In this week’s installment of Ten Ton Hammer Live!, our hosts
travel to a lost temple dedicated to esoteric fighting arts to learn
about the innovative action-combat MMOG, style="font-style: italic;">TERA,
developed by En Masse Entertainment. To that end, we’ve
cornered Sam Kim, Producer and Matt Atwood, PR Director, to show off
their fighting moves and talk about all things style="font-style: italic;">TERA.





Question:
For those listeners who haven’t heard of
style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">TERA style="font-weight: bold;">, could you tell us a
little something about the game?



Answer:
In a few words, style="font-style: italic;">TERA
is all about action. We focus on innovative combat mechanics which no
other MMOG does right now. We emphasize combat maneuvers such as
timing, direction, and placement like you would find in games like style="font-style: italic;">Devil May Cry,
but in an MMOG setting that is rich and engaging. An example would be
our gameplay today where Sam pulled five or six mobs to us, told me to
get out of the way, and then fire my Blast Ball, which destroys
everything its path. I fired my Blast Ball and knocked all the mobs
down. That’s where the skill in action combat comes in as
opposed to lengthy trees of skills that you develop in seventeen
different ways. There are classes that allow you to dodge attacks, so
say an enemy mob fires a Blast Ball at you, you can actually dodge the
attack entirely unlike other MMOGs out there. It takes a lot of skill
to do so as you have to consider facing and the directions of incoming
attacks. The onscreen action in style="font-style: italic;">TERA
is what you’re paying attention to and what matters.



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Q:
Are you saying that
style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">TERA style="font-weight: bold;"> is the death knell to
button mashing? That players will actually have to be skillful and not
just press ‘6’ or ‘7’ a bunch
of times?



A:
That’s right! Players will actually have to put their
sandwiches down to pay attention to what’s going on at the
battlefield. They need to be sure of where they’re moving
their character, they need to communicate with their party members, and
have to be aware of what attacks the enemy is doing so that they can
counter their skill or ability with your skill or ability.



Q:
From our time trying the game, I have to agree with what
you’re saying. At no time when I was playing did I look down
to see where my hotkeys were. I kept my eyes on the screen and it was
easy to see what everybody was doing, which made it easy for me to
attack or counter. It was extremely intuitive in the gameplay.




A:
That’s right. It’s no more whack-a-mole of 1, 2, 3,
and 4. Now, it’s more about your character’s doing
in relation to the world. From a gamer’s point of view, we
want to be immersed in a world, get into the action, and be so awed and
amazed by the sheer number of different ways to kill things that
you’ll want to try a different way each time.



Engagement is definitely the name of the game for this kind of action
combat, not just for how the monster attacks but also how your
character plays. As a sorcerer, I could take the stance that I want to
stay far away and fire spell after spell at the enemy and keep my
distance from the enemy mob, or, as a sorcerer, I could make the choice
to get a little closer to use AoE attacks and leverage my abilities to
get away and dodge attacks if need be. Choice and engagement are really
big in TERA.



Another thing that I’d like to point out is that half of our
team play TERA
using a mouse and keyboard while the other half uses a gamepad, so this
game really delivers on that action combat that we’ve been
talking about. With your controller, you’re able to get a
visceral payoff to the combat when you destroy a creature or execute a
certain attack like a Blast Ball. Like the fight that we talked about
earlier, we did that on the fly and we work on the game. What we
can’t wait for after the game releases is for players to come
up with their own strategies because players will always astound you
with creative moves and strategies that we would never expect.



Q:
Besides the gameplay style, what else about
style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">TERA style="font-weight: bold;"> makes itself different
from the other MMOGs out there?



A:
We have a few features that will make style="font-style: italic;">TERA
different from other MMOGs. One of these is the political system. The
political system is a never before seen feature where players can
interact with each other to control the flow of the economy, control
the flow of the game, and build out on the community, not to just hang
out, but to have a purpose.



