Bluehole’s development team for TERA held a TERA 2017 Showcase where they highlighted their 2017-2018 Winter Update.
Part of that update includes actual newly designed content including a new storyline (Arborea sees peace after Lakan’s death plus a Velika that gets destroyed with a quest where you must return to the past to save it), new/modified zones (to go with that storyline), awakenings for some classes, at least two newly designed themed dungeons including an action-themed one that does not rely on memorized mechanics. There is also a new battleground where players PvP in it anonymously (no names displayed).
Unsurprisingly, there is a whole array of cosmetic updates including a large amount of new hairstyles (49). Head accessories can also be positioned granularly with a new setting.
Some ideas that were probably inspired by work being done on A:IR is in the new “mechanic suit” that was unveiled. This suit allows flight (similar to flying mounts) once all the parts that make up the suit have been assembled.
The developers admitted they had been focusing on dungeons before as a way to provide PvE updates. They now want to begin focusing on providing content updates to the story and world. Bluehole will be rolling out these updates over the next few months in K-TERA starting in December. The new storyline will happen sometime in 2018.
Source: http://www.inven.co.kr/webzine/news/?news=189833&site=tera
My thoughts? This is incredibly great news. There are at least two zones in the game that the previous development team had already created; Velika Wilds and Baldera. The former actually is just a huge swath of land that hasn’t been built yet. Baldera though has around half of its area actually completed including the main hub, Balderon (the other half is just a huge undeveloped area). I was able to get back into Baldera again (having forgotten to bookmark it in my Travel Journal before) courtesy of another player and his friend who helped port me back in so that could log it.
As someone who enjoys the actual exploration/discovery aspect of games like this, I’m looking forward to the new areas that will be opened up in the future. I really thought that new story and areas for TERA were completely off of Bluehole’s radar since there hasn’t been anything major in this area since 2014 when the Fate of Arun expansion was released.
