We played the Tera beta prior to release and hated it, in fact within ten minutes of landing on that starter island mess we logged out and deleted the game from our hard drives. This week we both received e-mails offering us a 7 day trial and a trial code. I will say that the trial code they sent both of us in e-mail was invalid, as was the link, and was for Europe and not North America. I decided to see if we were too hasty perhaps. Short and quick answer in NO!
Character creation isn’t bad, which is the highlight of the whole experience for me. You land on newbie island level 20, you do some stuff I couldn’t be bothered to read or absorb because it was BORING. And then suddenly you land in a new zone as a level 1. HUH WHAT? By now you’ve come to realize that the controls and user interface is so clunky and aggravating that it makes you want to punch someone. Combat isn’t fast paced or fun, rather it is disconnected and at no point did my character feel threatened or vulnerable.
Really? You can only sell 8 items, that’s right 8 items!, at a time to a merchant. See that horrible middle bar cluttering the bottom center of my screen, it comes up EVERY time you interact with a NPC and in order to resume your adventure you have to clear that interface from the screen. Want to know what those buffs are you just got from gathering are? I’m sorry you can’t mouse over them without bringing up that center bar first. If you are like me and prefer to move with a mouse then Tera will make you cry tears of frustration. I was able to keybind movement to the mouse but it was not easy to figure out. Camera angles are wonky, NPCs randomly zoom in and out when you first speak to them, and there is no story at all.
Yeah, I know it “all” changes when you get to this zone or whatever it’s defenders might try and claim. But the reality is that in today’s saturated gaming market, Tera cannot compete with other subscription games and is hands down far worse than many free to play games. There is no originality at all in Tera. It looks like a rip-off of Guild Wars and Lineage from NCSoft. It has far less polish than it’s development cycle would have suggested it would have. And their cash shop is EXPENSIVE in comparison with the competition.
I won’t be upgrading my trial to a subscription. I certainly won’t be laying out money for the digital copy of the game. I can safely say that when Tera transitions over to free to play, and I have no doubt that will happen sooner rather than later, we won’t be tempted.
