TERA Online from Bluehole Studio

[Trippy]

Yep. One pedo race and one cute animal race seems to be almost standard.

I remember the one Korean MMO where male dwarves were muscle bound, bearded, armored warriors fitting the western image and the female dwarves looked like 14 year old girls. Oh, found it, was Lineage II.

EQ did it first (male vs. female Gnomes)

[Falconeer]

The only thing that could make this game more awesome are hitboxes. Enough said.

[Lantyssa]

Being in English would help, too.

[Threash]

Also if the males didn't look like teenage girls and leather outfits didn't look like you were running for Queen of the Ball.

[Draegan]

This game needs more T&A obviously.

[Falconeer]

Also if the males didn't look like teenage girls and leather outfits didn't look like you were running for Queen of the Ball.

Do we really need one of these comments EVERY time a game from Asia (different culture! Different likes and dislikes! Different beauty standards!) gets released?
Anyway, here's your western macho quota:









All these dudes are HIGHLY customizable. Character creation is glorious.

[Trouble]

There's some prime fapping materials amongst that collection.

[Falconeer]

More dudes.

These are the "default" humans for the 8 classes. They are, again, extremely customizable.


Last guy is a wizard. That is not the costume you wear at level one, it's one of the high level one I guess. You can preview 3 dresses/armor at character creation, I guess it's to get an idea of what you will look like at top level. The three outfits are very different in style.

[Trippy]

How cares about the dudes post more pics of the chicks!

Actually my real question is how close can you make the Poporis look to a Giant Panda? It looks like you can sort of customize the stripping on the face to look like that but can you do that for the rest of the body too?

[NiX]

How cares about the dudes post more pics of the chicks!

Actually my real question is how close can you make the Poporis look to a Giant Panda? It looks like you can sort of customize the stripping on the face to look like that but can you do that for the rest of the body too?

From what I understand, the facial coloring is or can be reflected on the rest of the character (Black paws instead of brown.) Though, Poporis are the tiny race of the game, so no real option to be giant.

[Trippy]

Giant as opposed to Lesser (aka Red).

[Falconeer]

Full pedorace creation coverage (17 pics) under the spoiler tag.

As you can see, you can use tons of sliders to modify everything in their furry faces same way you can with humanoids. More, you have like 20 different tails and more than 10 different animals with diferent moods to choose from. Fur colours too. And "tattoos" for the back of their heads. It's crazy.

[Lucas]

*faps*

[Trippy]

Thanks Falconeer.

I may have to play this while I continue to wait patiently for Blizzard to come out with the Pandarens

[Threash]

I might have to play this just so i can murder the fuck out of all of those animals.  Speaking of, hows the pvp in this game?

[NiX]

Thanks Falconeer.

I may have to play this while I continue to wait patiently for Blizzard to come out with the Pandarens

Am I to understand that you and I share a love for Pandas?

[Trippy]

I might have to play this just so i can murder the fuck out of all of those animals.  Speaking of, hows the pvp in this game?

Bring it monkey boy!

Thanks Falconeer.

I may have to play this while I continue to wait patiently for Blizzard to come out with the Pandarens

Am I to understand that you and I share a love for Pandas?

You might say that...

[Lantyssa]

Would that make it more of a 'thing' for pandas?

[Bunk]

Ok, I admit I started cracking up at the sad kitty head version. Almost to the point of having to explain myself to coworkers, which may have been awkward.

[Koyasha]

What's the combat actually feel like, Falc, since you're playing?  This sounds like it could be pretty interesting if it has fun non-targeting combat mechanics..only other MMO-ish game I've seen with good non-targeting mechanics is Phantasy Star Universe and that....had it's own slew of problems.

[Falconeer]

At the moment, the ONLY qualm I have about the combat is lag, and that's easily cause I am playing on a Korean server from Southern Europe. And it's not even that bad, but it's what makes it feel different from any good quality action rpg/beatem up. I guess that will be fixed with localized servers.

That said, swinging, hitting, dodging, it all makes sense and feels kind of great. Same is true for ranged stuff like spells and arrows. Stuff has to be aimed and can be dodged, including melee attacks (some low level ent-like mobs prepare some sort of knock down attack by dropping onto you, and you can avoid it by simply walking around or away from them while they are doing it).

Lag doesn't let me be very specific when it comes to how it'll play out in PvP, as the delay is enough to make me a sitting duck for anyone and I can't tell if the system works and I am just penalised by bad ping, or it's actually not so precise. But in PvE I appreciated that you REALLY have to hit the mobs, you can't just shoot something somewhere towards them. Hell, there's the first ranger alt-ability (right click on the mouse) that lets you hit multiple targets. But in order to do that you have to activate it and then "tag" the targets you want to it, by hovering on them with the mouse. Hitting the attack button will release as many arrows as the numbers of targets you tagged, so if you are not quick and precise in tagging/aiming them all in a couple of seconds, you will only hit the few you managed to highlight.

Seriously, the combat seems to be a winner. Sure, I am very low level and I have no idea how the classes will fare against each other, but it's hard to complain when you finally get a real open world MMORPG with action combat. Oh, my previous comment abuot hitboxes? Seems like some large boss mobs DO have hitboxes.