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Another thing is that we’re focusing on action, which is the
core of the game, but we’ve got thousands of quests in this
game. This world is huge and gorgeous. The creativity of the team is
amazing and they take inspiration from not only their own imaginations,
but also from other entertainment mediums. They really have their
finger on the pulse. One thing I like to do when I get to a new area
and am admiring the vistas and forests is to look at the trees.
It’s a minor thing, but you can actually watch them sway in
the breeze. The amount of animation in the environment and how rendered
these environments are really amazing. There so many stunning lands and
environments in the game that it brings back the feeling when you first
played MMOGs and you would stop when you entered a new area and just
went “whoa.” style="font-style: italic;">TERA
brings that feeling back in that each area is different based upon
culture and climate. You have deserts, thick forests, and large plains,
and they’re all beautifully done with lots of small touches.
The little things are what make the difference between good games and
really great games.



To enhance the game immersion, we have a really talented writing and
creative team. Each zone has its own story engaging storylines, not
your usual Fed-Ex quests. We want players to be immersed in
what’s going on in the storylines for each zone, and all the
little things make a difference.



Q:
An epic game feel with action combat gameplay with
politics…besides Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is your target
audience for
style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">TERA style="font-weight: bold;">?



A:
People mention hard core gamers, other MMOG gamers; if you look at the
games out there and the numbers of people that play them, the segments
become blurred. We’re looking for people who like MMOGs and
want a new experience that will hold their attention as well as those
who love the action elements of those great games that we’ve
seen throughout the years. Our primary appeal would be to MMOG fans,
but given the approachability by the fact that you can pick up a
controller or a keyboard, you’ll get those who’ll
want to jump in right away and after they get hooked, will want to
explore the depth in the game. Clichéd or not, I think the
game will appeal to anybody who wants to have fun and sit there with
their controller where they decide how deep they want to go or how
creative they get with their skills. There’s a lot of appeal
here.



I’d also like to add while there is usually depth to be found
in MMOGs, there’s a depth to be found in the action that
comes from the skill of the player. It’s easily accessible in
that it’s easy to learn, but there’s that hard to
master element in how is my character and play dynamic complement my
friends’ play dynamic. There’s enough engaging play
content there in that there’s a ton of choices for the
players.



There’s a lot of undiscovered country there in the gameplay.
Another example was that I was playing a berserker who was blocking for
a healer. I stood there blocking all these attacks, keeping the healer
safe. Then, I would do a massive swipe that would wipe out the enemy
mobs that I was fighting. That’s just one way to do something
in gameplay. The fun thing is to see what the players will do.
We’ll anticipate a lot of what the players will do, but the
fun will be seeing players come up something that nobody else has done
before that will eventually become a standard. The first time you see
somebody do that new thing, you’ll want to group up with them
again and you’ll work together and then you might come up
with some new combos, so that when you group with other berserkers or
slayers, you’ll pass that new method on to other players. The
fun thing is that we don’t know how many new variables will
come up as players experiment.



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Q:
As somebody who enjoys the overall storyline and the immersion it leads
to, what can you tell us of this world and how a player, coming in as a
new character, can effect change in this world?




A:
You, as a player, are part of the new generation of what is the Valkyon
Federation and you get to choose from six races and eight classes. The
Valkyon Federation is comprised of those six races and
they’ve joined together to face the Argons. Your goal as part
of that new generation is to fight against the Argons and explore new
areas and opportunities where the races interact. That’s
where a little bit of the political system comes in and where a lot of
the story comes in, which is in addition to the individual stories of
each zone. You don’t even know why the Argons are there;
you’re hearing and seeing the destruction. You
don’t know why it’s happening, but your land and
people are being destroyed. The races have come together to figure
what’s happening and to stop the destruction. It’s
about saving everyone and the beautiful land that you love.



Part of the immersion is that you’ll find that each race has
their own dynamic within the Valkyon Federation. You’ll see
how the older generation has acted together thus far and how the new
generation can change that or persist.



Q:
You’ve told us about missions and the back story, but the
question that many of our listeners would want answered is if
style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">TERA style="font-weight: bold;"> is a PvP experience, a
PvE experience, or a perfect blend of both?



