Tangent: One of the topics I’ve covered and have been involved with covering (not recently though) was the leak of several builds of the server binaries for TERA PC. TERA PC itself had been shutdown completely back in June 2022 but prior to that, the signed server binaries for a quality assurance build of v92.03 had been leaked from their then Taiwanese publisher, HappyTuk.

I myself have setup and have the various leaked builds running locally in what I refer to as TERA Offline. This is for my own use and I’ve put out written tutorials in the past with instructions on how to set one up. There was a time when I was active on RZ. My own interest is from the games preservation point of view. I personally do not agree with how many have chosen to running these private servers though (taking the hard work done/shared freely by folks who simply want a method for preserving the game).

As I’ve written before, this whole private server administrator demographic tends to be run by individuals with control freak tendencies that usually were heavily critical of the usual game publishers, but end up doing things the same way/even worse (without the necessary security expertise, without the budget, and without the infrastructure). To make matters worse, a few of these private servers were compromised.

I also learned that one of the earlier and largest TERA private servers (MT: The Dream aka Menma TERA) had shutdown earlier in 2025. I know there had been earlier rumors of them having received a cease and desist (nothing that had actual official confirmation though). Shortly after, they rebranded from Menma to MT: The Dream which sort of lended credence to the C&D.

They had also begun heavily modifying the v100.02 build (in terms of a lot more client side assets for cosmetics as one example) and well, taking money for this stuff. If there is anything that will draw the ire of corporate legal when it comes to their intellectual property, it’s monetizing it and well, when it is one of the larger private servers, a company will tend to take notice because there is a point where they do need to legally protect their IP in order for their copyrights, trademarks, and patents to remain valid.

Krafton has surprisingly not taken a much more hostile stance to this (besides early in the 2020-2021 timeframe when they tried to play wack-a-mole takedown notices with repositories that hosted the leaked server binaries). But for what is the first time, they publicly acknowledged the existence of TERA PC private servers AND put out a notice from an official console (in this case, their TERA console account; TERA console is operated by Krafton).

Those who are connected online may know about these private servers. But there is a much larger demographic out there which do not follow this stuff and have no idea that past shutdown, such a thing existed (or even a way to run everything themselves to at least have an offline setup which they can run). It’s often times why companies don’t acknowledge their existence because once they do, people who may not have known, now know (and can therefore search and end up learning).

I’ve barely written about the console version post PC shutdown because it’s been mostly a low effort endeavor by Krafton (no actual new changes and often times, lot of downtime and little communication). I’m surprised it is still running in 2026 (I now wrongfully predicted it wouldn’t make it past 2025). Any contractual obligations on the console side would’ve expired in 2025; it’s the last remnant of the MMORPG’s they once developed.

But this short notice confirming that Krafton has not come to any sort of agreement with any private server operations (contradicting that particular German private servers assertion that they did have an agreement), is an interesting one. I mean, it is good to finally know that Krafton does not have any sort of backroom dealings that gives any of these private server operations legitimacy (unlike NCsoft finally granting an official license to a fan operated private server for City of Heroes). Back after TERA PC officially closed, I recall at least one of the private server projects (long dead) that was making some noise of trying to talk with Krafton.

I already knew that something like that would be a no go because it doesn’t matter if you have contacts (unless it’s an actual executive in South Korea that has decision making authority). I know someone who still has contacts and for the most part, MMORPG development is dead inside the company (and will just leave that part at that). What I can write is that executives there don’t care about trying to establish some form of licensing agreement because there is administrative/legal overhead involved with that.

Some of it makes no obvious sense when they killed off TERA PC completely but TERA console (PlayStation and Xbox) remains running (not like it has large numbers). The simplest way I have been looking at it is that Krafton did not want to self publish the PC version because it would’ve meant operating the business front end (for several different regions with their different requirements), the payment flows, and the servers whereas with the console version, that front end and payment flow is handled respectively by Sony and Microsoft while they have someone managing the server which I believe is cross play).

At one point, there were likely contractual agreements (within a 7 year time frame) with both Sony and Microsoft and potentially a development partner on the console side that kept them from pulling the plug. That window has now passed and given this notice by their TERA console account, it doesn’t seem like the console version is going away anytime soon. But then again, this is Krafton where not everything makes logical sense.

