A TERA entry
First things first, yes Razorbites is down. Again, I know. Sorry if the red X's hurt your eyes. I'll finally be moving away from it soon, and discovered a handy little tool to allow me to do so. It's called LJsec, and I'm so glad it exists. Amongst its many features is a bulk find & replace tool, which will allow me to change the hotlinks on all the razorbite images in every single entry with a single click. As long as I keep the file names the same, all I have to do is change the URL preceding them(razorbites.com -> whatever). Quite frankly, I was surprised something like this existed for LJ since nobody uses it anymore.. was seriously considering jumping ship to something else. Glad I don't have to. (edit: Just put it to the test, found 70 entries using razorbites.com hotlinks and replaced them all in about 30 seconds. Fantastic.)
Anyways, TERA! Closed beta tests started for preorders. No, I did not preorder and have no intentions to. I played K-beta last year and was unimpressed. How did I get into this beta then, you ask? By being a master of photoshop..ing white backgrounds.
That order number and date is actually my FFXIII-2 preorder ^^
One weekend is more than enough to give it another go, and I certainly wouldn't go anywhere this next weekend regardless. Did playing on local servers in the English language change my opinion of the game? No, not really. While the combat was certainly more responsive, the same problems still arise. I'll break it down:
Pros:
Graphics. Not so much technically speaking, but visually. The game takes a stylized WoW-esque approach in that its rather easy to run, but pleasing to look at in motion. Here's a shot of my k-stereotyped slut character:
Which leads me to my next pro: Korean stereotypes. The better your armor gets, the more revealing it becomes. Sooner or later, you're running around with nothing but a bikini and nipple tassels.. no exaggeration. While not something I could put up with for extended periods of time without being utterly embarrassed, how could I not roll a female in beta? The only choice was which race of slut I wanted to be, only to be disappointed with how much skin the starter armor actually covered. And oh yeah, what would korean stereotypes be without upskirts at EVERY AVAILABLE OPPORTUNITY. Yeah, we all run like that.
And lastly: the base enemy mechanics. Base. It's action-y for sure, but imo it ultimately falls short of the flash prior games like C9 was able to accomplish (it's way slower). Still, it's enough for me to consider a pro. Enemies have nice visual queues for their actions, and you can dodge most everything. Actions are also much more responsive than the K-beta version, so it does actually play kind of "twitchy" in that regard.
Cons
The server code. You would think after being out for so long in Korea, they would have had time to hammer this kind of thing out. Here's a quick gif, shrunk down so it's not too huge. Keep an eye on the platform..
Now look, we're used to that kind of thing when moving at mounted speed or when there's a ton of stuff waiting for you. It happens. But in the middle of nowhere, standing still, you should be able to see 25 feet in front of you. Even at max settings, character models don't even load until youre ridiculously close.. and names don't pop until you're all up in somebodies grill. And it's not just with NPCs, but everything. It was a huge problem during the K-Beta when I tried battlegrounds. Imagine that platform was a PvP objective. I can't tell you how many times I ran up to something thinking I was pulling a power move, only to be caught in no-mans land when the entire team eventually popped in front of me. At the time I thought maybe it was the server distance.. it's not.
Next: exclamation point gaming. Make no mistake, this entire game is "quests" taken straight out of 1995. We're still doing this in 2012, really? As you can see from the right hand side of that gif.. it starts early and in shameful amounts. Everything is a fetch quest or a kill quest, you've seen it a million times before. You're sick of it, I'm sick of it. Don't worry, Guild Wars 2 will hopefully save us from that monotony. But quite frankly, I couldn't be bothered to read even the first wall-o-text thrown at me 5 seconds into the game. I read the summaries on the right and killed my 5 rats.
And lastly, the combat from the player perspective. While I mentioned that enemy queues are pretty good and can have some skill-based mechanics to them (perception wise).. everything else you do with your character is anything but. I won't get into skills too much even though the majority are pretty boring, cos that's not my main gripe. The "reticule" targeting is a joke. Hitboxes are EXTREMELY forgiving, and enemies are so overly huge it is a complete non-factor in PvE situations. If you thought it was going to be "skill-based" because you had to "aim".. it's about on par with aiming for the ground with a bowling ball. Especially for melee, when most of the time your entire screen is the enemy you're engaged with. It's a complete and utter afterthought. In PvP it's better, but not much. Granted, I could only duel in the beginning stages with my playtime thus far.. but I didnt see much difference from when I played K-Tera. You'll whiff with projectiles and watch numbers go over peoples heads, and make contact with people after they've already dodged behind you. Still an issue even playing locally. Combined with the previously mentioned server issues, and you have a disaster for any kind of organized PvP. Not to mention that K-beta had an asinine "countdown" before you could even be attacked in world PvP (literally, before someone could attack you your screen had to flash a countdown from 5), I'm assuming that still remains (only PvE servers for beta).