A:
In regards to PvP versus PvE, we’re making sure that our PvE
content is engaging and that there’s a lot of choice a player
has. There are features that will support PvP elements such as
battlegrounds or world PvP. There will be PvP and PvE servers. Our
focus is to make sure that the content is engaging.



Q:
We have a question here that asks, “Zerging in open world PvP
is a pretty big issue for me in-game as it becomes a button-mashing
fest that takes no skill. Will
style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">TERA style="font-weight: bold;"> have any mechanics to
avoid zergs from massing up or allow small groups to survive in an open
world PvP environment without having to get involved in large messy
battles?”



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A:
That’s why we’re offering PvE and PvP servers. We
recognize that griefing is a big problem, wherein griefing is where a
player and his friends gang up on a particular player, let’s
call him John, and spend all their time making John’s life
miserable whenever he comes online. By going to a PvE server, John
won’t be subject to that pain while he’s leveling,
growing, and playing his game. We also know that there are people who
like that kind of experience and that is where our PvP servers come in.
As far as PvP combat, with style="font-style: italic;">TERA’s
action being so skill based, there are a lot of opportunities where
it’s four versus three, four versus two, three versus one, or
any other combination. Certain people are more skillful that others and
may be able to escape when they’re impossibly overwhelmed.
It’s up to the players and we’re giving them the
choices and the features to facilitate those choices in an engaging and
pleasurable way.



Speaking more of this fictional John character, if John gets griefed a
few times, he’ll learn from those experiences. Because the
combat is so dynamic, John can learn some tricks up his sleeve. I think
it’s going to give players the ability to get creative, and
if somebody is griefing you, then fight back. It can be definitely
challenging if you’re facing five on one, but the dynamic way
that the action works is going to make some of those challenges
solvable. Plus, John is going to want to practice, and the more that
John practices, the better he’ll get and he’ll no
longer be bullied.



If John is like me, if I get bullied once or twice, I’m going
to bring in ten to twenty friends to take care of those who are doing
it. That’s why we’re focusing on features for
player interaction and building your friends, groups, and guilds.






Q:
We have one more fan question on PvP. They’re curious about
PvP and racial aspects. How will that play into the PvP experience?




A:
Right now, races will give you a lot of options on how you look and how
you portray your individual persona within the game. As far as
gameplay, races will have no benefits or have any effect on how they
play in PvP or PvE.



Races are more vanity, but there is some cool stuff. If
you’re playing a berserker and you’re playing
different races, the way they swing their axe is different. We actually
ran a focus group not too long ago and asked them if they would like to
see some variance among the races and classes, so it’s
something that we’re looking into. We’ll have more
information down the road a bit.



To make a clarification, certain races will have certain classes
available to them, while other races might not have a particular class
available. Therefore, race will have some determining factor in what
kind of character you can play, but that’s more associated
with the class you can play as opposed to racial bonuses.



Q:
So the rumors floating around that if you play a certain race,
you’ll have a greater reach than other races is not true then?




A:
No, that is not true and is not specced in the game. If a human slayer
and a castanic slayer were to go toe-to-toe with the same level of
skill, would that skill or ability have differences between the two due
to their race? The answer to that is no.



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Q:
The guy asking the question goes out of his way to say that
he’s not talking about strength or intellect, but smaller
things such as the reach of their hands. That’s definitely a
no though?




A:
That is definitely no. There is no difference between the races.
However, some of the feedback that we’ve gotten is that they
would like to see some bit of variance, and that is something that
we’re looking at. However, one of the great things about
MMOGs is that you get to play who you want to play. I really love
castanics as they look really cool and I enjoy playing that race, so I
don’t want to feel like that I’m being penalized
for playing a castanic versus another race. Right now, they are looking
at little areas, but keeping it balanced. It’s important to
us to let people play who they want to play. We don’t want
people to choose not to play a race because of a disadvantage.



