One of the earliest “abandoned in place” zones that was nearly completed (8 years ago), is finally being opened up in a future patch 108 as a level 70+ map. Baldera was supposed to be part of the story line that was being developed by the original design team. After all of the issues with NCSoft lawsuit (Bluehole Studio was formed by former members of the Lineage III development team at NCSoft where they were accused of misappropriating trade secrets), the fallout including many of the original developers of TERA resigning. After that mess, the design of TERA fell into the handles of different project teams where the goals and objectives continued changing (with a lot of game systems and story being eventually changed and then abandoned).
One of my main feedback when Krafton did a rare player survey for its western player base, was to do something with Baldera (as well as some of the other huge areas that were meant to be for future zones) since most of the area up to the Balderon hub area was complete; the huge section behind it was not though (and looks like will not be included as part of the zone).
This is better than nothing though (TERA has been constantly plagued with content droughts; the last major one was the Exodor region in patch v88 which operates in its own instance).
Unsurprisingly, another new gear system is also being released with this update; Mahtnan Gear. This has been a gradual step of moving away from the Guardian – Heroic Oath gear system and the messed up transition to early Exodor gear where that was quickly depreciated (part of that was due to a dupe hack of materials that allowed initial level 70 mythic gear [Kaia] to be enchanted and rolled to near perfect). Kaia’s gear was eventually given away at level 65 with a rework of the leveling system, with Kaia Soul gear (upgraded from max enchant level Kaia gear) being the highest possible gear. This is actually why it’s a fools game to buy the enchanting materials boxes from the cash shop. TERA has been consistently through multiple gear system changes and this will not be the last.
It remains to be seen if two of my other feedback items ever make it into the game. One of them was to continue the Island of Dawn quest chain for “Signs of Hope” where it was supposed to eventually lead to the island returning back to it its original (beautiful) state. The other was to do something with the old alliance halls, the quiz bowl, and the guild sky castles (the sky castle assets unfortunately have been removed from being displayed). I doubt they will bring back alliance factions; that’s what Elyon is for. Since a lot of the aerial focus was removed in Elyon, maybe they could re-purpose some of it into TERA re-utilizing the sky castles (and expanding on it).
TERA is unfortunately stagnating again (with one of the longest serving product directors overseeing it) and needs way more content refreshes to the open world (not just dungeons or gear system changes). Besides the bug squashing they’ve been trying to do behind the scenes, they also need to start aggressively remastering the graphics. The game has a lot of life and potential in it IF Bluehole gives it resources. I know part of the focus is launching Elyon. I just don’t believe that game will have long term nostalgic value like the TERA IP has.
