We had a thread about testing this yesterday, but it got lost in all of the dress rehearsal threads, and I can't find it with search anymore. Oh well.

Anyways, after the server shut down last night, I proceeded with my testing. I managed to get the Steam client hooked into the game and the interface to overlay in-game. We might not have Tera on steam officially, but when I signed into the game, my Steam buddies sure noticed.

To add TERA to steam:
Open the Games menu and select "Add a Non-Steam game to my library..."
A list of installed applications will populate in a window. Scroll down and find the TERA launcher. Click the checkbox.
Click "Add Selected Programs"

It should then add a link to TERA's launcher in the library. You can right click it and change the name. Right click it, click "Properties." Right under "Choose Icon" you will have a space to change the name. The name you choose here is what will be displayed to your Steam friends when you launch it. I named mine "TERA The Exiled Realm of Arborea Online." Hit close. You're done!

To hook the game process you need to remember to run the game within Steam. You can create a shortcut on the desktop for this. Run it, and the launcher will open. Log in to the game as normal, and when the game loads up, you should get the Steam overlay.

Something to remember: Online games with launchers sometimes will malfunction when external applications hook to their processes. Others won't accept the hook at all and the overlay will not appear. I can't guarantee this will work for everyone, but it does work for me.

Orly

I already have the tera online launcher on my desk top. Why would I want to use steam? I only use steam if I purchase the game from steam

Quote: Seventhwinds on 2012-02-09 19:39:24 UTC

Integration allows for the use of the Steam Overlay during gameplay. This allows for easy chatting with friends, among other things, who use Steam. That, would be why someone would want to integrate a non-Steam game into Steam.

I like telling people on my friend list what I'm playing at a given moment, plus it makes it easier to communicate with those friends because it means I won't have to minimize. On top of that, taking screenshots has never been easier, thanks to Steam, but most of that only works if the Steam overlay will work in-game.

Quote: Fatwa on 2012-02-09 19:43:14 UTC

Yes indeed. That and the free advertising for TERA to anyone on your friends list is nice too.

It absolutely won't work for me, it just shuts the overlay off immediately. Does anyone else have this issue? It seems SWTOR players had similar issues with it not hooking ShellExecuteExW and had to fix it on their own, but naturally I can't use that fix as its written for their client instead of TERA.