Now that a week has passed since head start and that a few days have passed since the official free to play launch, I felt it was the perfect time to give a quick post-launch look at this version of the game.
The good part is that for all intent purposes, Bluehole and En Masse Entertainment did a commendable job in terms of porting the game over to console when it comes to the user interface and the game play of the classes that were released as part of the launch.
The class I leveled first was the brawler because it was the perfect match for TERA’s action combat where most of its skills just felt natural with a controller. That aspect became apparent to me as I leveled my brawler on PC (for the Counterpunch update with the release of a male version of the class; this was the first time I was playing a brawler).
And just from a “beat’em up” perspective during the questing, the game play was relatively effortless. This was in contrast to when I played an archer during the open beta tests where the game play required more attention (I usually enjoy that more engaging aspect of play but my main thing during the actual launch was to get one character to level 40 so that I could unlock the reaper which is going to be my main on console; leveling the brawler made that very quick).
The major crashing issues during the first open beta stress test were somewhat mitigated with some “bandaid’s” applied to the client, the addition of more channels at the main initial choke point (Velika), and having this staggered launch with Founders packs and Twitch Prime early access. The actual launch on April 3rd also saw the addition of several new PvE and PvP servers on both regions and platforms. I do have some concerns with server merges down the road because absolutely zero consideration was performed again with regards to keeping names unique within a region (each server allows using the same name which to me is just poor contingency planning).
Regardless, the launch of TERA on console also fills a huge void on those platforms when it comes to a breadth of MMO’s (compared to PC’s, the choices are limited and so a large number of players on April 3rd were those who had never played or heard of TERA before). This brings in a lot of new blood into the game at least on both console platforms. And it is sort of refreshing to get the perspective of those individuals who view this title on console as being a great thing (though on Xbox, it will eventually get company once Black Desert Online launches there). It remains to be seen how quickly the “honeymoon” phase ends though once many hit level cap and TERA’s end game grind.
This leads us into the bad part which is that this is still a 2007-2011 era game designed with PC’s in mind and one that is using a now long outdated game engine (Unreal Engine 3) that also lacked proper optimization on the PC (and by extension, lacks optimization on console). There was a time when I thought they would be utilizing at least a newer build of Unreal Engine but that has turned out to not be the case; the fact remains that the average optimization level of the console version is not going to be any better than it currently is.
So the same slow rendering issues (when the game hits a certain level of concurrency) occur where the client prioritizes what assets get loaded in first. Client side stutters and freezes will also still occur when moving in a highly populated area (which can be alleviated by switching to a lower populated channel; the game does not auto load balance by placing players into a lower populated channel when zoning into a location). For the player who is completely new to TERA, those stutters and freezes can be a jarring experience (leaving a poor impression of overall quality level of the title).
For players coming from the PC version (or ones like myself who will still main on PC but also play on console), none of this performance stuff is a surprise. It’s generally par for the course and at least to me, is not specific to TERA; it’s a more general issue related to Korean MMO game design/development and their priorities versus what the western market expects (or fails to realize that most every single Korean designed MMO that makes its way to the west, is essentially viewed as a market for revenues to be milked from where it’s about the least amount of effort to make actual changes to the underlying core designs).
And we see this unrealistic level of expectations by console players who expect these type of optimization issues to be addressed when the reality is that “what you see, is what you are going to get”. And this segues into the ugly part of this entire console release which is the myriad of “small papercuts” that when taken together, leads to a more painful feeling.
For the better part of 2017, EME was constantly barraged with questions regarding “when” as far as the console beta (and thus release) was concerned. And for most of 2017, that was met with silence since they generally had nothing to share. At the superficial surface level, it looks like it was ready for launch but the reality is that there are some issues that should have been addressed in order to provide players a much better experience (since first impressions are important).
I do understand the developer/publisher mindset that non-showstopping bugs can be dealt with post-launch (it’s a balancing act). So something innocuous like the server select bug while not game stopping, also provides a very poor player facing experience (which unfortunately adds to support issues since there will be many players who are forced logged into the wrong server, see their characters missing, and immediately think the worse). The lack of prioritizing the accound bound system also doesn’t help with the optics regarding the character bound aspects of the items associated with the Founders packs (value proposition plus the cash grab angle).
The rush to launch from open beta stress testing was also not the wisest decision given that EME is already short staffed; the community manager dedicated to TERA for PC left back in January and has yet to fill that position. That meant that many others had to pull double duty leading into the launch of the console version. The end result is that some things fell through the proverbial cracks including a misunderstanding of what was included in the console version of Elite (EME’s monthly subscription service).
Elite on the PC version offers a daily login allotment of 15 EMP (their premiun in-game currency) and on their new website, the images for the console founder pack version of Elite (which did not have the exact same thing as the PC version including the EMP and crystal binds) linked back to the image for the PC version. So post-headstart, some players protested about this.
It’s the usual miscommunication guffaws that happen where you normally have multiple individuals checking off on; in EME’s case, their already being short staffed didn’t help with having proper reviews in place. TERA’s senior product manager addressed this (acknowledging the mistakes and promises to do better going forward). For myself, the mistakes had no bearing on my purchasing a Founder’s pack because even though I felt the pricing/early access angle was a clear cash grab, it’s also an important way to show support for this version of the game early on.
Where I believe EME can do better from the PR angle is to eventually offer some form of package in the future once they’ve got these launch issues under control. I’m the last person to constantly cry for compensation with every mistake but in this case, a goodwill gesture like that can go a long way (and the key is communicating it early on). And this is where the lack of a dedicated community manager is really hurting them right now. There’s a notable gap in the communication chain where little of it was happening in the console forums. Yes, those aren’t ever meant to replace actual support but what I’m referring to is a simple acknowledge that certain issues are known to them.
This is where I take issue with utilizing something like Discord far too much; that is a chat method of communication that does not work well with information dissemination unless you create locked channels specifically for those purposes. Unfortunately, questions come up in the other channels where someone from EME may answer a question (which then eventually gets lost from newer messages). While social media services are important, I’ve always been of the opinion that important official information/responses be prioritized on their official sites first (and that those be pushed out to social media sites with trackback links).
The final “ugly” thing that I wanted to mentioned was this:
http://tera.enmasse.com/news/posts/presenting-the-tera-item-pass-for-console
I’m not going to mince words on this one; it’s an unmitigated CASH GRAB. I do get that Bluehole wanted some upfront revenues to cover the costs of bringing TERA over to console. The front loading of revenues via the Founders pack made that clear. This $60 DLC (which coincided with the official launch on April 3rd) just came across poorly considering the “small papercuts of issues” the game currently has.
Mind you, the items associated with this pass are still limited by the games lack of the account binding system (that has been present in the PC version for awhile now). And I have my doubts there will be any sort of retroactive changes made to appropriate items associated with the Founders packs (like the title or cosmetics) and this one where they are made account bound once the patch for that system is deployed in the future.
So I have to vote with my waller on this seasonal item pass and not take part in that cash grab since it will only encourage more such DLC’s like it in the future. Again, I don’t mind supporting games but “ugly deals” (IMHO) like this are a no go (I’d prefer to just purchase $60 worth of EMP). And at least for myself, I don’t intend to purchase much on the console anyway since I am still playing primarily on the PC anyway.
My point is the kind of general impression it may leave on console players that are new to the game (and thus by extension, also new to how Korean MMO’s are designed and what their priorities are), and new to EME where that impression may end up becoming less than favorable as they encounter small individual issues that add up to what looks like a less than high quality product that has some expensive DLC associated with it. And the business facing aspects are something completely within EME’s control and right now, whomever is making that decision is not doing this game any favors.
