In the upcoming content update for TERA (v113-114 combined patches), the original Island of Dawn (the old world tree above) will become available again as a hunting zone. It will require the purchase of a new teleport scroll; the Island of Glowing Dawn teleport scroll from the merchant at the North Dock. What this means is that it will effectively be an instanced area with the original pre-Fate of Arun assets, but with level 72+ BAM’s. This was another feature I (and many others) had requested (original Island of Dawn assets even if it needed to be a separate instance).
It would’ve been nicer if the Signs of Hope story quest had been finished off to lead into this (but a lot of the level 60+ story quests for IoD seems to have been unceremoniously lost somewhere in the post Exodor updates). The rebalanced BAM’s on IoD are also ridiculous now (most of the daily quests recommend a party of 3). It will be interesting to see if the nostalgic look of the original island will draw back some players.
I decided to hop around Velika server (NA) to see what the population was like (Saturday primetime); it’s fairly sparse (fishing zones, Velika Freedom Plaza, Highwatch just a handful of players). Even during the throes of the level 70 update (when getting to 70 was a grindfest), Highwatch would be filled with characters. Not going to lie about how just how bad the state of the game is on the NA PvE server; Kaia the PvP server has long been dead.
Digressing, accompanying this update are new dungeons including an updated version of the Argon Queen dungeon (this one is a level 70 version). The usual dungeon shuffle (deactivation of existing ones, and reintroduction of rebalanced old ones) is also part of this patch.
And yet another new set of gear (and associated enchantment material) is introduced; Frost Flower Tear with Legendary and Mythical tiers (that will supplant the prior Mahtnan gear). And this right here is what has driven more of the player base away over time (whales would sustain this because they’d spend money in order to buy additional supply boxes of enchanting material to power through RNG fail stacks). It’s the same old unimaginative grind but with even less whales now to sustain the cash shop (I’ll have a followup post regarding what I see as red flags).
Overall, it seems like Bluehole is cycling through some of the feedback they received in the last survey they did through EME a few years ago (majority however is what the remaining KR players have been providing suggestions for). My other two main feedback was to do something with the old Guild Sky Castles (they were removed from the outskirt area so that is probably a no go) and the abandoned in place alliance halls. My suggestion was to use them for newly designed events (which I kind of doubt will happen given two less regions in Asia by the time April is over with).
