TERA : Exploring the Exiled Realm - 3

It was time to head somewhere much, much darker. Over the past two weeks, I’d explored TERA rather tentatively; I’d wandered the initial area and fought a decent amount of different monsters and then I’d began the early quest path and started discovering more about the mysterious world around me. Why had the initial army sent to this new island completely decimated? What were the secrets of the Orks so ready to attack and destroy me and my people? So far all I’d received from the game was questions and I was fascinated to find some answers. The more I played though, the more confused I got. Tired and disappointed by a lack of plot progression, I wandered into the Tainted Gorge and saw a darker side to the Island of Dawn. Would I get the answers I was after or would I just come, instead, across deadlier foes and deadlier mysteries?

Defeating Acharak

My first goal this week was to defeat an Ork leader by the name of Acharak. I’d managed to get a few seconds of footage of a battle with him into last week’s accompany video but didn’t land the finishing blow and so had to return and do the whole thing again. This is one of my big problems with TERA and perhaps an issue across the MMO genre.

TERA Diaries part 3 Video

How is it that I did 90% of the damage to the end of level boss and received no experience or loot (or even the end of the quest) because someone else did the finishing blow, but if I’m working together with others as a group, I’ll lose out despite being the last one to hit our joint enemy? Fighting Acharak, a large Ork surrounded by minions, is fairly easy so long as you don’t forget about his little friend who, whilst easy to kill individually, will easily overwhelm you as a pack.

Beating him is just the first step of taking a little bit of this land, and things are about to get much, much darker.

The Tainted Gorge

If you’ve followed these diaries, seen our videos or just generally followed TERA during development, you’ll know it’s a gorgeous game. From the very beginning you’re blown away in a manner which no other MMO has managed to replicate. While there are other MMOs in development that may one day give TERA a run for its money, there’s nothing else on the market right now that even comes close. So the first trip to the Tainted Gorge is something of a surprise. The lush vegetation and beautiful vistas fade away and you’re left with nothing but shadow and blackness. The waterfalls and blue skies remain but within seconds of stepping foot in the gorge you find yourself as far away from the lush land boasted by the island as you can be. It’s in the distance and I’m not sure there’s ever a point at which you can’t see a lonely tree or band of colourful animals, but while you’re in the gorge all of that seems incredibly far away.

Bands of unusual or more powerful enemies roam in close proximity of one another, waiting for an adventurer to accidentally miss their target and bite off more than they can chew. Trees have no leaves, the grass has died and, underfoot, you need to be careful not to come across the victims of the last expedition. There are corpses in the Tainted Gorge, a menacing reminder of those unlucky enough to come to the island on the first trip. What I liked best about The Tainted Gorge was just how different it managed to be from the Timeless Woods, how all the evil constantly referred to by those giving quests could be so close to the stunning areas of nature we’d already seen.

Adventures in Darkness

You’ll find yourself asking even more questions when you start to perform quests in the Tainted Gorge. It’s disappointing to a certain extent because this portion of the game has become a rinse-and-repeat of “defeat this monster so many times,” a back-to-reality moment for anybody who thought playing with a controller and dodging attacks excepted this game from falling into traditional MMORPG traps. Still, between killing endless amounts of semi-innocent creatures the developers have managed to do something that’s very unlike most MMORPGs, they’ve managed to make a story that’s actually half worth a read. There’s a level of intrigue to the island in these early parts of the game that teases so much and, at this point, delivers so little. If you tease a dog with food for too long, he’s going to go for your hand and I feel a little bit like that at this point, I’m getting lots of mysteries and no pay off.

But with that said, the mysteries ARE getting deeper. It’s like an episode of Lost, the mysteries aren’t solved but the nature of the mystery is shifted. It isn’t long before you discover that the orks are neither smart enough nor well-organised enough to defend the island and so somebody else, smarter and more dangerous, is your real target. There are some clues and you’ll go and discover more about the other violent creatures around you, but for the most part this equates to killing them over and over again and doesn’t leave much open for discussion.

Conclusion

My third week in TERA is one of quiet disillusionment. The game is getting mildly repetitive and I can’t help but feel the opening hours are stretching longer than they should be. While I hesitate to suggest this is what the developers are going for, it’s apt because the characters within the game are feeling as frustrated as I am. They’ve lost friends, they’ve been shipped away from home and there’s some demonic dark magic expert waiting to kill them. Meanwhile they’re expected to carry on, business as usual. I’m not enjoying TERA any less than I ever have, it’s still probably my favourite of all the MMOs I’ve played, but I’m beginning to feel the strain of doing the same thing over and over (and travelling so slowly, but so much). I suppose over the coming weeks I’m looking for new locations to explore or, failing that, just a little bite of the “food” the developers are teasing.