TERA community play diary visits Velika

For anyone who will play in either the upcoming tests for the domestic version, or will try the KR retail version, one of the marquee moments in this game is when you first leave the Isle of Dawn and fly into Velika.
The combination of the visuals while flying toward the sprawling European-styled cityscape and the music is literally jaw-dropping.

I gave up waiting on this game. The fact it was released Q1 in korea and there is still no beta for NA and there is even a patch coming for the korean version shows me we are below second class citizens. They really don't care about us enough to actually do anything for NA. Either keep it in beta longer in korea or just release it worldwide already. Having it live only in one country for months REEKS of Aion all over again, and we remember how well that turned out.

Done with TERA, waiting on GW2.

I've noticed there are mass of video clips with voice overs, I'm hoping for a record amount of this, I think to many MMOs have gotten away from the story factors, and make it up with walls of text. Story takes away the grind, it's the true golden reward over even the gear you get. I'm curious about this game still, I think it has potential. I think they need to get a open beta going to get major interest in a NA market.

It takes up to five years for Korean MMOs to make it to North America and Europe. You will very often see an initial release in Korea followed months later by more content followed by localization for release in Japan and China. Korean MMOs are designed to serve an Asian market much larger and growing faster than NA and European markets. Global release is, in effect, a mopping up operation after the product is reasonably mature and successful in the Asian market.

TERA from the get go was intended to be a global product and we will see it in the West much sooner than the majority of other Korean MMOs. Localization for the Western Market has been underway for more than a year and well before the Korean release. How can this be a cause for complaint?

TERA had a rocky release in Korea. It almost instantly became the most popular MMORPG in Korea for a few weeks before sliding down into 6th place according to the last report I read on the subject. Among the problems it suffered was an exploit that flooded the player economy with gold, a huge invasion of bots, raging hyperinflation in the player economy and what many Korean players viewed as too little content for an AAA subscription MMORPG. For this and some other shortcomings Blue Hole studio has made a public apology and promised to address player concerns. All of those problems should be resolved in the Western version of the game.

Blue Hole Studio is betting that a successful Western release will be sufficient to recoup the more than $36 million spent thus far to develop the game. A clean release is in the best interests of developer/publisher and future players alike. So, let's be patient because patience will in the end be rewarded.