If anything, compared to your usual action-rpg, all weapon swings are slower. I think it's a fair trade-off as serves have to calculate so many attacks.

[NiX]

You might say that...

Not THAT kind of love. Favorite animal type deal.

[Outlawedprod]

Apparently their EU version is supposed to be run by some company called Frogster which just had something interesting happen to one of their other operated games.

http://www.tera-online.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13692

[Nija]

Hey Falconeer, is there a guide somewhere that walks roundeyes through signing up for the Korean open beta?

Do you know Korean or something?

Hook us up.

[Falconeer]

No guide that I know of. A friend got in somehow (he's friend with people at Steparu.com I think), and he's sharing his account with me. Client download has been a nightmare, took me 4 days without turning the computer off. Patching was another nightmare, wading through impossible to understand error messages. Now that it's up to date, it still only launches 1 out of 5 attempts, and I have no way to decode the error messages. Finally, you need to install Korean keyboard as you want to give your chars Korean names since the rumor is Korean players are asked to report non-Korean speakers.

Oh, did I mention you need to patch and launch the game through MS Internet Explorer, as some activeX mumbojumbo prevents it from working on Chrome or Mozilla?

So sorry, I don't know how to get in. Only how to slap in a log and pass and click the symbols that smell like "play". Unless you want to pay. I heard readymade accounts are for sale on a few shady places. Illegal though, since they require a Korean Social Security Number...

[Lum]

Oh, did I mention you need to patch and launch the game through MS Internet Explorer, as some activeX mumbojumbo prevents it from working on Chrome or Mozilla?

That's actually very common for Korean websites. The best explanation for this I've heard is that the official Korean government websites all require MSIE and ActiveX, so every Korean web designer assumes that is the platform being used. Almost no one in Korea uses Firefox.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/09/123_52401.html

But the land of ubiquitous broadband, feature-happy ``smart'' phones and ultra-cool computing devices doubles as a crusty regime where Linux, Firefox, Chrome and Opera users can't bank or purchase products online, and where Mac users buy Windows CDs to prevent their devices being reduced to fashion items.

The bizarre coexistence of advanced hardware and an outdated user environment is a result of the country's overreliance on the technology of Microsoft, the U.S. software giant that owns the Korean computing experience like a fat kid does a cookie jar.

It is estimated that around 99 percent of Korean computers run on Microsoft's Windows operating system, and a similar rate of Internet users rely on the company's Internet Explorer (IE) Web browser to connect to cyberspace.

Critics say the country would end up paying dearly for allowing a Microsoft monoculture to take hold, with consumers deprived of the freedom to choose newer and better products and the Web industry seeing its innovation compromised.

Part of my current job with NCsoft involves porting MS-centric web tools from Korea into more stable standards-friendly versions.

[Spiff]

I'm confused now; is this thing being developed in North Korea? 

[Lum]

North Korea runs Linux.

[Hoax]

Not gonna lie I spent about 20 minutes looking around for a KSSN + name I could borrow but though I found some full SSN's I couldn't figure out the name that went with them or maybe it could tell that I was pasting in what I was hoping was the name and that pissed it off, who knows.

The best part is I just remembered that this was the lesser of the two great anime fanservice mmo's, when is Blade & Soul supposed to come out?

[Nonentity]

Even if you find a KSSN that works, if you register through a western IP, it's super likely that your account will have to be authenticated using a Korean mobile phone number. A lot of KMMOs have been going that route to keep us durned foreigners out.

Your best bet would be to make some underhanded deals to purchase one through a shady website, but I do not condone such activities.

[palmer_eldritch]

Why are they so determined to keep non-Koreans out? I guess developers are generally keen to control access to betas, but posts here suggest this is part of a general pattern with MMO services in Korea. Anyone know what's up with that?

[Kageru]

Probably something silly like licensing.

Vindictus was region locked to the countries that had an active server with the forum suggesting the processing was distributed so that high latency might actually lag other people out. Though it seems unlikely they'd structure the game that way and more probably it's just the normal uninformed belief that a players lag can slow down others on a server provided game.

[Murgos]

Probably something silly like licensing.

Wonderful attitude.  The way the company who makes the product will make money is 'silly' because you want in to a beta that they haven't staffed to support you and aren't yet prepared to deal with your types of issues.

[Falconeer]

By the way game is going retail in a few days. Get your "shady and not condoned" foot into the beta at your own risk.

[Kageru]

Probably something silly like licensing.

Wonderful attitude.  The way the company who makes the product will make money is 'silly' because you want in to a beta that they haven't staffed to support you and aren't yet prepared to deal with your types of issues.

They're not making money off the beta. Nobody expects "support" in a beta. If they are planning on making money off the product then beta-test it under my latency conditions. Especially because virtually none of these games, for good economic reasons, are likely to run Australian servers so if we do end up playing it will be on American servers. And the licensing is probably of the "we'd sign up a local distributor... if we had any intention of local servers, which we don't".

This doesn't apply so much for US people sneaking into a Korean beta where you could argue there will be US servers and testing the language (and being able to write bug reports) is part of the test. Was more referencing my experiences with Vindictus (though it's irrelevant too since they locked the end product).

And I don't really beta-test, that's for paid testers, fanboys and free-loaders. If it's a game I want to play I'll play the finished product.