TERA

You are a discerning consumer. You've looked at the the box for TERA many a time, and you've said to yourself, "I would enjoy this game... but not yet. No, I want to wait until buying this box gives me an awesome lion to ride around as a mount. I will name her Karen." If this sounds like you, good news! Your oddly specific desire has been rewarded with the game's newest promotion!

So how do you go about getting this completely awesome lion mount, technically referred to by the game as the tawny huntress? You just buy a boxed copy of the game and enter the authorization code backwards. The promotion also rewards you with two emeralds and two semi-enigmatic scrolls, but the lion is the centerpiece. However, this promotion is only valid for boxed copies of the game bought on or after December 12th. If you already have a box, you're a bit out of luck, but anyone waiting on a free lion has just lucked out.

What could possibly more fun than hunting down and killing Santa? How about doing it in a corset and fishnets?

From December 14 to January 2, TERA is inviting players to find both Fat and Tiny Santas in game during their Santa's Slay event. Holiday drop loot includes themed cosmetic items, enchanting gear, and high-level consumables. You also have a chance to win a Santa cap that's exclusive to this event.

Check out more info on the event's official announcement.

Patch 18.10.08 may not be the biggest content update in the history of TERA, but its humble offerings are nothing but good news to the playerbase. The newly available patch includes a couple of highly useful drops as well as additional bonuses for inexperienced dungeon runners.

Gamers can now fiddle with their gear's bonus options with semi-enigmatic scrolls, which are found as players defeat the big-ass monsters in various parts of the game. Those monsters also have a chance to drop complete crystalbind scrolls, which keep crystals from breaking due to death for a limited time.

The team really wants players to invite new people into group runs, which is why a trio of additional rookie buffs have been added. These buffs protect crystals from breaking, allow for a one-time on-the-spot resurrection, and increase attack power by 12% for the entire group.

En Masse Entertainment has taken the wraps off a new trial program for its fantasy MMORPG, TERA.The Discovery Edition is an improvement of the previous version that increases the level cap and removes the seven-day restriction.

To sign up, you'll need an En Masse account and not much else. There are some limitations, however, chief among them a 200-gold cap, two characters per server, a level cap of 28, and max gathering and crafting skills of 150 and 100, respectively. There are also a few chat restrictions. You can see them, as well as the rest of the Discovery Edition specifics, at the official TERA website.

[Thanks to Davey for the tip!]

TERA Producer Chris Hager has left the fields of action combat and big-ass monsters, according to the studio. A PR rep released the following statement to Massively: "Yes, we can confirm Chris Hager is no longer with En Masse Entertainment. We wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors."

Bluehole Studios' Harns Kim first made mention of Hager's departure on his Twitter feed.

It is unclear whether Hager left of his own volition or was let go. Prior to working for En Masse, Hager was with NCsoft, developing titles like Guild Wars, Lineage II, and Aion.

[Thanks to Maniac for the tip!]

In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, lived a strange race of people, the Druids. No one knows who they were or what they were doing. That is, except for One Shots contributor Brokenwing, who sends us this gorgeous shot of Stonehenge after he completed a mission in The Secret World.

"In all Halloween missions in TSW, cats are involved," Brokenwing writes, "and you need to defeat an Incognito -- the cat god himself. In Stonehenge! At night! It's so much fun and it looks beautiful."

Welcome to a very One Shots Halloween, sponsored by The Great Pumpkin, Inc.!

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Creepy and kooky, mysterious and ooky, that's TERA's Masquerade Mayhem in a nutshell. The game's first Halloween event kicks off today with a huge assortment of activities, events, and prizes to behold.

Players will be treated to free gifts just for logging in, although it'll take some blood, sweat, and fears to earn the special costumes and mount during this event. A giant pumpkin ghost named Gourdo is haunting the various towns, and players can earn goodies by slinging pies at him. How do you get pies? From killing pie-toting mobs, of course.

En Masse also has a themed dungeon for players to investigate, but don't forget to take a break on the 30th to partake in the Masquerade Ball. You can get a pie-full of Masquerade Mayhem event in the official video after the break!

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The wisdom of TLC flows down through the ages in many forms, but perhaps the group's greatest lesson was this: Don't go chasing waterfalls; please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to. In other words, if you go exploring in MMOs, you're only inviting destruction to rain down on your head, so just stay home.

Wait a minute, that's not a good lesson at all. Forget it. Right now.

Welcome back to One Shots, the column that you brought back and is now extremely lonely because only faithful reader Eric sent us in something from this past week! Admire Eric's pursuit of Guild Wars 2 waterfalls after the break, and be more like Eric by sending us in your favorite MMO screenshots with descriptions.

