How Tera Online can improve its gameplay for users?

Many people might be wondering what Tera Online is up to for its future content. We are near the end of the first year of Tera being opened and content has been coming out fairly slowly for NA Tera Online. This has discouraged many players I have to say as a Tera Online user even I feel everyone it's pretty frustrating to see content coming in so slowly. Not to mention seeing K-Tera pull in really great Christmas events and us in NA Tera are not even getting most of it.

The only skill based not gear based event came to K-Tera during Christmas a battleground which is composed throwing snowballs to kill each other this sounded really interesting but no NA Tera Online will not be getting this event we get a recycled egg event for Christmas with drops which kind of suck. Content in general has been releasing quite slow for the US Tera servers.

So before i explain what would make Tera Online better then it currently is lets just quickly go over some of the things that make the game slightly frustrating at least from the point of view of a player that has been here since the opened beta of Tera Online. First the claim true action mmorpg with the claim of if you can dodge the attacks you can beat someone regardless of gear. This is totally not even close when it comes to actual pvp.

Tera Online is very gear dependent sure if you dodge an attack you won't get hit but a person with full pve gear verses someone in full fraywind is going to take double or triple the amount of damage in pve gear from someone using pvp gear. Not to mention someone in full conjunct will take so much less damage then someone without it and the better the pvp damage the closer to one shotting someone who is not in pvp gear. But of course if you suck at your class you will  not do as well as someone who knows their class.

The other main thing that is very annoying about Tera Online is the amount of content that you can find in game. Most of the content is all 5 man dungeons and while they added the raid called Nexus Traverse it does not add much into the game in terms of content. The speed in which content comes out is slow and the development team of NA Tera Online does not really let us know what's going on other then the patches are late or not coming out for awhile. Which pretty much seems to be lack of communication not really giving us a reason that we are almost 3 months behind of K-Tera and we seem to be getting farther behind with every new patch that the Korean servers get.

Now I'm not bashing the game I do enjoy playing it and I plan to play it in the future but I can see why many have canceled subscriptions because currently its very repetitive and boring. Until they fix some of the things in Tera Online they will continue to lose their player base slowly.

One of the main things which would greatly improve Tera Online and also help gaining more new members is expanding and fixing the raiding system. What I mean by this is instead of the 10 minute raid that we currently are stuck with repeating over and over 3 times a day we need something fresh and new something that causes progression and has a good story and interesting mechanics. I'm sorry I have to actually use world of warcraft as a comparison but it's the only example I can give that would at least make people understand what I'm talking about.

 If Tera Online expanded their content to include more 10/20 raid content then made sure that it required a well organized composer of classes such as making advantages for having each class this would also make people want to play some of the classes which may not be on the favorite list. Like for example having a raid which berserker's can benefit from using their fear and slows or needing to have a mystic in a raid so people could use the mote's to dispel a poison or disease. They have a lot that can be done raid wise which would make the game interesting but they need to get away from only 5 man content.

They could also use to bring out content somewhat faster for NA Tera Online this is part of why people get bored so quickly I do understand it has to be translated and fitted for NA Tera but they need to work up a better system which allows content to be added in a faster fashion we used to be only a month behind K-Tera but as time has been going on we get farther and farther behind on content updates in Tera Online.

Adding more to the battlegrounds more types or just different maps would make the game more fun and less repetitive. I do realize that K-Tera gained 3v3 style Arena's but we still have not received that patch either. I'd like to see some Capture the Flag for Tera Online or maybe just some style of queued death match system that could be bet on. Sure the Battlegrounds event was interesting but even that was not well managed by the NA Tera Online team they royally screwed that up so bad that no one even wanted to participate until they made the registry free and even then they told us a day before the tournament that you would not get access to any glyph's that you did not already have. They could have easily allowed us access to them but they did not want to support fair play in the battlegrounds tournament.

It would also be nice if they made something else like a guild wars or battle system for the guild system a good example of what I mean is that of Ragnarok Online's system called War of Emperium something to add to the point of having a guild other then the vanarch system which is pretty much unfair. The guild wars system could also include a similar way to incorporate the winning vanarch by taking control a castle in a certain area of the map which would make the unfair voting system obsolete as well as stop all the feeding kills for the pvp vanarch.

For the most part Tera Online is a really awesome game and is worth buying but if they want to make it last much longer and compete verses the newer mmorpg's they should consider upgrading the content more often and provide some new raiding content. If your thinking of buying Tera Online just be warned that you will not find World of Warcraft based raiding in Tera Online but for most new users hopefully by the time they hit level 60 there will be new content finally unless we are doomed to fall farther behind in patches for the new year.

Private Servers are an option now for players to enjoy the experience of Tera Online. You can even learn how to make your own private server by clicking here  .

