Normally when a game sunsets, one of the initial questions that is posed is “are there any private servers?” The usual answer to that is no because rarely are there official server binaries out in the wild, nor has anyone (who is willing) had enough time to write emulation code to get something basic operational. That in itself is usually a hobby of passion, but one that is often times filled with a lot of vultures looking to piggyback off the hard work of others (which is often times why many private server projects, are silo’d (as they don’t want their work taken by someone else). Which is also ironic since the intellectual property belongs to the original rights holder.
In the case of TERA, rogue servers are popping up left and right because it has the exact opposite “problem”; there are leaked official server binaries. Not just one, but THREE builds that have made it out from the initial publisher (HappyTuk) leak. There has also been a lot of public effort in getting features and systems to work. For myself, I’m a proponent of knowledge being power. This open sharing of information with getting things working, has been a huge benefit to TERA having this option after the official closure a few days ago. But that only provides a base starting point.
This has led to a proliferation of rogue server announcements including OMNI TERA (midwest US), TERA Starscape (west coast US), Strife TERA (EU), and TERA Europe. This is on top of v92.04 based Asura, TERA Magic (both Russian based) and Menma’s TERA (France based); both in operation for over an year, and TERA CZ (operating out of Florida in the US) which is the only one running an older 2015-era version. While competition is a good thing (and also leads to the inevitable shake out), there is also a point where too much servers, ends up splitting an already niche community of players. With TERA being a latency dependent game, server location will play a huge factor for many. For myself, that isn’t the highest priority (to a degree), and I haven’t decided if I’ll continue on any rogue server (I am trying to check them out though). But if I do decide to invest any time into one, it will most likely be on TERA CZ again once they perform their reset (July 16th) because it’s the most unique of them all. What I am finding is that all of the EU servers (the ones currently up) that are based on v92.04 and higher, are a no go though because the average latency for me is way too high (225+ms).
Menma’s is currently the most popular since it was pretty much the less language/region specific of the options available at the time. So when the official announcement was made for the cessation of development, a lot of players flocked there first. It also didn’t hurt that there is a decent degree of communication with the player base. But it doesn’t mean this will stay the same. Until recently, there weren’t any v92+ based rogue servers located on the North American continent. Now there are at least two.
Each project has their own vision which they will individually need to market and “sell” to an already niche player base. And part of this base of players are nostalgic for a 2013-era version of the game (which doesn’t exist except for a work-in-progress emulator). This marketing is easier said than done though because there is only so much differentiation that can be done before you need an actual development team that has more technical knowledge of the internal workings of TERA in order to begin repurposing content. Almost every parameter can be tweaked to rebalance skills, changing mechanics. modifying enchanting rates, tweaking drop rates (and what drops). It’s obviously more challenging trying to implement different visuals, mob and character models, and actual new cosmetics into the game though. There are ways to add instances (but it’s still a complex process). But without the actual source code, there’s a limit on what can be done.
There’s a point where each of these projects, cannot rely on the work being publicly done by hobbyists. Additionally, technical knowledge also doesn’t mean a population shift will occur (like if most don’t agree with the vision). Basically, it’s going to be up to each team to show this differentiation; letting their vision and setup speak for themselves as the selling point. Because IMHO, there is no way to please everyone. What I do know is that TERA depopulated over the years because the retail experience was not their idea of fun (and most of that retail tuning was monetization focused). Official publishers also have to appeal to this broad demographic (with monetization that spans this entire demographic). EME was ok early on but that shifted over time (Gameforge was always far worse with blatant items in their shop). Some folks do find a grindy challenge as fun (but one needs to look at the sort of developer AND publisher decisions that drove players away in large numbers especially post 2018). Basically post Arsenal gear, no one really wants that vanilla game play tuning. As for the “classic” 2013 and earlier tuning (where even base mobs required multiple hits to take down), I believe that is also a relatively niche demographic (there was a time when slower leveling made sense; especially when the end game content was lacking). I guess we will see how players take to each servers tuning.
The biggest negative with so many rogue servers popping up like this, IS the inevitable attention it will draw from Krafton/Bluehole’s corporate legal. It’s naive to say that they won’t bother because they’ve been taking a hands off approach. There are legal requirements when it comes to protecting the status of that intellectual property. TERA remains their intellectual property including all copyright, trade and service marks. There’s a point where the owners of that IP have to defend it in order for their copyrights, trade and service marks to continue to remain valid (if they don’t, then it becomes public domain). So with many rogue servers going live, it makes the target that much larger.
The other elephant in the room is monetization. That is obviously a touchy subject because operating an unlicensed service is already problematic (Krafton would be well within their right to issue a DMCA takedown, cease and desist, and even legal action). When monetization is involved, that is another legal landmine. I know it costs money to provision a live service that can support at least a thousand players concurrently.. The leaked server files are merely a base PTS setup with everything running on a single server (i.e. not the way it would be run in a live production environment). All of those server processes can be run on separate systems for load balancing purposes which translates into additional costs. So it’s no surprise most rogue servers offer packages to help defray costs.
With TERA, there was a sort of small cottage modder “industry” with paid scripts (for proxy or toolbox) that some players spent money for (most were free; what I am trying to point out is that there was a smaller niche that monetized it). I’d be wary however if some of these same folks (who monetized proxy/toolbox scripts) try to monetize an actual rogue server (these folks are more than technically capable of setting up a fairly sophisticated server due to detailed knowledge of the game. I just don’t believe that should be encouraged or supported).
IMHO, this is where Krafton made a huge miscalculation with TERA. There is a reason why Nexon continues operating some really old titles; it’s about that intellectual property; where players can go to an officially licensed service provider versus a proliferation of unlicensed rogue servers to fill the void. I personally have no idea how Krafton will handle this because they’ve shown legal buffoonery with how they’ve handled a lot of PUBG cases through that subsidiary (like the Epic copyright lawsuit or filing yet another frivolous lawsuit against a Chinese government agency).