Since my Discord Nitro subscription was going to end soon (and I wasn’t planning to renew it given my ongoing de-platforming objectives), I decided to use a server boost (part of that Nitro subscription) for the AAEmu Discord as thanks for what this project has managed to provide to date (a mostly playable version of the 2014 launch version of the game). I ended up learning that boosting the server unlocked a “Booster Club” channel where one of the project developers has been working on a fork from the publicly available 1.2 version (which is much farther along in terms of working main story/race quests and content).

This developer had been previously working on a 3.0.3.0 version but depreciated that in favor of 5.0.7.0 (Relics of Hiram release which launched in November 2018). This includes all races (that had been released), their home zones, and zones opened on Auroria all the way to the Western Hiram Mountains. It uses the game client from the AAFree (ArcheAge) private server (which uses a modified encrypted game_pak file that also seems to have a lot more items like decor and buildings backported to it). I did a quick check and it looks like buildings like the Beanstalk House are in the game; I was able to spawn a full-kit in-game (doing a quick check, this design was released in early 2019 for a limited period of time).

Before shooting myself in the foot (by just downloading the latest files, trying to set it all up, and running into errors because I missed important stuff that had been posted), I read the channel from first post to last for that purpose AND to just to take in the progression that this part of the project has managed to achieve. I learned that most of this development fork began last August and is definitely more challenging without fully decrypted databases (which allowed 1.2 to get further along in recent years).

Once I had caught up reading an years worth of posts/information, I proceeded to setup the server in my ArcheAge virtual machine (running in the same one as AAEmu 1.2). I ran into just two errors (forgot to add the client data game_pak location into the configuration file and didn’t have the other compact SQL file for the server downloaded and copied into the data directory). Once I dealt with these two oversights, the game server started without a hitch.

I then setup the launcher for the game client and took the step to register and update the client from AAFree.to by using their launcher. Once that was all completed, I fired it up. And yes, the wave of nostalgia hit me when I saw that both the Dwarf and Warborn races were available in the character creator. Official ArcheAge has been closed since June 27, 2024 and back then, I didn’t expect to see an emulator that would allow me to at least rebuild my characters and properties. But here we are a little over an year later with one of the best surprises during a time when I have no desire to play most any online only title (the occasional Genshin Impact being the one exception). Let me be more blunt; I have no desire patronizing/spending money with the greedy gaming industry. But I digress.

Surprisingly, my character customization presets from post 2017 for the dwarf still worked (presets for the other races from that same time period unfortunately didn’t as some slider parameters had changed) and I was able to recreate my main character from the Unchained days (when I began playing on the western Nuia faction). Nonetheless, being back in a much more complete version of the open game world again gave me literal chicken skin. I was already satisfied with what 1.2 provided but this is icing on the cake.

The fact that main story quests (MSQ) and racial quests aren’t fully working (as of the September 2, 2025 build of the 5.0.7.0 server emulator), doesn’t really bother me. As noted in prior writings from 2019 with ArcheAge Unchained, my game play was primarily as an “in-game potato” with mainly the exploration, property and vocational parts being my main activities. What currently exists suffices and will allow me to re-engage with that part of the game completely free from the greedy publishers monetization (cash shop) and free from the basic grind (for leveling, vocation, gold, etc).

Using GM commands, anything available for this build (or whatever has been backported) can be spawned in. The build command can be used for building designs that have no full-kit, etc. I’ve already set the property tax period to be an year (I guess I could set it for longer if I wanted to) where I can build out housing zones over time. I should emphasize that this part of the game provided an entertainment outlet for the final 5 years of the game. Having it available again in an emulated fashion is definitely one of the unexpected highlights for this year (I am glad I decided to boost the AAEmu Discord server when I did the other day and plan to remain subbed to Nitro for at least the next year just for this perk).