The last thing that is very frustrating is the fact that they might decide to bring this new content as a new expansion which is not really justified. I'm sorry but the current amount of updates and content which we have been awarded for buying the game does not justify them going and charging us another 50 or 60 dollars to give us new content which will make the game more fun. They really need at least one more major patch before I would even consider buying another expansion. They need to realize they did not provide all that much content that was new since the game came out back in May.

Are Tera Online Private Servers worth playing?

This question came up from a friend recently they wanted to know if Tera Online private servers are really worth playing. I asked where that even came up from and they mentioned about getting a invite in there email from some server claiming to be a private server. First of all I warned them not to use the same account information from Tera Online. One thing that many people don't realize is that many private servers open up in hopes of luring people from official servers so they can try and steal passwords of others.

Lets look at the pro's and con's of playing a private server first. Some of the pro's of playing one would be not having to pay for the game or pay monthly for it. I can see were this might be luring to others but the game costs like what 19 dollars now I mean I can understand if it was $60 dollars but 19? and it was even 9 dollars at one point during a promotional sale. Not only that but you can buy chrono scrolls with 30 day's of free play without paying for a subscription. Of course that was not possible when the game first came out and they used to force you to pay for a subscription which is no longer the case. Many of my friends on Tera Online have not been paying for a subscription since they bought the game they just farm gold in game to buy the scrolls every month. Honestly not paying is the only upside for a private server usually private servers will try to obtain money in another form such as a cash shop and allow you to buy gold or custom equipment with overpowered stats. And you could try to argue that Tera Online has a shop but it's only cosmetics and its not a pay to win shop at least not yet.

My friend tried to argue about how terrible enmass is when it comes to giving support and I have noticed some problems when trying to clear up problems or when the staff just knows nothing about the game. Its pretty much hit or miss whether you get a good staff person to help you or not.  But with that you have to also consider most private servers are run buy billy that never coded in his life and thought it would be cool to run a private server off his moms computer. While that's not speaking about all private servers most don't come with a staff of trained people that know how to code or troubleshoot and while yes not every enmass GM knew what the hell he was doing the company still has done some major updates to fix things that ktera didn't have fixed either. 

One of my friends runs a Ragnarok Online server called Existence Ragnarok Online and even he has commented on how horrible many of the server owners can be. They do nothing but ask people to do everything for them even down to coding simple NPC's and many ask how to make it work with a router because they are to cheap to buy server hosting and such. He basicly tells everyone if you plan on making a server do not think it's going to be a get rich quick because running a good server takes alot of time dedication and hours of work hes been working on servers for the past 9 years. I assure you he's far from rich.

Overall I would say if you want to play Tera Online just buy the game and if you can't pay for chrono scrolls go farm some lower level dungeons for items to sell and get the gold for chrono scrolls because the game is worth playing. Currently it's one of the better mmorpg's out of all the ones that came out recently if your looking for a good mmorpg experience Tera will be the right one for you.

Another Upcoming Patch to Nexus!

As if we didn't have enough lag nexus is going to be everyday. The upcoming patch tomorrow will make it so nexus is these times everyday:

12 am pst
6 pm pst
9 pm pst

While they have claimed about modifying the maximum characters which can be seen on a screen this will most likely not effect the overall lag of nexus unfortunately. So now we'll get to enjoy a laggy server everyday. Hopefully with this new update will be a future addition of new content which will lighten the load of nexus or just remove it completely. My guess is why they have decided to make nexus daily is because they want everyone to catch up in the current content with vision-maker and all so they can bring out new content. Although we have not seen any plans of this as of yet. We do know the upcoming arena patch is the closest thing we can hope for at the moment. The hellfire pit on the other hand is far away. Hopefully good things will be in Tera's future for all of us.

Another method of tweaking to fix the UI Lag

Some people have still been having issues with the UI lag. While the settings from http://tera-online-guides.blogspot.com/2012/10/tweaking-tera-onlines-game-performance.html has helped improve game performance and fixed errors others still notice a problem with some video cards. A friend of mine from K-Tera has been kind enough to share some other settings that might help to address this problem for others so I'll post what she shared.

These settings are found under your Nvidia Control Pannel:

Antialiasing - FXAA  On
Antialiasing - Gamma correction On
Antialiasing - Mode Enhance the application setting
Antialiasing - Setting 16xQ CSAA
Antialiasing - Transparency 8x (supersample)
CUDA - GPUs All
Maximum pre-rendered frames 3
Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration  single display performance mode
SLI rendering mode  NVIDIA recommended
Texture Filtering - Anisotropic sampling option  on
Texture Filtering - Negitive LOD bias  Allow


She also recomends using the core unparking which was explained in the first guide I published as well. But keep in mind if your on a laptop core unparking will not be an option for you because it causes the system to use more power and laptops are made to be power efficiant since they run on a battery. Core unparking does not work for systems which are only single cores as well it only effects multi-core processors because all your doing is taking off the windows limits that makes the system use all 4 cores instead of locking them and making them inactive during when they are not being used.

