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[Rant] One thing I like about NA Tera and why I sometimes hate the NA community
It is a really random post I know, but I felt compelled to write this.
This is given from a perspective of an Asian. I personally live in Singapore, it is 9pm Saturday right as I am posting this, and run NA Tera at 250-300ms ping. If you are going to make asian jokes at me I don't really care either, because it is easier to make NA jokes lol.
I usually play CCGs and MOBAs, but Tera is the second non-CCG/MOBA game I believe that kept me playing. No other game can really keep me that interested, because it doesn't go the ultra-boring route of "press tab, mash buttons non-stop until monster dies without any use of your brain, and repeat". Every game that does that makes me lose interest within a month at max.
NA Tera is not the closest to me. I can run the Taiwan server at 80-90ms stable (I can do the lancer skate there, but can't even play lancer properly in NA), but Taiwan is the server you don't want to go if you want to go completely F2P, because you won't even get far. (Midtier fs at 100gold each? Previous VM +15s still past the 1 mil mark? PLEASE.). I stayed in NA because it is slightly easier for me to communicate in English instead of Chinese (well to be fair I am a Chinese but still), and also the game feels way more rewarding here than in TW.
Compared to many other games I have played, it felt like Tera is an extreme carebear. Sure double drop, double exp and the likes aren't rare in games, but no other game server has so many events that help a player boost up in a game, and while I think it is the trend for many MMOs in NA, it was never to a degree of EME's.
This was the one thing I liked about NA Tera, gear isn't forced upon players to get if they really don't want to do HM, and they are easily obtainable. You don't have to have a certain minimum that requires weeks or even months of grinding 8 hours a day just to obtain. The BiS is something people farm for and yes it feels long and could be improved, but it is still way better than games which people need months to even get one piece and still need another month to enchant it.
With that you will kind of expect me to say that quite a large bunch of the NA community (both forums and in game) are a bunch of whining people, and you are right to say that. Many feel like they have to get something to pay for the game, and are extremely nitpicky about everything that doesn't benefit them.
For example the PvE/PvP servers solution. The original server and all asian servers don't even have exclusive servers for PvE and PvP, and it is kind of making me feel like there is absolutely no reason to even segregate the servers to begin with, especially when PKers are a minority. Don't get me wrong, PKing people many levels lower than you is indeed a very toxic move, but very few do that to begin with. Every single technique to dodge them is how pure PvE players in MT survived in the past. But no, we had to have a PvE server to cater to those who have a phobia of jumpscares and black screens, which is really fine until people start complaining about the Fey Forest merge, which doesn't affect most players one bit. Look at the complaints and see how many people are bent on going to AV when on FF launch the ganking activity is already very low compared to the dead Lake of Tears PK scene. And then in a later build they made PvP65 for MT because obviously BHS decided to scrap the original PvP server file from their builds due to no other server actually using it anymore. Even more complaints came in. For a content that isn't even supported as much from the beginning, I thought people are complaining for the sake of complaining.
Not a good enough example? Look at Battlegrounds. Even at the most pointless gamemode aka Kumas Royale, people are screaming at others for being bad when they aren't that good themselves. In CS people who make calculated but unconventional strategies are bashed at by clueless people who didn't know that delaying 6 people with 1-2 people can actually net you nearly 20 seconds extra time against a competent group. In FWC some of the leaders who shotcall are just parrots copying from the other leaders, many of whom don't even have a basic PvP crystal set, let alone glyphs, and then simply blaming healers when they wipe.
Still not a good enough example? Look at many DFNM/LKNM/DFHM/VOK/Insert midtier that isn't SSNM (because SSNM aoes are always bugged for some people, so I always give benefit of the doubt) where people are blamed for not healcarrying others when the healer is lagging and trying their best to heal and not get hit by the easily dodgeable AoE which is neglected by most clueless DPS. Look at the many "highly experienced" players bashing people who are slightly weaker, not totally trap for their "garbage DPS/tanking/healing". Look at the many actual newbies with bad attitude due to the negative influence around them. I can't fault the game when it is obviously the players themselves who are contributing to the subpar community people have.
I have been into Asian gaming communities (local/SEA/TW/JP) and I can tell you that we have a fair share of toxicity as well, but they are nowhere as prevalent as the NA community. Very few people snap the moment they are insulted, laughing them off as a joke over in this area, compare that to the NA community where so many people feel they are special snowflakes. It is precisely that I can never understand why so many people in NA have this problem of always wanting to be known as right even when they know they are wrong.