It’s for this exact sort of reason(s) why I don’t do this. At the end of the day, these private servers are run by individuals who may not possess all of the technical/security background. Additionally for some other reason(s), a few of these private servers (not speaking solely of the TERA ones) are run by folks who tend to have “power trips”. I mean the irony is often times humorous when you see a “big production” angle behind the site (like what publishers with their bigger budgets try to also do).

I often times see tag lines like “operated by those who were fans and loved the game” (again, not just TERA PC). I’m the guy who is a realist. Just because I love the game, doesn’t mean I would go out and run one of these just because of that. I’m human and also just one person who has opinions on how to run things. If a larger entity (that had to operate more impartially based on the contract with the actual developer/license holder) couldn’t run it successfully, what makes anyone think a bunch of fans without all of those resources, could do it any better (besides that initial honeymoon phase)?

Regular publishers while not completely free of internal drama/corruption, generally have to operate without that kind of human drama element. Why? Because as part of the larger gaming industry (where the “six degrees of separation” can often times be much smaller than that), personal reputation does matter at those lower levels. With these private servers, you have small groups of individuals who can do what they want to do (playing the role of the all-mighty king of the kingdom) including favoritism and overall corrupt behavior.

But I digress. I could only gleam what I could gleam from the TERA sub-Reddit (I am not a regular user of that site and I usually take much of what is posted there with a grain of salt). I also didn’t want to spend too much time on it (just writing this post is taking time I cannot get back). I occasionally post (once every few months at most) but similarly, I don’t expect anyone to take what I write with any sense of importance as well (I’m not there to try to gain whatever individuals try to garner there; to each is own).

The short version is someone or group, has been hacking various TERA private server sites and dumping some of that user data online. The TERA Classic private server had garnered recent attention since one of the bigger MMO streamers on Twitch, started playing/streaming it. That resulted in some renewed coverage with YouTube content creators (which naturally attracted further attention to this private server). Potentially some of the background behind these attacks might have been due to the un-ethical behavior of the server owner. I really don’t care at this point (IMHO, one should ALWAYS be wary of any private server and know that it could be rug pulled even faster than what regular publishers constantly do).

Now the source of the files for these private servers are publicly available knowledge (well, actually mainly to those who keep up with some of it). It’s the release of the v31.04 server files earlier this year. With all of these officially signed server binary releases, one part of the system had to be filled in by others. That part, the TERA API (which provides a lot of the glue for things like account management, launcher services, patching, front/backend integration) was written from scratch by someone in the RZ community. His abilities are solid (he’s also the one who patched out all of the DRM checks in specific binaries) and he open sources the API code. Thus anyone can inspect that on top of having a good knowledge of how the entire official backend server/services works (and can thus end up learning where the attack vectors are for exploiting things).

While the passwords in the database are hashed, that isn’t the primary issue (as it is to everything else when it comes to personal information including anything related to donations). It’s easy to say none of that actual personal information was part of the breach (“like trust me bro… I’m running this pserver and taking donations to run it without any proper authority/licensing from the original IP holders” <- more on this later). Anyone who takes these private server releases and tries to operate a public facing private server without having the proper understanding in online security (and not further hardening the base account management system provided as well as the server environment), is going to be a target (especially if that server becomes a higher profile one as what happened with it gaining some attention in the streaming and content creation realm).

Guess what? Most of these player facing private servers take this freely available work performed by others to try and make some money off of it, but are run by individuals unqualified to handle every part of what industry publishers normally have to take care of/consider. I do understand some enjoy having their ego stroked when being the private server owner, but in this case, whatever was happening seemed to have gone awry all over the place.

As it was with official TERA PC when it was still alive, some folks have gone on to make meme videos about this situation. Drama begets drama unfortunately. I dislike drama (gaming ones are the worst so I try not to spend too much time on that). I used to get a laugh out of some of them but usually found many annoying. I’m just going to link this one since it captured a bunch of game chat and Discord messages about how the game issues have been handled. I of course cannot vouch for the authenticity of all those messages BUT parts of it looked like how the official game was (in-game chat toxicity, forum post toxicity, other site toxicity). There is also some highly racist BS which is also the NORM for many of these MMORPG’s including TERA PC (when it was alive officially). In short, it looks all believable (nothing surprising which kind of highlights the lengths some will go through when they think they are really that much smarter than everyone else, only to have their reputation handed to them on a golden platter). I guess it is “classic” TERA in many ways (freakin idiocy filled DRAMA). And this one is taking place in a private server setting… how appropriate.

