Cool New Stuff

• Instance matcher rewards have been implemented.

• Players may receive a box full of random items as a reward for using instance matching.

• Rescue Supplies: Earned if you join midway through an instance run. Includes valuables such as arunic panaceas, charms, elixirs, safe haven scrolls, and scrolls of resurrection.
• Valkyon’s Response: Earned if you complete the instance. Includes arunic panaceas, safe haven scrolls, charms, and various crystals.

Bugs Squashed

• The following quest items can now be removed from inventory: outlaw declaration manual, dowsing rods. If you hate rebels and underground water sources, this is the best bug-fix ever.
• The achievement for the “A Cautionary Tale” quest has been eliminated.

Path Less Traveled, Small Guilds and Public Appeal

For large guilds, the path to Vanarch success is clear.  Get big.  Make an alliance.  Appeal to the public for additional votes.  For large guilds, appealing to the public is an insurance policy against the votes that are generated simply by being big and by being allied with other big guilds.  While this path is well worn on every server, it is not the only path to Vanarch.  For small guilds, appealing to the public is one answer to compete with the big boys.

In this week’s column, I want to explore some ways that a smaller guild can use the public to gain the votes needed to win a province.  I will highlight what I feel is a political success story on Basilisk Crag authored by the guild The High Five to demonstrate my points.  If you are guild leader of a smaller or less active guild that would like to make a run for Vanarch, but are not sure how to do it, The High Five may have provided you with a template.

Argon Queen part 2 is now live on Korean TERA servers, and over on the official forums, one player has been taking the time to answer any questions the community may have. The Q&A is still ongoing, and can be found here. For Warrior-specific questions, the poster also updated his Warrior guide with all the new info.

There have also been some new videos posted of the boss fights in Argon Medithia: Boss 1, Boss 2, Boss 3, and Last Boss. Let’s jump to part of the Q&A, shall we?

Cool New Stuff

• Guild vs. Guild (GvG) competition has been added to the political system. And you thought politics was cutthroat before…
• Would-be vanarchs select either “Voting” or “GvG Competition” when they register as candidates. Two provinces on each continent have been reserved for vanarch GvG and up to 50 guilds can register.
• When the competition phase begins, the guilds of candidates who selected GvG enter a modified GvG battle with the other guilds on that continent that also have candidates who chose GvG.
• The vanarch GvG battles last one week. Only kills scored on characters level 40 and up count, and the points a guild can earn from defeating a specific other guild has been capped.
• Players in candidate guilds can check their current vanarch GvG points, but not the point totals of their competitors.
• The two guilds with the most points on each continent get to rule.
• The warrior class can now choose to be offense or defense in the instance dungeon matching system.
• Warriors who choose defense automatically receive a buff when entering the dungeon. This is a temporary buff that will be gradually reduced with each patch until we update the planned improvements to tanking skills for the warrior.

• 30 percent decrease in damage received.
• 40 percent increase in aggro acquired.
• 70 percent increase in endurance.

Upcoming Patches:

Originally posted by Knoxxer (Source)

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Zerker fix will happen just not with this next update.

Summer Fun:

Originally posted by Knoxxer (Source)

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We have a plan for the swimsuits but probably will be in August. Hopefully we can get you the details in mid-July.

An interesting announcement was made today on the official page regarding a new community event! It appears that EME is going to be hosting an event to find creatures and recover their eggs that have crystals and other cool treasures inside!

Centuries ago, a vast trove of magical eggs vanished from Sikander‘s vaults while he slumbered. Priests blamed rival gods, the gods blamed greedy mortals, and the poporis simply wanted to know if the eggs tasted good. The eggs resurfaced recently, and a troop of caiman thieves seems determined to pocket the precious treasures wherever they turn up. While no one considers caimans the brightest candles on the cake, these bandits always know where to find one of the magical eggs. Why the caimans want the eggs remains anyone‘s guess, but the race is on to recover them and snatch the fabulous treasures inside.

As with all legends, details about the eggs are scarce, but everyone agrees that three grades of eggs exist—bronze, silver, and gold. Most carry potent consumables, rare crystals, or whimsical accoutrements, but rumors persist of exceptional gifts. Find the caiman thieves, defeat them, and claim these unusual treasures of Sikander for yourself!

The hunt is on!

Event Duration

• Start: Friday, June 29, 2012
• End: Sunday, July 8, 2012

Event Times

• Weekdays (Monday through Friday): 5–9 p.m. PDT
• Weekends (Saturday and Sunday): midnight to 11:59 p.m. PDT

These appear to work like Nexus events, so keep your eyes out starting this Friday for these Sikander treasures.

Editor’s Note: If you don’t recall, Oloh was the guy who purchased a Teratome siteskin and had an interview with Massively!

