A Week With TERA: Prologue

As I'm typing this blog post, I am downloading the newest MMO to hit North American markets... TERA, also known as The Exiled Realm of Arborea.
The release date for TERA was May 1st, 2012, meaning that it has only been out for 13 days.
I've been following the development of this game for over a year, so when it came out I was dying to get my hands on it. Now I finally do have the game... but will it be worth it?

Reading reviews is usually how I judge whether or not to get a game. I see what the big gaming websites think, I see what the average players think. If the game intrigues me enough and the reviews seem to be favorable, you know what, I'll bite.
Despite reading lots of rave reviews, however, I do feel like my purchase was a bit impulsive. Maybe I watched way too many snazzy trailers.

Honestly, it's near impossible to resist a trailer like this.

Problem is, every review I've read has been written by somebody who has been paid to write a review. I know that being paid doesn't mean that your review will be biased, but it very well could be.

So, I have decided, for the good of every person squirming in their seats, trying to decide whether or not to purchase TERA... I will write up a review of my own.

A whole week with TERA, with all of my first impressions, experiences, and frustrations.

I'm not being paid to do this. I have no affiliation with any companies. I'm just a PC gamer with nothing better to do.

Before I begin this journey, I will let you know a bit about my MMO history.

I am an MMO veteran, you could say... I've played them to death.

I've played:

Ragnarok Online on and off since 2002.

Final Fantasy XI on and off since 2004.

World of Warcraft on and off since 2006.

Other games I have played were:

ROSE Online

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes (I played at launch, it was horrible.)

FlyFF: Fly For Fun

Toontown Online (I played this for a while, but haven't touched it since around 2008)
Guild Wars (I played for about a week before I decided I just didn't like the game.)
RIFT Free Trial (Got to level 7 before I decided I wasn't interested.)

As you can see, I've played various styles of MMOs. I've pretty much seen it all.

To begin my week with TERA, I'll outline my current impressions of the game, and see if they evolve while I actually play the game.

Current Impressions

Graphics: From screenshots, videos, and reviews, the graphics seem to be the best of any current day MMO. I've been really impressed by the graphical style. I hope the graphics will live up to what I've seen.

Plot: As far as I know, the whole plotline is focused around two slumbering titans, which form the two continents. Some force is trying to wake them up or something, which would be horrible because all of life as the inhabitants of TERA know it is one big dream of the titans. Sounds like trouble.

Combat: From what I've read, combat is fun and kind of like Skyrim's hack and slash gameplay. There's a lot of dodging and strategy, which I'm excited about. I'm sick of auto attacking.

Questing: Reviews have stated that the quests are no different that what you'd see in WoW... Ah well, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Though not eating a cake seems like a waste...

Crafting and Gathering: Crafting and gathering is supposed to be a lot more useful in TERA than in other games. Crossing my fingers that this is true.

And so, my adventure in TERA begins...

Bethesda Made Me a Hoarder

If the gaming world were reality, I'd be in a lot of trouble...
You see, I am a hoarder. An item hoarder.

For anyone who has played Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, or The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, you are well aware of Bethesda's usual gig: TONS of in game items strewn about the environments, and the ability to have a house of your own.
When I was introduced to my first Bethesda game by Jon (which just happened to be Oblivion), I immediately was amazed by the sheer number of items laying about. Much to his entertainment, I began picking up items I thought were interesting and cluttering up my inventory. He had played the game for hundreds of hours so he knew which items were common and which were harder to come by, but everything was new to me. I WANTED IT ALL.

I kept nearly EVERYTHING. My house in Bruma was small, but after painstaking hours of item placement, I had a dreamhouse. As a member of the Dark Brotherhood, I had lots of questionable items. Jon was slightly horrified when I picked up a rotten, severed head of a woman, and placed it on a shelf facing my bed. (It was a unique item, why wouldn't I keep it?!) I also stacked books I had gathered in my bookshelves, collected one of every gemstone and displayed them on a shelf, and placed various weapons all over my house.

In Fallout 3, my addiction to collecting and decorating only got worse.
When first I got my house in Megaton, I spent nearly 20 minutes rearranging my items. Just plain entertainment, or a bit of womanly instinct? Who knows. Either way, I decorated my room with items remniscent of old Americana. A baseball, baseball bat, baseball mitt, Nuka-Cola truck, Nuka-Cola, and toy car are just a few of the items I had placed around.
The need to decorate my house with things I found throughout my adventures only grew when I went through my second playthrough as an evil, mohawked Raider-wannabe named Rodd. I brought mutilated body parts, teddy bears, and lots and lots of knives back to my suite in Tenpenny Towers, which made Jon question my sanity a bit. (I swear, it was all in good fun! I'm not crazy!)

For Fallout: New Vegas, I actually have SCREENSHOTS.
I decorated my Old World Blues base with all of my favorite items, which wasn't easy at all.

Some collectables, plasma axes, a Tesla Cannon, animal skins, and my favorite headgear.

Every animal egg, items from different DLC, all of the different scientist gloves, and those awesome blue headpieces.

Animal parts and other collectables.

 My dinosaur collection (the ones that make noise, not Dinky the Dinosaur), my teddybears, and other items.

So yes, you can see I had a lot of fun with New Vegas. You wouldn't exactly call it hoarding, more like... "collecting."

(...Okay, so those boxes were filled with tons of useless stuff, but nobody would know that unless they checked, right?)

Skyrim, however, is where the true hoarding began.

On my main character, Rakta the Khajiit, I got to the point where I simply had so much money that I didn't NEED to sell ANYTHING. I could afford anything I wanted, had everything I needed, and generally was at a loss of what to do with all my items.

So I began to hoard.

I guess you can't call me a true hoarder. I don't keep just anything... just gems, soulstones, and jewelry. It's started to become somewhat of an obsession though. I can't leave behind any gems or stones without thinking "That could go into my house! YEAH!"

The result? This.

So thanks, Bethesda.

YOU MADE ME A HOARDER.

And I'm only going to find MORE gems...