The wildest part in that was the portion about reaching out to KRAFTON for some kind of licensing deal (to redo things in UE4/UE5 or the in-game shop cosmetics). Seriously? I was kind of joking noting that earlier. So you have a couple of $million US laying around and want to negotiate some form of licensing agreement to use the TERA intellectual property? I mean after the original onslaught of mobile gaming developers working out licensing deals (of which they are all dead now), not one PC game publisher has come to this “brilliant” realization that there might be money to be made from a portion of the intellectual property (because guess what, the game would still be ALIVE today with Krafton’s Bluehole Studio subsidiary; the one in charge of MMORPG’s, would still be developing the damn thing). I remind about Krafton’s Challenges again. I seriously don’t know what goes through some of these peoples minds at time (oh yeah, they know how to roleplay king).

Is there a lesson to be learned in all of this? Of course. Games like this DIE for a reason. I now look at it as equal share with the developers, the publishers, and the player base all contributing to this (and todays greed infested gaming industry really makes everything far worse). Private servers are no different. Be very wary of any private server (or at least, be careful with your personal information). It’s one of the reasons why shortly after it was announced that TERA PC (Krafton) was officially ending development/closing, I began noting to others about the ability to grab the retail files (that had been released at that time which was v92.03 and v100.02) and having the option of running it themselves. The target was mainly those who really just wanted the means to experience their characters and the game world in some fashion (or maybe the ability to play with their friends). And I did manage to hit some folks (but that knowledge continues being buried as each year goes by).

Finally, I’ve long had this blog set to reduce its visibility to search engines but I’ve made a conscious decision to unset that at least temporarily such that maybe some searches will eventually see some of those postings (regarding the game preservation angle and these TERA PC server binary releases plus my TERA Offline postings).

The few videos I have on my YouTube are never going to end up in the algorithm, plus you need to use the right search terms for them to show up near the top of the (relevancy) results. I know that RZ shows high up with the proper search terms in the main search engines (something like “tera private server” will tend to show some of the actual private servers first but “tera private server files” will put RZ at the top).

However, I believe it’s a bit overwhelming for the average reader (especially if they aren’t technical) on where to start on the forum once they click into it. Regardless, the main hope is that more are able to learn they can run and setup something themselves if they are not interested in the multiplayer aspect with others/guilds (like what I do).

Version 1.2 (the client is from October 14, 2014) is currently the main development target for this emulator since they have the decrypted databases for them.  I’m running the last pre-complied server package from May 2025 (but updates are being made daily to the repository where you can build those development versions for ongoing play testing).

This server emulator itself is also lightweight (it doesn’t have a lot of that publisher and business backend baggage like an official build would have (including all of the load balancing/scaling). There are some quests that are missing, mobs that are stacked on top of each other, achievements don’t seem to work, etc, but these are minor issues.

1.2 pre-dates a lot the game that was associated with it for most of its life (no heroes, no hero halls, no dwarf and warborn races, no community centers, rudimentary trade, many zones still closed off, etc).  For Auroria, only the Diamond Shores area (faction bases and Ayanad Library area) and hostile zones of Sungold Fields, Marcala, Calmlands, Heedmar, Nuimari, and Exeloch are open (the camp in Reedwind is there but the rest of the zone is a lot of placeholder terrain).  Mounts, pets, vehicles, ships, gliders work properly.  Nonetheless, it is still cool to have an older build with the original game world where you can experience good portions of the early environment of ArcheAge.

I spent some time exploring the unfinished areas; it’s pretty interesting to see how those locations ended up turning into those zones during their release (like Golden Ruins, Whalesong Harbor, Western and Eastern Hiram Mountains in later versions). Even in the live version, I never got a chance to explore a lot of areas on Haranya and Nuia (higher mountain elevation areas by gliding from airship routes) so this will give me the opportunity to do that leisurely/peacefully.