Q:
Let’s go back to the world itself. The way you described it
is beautiful and my follow-up question to that is: how big is the world?




A:
The short answer is BIG. There are over eighty zones, and each zone is
not an instance. The zones are connected so you can walk from one zone
to the next. There are huge continents, and from a land mass
perspective, there’s probably never been another game with
this much land. The zones have their own unique feel and environment.
You can engage the world in a desert, tundra, barren, swamps, lush
rainforest, or any one of a million different types of environment. The
world is very big and immersive.



There’s a popular game out there right now that people have
been playing for awhile and it is pretty large, and we have more land
mass. Our focus, however, was not to make it huge. Our focus was what
is it we need to do make sure we deliver to the players. One of the key
things when you create an MMOG is that you want people to come back, so
we felt that it was important to offer diversity throughout the
continent. You’re going to see that in the way the monsters
are, the way the environments look, and the types of climates. When I
explore a new area, I tend to stop and go, “wow.
There’s a waterfall in the distance and the sun is
setting.” Describing it really doesn’t do it
justice, but there are a lot of great moments of discovery in the game.



Environments will have meaning, so there’ll be reasons why
you’re there or reasons why you’re seeing what
you’re seeing. If you see a crazy cave alongside a mountain
and you see etchings along that cave, you might actually begin to
understand why those things are there.



Q:
There’s been talk of mounts to quicken travel. Are there any
other methods to make travel in such a massive world easier?




A:
Absolutely! Unlike some other games I could mention, the last thing
that we want is to have a player spending five minutes fighting a
monster and then spending forty five minutes running back to turn in
the quest or spending hours and hours running from one zone to the next
for whatever reason. We’ll have, in addition to the flying
mounts called Pegasus that’ll take you from one zone to the
next, teleportation scrolls that’ll take you to the main town
as well as mini-teleportation providers who’ll take you to
any mini-zones in the nearby areas.



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Q:
I want to get a sense from you guys how each race plays into the
architecture. I’ve been looking at some of these screenshots
and it looks like you’re looking into a valley that stretches
for miles. Is there any bit of lag time from looking from your
perspective to looking at a point across the map where you decide you
want to go there? Is it that massive feel where you feel like
you’ve been running for miles and everything still looks
amazing?




A:
You’ll definitely get that affect from what we’ve
been talking about where you’ve ran, or ridden on a horse,
miles and miles and you reach another immersive environment. The new
environment is beautiful, engaging, and there’s ways to
interact via quests and the story. You’ll get that feel that
this is an amazing world and each zone is almost a world in and of
itself.



It’s really influenced by the culture that lives there.
You’ll see some screens that are coming soon that showcase a
land that’s a mix of circus, where there’s these
statues that are a vibrant color and are unique, but once you start to
interact with the denizens of that world, you begin to see why things
are the way they are there.



It’s like the real world where you can travel and see places
that started for a variety of reasons such as being rich in a certain
type of mineral or food item. That whole culture is built around that
and you can see it.



You can apply it to the races in that the castanic will have their own
city with its own unique feel to it versus a human city. All of these
different cities will play together into what makes up the Valkyon
Federation, which is the overlying world of style="font-style: italic;">TERA.



Q:
What is the exact PvE style of this game? Is it like older games like
style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Everquest style="font-weight: bold;"> where you needed a group
to kill a mob of monsters, or is this a friendlier game where you can
go kill a few mobs of monsters by yourself?



A:
Choice, which is what we want to provide for our users. There are
things in TERA
called party mobs, where it’s more like style="font-style: italic;">Final Fantasy XI,
it’s not where you couldn’t engage them alone
because of the action system in style="font-style: italic;">TERA
really revolves around player skill, but some of these party mobs will
be more easily dealt with by a party type environment. You also have
other types of mobs that you can handle solo, so you have that choice.
You can choose to get to max level through solo play and
there’s options of leveling through party play or instanced
dungeons. Each of those paths has content that you can cycle through
and it’s not boring or repetitive. You can mix and match
these paths depending upon your time, location, personal preference,
and skill level.