Another thing she also recomended was downloading and installing beta legacy drivers from: http://www.geforce.com/drivers/beta-legacy

Reasoning for this is because she says many of the beta drivers for the newer cards boost performance over the main current drivers and will improve your game performance even more. She said if tweaking your system this way doesn't improve fps performance you could look to your ram and make sure that your not over your usage as well as check for any virus's on your system that could be causing fps drops but other then what was posted on the above guide there's not much you can really do to improve fps.

Nexus Times Changed

I always find it anoying having to go to the Tera Online website and submit my age just to view the patch notes for the Nexus times since I can never remember them now that they are all week long. Not to mention they released two patches based on the times since they screwed up. So I'm going to go ahead and post the times for Nexus here.

Sunday noon

Sunday 5 p.m.

Monday 6 p.m.

Tuesday noon

Wednesday 6 p.m.

Thursday noon

Friday 6 p.m.

Friday 9 p.m.

Saturday 6 p.m.

Saturday 9 p.m.

If your having trouble staying connected in game you should check out the Tera Online performance tweaks as well as the article on fighting lag during nexus in Tera Online because you'll notice a major increase in FPS (Frames Per Second).

Tweaking Tera Online's Game Performance

Updated: 7/17/2014

Added flash memory changing for optimization~!

I wanted to add something else about the lag because it really will make players understand the lag during things like PvP and why none of the things below will make it possible to fix lag under every circumstance so if your interested click here.

Whether you have the best gaming computer on the market or have an older computer that still meets recommendations for Tera Online chances are you are not getting the best performance out of your game. There are a good number of settings that you can do outside of game and within the game client which can improve your game function increase your fps and make Tera Online play more smoothly.

The first settings that I will cover are the ones that are specific to Nvidia cards I'm not sure if the same settings can be found in Radeon cards so I can't say if it's the same for those cards. But if you pull your video settings up for your graphics by going to Nvidia Control panel. Then go to manage 3d settings you have two options you can either make a profile just for Tera Online or you can edit the global settings for all games its up to you what you decide to do. Set the options in the profile like so:

•  Vertical Sync - Force On
•  Triple Buffering - On
•  Threaded Optimization - On
•  Trilinear Optimalization - Off
•  Texture Filtering - Anisotropic sample opt... - Off
•  Power Managment mode - Prefer Maximum Performance
•  Maximum Pre-Rendered Frames - 3 (Need at least direct x9.0 for this to work)
•  Antialiasing Transparency - Multisample
•  Antialiasing Setting - 2x
•  Antialiasing Mode - Override any application settings (This uses the preset you have in Nvidia)
•  Anisotropic Filtering - 16x
•  Texture Filtering - Negative LOD bias - Allow

Now that we've covered Nvidia settings lets talk about client based settings. These settings are ones which cannot be edited by changing them in game. They are core settings for the client which Tera Online might not recommend you changing but these have direct effect on how well your graphics are in game. I was pretty impressed seeing how I wasn't using the best video card on the market and i've managed to improve my game quality by a good percentage. These settings will be found here:
C:\Program Files (x86)\TERA\Client\S1Game\Config   <- 64bit operating systems
C:\Program Files\TERA\Client\S1Game\Config  <- 32bit operating systems
C:\ProgramData\HappyCloud\Cache\TERA\Client\S1Game\Config  <- New location for the  happy cloud version of Tera Online

If you installed to another location you should know where to find the Tera Online folder. In that folder delete the following files:

S1Editor
S1EditorUserSettings
S1Engine
S1Game
S1Input
S1Option
S1UI

Load the game up and it will remake these files for you which is clearing out all the normal settings making default versions for you.

Then back up the S1Engine file. And open it in notepad so you can modify the settings in the file. Search and Replace:

Search: UseMinimalNVIDIADriverShaderOptimization=True
*Replace: UseMinimalNVIDIADriverShaderOptimization=False
Search: bDisablePhysXHardwareSupport=True
*Replace: bDisablePhysXHardwareSupport=False
Search: MinSmoothedFrameRate=
Replace: MinSmoothedFrameRate=32
Search: MaxSmoothedFrameRate=
Replace: MaxSmoothedFrameRate=120
Search: CompatLevelGPU=4
Add: CPUNumLogicalProcessors=4    <- This is the number of cores your CPU has mine is 4 which is quadcore.