As for actual official server binaries, those are in the hands of a small group (mainly the folks that run ArcheRage) and will likely never see the light of day because actual huge sums of money was paid out for several builds (effectively an inside job by someone who had access to them at mail.ru) starting from at least the version 5 (I beleive 6 and 8 were also acquired). Every other private server is running an emulator (forked from this open source version including some private projects that have forked it to recreate more of the 3.0x release).

Incidentally, it is unclear whether or not Astrum Entertainment (which took over the titles that had been previously serviced by MY.GAMES including ArcheAge Russia) is actually continuing to run the game with an valid publishing contract. Not only did XLGAMES end publishing in South Korea, development also ended in March 2025. People have rightfully pointed out that Astrum Entertainment continues operating Revelation Online, a game that NetEase ended development and was shutdown in March 2024.

If this is like a VALOFE VFUN type of setup (continuing to operate no longer developed titles under modified licensing agreements in what is mostly maintenance mode/limited changes associated with database changes), then I can see. But this will eventually become known as time goes on.

On a related note, XLGAMES “teased” a while ago they would eventually be open sourcing ArcheWorld (which is that blockchain-crypto-NFT laden fork of ArcheAge). IF that ever comes to pass (which I personally sort of doubt because why would they open up that pandora box), that would obviously help towards developing later versions of the game. However, that message was directed at their ArcheWorld customer base (basically to keep them captive for as long as possible with that game).

For myself, 3.x server emulation would be good enough since I don’t care about the PVE and PVP game play or the gear. Just having all races available, their starter zones, and enough housing/decor (where some later ones could probably be back ported) would satiate the way I had played the live versions anyway. The following was mainly driving to Two Crowns from Marianople, then gliding/riding to one of my favorite spots (Two Crowns Moonswept Homes housing zone).

I didn’t record it but I also managed to glide up into the Aubre Cradle zone (since this 1.2 client has those areas inaccessible via their normal routes). The designers had most of that zone completed along with most areas of Airain Rock (Andelph didn’t have all its textures and lighting setup completely though). Sunbite Wilds (Warborn home zone) however was really mostly placeholder textures with a few spots that looked like test environments.

Serious kudos to the folks working tirelessly on this project and keeping good portions of this game preserved.

UPDATE: added the following videos (June 30, 2025 – 3 years post official closure)

v31.04 (May 2015) is the build that has many of the earlier game systems intact (Alliances, Crusades, Sky Castles) but obviously not the original Vanarch political system (since this was replaced with Exarchs in Alliances). This also has the original Island of Dawn starter zone questing (which was removed and changed to Stepstone Island in November 2015) and the 2013 character lobby.

TERA PC now has these different releases preserved which allows one to be able to experience the game (in those different incarnations) well after its complete closure back on June 30, 2022. As noted before, I’m a huge advocate for game preservation and having this ability to run such games after the developer and/or publisher terminates the development/operation of the game (more so given how most titles nowadays are run online as live service games utilizing this server/client architecture even if that game is mostly single player). With TERA PC, I have each of these releases working offline with the server running within a virtual machine and game client running outside of that (what I refer to as TERA Offline which I eventually intend to repurpose my 2019 Mac Pro to run them since it has 320GB of RAM).

Basically, this is actual proof that even an MMO can be run offline (just requiring adequate hardware). Tweaks can also be made to the configuration in order to reduce the usual multiplayer restrictions (like many party dungeons can be modified to allow for solo entry and play; maybe the more problematic ones are those requiring multiple players to deal with certain mechanics). Yes, it would be nice if it could all be rolled up into a much more easily configurable local binary but this is to be expected the server side components are meant to be able to scale.

As for v31.04, previously only the private server administrators of TERA CZ (now shuttered) and TERA Akeron (which has added their own updates over time) had a “close to classic” version of the game publicly available for play but also held tight reigns on the actual files. Given the small tidbits of information regarding this release (the official binaries and datasheets are from the Russian 31.04 with protocol 286406), that seemed to be close to what these other projects were based on (an early Destiny Games “leak”).