Personally, I think soloing your way through the game (and there are
party oriented dungeons) would be extremely challenging and
you’d really have to develop your skills. I think you can do
it, but there’s something to be said for each path.
Sometimes, it’s fun to just pop in and fight some monsters to
complete a quest or two by yourself. However, it is a lot of fun to get
in with a group and use your skills together, where you really execute
some mass attacks. You could really cover some ground together if
you’re used to working together or really experienced with
your class.



Whatever choice you make, it’ll be a unique and
content-filled experience but there’s definitely benefits to
be had depending upon which route you choose.



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Q:
Can you tell us about the political system? What is that like?




A:
It’s roses and candy and everything nice rolled into the best
system…I’m kidding! We’ll definitely be
able to release more details upon launch, but I can tell you a little
bit about it now. The political system is a way in which players can
interact. There are a number of ways that a person can be elected into
office. Essentially, certain players will lobby the community and try
to get elected into office through various means. Once in elected
office, the players can control a lot of different things from the
economy to player interaction to guild rivalries and other things.
It’s an awesome opportunity for a player to get involved in
the evolution of the game itself.



I wish we could tell you more, and the stuff we’ve told you
is just the tip of the iceberg. I honestly believe that the political
system is going to be a game changer. I think that people are going to
have a lot of fun with the political system. You can really see the
creative minds that we have behind the game shine within the creation
of the political system. It’s going to be pretty compelling
to players.



Q:
How do guilds work within the format of the game? What can guilds do or
what kind of advantages do you have belonging to a guild within the
framework of the world?




A:
Within TERA,
you have the basic bonuses of a guild such as forging a separate
identity and being able to chat amongst guild members. In addition to
that, there are unique ways in which guilds can participate in the
world of TERA,
and when we’re able to talk about the political system,
you’ll understand. Guilds would be one channel to participate
in the political system. Guilds are awesome for the social aspects as
well as PvP instances, dungeons, and end game content.



There are a lot of things that we want to say, but we just
can’t right now. Give us a little more time and the closer we
get to launch, the more we’ll be able to say. Right now,
we’re concentrating on showing people how fun combat is and
how that works. There’s some stuff that we’re not
talking about intentionally. One reason is the development process and
you want to make sure that everything works nicely. A lot of the stuff
I’ve seen is awesome, but I’ll stick the gag in my
mouth until we can talk about them.



Q:
Let’s talk about the price tag. There’s an article
stating that
style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">TERA style="font-weight: bold;"> will be the most
expensive MMOG in the world to date.



A:
The point is that when you’re introducing something new like
action combat, you’re going to have to spend the time and
resources to make it good. It has to be awesome; you can’t
just make it half-way. Our answer to your question is that
we’re spending the time and resources to make sure that the
things that we can and can’t talk about are the best that
they can be. What does that mean, you ask? I’ll tell you what
that means. It means that we’re looking at every part of the
game and spending the time and resources to make it an amazing
experience because that’s what is going to keep people
playing. It’s going to get people interested in the game. I
know that historically, a lot of people have said what we’re
saying, but I can tell you that we have a true commitment as shown by
our focus group tests and the feedback we’re getting from
those. There’s a true commitment to deliver to players what
they want and also showing them new things that we think
they’re going to love. We’re not going to let
anything stop us from delivering an incredible experience.



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Q:
I think that players will appreciate hearing that since so many titles
have been launched in the last few years that are incomplete and buggy.
Players have been in an uproar over it, so it’s good to hear
that.

style="font-weight: bold;">


A:
The truth is that when you’re looking at worlds this big, and
you’re testing these games making sure that everything works
is no joke. However, there have certainly been games that have been
released too early and shouldn’t have hit the market.
We’re not doing that. There’s so much about that
day one, week one, week two experience. When you meet someone, first
impressions count. The great thing is that we have the depth to keep
you captivated. It’s important for us to hit the market with
a polished product.


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our TERA: Rising Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

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