Pretty much as expected. I know people drooling over this game, but I don't get it. I guess Korea didn't either, since it bombed miserably over there. Killing big things is fun and all, but no more so then in other games once the reticule is inevitably taken out of the equation. I can appreciate the world NMs and everything they bring to the table, but at the end of the day it's all standard. An exclamation point driven experience from the ground up, embarrassing PvP and an "artistic style" that would make Sasha Grey blush.
Anyways, TERA! Closed beta tests started for preorders. No, I did not preorder and have no intentions to. I played K-beta last year and was unimpressed. How did I get into this beta then, you ask? By being a master of photoshop..ing white backgrounds.
That order number and date is actually my FFXIII-2 preorder ^^
One weekend is more than enough to give it another go, and I certainly wouldn't go anywhere this next weekend regardless. Did playing on local servers in the English language change my opinion of the game? No, not really. While the combat was certainly more responsive, the same problems still arise. I'll break it down:
Pros:
Graphics. Not so much technically speaking, but visually. The game takes a stylized WoW-esque approach in that its rather easy to run, but pleasing to look at in motion. Here's a shot of my k-stereotyped slut character:
Which leads me to my next pro: Korean stereotypes. The better your armor gets, the more revealing it becomes. Sooner or later, you're running around with nothing but a bikini and nipple tassels.. no exaggeration. While not something I could put up with for extended periods of time without being utterly embarrassed, how could I not roll a female in beta? The only choice was which race of slut I wanted to be, only to be disappointed with how much skin the starter armor actually covered. And oh yeah, what would korean stereotypes be without upskirts at EVERY AVAILABLE OPPORTUNITY. Yeah, we all run like that.
And lastly: the base enemy mechanics. Base. It's action-y for sure, but imo it ultimately falls short of the flash prior games like C9 was able to accomplish (it's way slower). Still, it's enough for me to consider a pro. Enemies have nice visual queues for their actions, and you can dodge most everything. Actions are also much more responsive than the K-beta version, so it does actually play kind of "twitchy" in that regard.
Cons
The server code. You would think after being out for so long in Korea, they would have had time to hammer this kind of thing out. Here's a quick gif, shrunk down so it's not too huge. Keep an eye on the platform..
Now look, we're used to that kind of thing when moving at mounted speed or when there's a ton of stuff waiting for you. It happens. But in the middle of nowhere, standing still, you should be able to see 25 feet in front of you. Even at max settings, character models don't even load until youre ridiculously close.. and names don't pop until you're all up in somebodies grill. And it's not just with NPCs, but everything. It was a huge problem during the K-Beta when I tried battlegrounds. Imagine that platform was a PvP objective. I can't tell you how many times I ran up to something thinking I was pulling a power move, only to be caught in no-mans land when the entire team eventually popped in front of me. At the time I thought maybe it was the server distance.. it's not.
Next: exclamation point gaming. Make no mistake, this entire game is "quests" taken straight out of 1995. We're still doing this in 2012, really? As you can see from the right hand side of that gif.. it starts early and in shameful amounts. Everything is a fetch quest or a kill quest, you've seen it a million times before. You're sick of it, I'm sick of it. Don't worry, Guild Wars 2 will hopefully save us from that monotony. But quite frankly, I couldn't be bothered to read even the first wall-o-text thrown at me 5 seconds into the game. I read the summaries on the right and killed my 5 rats.
And lastly, the combat from the player perspective. While I mentioned that enemy queues are pretty good and can have some skill-based mechanics to them (perception wise).. everything else you do with your character is anything but. I won't get into skills too much even though the majority are pretty boring, cos that's not my main gripe. The "reticule" targeting is a joke. Hitboxes are EXTREMELY forgiving, and enemies are so overly huge it is a complete non-factor in PvE situations. If you thought it was going to be "skill-based" because you had to "aim".. it's about on par with aiming for the ground with a bowling ball. Especially for melee, when most of the time your entire screen is the enemy you're engaged with. It's a complete and utter afterthought. In PvP it's better, but not much. Granted, I could only duel in the beginning stages with my playtime thus far.. but I didnt see much difference from when I played K-Tera. You'll whiff with projectiles and watch numbers go over peoples heads, and make contact with people after they've already dodged behind you. Still an issue even playing locally. Combined with the previously mentioned server issues, and you have a disaster for any kind of organized PvP. Not to mention that K-beta had an asinine "countdown" before you could even be attacked in world PvP (literally, before someone could attack you your screen had to flash a countdown from 5), I'm assuming that still remains (only PvE servers for beta).
Pretty much as expected. I know people drooling over this game, but I don't get it. I guess Korea didn't either, since it bombed miserably over there. Killing big things is fun and all, but no more so then in other games once the reticule is inevitably taken out of the equation. I can appreciate the world NMs and everything they bring to the table, but at the end of the day it's all standard. An exclamation point driven experience from the ground up, embarrassing PvP and an "artistic style" that would make Sasha Grey blush.