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Gamescom: TERA's Villains, Story Help Create a Complete Game

18.08.2011
The aim for action MMO TERA is, in publisher En Masse Entertainment's words, for it to release as a "complete game" -- that is, to allow players to level from 1 to 58 and then enjoy a ton of endgame content without needing to wait for patches or purchasing expansions. The game's overarching story is a key part of this plan, as the narrative will build to a suitably epic conclusion -- but presumably be left open for future expansions.

Enter the Argons, the newly-revealed main villains of the piece. Argons are metallic monstrosities who use a combination of magic and technology to reshape the world. They also have necromantic powers, reanimating fallen heroes as undead minions. All in all, they're not very nice. And guess who gets to kick their asses? That's right, you. Bring friends.

The demo En Masse was good enough to share with me today saw us taking on a dungeon of around level 47 or so known as the Necromancy Cell. TERA's dungeons are filled with monsters and it's necessary for players to use all their skills to survive, particularly as the combat is real-time. At the end of this particular dungeon was one of the game's iconic Big-Ass Monsters (aka BAMs) known as Kaidun -- one of the aforementioned Argons.

The battle against Kaidun was a full-on boss battle, complete with pattern recognition elements. Playing as a sorcerer, I got to pelt the metal beast with fireballs and explodey things from afar while the others got up close and personal. The sorcerer is equipped with a handy "blast back" skill which inflicts some damage and also allows her to "hop" backwards out of harm's way when necessary.

We prevailed (thanks largely to my fireball-throwing skills -- at least that's what I like to believe) and Kaidun went down. It was an exciting battle, and markedly different from your traditional MMO combat.

Besides exciting real-time combat, though, the other ace up TERA's sleeve is its political system. Either by being voted in or enjoying sufficient success in various battlegrounds, players can take on the rulership reins of one of 18 provinces across the game world. They can then enact political changes as they see fit -- but they'll need the support of the people. As such, players need the backing of a guild in order to ascend to rulership of a region -- the guild then earns "policy points" which can be spent on activating special NPCs, adjusting tax rates and generally making life either better or worse for those players who call that part of the game world home. It's an interesting system, though it wasn't being demonstrated today, sadly.