*Note: This setting only applies to Nvidia cards.

Note: Make sure that you make the S1Engine.ini file read only or the settings will revert back to the default.

If you are lost making these modifications I have edited files uploaded here:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B90u9z2fsJ4baFNGVmE5THdvSDA/edit?usp=sharing

Another modification which can be done which also has an effect the UI game system uses Autodesk® Scaleform which runs on flash so updating your shockwave player as well as flash player can also play a part in improving your fps in game while most of us do this normally so it might not apply to everyone there are some people who might not update it often.

Increasing flash memory for adobe
http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html

Use the address above and make sure that the settings look like below

The reason you will want to set these settings to 10MB's instead of unlimited is when they are set to unlimited it can cause memory leaks and make the game lag very bad or cause it to crash completely so we want to just limit how much memory it can use so it doesn't do bad things.


*Note: Core Unparking is not recommended for laptops this will increase battery usage and raise CPU temperatures!
Another feature which can be modified for even more performance is the CPU core parking. In windows vista+ windows in an attempt to conserve power windows parks CPU's making it so only one core takes all of the processes. This causes GPU to bottleneck in games and decreases performance. Editing this can be done easily using a program to modify the registry which you can find below. You can switch it back if you want to but I noticed a direct increase in all of my programs not just in game. And one of my friends noticed major increases in windows 8 as well.

http://www.coderbag.com/Programming-C/Disable-CPU-Core-Parking-Utility

You will need to restart after you unpark all the cores of your computer.

So hopefully if you've managed to do all of the above at this point Tera Online should look and play that more amazing without having to use any of the other changes that you see in Tera Online Guides: Fighting Nexus Lag I can't say how these settings above will effect Nexus until tomorrow but I found much better improvement overall which makes me very happy.

More information on Tweaking Tera:

Full Break down of S1Engine.ini
Speeding up client login network throttling to reduce lag and FOV
Reducing Hitbox Lag in Battlegrounds
What causes Tera's Lag
More information on video tweaking for Tera
Reducing lag in Nexus

Fighting Nexus's Lag In Tera Online

Mmorpg's have tried for years to provide world raids in game and because of servers limitations as well as graphic cards not being able to handle it most have realized that it is not possible to have 900+ players on a single spot. But Tera Online has this issue with the world raid called Nexus. Players spend a Nexus raid lagging trying to clear portals so they can get their Agnitor reputation and gold.

To many players seeing how laggy Nexus is ends up being a major turn off. But there are some things you can do to increase your FPS and be able to at least stay connected for it which allows you to at least get into the raid Nexus Traverse which is the very first raid. And today I'll explain how to go about doing this so your Nexus this weekend will be a little better.

One of the first things you can do if your in the massive group of players you can either turn away and face outside of the group this will reduce your lag because you won't be looking into the mass of players an effects. I usually bring badges and sit on the edge of the nexus portal because I lag too much to move and its hard to fill the raid group while staying alive otherwise. If your trying to be in the center of the raid you can zoom into your character which will reduce lag some as well and improve FPS. But one of the issue's with being in the center of the pile is if the boss decides to sit on your face you can get one shot and then it makes it hard for your team to bring you back up till after the portal is dead. Another way is by turning off combat logs which you can see how to do that below by hitting ALT and clicking the combat chat tag then clicking the gear in the left corner and editing the chat options for that window and un-checking all the combat logs.

Something else that can be done to help increase your FPS is also turning off the titles and hp bars of players around you. To do this you would go to the game options I've provided a screenshot of the settings so you can see which I turned off. You can also turn off NPC's as well temporarily if you want but that's up to you.

The last way you can improve frame rate is decreasing the effects as well as the distance. Effects cannot be turned completely off unfortunately and I have suggested that to the developers but not sure if they will in the future give a way to remove all effects. The distance improves how far you see ahead of you this can be useful in PvP like battleground's so that you have less lag if your video isn't that good but it can improve frame rate during Nexus as well.

That's about all you can do other then having a good amount of ram and a decent computer with video card. Hopefully we will see more improvements made after the server merge coming up and hopefully they will improve server quality and take more measures to make Nexus function better but for now these steps above will improve your experience. Otherwise have a great weekend in Tera Online and I hope you get awesome loot!

Tera Online Chat Commands

Like other games Tera Online has a list of Commands which you can use for various emotions as well as other features in the game too. So today I'll go over the different commands and what they do.

