We sent this to En Masse as a guild review and were asked to post it here.
First Closed Better Reviews by The Meridian Gantlet Guild
Good Morning En Masse:
Below please find our Guilds reviews and opinions from The Meridian Gauntlet members. Our members put together some of their reviews and opinions on the first CB1. I am sending it to you in the hopes that it will help the Devs with their job, and the owners with their dream. Awesome game, we loved it. Most of us will not post on your forums until they are fixed, so we are emailing this review from Meridian Gauntlet Members.
MG has many members reluctant to try the game. As you can see below one member became a fan, and others are coming around now. So here goes.
Q to members: So after you have digested what you experienced this past weekend in Tera's first closed Beta, what impressions did you come away with? Did you like/love the game? What things bugged you the most, what things wowed your intellectual mind?
We came away wanting more of the game, that's always a good sign. One of us was upset that we couldn't enter buildings to explore and see decor, or that we could not sit in a chair, this spoils the immersion. Why are companies so stingy on these two areas? Is it laziness? Close the doors we don't have time to decorate the insides? What?
We enjoyed the new combat style. It takes a whole lot to get use to, but like our members said, it causes you to look at your screen, to memorize your keys. This is a great thing for Gamers/Pvp'ers of all genres.
The small area of the map we were able to explore, was stunning and we did not even have high resolution yet. We are holding onto this opinion until next beta.
The armor, well what can I say.. Where Are My Pants and trench coats like the males get???
The racial armor might have been a great idea on paper, but it limits players abilities to be creative, unique. Change this please. Make robes for all, light armor for all etc.
Character models, We didn't care for the Elins and Castanics bothered some members with the tush flying high and baby doll nighties. It felt wrong on many levels to go fight in a baby doll nightie. Classy elegant armor is the flavor of the day here.
We are very excited to see what Pvp has to offer. We loved/liked the game, some wish the chairs and doors worked.
Vendors are needed in outposts.
Signs on the road should give directions on mouse over/target.
Cannot scroll in to first person view to take a screenshot. Camera stops behind/at our character.
Dismount automatically upon use of skill was not functional.
Emotes should appear in chat. We want to know who is waving or dancing to/with us please.
Player time you have played warnings are annoying, please remove.
If your close to another player, what they say in chat channel appears over their head, even if we are not in group with them.
Character creation is not unique enough. Hair, makeup, eye color should all be separate.
Invisible walls are a huge no no. Some are simply out of place and don't belong. If we fall and die, let us fall and die.
Below are some individual reviews and personal opinions.
I'm the one that didn't want to play the game the first place but I went ahead and pre-order to try it out myself and I have to say this game is awesome, the controller need time to get use, practice with it but hey we did pretty damn good in that dungeon and those Big-[filtered] Monster Boss on both dps and heals.
Three steps heals for our caster need some practice for lock on to make perfect (what's about 3 steps? you have to press you skills then lock on the target that receive heal and press button skill again to heal...this 3 steps also for CC and de-buffs).
Leveling can be done by doing quests (there is ton of unlimited repeatable quests that mobs and objectives are nearby the camp) or grind mobs until level up it's your choice. I'm not sure that you need to follow zone story quests to get the lead to next zone but I did get the quest to told me go to next zone before i got the story zone quests done.
Mount really helpful in this game because you would use it to explore the beauty open landscape and very hard for mobs dis-mount you unless you stop and let them hit you (lvl20+ area).
The first 20 levels can be easy to solo but I got some quests lv20~21 that required kill some Big-[filtered] named monsters that would be easier to do with group (can be solo with some classes but will take ages to kill them...I tried solo them with Mystic but give up because take way too long and other ppls need him for their quest too).
So far we only did 1 dungeon and it's a blast, very intense in some fights/pulls but really fun...well, it's Asian game so the drop rate for rare item really low, we got a Blue Bow dropped but none of us can use it LOL).