As I noted before, it’s rare to just have one leak of any type of official server binaries (and having knowledgable enough people who are able to remove all of the server side DRM to allow it to all run). With TERA PC, it’s an incredible treasure trove of FIVE different versions (31.04, 71.03, 92.03, 92.04, and 100.02) that have been made public since 2021.

UPDATE: On a related note, part of this also will also segue into the whole “Stop Killing Games” drama that has been happening recently in May/June 2025 (I’ve just been so out of it recently that I haven’t had the energy to even begin to write about that).

He also created a virtual machine with everything in place (new Web API and Steer Box components) which allows most folks to get up and running really quickly.

Patch v71.03 is before the level cap was increased to 70, and has the older Arsenal gear system (basically Guardian through Heroic Oath).  It also has the older client UI.  It’s also just before the aerial Guardian Legion missions were added (so it has the skywhale performing its leisurely cruise over Val Aureum before exiting out to the abyss).  Yes, there are merits to getting older builds (more on that below).

While this one happens to be an older build, I look at each one of these as an archived preservation of the game (more so now that the PC version no longer operates officially).  Older patches for example have game systems that were disabled/had their functionality actually removed (Crusades and Alliances being prime examples) in later builds.  What I hope to see for example, are those builds (as well as the older ones with the Vanarch political system).  It’s all a long shot, but some of that exists (Akeron has the Fate of Arun Russian leak while TERA CZ is a hodgepodge of this and later patches; both of these are tightly held though).

I do have to say that it’s HIGHLY unusual to see a full official server build leak out from what was the NA publisher EME which was also a Bluehole subsidiary (given that relationship, plus the usual policies and protocols that are put into place to prevent such unauthorized leaks from happening or being deployed outside the publishers server environment).  Since it seems that this wasn’t a QA build (like 92.03 and 100.02), the Arbiter Server was DRM’ed (it had to be run on a specific EME system AND the year had to be 2018).  That check however was patched out by another TERA RZ community member (hsdn).  Sure, EME stopped operating back in 2020, but I am sure a lot of of its employees (especially ones who worked closely with the game/backend) have remained within the game industry where you just sign new NDA’s and contracts (trust is always an issue in this area so it’s not a good look for ex-employees that may have worked in this area when leaks of this this sort are out in public).

Bluehole/Krafton has kept a relatively hands off approach to this (only early on were they aggressive with the DMCA takedowns of file archives; I have a large mirror for example and would know about such actions).  And none of the private servers have been taken down via a cease and desist order (there has only been a C&D that Menma’s said they received, but that hasn’t been independently validated as originating from Krafton’s legal counsel).  I do know that IP stakeholders HAVE TO go through this legal process once they determine that someone else is using their IP to make money (doesn’t matter if it is under the guise of donations) since failing to do so, could result in them losing those intellectual property rights, service/trade marks, copyrights, etc.

What’s becoming somewhat clearer though is the relatively large number of leaked builds that are likely in the possession of people (most of the older pre-v50 patches seem to have come out of the old Russian publisher, Destiny Games, while the post-v88 ones have come out of the Taiwanese publisher, HappyTuk).  Only the HappyTuk (v92.03 to v100.02) and now this EME build have seen wider distribution.  The HappyTuk v105 QA server files remain tightly held similar to the Russian server files.

I do understand the desires of intellectual property owners not wanting that IP to be hijacked/used/profited from improperly.  Me as a regular person though, likes the whole archival/preservation aspect when it comes to running the official server binaries locally (like what I’m doing), or even having the ability to clean reverse engineer them (which the DMCA exemption allowed for back in 2018).  The fact that there are now three different official versions widely available, is just remarkable since it’s normally just difficult to have ONE completely functional version (case in point is nothing for Devilian or ArcheAge 3.x being in the hands of just a few people).

Today was the first time in 11 months that I revisited TERA (specifically my v92.03 setup).  I have long decided that while the 64-bit version (v100.02) offered a lot of performance benefits (especially asynchronous loading on the client), that way too much stuff was lost in that process.  One of the things I really wanted to work on re-enabling was the guild sky castle system (specifically changing the appearance).  Unfortunately, not even the base external assets load with the 64-bit client.  The same goes for trying to get the original Island of Dawn appearance to work (or even the old tutorial to run).