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TERA is joining the MMO Halloween tradition this year with its own event that promises a loot-fest of giveaways for characters level 40 to 60. Dubbed the Spirit Rally, this festival will run from 3 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, October 16th, to 3 p.m. EDT on Monday, October 22nd, and promises not tricks but treats in the form of high-level charms, crystals, potions, and more.

This event is launching on the heels of a new content patch that adds a hard mode for Manaya's Core, a special achievement for level 60 characters, oodles of skill changes for the Berserker class, and more. Check out the complete patch notes for more details.

Massively logically selects for readers who aren't necessarily playing World of Warcraft -- if you were, you'd probably be reading our sister site WoW Insider, not this column. But I am still a WoW fan, as is this week's One Shots submitter, William. He sent in a freshly snapped pic from Mists of Pandaria with this note:

This screenshot is a little bit of a spoiler, so I won't actually say much about what's in it, but needless to say, this is one of my favourite scenes from the Pandaren starting area. The art design is fantastic in Blizzard's new expansion!

Also, panda in a balloon! William's color image is tucked after the break along with a few more of your One Shots-worthy images.

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Resident Massively Aion columnist MJ Guthrie could sum up the best reason to play her favorite MMO in just one word: wings! That's something reader Leandra plainly echoes in today's featured One Shots submission. She sent us this image of her character soaring through Aion along with this note:

I've been toying around with Aion a bit and took my baby Chanter, Elanyne, for her first flight through the Abyss. I kept an eye out for Elyos, but thankfully (though somewhat disappointingly), I was able to quest in peace. I guess I'll have to level up more and then go looking to pick some fights!

You red, you dead -- that's what I always say! Leandra's flight and a few other reader screenies are tucked beyond the break.

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Live MMO events have long since fallen by the development wayside in the pursuit of scripted "dynamic" events. It used to be that game studios would send paid GMs into the game to roleplay with players in a tabletop-like scenario, conducting large-scale storytelling events and spawning enemies, locations, and items. Ultima Online, which celebrates its 15th birthday this week, is particularly well-known for these sorts of events, but they've seldom been replicated in later generations of triple-A MMOs.

TERA, apparently, hopes to change that with the implementation of Flash events, "spontaneous events focused on small groups of users and run by staff." They might seem a little out of place in TERA, but they could be a niche worth resurrecting. Live, impromptu events might have the disadvantage of involving only small groups of people and not the entire population, but that's exactly what makes them so intriguing for the players who happen to be in the right zone at the right time when one of these events starts.

What do you think? Do you wish more studios would get over their crush on pseudo-dynamic events and return to live events?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

En Masse is running a new "Instance Gratification" promotion for TERA over the next two weekends. The game's official website says that the goal is community building. Given the recent server merges and the upheaval generally associated with such, we think that's probably a solid idea.

If you're level 59 or under, you'll get 50% more loot drops than normal when you group up and tackle the game's dungeon content. Players of all levels get an instance reset scroll every day as long as they log in.

The bonus weekends run from September 21st through the 24th and September 28th through October 1st.

Like a lot of MMOs released in recent years, TERA launched with a bang and then dwindled, forcing En Masse to first lay off staff back in August and then lay off servers in preparation for yesterday's realm merges. And yet the studio seems determined to keep the game alive in the West, promising content updates and small-group, impromptu flash events run by event staff, the likes of which MMO players rarely see outside of old-school games like Ultima Online.

Curious about what all these news bytes portend for the game's future, we sat down with En Masse Entertainment Producer Chris Hager to discuss the reasoning behind the server merges, the effect of the layoffs on the game, and whether TERA might just be the next title to go free-to-play.

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TERA has consolidated to three servers today, but the latest dispatch from producer Chris Hager doesn't dwell on that. No, this dispatch is all about what the game has in the pipeline, starting with more events for players to enjoy. Hager lays out plans the team has made for the fall, like new small-scale events run by the staff on a more regular basis alongside weekend events targeting larger groups of players. The update doesn't mention dates, but it does give several ideas of event types (random races or scavenger hunts as flash events, increased dungeon rewards for weekend events).

Hager also stresses that the game is rolling out further content updates starting with the return of crafting quests and a large-scale Berserker update. There's another large patch due out this fall as well as significant changes to Enchanting, and there are undisclosed further projects being developed jointly by En Masse Entertainment and Bluehole Studios. Players looking for more details can glean a few from the official letter.