Tera Online Emote /commands:
Wave makes your character wave at others.
Usage: /wave
Aliases: /hi or /hello

Bow makes your character bow at others.
Usage: /bow
Aliases: None

Happy makes your character show how happy you are.
Usage: /happy
Aliases: /laugh or /lol

Sad shows others that your sad.
Usage: /sad
Aliases: /cry or /sob

Win shows others your cheer for winning.
Usage: /win
Aliases: /victory or /cheer

Dance shows others your dance.
Usage: /dance
Aliases: None

Taunt so you can taunt your enemies.
Usage: /taunt
Aliases: /bringit or /comeon

Clap give a round of applause.
Usage: /clap
Aliases: /applaud

Beg to beg your enemies for mercy.
Usage: /beg
Aliases: /plead

Think makes others see your thinking about something.
Usage: /think
Aliases: /ponder

Love shows affection to others.
Usage: /love
Aliases: None

Charge tells everyone to charge at the enemies.
Usage: /charge
Aliases: /attack

Point at something in game.
Usage: /point
Aliases: /there

Shy show everyone your shy side.
Usage: /shy
Aliases: /blush

Mad you mad bro?
Usage: /mad
Aliases: /angry or /anger

Tera Online Party /commands:
Invite other players to party.
Usage: /invite
Aliases: /inv

Drop from a party.
Usage: /drop
Aliases: None

Kick a member from a party.
Usage: /kick
Aliases: /uninvite

Disband a party.
Usage: /disband
Aliases: None

Leader change the leader of the party.
Usage: /leader
Aliases: None

Tera Online alternative ways to bring windows up / commands:

Friendlist another way to pull up the friendlist
Usage: /friendlist
Aliases: /social

Friend make someone your friend.
Usage: /friend
Aliases: /fr

Trade make a trade with someone.
Usage: /trade
Aliases: /tr

Inspect look at someones gear.
Usage: /inspect
Aliases: None

Duel with another player.
Usage: /duel
Aliases: /challenge

Uncle give up a duel.
Usage: /uncle
Aliases: /yield

Location links current location for a friend to see.
Usage: /location
Aliases: /whereami



Tera Online Guild /commands:

Gquit so you can quit a guild.
Usage: /gquit
Aliases: /guildquit

Gkick kick another player from a guild.
Usage: /gkick
Aliases: /guildkick

Gmaster change the guild leader.
Usage: /gmaster
Aliases: /guildmaster

Apply so you can apply to a guild.
Usage: /apply <guildleaders name> <message>
Aliases: None

Gdisband so you can disband a created guild.
Usage: /gdisband
Aliases: /guilddisband

Ginfo to pull up the guild info.
Usage: /ginfo
Aliases: /guildinfo

Glist to pull up the list of members.
Usage: /glist
Aliases: /guildlist

Ginvite to invite someone to a guild.
Usage: /ginvite
Aliases: /guildinvite

Gcreate to create a guild.
Usage: /gcreate
Aliases: /guildcreate

Surrender to give up a guild vs guild battle.
Usage: /surrender
Aliases: /whiteflag

Gvg to invite another guild to a gvg battle.
Usage: /gvg
Aliases: /battleinvite

Tera Online show available /commands:

Help pulls up the available commands in the chat window.
Usage: /help
Aliases: /h or /?
window commands
/? chat
/? party
/? LFG
/? emote
/? deathmatch

Tera Online Deathmatch /commands:

DMjoin to join a death match.
Usage: /dmjoin
Aliases: None

DMinvite to invite someone to join a deathmatch.
Usage: /dminvite
Aliases: None

Goal show score of a death match.
Usage: /goal
Aliases: None

Tera Online LFG /commands:

LFGstop to stop looking for a group.
Usage: /lfgstop
Aliases: /lfgend

LFG to look for a group.
Usage: /lfg
Aliases: None

Tera Online Vanarch /commands:

Loan
Usage: /loan
Aliases: /propose

Borrow
Usage: /borrow
Aliases: None

Ledger
Usage: /ledger
Aliases: /loanlist

Arrest to arrest another player and put them in jail.
Usage: /arrest
Aliases: None

Release to release someone in jail.
Usage: /release
Aliases: None

Tera Online Channel /commands:

Make a channel.
Usage: /make
Aliases: /makechannel or /makechat

Join a channel.
Usage: /join
Aliases: /joinchannel or /joinchat

Leave a channel.
Usage: /leave
Aliases: /leavechat

Chatlist pull up the channel chat list.
Usage: /chatlist
Aliases: /channellist

Chatwho check who's chating in a channel.
Usage: /chatwho
Aliases: /channelwho

Password put a password on a channel.
Usage: /password
Aliases: /chatpassword

Chatkick kick someone from a channel.
Usage: /chatkick
Aliases: /ban

Tera Online Other /commands:

Played
Usage: /played
Aliases: None

Follow to follow the party leader.
Usage: /follow
Aliases: /f

I might be missing some so I'll update this if I forgot something in the future or if something new gets added into game which creates a new /command in Tera Online.