Before I stopped all work on this, I managed to re-enable the old prologue/tutorial system (below) and at least assign a sky castle (the default one) to my guild (though this being nearly an year ago, I’ve forgotten a lot of the specifics on how I did this) such that the guild logo is rotating around the base sky castle (above video).

As expected, there were a lot of TERA private server projects that popped out of this.  Menma’s (which pre-dated all of this since it was at the time, running what was previously a closely held v92.04 leak), is still the most populated TERA private server.  I learned that it was recently targeted with a “supposed” cease & desist from Krafton (I don’t think they ever released the actual C&D letter with the law firm name though, and given that my MEGA TERA file archive (or even many of the others) that still sees terabytes of download activity hasn’t even been hit yet with DMCA takedowns (something that Krafton initially was very aggressive with back in 2021 when the v92.03 server files were made widely public), I kind of doubt it was an actual official C&D (versus some party that wanted to try to scare them to shut down).

Yes, Krafton has every right to issue such C&D’s and take downs since it is part of the process of protecting their intellectual property, service/trade marks, and copyrights as it relates to the TERA franchise.  But they’ve also exhibited a very “look the other way” approach when they learned the futility of playing “whack-a-mole” with the v92.03 and v100.02 server file leaks.  I sort of chalk that up to their corporate legal (given some of the really crazy copyright/intellectual property lawsuits they filed with PUBG) not really caring given how easily the company swept a lot of its history under the rug with TERA PC’s closure.

Digressing (back to the private servers), several ended up closing over the past 9 months (a couple that were attempting to launch, never did).  IMHO, there were just way too much for what is a niche; with the server files available to anyone, one could also just setup their own offline version (like what I did).  While I initially tinkered with the files and got involved with the TERA private server community on RageZone, I stopped even running the setup locally because I didn’t want to completely over shadow the fact that there would be no further official development of the game (I explained my thoughts about this at the end of this post).

I didn’t want this upcoming first year since the closure, to feel like it hasn’t been closed (as a result of playing on a private server or playing around with my local offline setups).   I haven’t touched my local setup since July 2022 because I didn’t want to negate the actual experience and memories (good and bad) of playing the actual live service (in my own way).  I was also hoping one of the final leaks (v105) that made it out of HappyTuk (the Taiwanese publisher) would surface over the following months (a quick check shows that it hasn’t).  Nonetheless, I for one am grateful to this day that we have both v92.03 and v100.02 (because this option never materialized for Devilian except for endless false leads or people saying they had the server files, but it turned out to be just the game client).

TERA Console (as the sole official service of the TERA franchise) still continues trucking along (though most of the updates aren’t major content updates since this thing seems to be running out of contractual obligations, and not because Krafton is investing anything into it).  Krafton’s recent financials (while some of the best in its history) are predicated on the continuing success of their PUBG franchise because everything else is a blip on their financial statements (and with Elyon shutting down in South Korea and NA/EU by Kakao Games and SEA by Playpark in April 2023, Krafton’s Bluehole Studio subsidiary is basically operating on a thin lifeline and borrowed time with TERA Console and Elyon Japan).  That’s just the business realities given that the company has made a conscious decision to move away from developing MMORPG’s (since even veteran designers at the company are aware of the focus/cultural shift).  To date, none of the other initiatives the companies various subsidaries have been working on, have hit an actual launch window.

Come June 30, 2023, I will probably run my v.92.03 offline setup to revisit the world of TERA once again, but then put it aside again so that I can re-watch some of the closure videos from last year as players made their final goodbyes to the game (back in March, I re-watched my video of Devilian’s closure from 5 years ago where the memories from its final month came flooding back; where it was just 5 years that passed by in a blink).

The emulator that was used to create some walkthrough videos of a Chinese mobile knockoff called Dark Faith (it must have gotten a cease and desist from Bluehole since the assets/look of the game were completely changed one day), has never seen the light of day either.  The occasional lead that pops up is normally just the client files.  And yes, I have tried searching pan.baidu.com for 恶魔契约 (the CN name for Devilian).  It’s been over 4 years now, so the likelihood of there being anything is slim to none.