I’ve had this in a draft for close to two months now (hoping more devs would anonymously reach out to the SK gaming media, but I guess they’ve been advised not to comment; Krafton/Bluehole have yet to officially make any statement regarding their commitment to console, so the way the press has been putting it is that “no announcement was made for console”).
Back in April shortly after Krafton announced that development of PC TERA would be ending, one of my former colleagues who has lived/worked off/on in South Korea (and who was also a private investor in Bluehole during those earlier days and still has a few contacts there who haven’t yet left), tried yet again to get one of his gaming media contacts to get an interview with members of that development team (more specifically, a veteran who had worked on earlier versions of the game).
While both he and I have a lot of corporate grapevine material through his contacts, most also know how that works as sources; you can’t use that as a reliable source. The problem has always been trying to get any of them on the record with the actual gaming media even if anonymous (for obvious reasons). One of his contacts finally responded to the call, starting off with a retrospective look back at TERA’s history while looking through TERA’s credits for names in order to reach out to those who were still at Krafton (more specifically, veterans who were at the Bluehole Studio subsidiary that still worked on TERA) in order to solicit their feedback on how they felt about the development of TERA PC coming to an end.
Unsurprisingly, many declined (the only times designers freely speak are for the fluff on Krafton’s Blog; most of these newer people do not have any of the design ethos that gave TERA its soul; that aspect no longer really exists at Krafton) given the subsidiaries precarious financial situation (many are trying to stay low and not be a target to be taken out). But they finally managed to get one of those veteran TERA designers who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity (which is better than nothing since we’re at the “beggars can’t be choosers” phase).
The entire article is worth a read (machine translations does a fairly decent job) because this was shortly after the announcement where many were still trying to process the closure of an 11 year old title that has a huge place in KMMO history (and also a huge place in Krafton’s history), not to mention, the feelings of long time players who felt like they were hit by a truck. The one major mistake they made (not understanding the global deployment) was using Steam Charts to assess concurrency of Gameforge (it’s useful for trend analysis but CCU numbers will be way off since most use the launcher outside of Steam). Additionally, they tried to keep it short since they realize this developer was making themselves a target.
Digressing, this developer basically confirmed what we already knew from the corporate grapevine; that a lot of the “old school” design talent behind TERA, had moved on to different projects or have simply departed the company. That “old school” MMORPG design ethos that is infused in TERA’s original design, is no longer part of the company. That was a huge part of the companies original DNA; DNA that made its way into TERA (where it had this personality and soul to it, no matter how oddball and quirky it could be). This developer was also brutally frank about how that old fun, collaborative atmosphere (when TERA was first being developed) is gone (it’s now mundane/bland/generic and mostly about PUBG), and how they are personally disappointed with the ending of TERA PC’s development. And this veteran developer likely speaks for other old timers who worked on the game over the years.
How A:IR (what became Elyon) turned out is a direct reflection of this shift at Krafton (and more specifically, the Bluehole Studio subsidiary that oversees Elyon and TERA). Elyon lacks those personality traits and feels rather soulless. Just compare the game world of Arborea to Harth; the latter is like zone after zone of unmemorable locations with a middle line across it denoting factions. The newer/younger designers and artists at Krafton, have no real connection to the designers that were involved in the earlier iterations of TERA. Exodor’s design exemplifies this disconnect.
TERA is a highly flawed game. But it had this personality and soul to it which gave the game 11 years of official life. Some players made it their home, where it became a part of their own personality and soul (or breathed it into the characters they created). Others would occasionally rage quit, but return to check out a new update (only to rage quit again). But it was a place they could return to. Some players had not logged in for years, but returned for the final day of service. That official presence is no more, and for many, it feels like a part of themselves was also lost (because there are actually connections and memories created over the years from that journey through the game). My own offline setups (or if I decide to play on a private server) cannot replicate that prior journey or the memories that were created on the official servers. That is what Krafton threw away on June 30, 2022.
TERA’s earlier teams (especially the ones before 2018) was referred to as a “military academy” since wannabe designers/developers basically used it as a bootcamp to earn their chops, and moved on with what they learned. MMO’s are notoriously time consuming and resource sucking endeavors that have been mostly bombs on PC in recent years. It doesn’t help that the venture capital and investment money has been primarily mobile since 2015. Of course, following this investment train telegraphs where these companies are focusing on next (which is NFT/blockchain). The irony is they cannot release those titles in Korea. And they have long ignored what is important in other regions (none of that is of course important though with these NFT titles).
This also telegraphs Krafton’s desire to move away from PC MMORPG’s (unless of course there is an investment/partnership carrot dangled in front of the executive leadership). Which leads me to TERA 2. I know there are folks hoping this will happen. The continuing necro about TERA 2 is just that. TERA 2 was never a thing (nothing much has changed since I last wrote that except TERA PC development and game service, is no more; plus most all of Krafton’s investor relationship marketing material is PUBG and these “new concept” designer BS speak), and won’t be a thing because as this veteran developer alluded to, that environment no longer exists as the company. The company isn’t even willing to put out a full throated support of TERA Console.
Instead, I see the same writing on the wall for TERA Console; where it is going to mimic Devilian’s (aka mini-TERA) demise over a similar timeframe. To summarize (yet again), Devilian KR launched in the summer of 2014. Their publisher NHN Hangames decided however, to shift focus to mobile an year later and began transitioning the portal away from PC games in 2015; Devilian was one of the first to be closed (TERA was also a casualty but Nexon picked up the publishing rights for it). Bluehole Ginno (what is now PUBG Studio) re-acquired the rights and account data since they originally planned to relaunch with another publisher; that plan was scuttled and internal development began to wind down even though they had negotiated with GoodGames (Thailand) and Trion (NA/EU) to launch in those respective regions in 2015. Basically, by the time these two regions launched, the KR version was offline and never relaunched, and the commitment to continue developing the game was tenuous. When a domestically developed game ceases to be published in KR, there isn’t a huge motivation for the development team when the game is dead domestically because most all of them are designed solely in mind for the home market (any contracts outside of Korea are just additional gravy/return on investment of already produced content).
The Thai version was the same as the KR release but Trion’s version was a heavily modified fork in order to cater to a western audience. The Thai version received some of the last remaining content that was never released on KR while Trion’s version had bit more elbow room since that forked design required Bluehole Ginno to deliver on contracted content (the cadence of that was slow and drawn out though). The Thai version was already inhaling fumes by early 2016 while the same ended up happening with Trion’s version by the end of 2016; basically, the clock ran out on already produced content (the remainder of what was delivered to Trion was copy/paste designs that were drawn out over 2017). Both versions shutdown in 2018; Trion in March and GoodGames in May (even though it was already down for over 5 months due to technical issues) when their contract expired at the end of April.
TERA Console relied on produced content from the PC version. That development has ceased as of April 20, 2022. The console team has to decide how they will parcel out that remaining content (modify what needs to be modified), and decide the cadence of those releases. But the motivation to drive improvement is gone. And when a veteran developer for the PC version feels so demotivated by not only the cancellation of development/ending of service, but also the internal culture of the company, the writing is on the wall for TERA Console AND the TERA franchise.
The company allowed a huge part of its history to be sunset on June 30th, 2022. This would be akin to NCSoft deciding to sunset Lineage (they keep it going because they understand it is part of their history and legacy). The fact that the holding corporation that used to be known as Bluehole, Inc, rebranded itself to KRAFTON (aka KRAPTON), is a huge tell about how the executive leadership doesn’t give a damn regarding such history (except to list some of them on their CHALLENGES page) or what I call their FAILURES.
