TERA Online: Next Gen MMO?

I’m sure by now most people are watching TERA Online. Coming out Spring 2012 for the UK and America, it’s a new Korean MMO with aesthetics not dissimilar to AION.

Hopefully however, unlike AION, TERA promises to bring something new to the MMO genre.

Like AION, it has practically naked women, huge weapons and a beautifully crafted fantasy setting, but it also has a new combat system that could make this new game much more engaging than previously popular MMOs such as World of Warcraft.

TERA isn't like other games in the genre. You don't target an enemy and mash buttons mindlessly in your set rotation as we've all become accustomed to. In TERA, melee classes have to make physical contact with an enemy for them to deal damage, ranged damage-dealers have to aim their abilities and healers have to target their allies to replenish their health.

I have always found it frustrating in MMOs that kiting so that the mobs make no contact with me never actually stops me from taking damage. I might take less, but even with a gap between us my health would still be depleting gradually. With TERA this should no longer be true. In fact normal mobs have their own tactics. Some you have to dodge a charge, others move out of area of effect abilities. This game could perhaps teach new players basic tactics so that instances won't be so taxing if you're teamed with them (although honestly, I'm not holding my breath).

Thanks to its skill-based combat, PvP in TERA also looks promising. So far there has been no word as to whether it is balanced, whether there will be open-world PvP or if you will be able to have multiple specs to allow for PvP, but from watching videos of duels it seems interesting. I'm not saying that it's eSport material, but if they implement it well it could at least be damn good fun.

Currently TERA Online is undergoing westernisation. Supposedly they're tweaking the gameplay and storyline, adding more quests to get rid of the grind so popular in Korean MMOs and generally making it more suitable (including making the clothing of a certain race more “PC”). I'm hoping that they won't be changing it too much, as in Korea the rating of this game is 18+ thanks to the amount of blood pouring from your enemies and such – it would be silly to take the fun out of slashing mobs to pieces just for a lower rating, surely!

With public beta starting at the beginning of next year there's a little wait to go but hopefully other games will fill in that gap.