Hither and Thither
The game still relies on the quest system just like all MMOs do and it has some standard, grind-y go kill X monsters or gather Y items etc. So in that regard it’s not as new as in others. MMO makers really hate to hear that word, grind, as they all believe it to have negative connotations. Whether you think so or not the fact of the matter is that lots of games, MMO or not, have some sort of grind/level-up mechanic in them, mostly RPGs but some RTS and FPS do as well. It’s just a fact of gaming.
The quests do lead you to new places, meet new people and get you to learn new skills and of course progress through the game itself. That’s the whole point of them and they do have some variation in them
BAM! I was Dead
One of the other areas that makes TERA different is BAM - Big Ass Monsters. Periodically, you’ll wander into the path of something big. I mean, really big! While doing the hands on section of the event, I saw something that was targetable and of course being the curious type, with years of experience behind me in RPGs (both pen/paper and video game versions) and many many hours of MMOs, I walked up and struck it with my weapon.
Oops! What I thought was perhaps a large rock with treasure inside turned out to be a really big monster. So big in fact that the only recourse was to run away in an extremely manly fashion. Alright, who are we kidding, my character was female and she ran as swift as the wind, which still wasn’t fast enough and thus, I died. The great thing is, I earned an achievement for my daring...or because I was killed, I prefer to think it was for the prior and not the latter. Why was my character female? Well in the words of an old friend, "If I’m going to be looking at the backside of my character while playing, it should at least be something nice to look at." Meanwhile, my character, Lady Fugaga, was so scary in the face that I had hoped she would scare such large creatures away. Unfortunately, that was not the case.