Tera Online Glyph System

If you have ever played World of Warcraft you might be familiar with the term glyph's. But if you haven't glyph's are bonus's that can help improve your skills like for example increasing how much damage a skill does. Glyphs start at around level 21 you'll receive a quest around that level from the main city telling you to go to a certain vendor to get a free one.

The glyph window is under the skills menu which can be pulled up with K if you don't see the glyph tab it is because you have not learned at least one glyph. More glyph's can be bought from the glyph vendor which is normally found standing next to your talent training in main cities only.

Later on in the game more new glyphs can be bought using badges farmed from Temple of Temerity and there are advanced versions of the glyph's which reduce the number of points required for a glyph. You can also use the NPC to reset glyph's if you don't like something you've picked although there are no dual talent spec's as of yet but its always possible it might change in the future.

The glyph system in Tera Online has a lot more options then games like World of Warcraft where if your not using that one magical glyph spec you suck. Tera Online allows you to pick and choose the glyphs that are right for your playing style of course other people cannot look at your glyph's directly but hopefully you'll learn in the future which glyphs work well in which situations since some glyphs can favor pvp situations more then others while some are not as useful in pve.

Tera Online Map Interface

So you've just logged into Tera Online and find yourself confused because you see all these random Icon's on your map and have no idea what they are for or what they do. If you can agree with this then I'm sure this guide will be just what your looking for.

So if your looking at the screenshot above with me you'll notice I have the local map up for the location I'm in and you have all these different icon's up on it which might be confusing since you'll see these in every town pretty much. Next to the main map in the right corner you see the transparent smaller map version this is the mini map you'll be using constantly since it always floats over in that part of your game. If you do not see this map hit the N key to show it and it will then reappear it can also be hidden using the same key if you do not like knowing where your going.

If you look above I've provided each one of the icon's that you would most likely find normally and some information about them. But with this I will also explain some more information about each of these especially the vendors so that you'll be more educated in the future for your Tera Online playing.

So lets go over the merchant first this is going to be the first NPC you'll even be sent to in the island of dawn's town. Like most games merchants in Tera Online work like normal they sell items and will also allow you to sell your junk items to them as well. But they include many items which can be bought that hold many uses. For example merchants sell scrolls to towns not just the local town but they sell scrolls to the main towns as well of each area. Not only that but in major cities merchants will sell scrolls to all the smaller towns making moving from place to place very fast in many cases faster then a flight master can take you. Merchants also sell other items like band-aids for healing yourself, Buff pot's for battle, Alkahest for enchanting, Campfires for restoring stamina the slow way,
and enigmatic scrolls for the beginning of your modifying weapons to get a better quality or stronger weapon.

The trade broker has been called many things in different games but most people would know this to be the auction house. It allows you to sell items so other players who need the item can buy it from you. Tera Online's trade broker system is really nice because it will automatically adjust sell value depending on the prices which are already found on the trade broker making it easy for new players to sell items without needing a price guide. The trade broker comes packed with many different ways to view items by lowest prices or cheapest price per unit and quite a few other way's as well.

The banker is one of the most useful NPC's for a new player it allows you to store your items that you want to keep and you can also store your gold the bank is shared between all of your characters making it easy to put gold in for that new alt without having to mail it to yourself or allow you to pull out that item which you got for your alt. The banker also has the mailbox included within the same NPC as well as the guild banker if you happen to be in a guild.

The teleport master is another way of getting around a map quickly especially after you are killed by something or someone. For a small fee the teleport master will port you to the closest camp of a location of a map it makes it easy to move from a town destination into the outside world without having to walk all over the place. The one downside is the cost of teleporting can be controlled by the vanarch who control's the town so prices can vary depending on the tax of that location.

Need to learn new skills? The tactics or magic trainers can be found in smaller cities as well as main ones allowing you to buy new skills every time you hit a new level which has some to learn. Vanarch's can control the smaller cities tactic trainers disable them as well as tax them so prices can always vary outside of the main cities but you can always move to a main city to buy the cheaper non taxed skills.

The flightmaster is a NPC which is found in many mmorpg's besides Tera Online but the function is pretty much the same as most games get from one place to another more quickly. The time from flying from one place to another is much faster then games like WoW which seems to take forever since they are like real time flights. The flightmaster is another NPC which can be taxed outside of main cities so prices will vary.

Besides the normal guild system there are guild quests which help provide the guild and its members with special usable tokens used in either the buying of special potions like experience or damage increase potions or in the leveling and upkeep of the guild. You'll find them in every town and the NPC looks like a bulletin board you always turn them in at a NPC next to the board to get the rewards.