We do need a tank in out guild since warrior tank aggro management is un-stable and heals aggro is biggest problem to our healers...quite feel sorry for (healer), she KISSED the floor many times . I think that's all I have to say about this first beta
Another member review.
I came away with mixed feelings on it. I am still holding out until the next few CB weekends to really make my decision.
1- Graphics are beautiful. I know the blurriness is annoying a lot of people (and causing real world headaches in others) but I am not going to judge based on that since I know there are hirez graphics still to come.
2- The toons. I am *very* concerned that they may close themselves off to a large amount of players due to being too far in the direction of "cutesy" , bordering on too overt. I cannot take my character seriously in her nighty. I like the casting animations- they are better than Rift's were, but I find it hard to believe we are a troupe of fighters exploring dungeons when half the party looks like they were in the middle of a "business transaction" at some gentleman's club. I personally have no issue with the overt sexuality of the female toons (and the overt tranny-ness of the male ones :p ) but I think it will hurt them.
3- The questing...the feedback on this so far has been : too many quests, over and over kill X, pick up Y, etc. I am also not judging based on this because they have stated that the actual launch/open beta will be a TOTALLY different starting experience. I am hoping for questing that explains a bit more about the races and their place in all of this.
4- Lack of variety in spells, attacks: I actually like this, it reminds me so much of EQ. Where you had 10 or so spells you could use and the "skilled" players made the most out of them. I have never been a fan of eleventy billion attacks, ten billion of which are never used. Also, I am sure during beta, things will be tweaked.
5- The UI (meaning the actual windows and stuff)- I like it. For some reason this has had the most complaints (I read a lot of posts on various gaming sites last night before bed to gauge the industry's reaction to the beta). I like the fact it was customizable and moveable right off the bat, and the few issues are ones that most people have so I am sure it will get changed. For instance- no need for a big map, a minimap, and the compass thingie- those could be merged into two. REALLY need a way to make player names bigger. I have a feeling this will get broadcast loud and clear when CB2 starts and PVP begins.
6- Now for the big one: Combat system, interfacing with it- I get that this is something new and revolutionary. What I am concerned about is that they did it to be "different". The system CAN work- however what is troubling me is that they have not tweaked encounters to take into consideration that this is not your regular MMO. I was reading a thread posted by one of the top Priests from K-Tera. She said that the lock-on heals have been considered useless for a while, because without excellent latency, the game does not compensate. She stopped using them about halfway through her leveling. Another thing people are getting concerned about is the enforced standing still during instant casts. I know last night that costs me almost all the deaths I had- a Priest cannot move during or after an instant heal, and this seems to make no sense given the fact that encounters are clearly designed with constant movement in mind.
As I said I will give it until all the CBs are done- by then I am sure we will all be max level (or whatever they allow us to get to), I want to get an idea of how things look once an entire arsenal of spells are in. The lock-ons are a deal breaker for me. It contradicts the entire purpose of having a non-targeting MMO. Either have targets, or don't.
Also, MANY people are complaining about the inability to truly target a friendly and see their HPs. People cannot tell if folks near them need help or not. And this will be a MUST for PVP. You HAVE to be able to see names floating in open world or there will be no way to know who to kill/help. So I am hoping that is implemented. If not, that's my other deal breaker. Because they make no sense.
I was very discouraged after logging last night, but after reading the thread by the Priest from KTera I am looking forward to leveling. Priests get some amazing skills/spells and I can see how diverse they will be in a group, definitely not boring for sure.
I will probably play PVE next CB, and save PVP testing for the following one.
p.s. as to the agro issues we had last night, after reading class threads I am not too worried- evidently Lancers are considered the tanks, and warriors are not- due to lack of agro abilities.
So that is a short synopsis of our guilds first impressions of Tera.
We look forward to playing each and every beta. By the way, this game has spoiled us for any other game. Many have jokingly said how boring other games are now.. Hurry up May!
Warmest Regards
The Meridian Gauntlet Team