I’m Oloh.  I am guild master of Nagafen, one of the more influential political guilds on the Basilisk Crag server.  My goal with this column is to give insight into the ups and downs of political maneuvering within The Exiled Realm of Arborea.  The thoughts and comments expressed here are meant to be informative and entertaining to all players ofTERA, but I will focus on examples and stories from my home server, Basilisk Crag due to its fertile political scene.

This week’s topic is on the importance of choosing the right allies and the responsibility of a Vanarch to server health, which are the two most important aspects of becoming a real political player on any server.  Some GMs are inclined to simply ally themselves with guilds that have a high number of members, but such approach is short-sighted and detrimental to the long term health of both the GM’s guild and the server as a whole.

My approach for every political decision that I make is to find a solution that both increases Nagafen’s influence on the server and that promotes the general health of the server.  Note that I make no claims that our motives for server health are altruistic…it is no fun to be a political powerhouse on a dead server.  Guild power and server health are inextricably linked in my mind. 

In almost any game that has numbers and ways to get bigger numbers, you’ll always have people who will figure out the right combination of ways to get the best possible outcome. This type of thinking is always prevalent in MMORPGs because these games are all about getting better gear which leads to +1 gooder stats. TERA is no different when it comes to this. In a recent thread we have a user asking to normalize the critical chance bonus Castanics have as a racial.

For maximizing dmg, u have no choice but to make castanic , crit from behind is to much of a deal in this game to pass. Porblem is.. im sick of being these stupid horny scrawny flailing running nancies.

Normalize racials.. so atleast we have a choice as a dps.

As inarticulate as that may read, the OP has a point. Is it fair once race has an advantage when it comes to damage? Of course TERA would love for everyone to do racial changes if a player thought it made that much of a difference, but lets ignore that possibility for now.

There are other issues, different races have different reaches when it comes to melee. Some races can actually attack farther away that others! There are plenty of issues when it comes to hitboxes as well. Does this ruin your enjoyment of the game? Would min/maxers crying for equalization ruin TERA?

One user doesn’t think so:

Popori have it the worst out of everyone. They are basically just inferior elin. They don’t even gain a hitbox and animation advantage and they still retain the same racials (useless). Why make a popori over an elin if you’re serious about PVP? They really need at least one defining positive trait to separate them from elin, because right now they are just Elin with wider hitboxes and less advantageous animations.

And no, min-maxers don’t ruin games. Min-maxers cultivate solid, complex, competitive games. It’s casual gamers who ruin games. (and unfortunately, in this day and age, buy them)

However he does have some people who disagree:

No, really min maxxers ruin games, because you cannot see the forest for the trees. I’ve made this argument before, but if two sorcerors can both kill a mob with 4 attacks, does it really matter that one had that extra teeny tiny bit of damage? In most situations that teeny tiny bit of damage makes absolutely zero difference. You are talking the difference between a regular hardcore player, and a min maxxer. A regular hardcore picks their character based on what they’ve like, runs the game for 5 hours plus a day, and enchants things, but ignores the tiny bit of damage extra they get for being a Catanic. A min maxxer always rolls Castanic then makes 50 posts on the forums whining about how they dislike the look of them.

What do you think? Do min/maxers ruin games? Or should TERA start equalizing races, or at least discount race changes?

This morning we find a new interview by Senior Producer Brian Knox who sits down with Dualshockers.com to discuss a large, varied array of questions. Here’s a quick preview of what was discussed.

Dualshockers: There are a few areas of the world that are fully built but include no NPCs, enemies or playable content. An example is Velika Outskirts. Do you have anything planned to make those areas more dynamic?

Brian Knox: That is a very timely question. We are actually adding some interesting props and materials in and around Velika in the future. We hope that these can be used for more community events and interaction.

Read the rest of the interview over at Dualshockers.

MMORPG.com has a fantastic article talking about some upcoming changes to the Political System and electing Vanarchs. Instead of just voting for who you want in (this is for the weak!) you can battle for supremacy!

As originally conceived, a player seeking vanarch status had two paths to the office—campaigning and conquest—with the latter requiring candidates and their guilds to distinguish themselves through battleground play. While revisions to the battlegrounds aren’t quite ready, we are happy to announce that we’ve found a way to put the fight back in political infighting!

In the revised system, candidates will select a continent as usual, but they will also select a competition type. If they choose a straight election, they’ll rank their preferred provinces and then begin campaigning for votes. If they choose to fight for the right to rule, they’ll rank their provinces, and then their guild enters a modified guild-versus-guild (GvG) PvP battle with all other candidates’ guilds on that continent.

When the competition phase begins, all members of other eligible guilds become targets. But instead of a normal 24-hour fight, vanarch GvG is a weeklong affair. We’ve set some limitations: only kills scored on characters level 40 and up count, and there’s a cap on the points your guild can earn from a single guild’s members per day. Vanarch GvG doesn’t replace normal GvG battles (those are still declared and resolved as usual), and even though you earn no points for lower-level characters in rival guilds, they’re still on the hit list.

Read the rest of the journal over at MMORPG.com.