The specialty vendor is one of the very interesting NPC's in Tera Online whether its opened in the town your at or not is determined by the vanarch as well as the taxes for the NPC. This NPC can only be found outside of main cities think of it as a perk for winning vanarch. The NPC sells special versions of crystals for weapons and armor, scrolls to every dungeon in game, better quality bandages, higher quality alkahest for enchanting over +6 and special charms used in front of campfires to increase your damage and defenses. Prices will vary because it is controlled by vanarch's.

Reputation vendors sell different items depending on the vendor not every town will have a reputation for you to get but many of the level 60 area's and certain main cities also have reputation. Doing dailies is the best way to be able to unlock items which is purchasable from these vendors but some monsters can also be killed in the process to farm enough as well.

If you have ADHD like myself and find sitting near a fire and waiting for stamina to recharge to be a pain in the butt then the cleric will be your best friend. The cleric in town will restore stamina for a fee no more waiting for a fire to fill you up be lazy and just buy your stamina. Keep in mind prices vary depending on level but also depend on the taxes set for the area since it is also vanarch controlled. Clerics in recent times can also restore HP and mana as well making them even more useful.

Available Daily quests are pretty straight forward they provide you with a repeatable daily which can either be for reputation or just another quest for money that you can do these normally rotate to different quests keeping things fresh.

During your questing you'll see a question mark in this case a green one is for dailies this is the continuation of a quest usually you'll see a question mark when your following along in a quest like for dailies you'll be required to talk to another NPC which will provide more information about your quest like what to kill ect.

Quests which are completed are shown as the asterisk * in game the green one is for daily quests that are completed and ready to be turned in. A red one shows a story quest which is completed. And a yellow one is for a normal NPC quest.

A yellow exclamation is a quest  which you can pick up. Monsters also will show these above their name especially if you have the quest as you can see from this picture.

When a monster is killed it will clearly tell you whether you got credited for the quest in the center of your screen.

Quest that can be turned in will show in the world map making it so that if the quest turn in is in another location you can still find out what map you need to travel to so you can turn the quest in.






This concludes the Map interface in Tera Online hopefully this has been an eye opener and allowed you to learn a bit more about Tera Online while providing some valuable future information on some of the vendors you find in the later parts of the game. Stay tuned for more useful guides on Tera Online in the future!

Tera Online Enchanting and Modeling

Tera Online is an amazing game but part of the problem for a new player is trying to learn all of the crafting and enchanting and learning how to best utilize these features in game. So today I'm going to go over in detail each of the area's of crafting how to use them and then also how to get the most out of them later when you hit 60's.  To help us explain this today we have Sishen from Valley of Titan's helping us explain profession's today.

















Enchanting





The very first type of enchanting you will run into as a new player is enchanting which allows you to add a 1+ to you gear and continue until you hit the max for an enchant-able weapon which is +9. Below you can see an example of a weapon which is enchant-able and it has been enchanted to +4. You will also pick up an enchanting quest at around level 26 that will help you learn how to enchant but some people skip though it and do not read what it says but this guide will explain it.

As you can see on the side in white text the weapon says Enchant-able meaning it can be enchanted. An enchant-able weapon usually either will say that or you will see stat's in gray that give bonuses when you enchant it to +3 and as you can see it also goes up to +9 max. Next to the attack modifier if you look you'll see a green +42 meaning that it's giving bonus's for being enchanted same goes for the impact modifier. The bonus's increase more with every +1 you add to a weapon making so you do more damage. Under the impact modifier you see other bonus's these are:

• Do 5.1% more damage when you attack monsters from behind.
• Do 5.3% more damage when you attack prone monsters.
• Do 4.5% more damage when you attack boss monsters.
• Do 5.3% more damage when you attack prone monsters.
• Do 4.5 more damage when you attack boss monsters.
• Increases PvP damage dealt by 4
• Do 4.5% more damage when you attack small monsters.

As you can see these bonus's are giving you extra damage buff's which are situational like doing more damage to a boss monster or when a monster is prone (knocked down). These extra stats can also be changed if you notice the ones which have a dot at the end of them in game it looks like a recycle sign but it might be too hard to see these are the stat's which can be reset or changed in the game.

Sealing and Unsealing Weapons

Resetting the stats or changing them on a weapon is called sealing and unsealing. You can tell a weapon is sealed just by looking at it weapons over level 50 will always be pre-sealed and you will need to use an identifying scroll to uncover the stats below is an example of that process.

If you look above these are the items required in the unsealing process they can be bought from any of the normal merchants in game. this is the money bag icon on your mini map. If you look at the weapon to the left it says Enigmatic and the stats say they are unidentified this means the weapon is sealed and needs to be identified with the common identification scroll.