EME is a corporation that is rebuilding itself after the original crew left. There are bound to be changes in how they run their game. For example they are not too sure to how much they can afford to give without tipping the iceberg, or giving too little that the players felt no incentive to do the event. With a representative of BHS actually in EME, which basically kinda means that BHS is already pulling strings in NA right as I speak here, it is pretty obvious we are going to have less decisions ourselves as well.
Sure the events itself look amateurish on paper (mongos neon giving too much, triple drop rate which is so 2015 etc), but we have to face it. Every event requires some effort on the hand of the people. Not only they have to figure out the situation of the market (which changes on a rapid scale), they also have to consider the timeframe, patch cyckes, BHS approval, time for reward ratio (you can't always have events with the same amount of ratio because that way everyone will get bored fast and know they don't have to get back for events if they don't need to). Even down to the costumes sales, they have to understand how much discount they can give without breaking the economy entirely. If anything, the lootboxes could only be discounted 10% and it could still be considered as a sales, but they know that people won't buy the older boxes without a huge price cut for example. So really, give them time, give them completely constructive feedback. It is completely fine to show complete disapproval, but the reason why it always feels like the game isn't 100% enjoyable is because of the people who feel like EME owed them a living.
This is given from a perspective of an Asian. I personally live in Singapore, it is 9pm Saturday right as I am posting this, and run NA Tera at 250-300ms ping. If you are going to make asian jokes at me I don't really care either, because it is easier to make NA jokes lol.
I usually play CCGs and MOBAs, but Tera is the second non-CCG/MOBA game I believe that kept me playing. No other game can really keep me that interested, because it doesn't go the ultra-boring route of "press tab, mash buttons non-stop until monster dies without any use of your brain, and repeat". Every game that does that makes me lose interest within a month at max.
NA Tera is not the closest to me. I can run the Taiwan server at 80-90ms stable (I can do the lancer skate there, but can't even play lancer properly in NA), but Taiwan is the server you don't want to go if you want to go completely F2P, because you won't even get far. (Midtier fs at 100gold each? Previous VM +15s still past the 1 mil mark? PLEASE.). I stayed in NA because it is slightly easier for me to communicate in English instead of Chinese (well to be fair I am a Chinese but still), and also the game feels way more rewarding here than in TW.
Compared to many other games I have played, it felt like Tera is an extreme carebear. Sure double drop, double exp and the likes aren't rare in games, but no other game server has so many events that help a player boost up in a game, and while I think it is the trend for many MMOs in NA, it was never to a degree of EME's.
This was the one thing I liked about NA Tera, gear isn't forced upon players to get if they really don't want to do HM, and they are easily obtainable. You don't have to have a certain minimum that requires weeks or even months of grinding 8 hours a day just to obtain. The BiS is something people farm for and yes it feels long and could be improved, but it is still way better than games which people need months to even get one piece and still need another month to enchant it.
With that you will kind of expect me to say that quite a large bunch of the NA community (both forums and in game) are a bunch of whining people, and you are right to say that. Many feel like they have to get something to pay for the game, and are extremely nitpicky about everything that doesn't benefit them.
For example the PvE/PvP servers solution. The original server and all asian servers don't even have exclusive servers for PvE and PvP, and it is kind of making me feel like there is absolutely no reason to even segregate the servers to begin with, especially when PKers are a minority. Don't get me wrong, PKing people many levels lower than you is indeed a very toxic move, but very few do that to begin with. Every single technique to dodge them is how pure PvE players in MT survived in the past. But no, we had to have a PvE server to cater to those who have a phobia of jumpscares and black screens, which is really fine until people start complaining about the Fey Forest merge, which doesn't affect most players one bit. Look at the complaints and see how many people are bent on going to AV when on FF launch the ganking activity is already very low compared to the dead Lake of Tears PK scene. And then in a later build they made PvP65 for MT because obviously BHS decided to scrap the original PvP server file from their builds due to no other server actually using it anymore. Even more complaints came in. For a content that isn't even supported as much from the beginning, I thought people are complaining for the sake of complaining.
Not a good enough example? Look at Battlegrounds. Even at the most pointless gamemode aka Kumas Royale, people are screaming at others for being bad when they aren't that good themselves. In CS people who make calculated but unconventional strategies are bashed at by clueless people who didn't know that delaying 6 people with 1-2 people can actually net you nearly 20 seconds extra time against a competent group. In FWC some of the leaders who shotcall are just parrots copying from the other leaders, many of whom don't even have a basic PvP crystal set, let alone glyphs, and then simply blaming healers when they wipe.
