability to remap the controller is critical to its success, as well as preset key combinations that players could switch between easily—e.g., for rapid reaction to PvP challenges.

As we move into potential future testing and the beta test phase of TERA’s development, we encourage everyone who has the opportunity to test the game to give the controller a spin—you may be surprised at how well it works with TERA’s action combat system.

That’s it for the feedback roundup from Focus Group Test #2! Join us on the TERA forums to voice your opinion about the game. We’d also like to thank our focus group testers one last time for all their excellent feedback and helping make TERA an amazing game!

Thanks!

- The TERA Team -

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We welcome your questions and comments in this thread. We ask that our Focus Group Testers be mindful of the non-disclosure agreement as it is still in effect.

The fifth installment of the weekly Screenshots of the Week feature adventures into the magical woodland of Fey Forest near the logging outpost of Lumbertown. Feisty, flighty faeries swarm under towering evergreen trees and corrupted unicorns gallop along overgrown roads, trampling any in their path.



Next time on Screenshots of the Week, we'll provide a sneak peek of the game being demonstrated at E3.
-- Scapes

The results of last week's destination poll guided our path: the fourth installment of the weekly Screenshots of the Week feature travels to the darkened forest of Oblivion Woods beyond the village of Crescentia. Vibrant wildflowers bloom under a swaying verdant canopy and docile woodland creatures hide in tufts of foliage. But there are more than tall trees and furry critters in this land: groups of Devan skirmishers have set up camp near Crescentia and hulking Basilisks roam wild, attacking adventurers who stray too near.



There's a reason the animals of Oblivion Woods don't stray far from their burrows. Tread lightly!
-- Scapes