After you have used the scroll and the weapon is unsealed it removes the enigmatic name from the weapon and uncovers the stat's bonus's so you can see if you like them or you want to try an change them again. If the stats are not to your liking you can use the common enigmatic scroll to seal the weapon again which resets the stat's again.

If you look to the left this is the window you get when you attempt to seal a weapon again. If you use an item called spellbind it allows you to lock the stat's that you want to keep and reset the ones you don't want. The process of locking some is an expensive one so this would not be a good idea for someone new to try usually if you use a few common scrolls and randomly reset all of the stats you'll get lucky and get something good enough to use. But at level 60 using spellbind is very useful so you can get the most out of you weapon. After you click Enigmatic Reset the weapon will go back to being sealed.

After its sealed it will have a ? in your inventory showing that its enigmatic and the stats are hidden.














Another thing to keep in mind for the future when enchanting a weapon higher then +6 the process gets much more expensive requiring you to use Refined Alkahest and Masterwork Alkahest so as a new player it would be wise not to really go higher then +6 when you are enchanting a weapon. Another helpful tip that can make enchanting easier is using the best quality item will give you the highest chance at successfully enchanting an item.

This above is the enchanting window first your weapon your enchanting goes in first then you put in Alkahest which is bought from merchants and then you need an item of the same tier and type the class of the item does not matter making it a very simple process to enchant. If you fail your item will not upgrade and the Alkahest and the other tier weapon are consumed in the process.

Dyeing Equipment

The process of dyeing equipment is a pretty simple one it requires you to go to the Dye NPC which can be found in Velika and buy dyes or you can make them though items which you find during crafting and buying kits to craft the dyes from the same dye NPC.

After you buy a color you want this one is the spectral green which has different shades of green you can pick one of the colors out of the window and apply it to your armor. It lasts 7 days so you will have to keep reapplying it every 7 days.

Remodeling

Remodeling has changed in recent times now you can use any item level 58 and under as a template to change the look of your armor because many of the armor's did not come with a template. You can still buy more templates from the vendor but the best looking armor usually comes from the crafted recipes.

Above you can see the gloves are a black color and have holes cut out for the thumbs in the gloves so we will remodel using one of the items in our inventory by putting it into the box then applying it.

As you can see after dragging a new item into the box you can see now my gloves look solid dark green. After you click apply that armor will stay remodeled permanently unless you use another NPC to remove the remodel on it again.

Crystal's and You

Crystal's are one of the most important features in the game after you've mastered the enchanting aspect of the game. Crystal's are what keeps your damage really good and keeps you up during fights. The most important crystal's during the end of the game are the boss crystals like the reduction from boss damage and also the crystals which increase base damage or critical damage to bosses. Boss crystals can mean life or death and can keep you from the embarrassment of being the only one dieing during a dungeon group. The weapon crystals for damage can keep you hitting those 100k+ numbers against bosses since all monsters in the dungeon are usually boss monsters. Other crystals can come in handy for other situations such as farming gold you can use normal monster damage reduction and increase damage on normal monsters. And when you get to 58+ you have another element of crystals they can go into accessories too providing even more bonus's to your gear. Most of the green crystals come from reputation of different level 60 area's. For a full list of the crystal types you can refer to Tera Online: Guide to Weapon Upgrading for a list of crystal's that you can find in game. Another tip crystals can be removed from gear simply by clicking them out make sure you do not throw them away when you upgrade gear because they can be a valuable loss. Something else that is commonly forgotten with crystals is they can also break when you are killed by a boss crystal so it is always a good idea to carry some extra's if you happen to die in a dungeon so you can continue fighting without going back to town.

Advance Upgrading (Luxing)

Luxing is a process which allows an item to go from +9 up to +12 which increases the main attributes of the weapon and causes the extra bonus's to give more of a bonus then normal. The process is similar to the using enigmatic scrolls on a weapon only the difference is you have to use master enigmatic scrolls which come from dungeon drops they have a 10 % chance to cause an item to Lux and unlock the +12 of a weapon. This requires a lot of patients it can be easy or it can be really hard if you are unlucky. My armor only took 5 scrolls but I know others who have wasted over 100 scrolls on a weapon.

Above you can see a masterwork chest piece and I provided the master enigmatic scroll so you could see what it looks like in case you manage to get yourself some scrolls you'll know to save them. This process is very expensive and can only be used on items which say do not say they cannot be masterwork's so you will want to avoid doing this on lower level weapons unless you just have the money to burn on doing it.

This concludes enchanting and some of the more advanced features of Tera Online. I hope this shed some light on some of the more advanced features that you might not have understood in game. Stay tuned for more useful guides on Tera Online and good luck raiding!