Still not a good enough example? Look at many DFNM/LKNM/DFHM/VOK/Insert midtier that isn't SSNM (because SSNM aoes are always bugged for some people, so I always give benefit of the doubt) where people are blamed for not healcarrying others when the healer is lagging and trying their best to heal and not get hit by the easily dodgeable AoE which is neglected by most clueless DPS. Look at the many "highly experienced" players bashing people who are slightly weaker, not totally trap for their "garbage DPS/tanking/healing". Look at the many actual newbies with bad attitude due to the negative influence around them. I can't fault the game when it is obviously the players themselves who are contributing to the subpar community people have.
I have been into Asian gaming communities (local/SEA/TW/JP) and I can tell you that we have a fair share of toxicity as well, but they are nowhere as prevalent as the NA community. Very few people snap the moment they are insulted, laughing them off as a joke over in this area, compare that to the NA community where so many people feel they are special snowflakes. It is precisely that I can never understand why so many people in NA have this problem of always wanting to be known as right even when they know they are wrong.
EME is a corporation that is rebuilding itself after the original crew left. There are bound to be changes in how they run their game. For example they are not too sure to how much they can afford to give without tipping the iceberg, or giving too little that the players felt no incentive to do the event. With a representative of BHS actually in EME, which basically kinda means that BHS is already pulling strings in NA right as I speak here, it is pretty obvious we are going to have less decisions ourselves as well.
Sure the events itself look amateurish on paper (mongos neon giving too much, triple drop rate which is so 2015 etc), but we have to face it. Every event requires some effort on the hand of the people. Not only they have to figure out the situation of the market (which changes on a rapid scale), they also have to consider the timeframe, patch cyckes, BHS approval, time for reward ratio (you can't always have events with the same amount of ratio because that way everyone will get bored fast and know they don't have to get back for events if they don't need to). Even down to the costumes sales, they have to understand how much discount they can give without breaking the economy entirely. If anything, the lootboxes could only be discounted 10% and it could still be considered as a sales, but they know that people won't buy the older boxes without a huge price cut for example. So really, give them time, give them completely constructive feedback. It is completely fine to show complete disapproval, but the reason why it always feels like the game isn't 100% enjoyable is because of the people who feel like EME owed them a living.
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lmao. Sadly female devs are few and far between. Well not really few but most of them usually are web stack developers.
Now as for strictly community issues many ppl that play this game (2014) came from LOL and SWTOR so enough said. This issue doesn't stem from game per say, but touches another sensitive subject that admittedly is a problem in America:
In other words its a cultural issue
which leads to second point. You can't judge the community of a NA game and compare it to an Asian community under the same guidelines. Nearly everything about our ecosystems are different down to the mannerisms, consumer habits, communication, and expectations. It's exactly why in many F2P KR MMOs the cash shops and events differ across regions. Some nolife can write you an essay on the differences between NA MMOs vs Asian MMOs.
Anyway, you need to understand a very important fundamental difference. For years, Korean devs never focused on exporting their products to other regions(hence decline in revenue isolation ironic). They are also still learning and looking at Nexon, BDO, Elsword doing a crap job of it. To give you a prime example look at the NA launches of DFO and compare then and now. It shows that Neople has learned from their mistakes yet, the current CEO stated in an interview he doesn't expect the project to succeed. You have to understand THAT is the crap we American consumers put up with when we give these games a shot. The lack of confidence and effort is appalling and consumers aren't blind.
As said above, its cultural, its a very different view from an asian perspective and some of us call whinning "progressive".
but anyway since than mount tyranna is OPVP65 everyone share the same burden from enmasse
I can understand that people are not happy when things change, particularly if they liked the way it was before. Change is always difficult in everything. But just because things change doesn't mean they "promised" and then "lied to us" and it's some sort of "cheapshot." That makes no sense. All MMOs are changing all the time. Obviously some changes are for the better and others for the worse, and opinions will vary, but it doesn't change the fact that things will change, and no one has any way to know what changes may come way down the road.
I've been told that the problem with any MMO over time, is that the kind people leave and the toxic people stay just slightly more often than the other way around, because the toxic people get something from the chance to anonymously trashtalk and mock and generally troll groups of people and thus they get bored or interested in something new less quickly.
Add to this a culture that values speaking your mind over politeness...
I don't see a solution to this, but you outlined my concerns for our game community perfectly.
Toxicity begets toxicity. It doesn't have to be imitated from people ingame, but the lifestyle habits around them. People are somewhat brought up to find fault. Just look at Facebook comments about the newest presidency in all the newest roots, where basically it is just two completely groups, many of whom are clueless about how politics work, arguing about who is the better president. And that is one of the hundreds of examples of toxicity I see outside of game.
This is honestly entirely true. However much, there are some other points which asian developers regardless of region don't understand American market. For one, American (actually every non-Asian region using the min wage system) consumers are usually people expecting reward for work, as shown from both the minimum wage strikes. But how much is enough? Most asian countries don't even adopt a minimum wage law. Most asian games from Japan and Korea have that mindset that they will take the bulk of the money from the richest 10-20%, who can usually afford the 0 ping fibre and a computer with good specifications (or have money to spare at a PC Bang every day in the case of KR). That is why even in mobile gaming, Asia has in short more whales than America lol.
The biggest difference in ideologys actually stems from the very same basic understanding. "If you like the game, you will spend money on it." The reason why Korean games are usually highly sexualised is because seriously look at their culture. Especially for Korea, where plastic surgery penetration rate is huge. Obviously people will rather get sexy or cute girls because they are just nicer to look at, otherwise they would have spent more money chasing K-pop groups. In NA, most players actually want to go the cheapest/most efficient for money route if possible. If you are really in doubt, go and play any game on the asian servers (usually JP or KR), you will see what I mean.
Taiwan game services from my experience, has a slightly different route than JP and KR but achieves the same goal and mind set as them. Due to their competitive market being fiercer in terms of pricing, everything is lowered in price, but in terms of gachas the rates are also usually lowered. Whales will still be whales, and more of their locals would still try by spending on a lower entry point.
But still. This represents the divide in its simplest form. The consensus remains that Americans are expecting way more from their money and time than Asians. This is why many Americans were still in the console era, where you just pay a small amount to enjoy a full game. Look at the example of the increased ping in NA Tera. People blamed EME immediately and to quote many people to tell them to "fix their servers". When the issue was a routing problem, which takes months to fix if smaller routing providers are really giving substandard services, people still put EME on the chopping board. If EME tried all possible solutions within their means, (changing service provider, upgrading servers etc) the logical bandaid is through events. Of course routing providers are basically breaking their food bowls if they continue to bring substandard services in the pretext of wanting more money for their services. If you really want to do something about it, put some pressure onto Savvis. Flood their support email with complaints that all packets going through Savvis are unstable since NA is so good at it.
I don't entirely agree with the BHS route of simplifying the game, it also affects me negatively. There are also many questionable changes in how much content you are gated in each patch too. But just because I live in an entirely different ecosystem than the Americans didn't reflect that the culture in America is acceptable to begin with. Like waiters always wanting tips as if you are always entited to some extra money. Like gamers barking right at the wrong tree after being explained whose fault it is. Like people blaming others despite somewhat knowing they are at fault. Like people expecting a minimum wage to fall onto them without doing much work.
There is, but it needs entire generations to develop. In short, don't condone toxic behaviour at all. This is hard because many people in their own region accept it in communities outside of gaming.
sorry but the rule was pve server with pve server and pvp server with pvp server, if they want change pve to pvp or pvp to pve they shoud said to us at the beginning and not like one month before the change, so yes it is a big cheap shot from enmasse, so i respect you, but since one year yes i admit you blind white knight too much enmasse
If you want to have a debate about whether there should have been more notice, then fine. I don't know how much of a difference it would have made given that the decision was made, but in any case that isn't the same as lying. There was never any sort of attempt to deceive anyone willingly or otherwise about this issue, neither five years ago when the servers were created nor recently when the change was made. You may have "felt lied to" (because you believed the server conditions would never change from their initial configuration, or that they didn't give you enough time to feel prepared for the change) but that too is not the same thing as a lie.
We can have an honest debate about the many things EME is doing wrong (and I raise these concerns to them all the time, despite what you think). But you can't have a debate in good faith when people are just making up baseless accusations, and then accusing the "other side" of being a "white knight" when they call out those complete fabrications. It's like I'm forced to take your side even if you just completely make things up because that's being "pro-player" instead of "pro-EME" (as if there are only two sides: black and white). If you're going to call people out for "fake lies," expect to be called out on your actual lies. All they do is distract from the real issues the game faces and create this excessively toxic culture of "us vs. them" that reduces the effectiveness of the actual pro-player message EME and BHS need to hear.
League of Lengends?
i dont really wish to talk about all the case pending we have against enmasse, but you are alway the first to come here to defend enmasse even when they did mistakes
when we joined enmasse tera we agree than pve stay pve and pvp stay pvp, it would be appreciated if enmasse say to us than they could change this rule anytime before we sign to join tera, at least we would know what could happen to us, instead this backstab from enmasse by surprise