E3 Interview with Senior Producer Brian Knox from TERAFANS

Amira: So I just have a few questions for you! First off, they’ve all been submitted by TERA Fans members.

Brian: Oh awesome, those are my favorite!

Amira: Around how many quests will the game be launched with?

Brian: We’re saying there’s thousands of quests. We want to do what we can to make the game quest driven and story driven so that you’re not having to just kill monsters over and over; we want the quests to lead players along.

Amira: Right, great! How detailed will the guild system be? Will there be alliances or detailed options?

Brian: We’re working on the actual technical term, there’ll obviously be alliances among players but how that plays out technically within the game we’re still deciding on. Guilds will be able to rank different members, for example, there’ll be different permissions for officers versus regular members.

Amira: How much effect will players have on the world? Can you give any specific examples?

Brian: In terms of player’s activities in the world, we really think that’ll shine in the political system. The players will determine the history of, you know, this person was in power and then this person was in power and then this guild rose up and challenged him so we think that the history is really the biggest impact the players will have on the world.

Amira: Speaking of which, can you tell us anymore about the political system?

Brian: I can do a little bit, we’re not talking a lot about it, but, there’ll be different ways to be elected, be it through PvP, wealth, as well as voting. We’re just trying to find the right balance so that different players can participate in different ways and have a choice about how they want to be a part of it all. Once you’re elected to office, there’ll be some cool features available as well.

Amira: Will there be a separation between PvP and PvE gearsets?

Brian: Right now that’s not our goal. Our goal is to provide possibly skills that would work a little bit better in PvE versus PvP. It’s more that route versus having different gear sets, because, especially when you’re out and about, you don’t want to be like, “Oh, I have to switch my gear.”

Amira: Will the NPCs in cities be life-like?

Brian: We’re definitely going to be having NPCs bustling around, but we also want to keep players there with the commerce, so it’ll make it feel alive because players will be there, the guild housing is there, the way the players are shopping, talking and chatting, we’re working on voice chat as well. We really want to keep it bustling and alive.

Amira: How will mob-tagging work?

Brian: Right now it’s, you hit it and it’s yours. It doesn’t matter if someone else does more damage right now, they won’t steal it.

Amira: Is there any specific information you can share on the character talent system?

Brian: We’re working on a way to increase skills with skill points. We haven’t really given it a name yet. It was based off of focus group feedback and basically players wanted ways to differentiate there classes and to have different builds, so you’ll be able to assign points to skills which will then increase their power. It’ll be a way of defining yourself.

Amira: There was some confusion recently following an interview about this one; will certain classes be locked out to certain races?

Brian: This is a big debate apparently! The answer just isn’t final yet. We actually corrected that internal communitarian, but the answer just isn’t final yet.

Amira: Can you tell us a little about the alt-points system we’ve heard about?

Brian: I don’t have a ton of detail on it but it’s going to be a way that, once you get to max level, the things you’re earning can be kind of handed down to your alts. So it’ll allow them to get special weapons or level a little bit faster, kind of, get through the content that maybe you don’t want to redo again. What we really hope is that players can go through the game multiple times, each time taking different paths, that way, making an alt is fun and different every time. But this is a pretty big focus because every class plays so differently, so it’ll be a real different experience for every class.

Amira: Can you give us any specifics about the battleground system?

Brian: No, we’re not talking too much about the specifics right now. For the most part, we’re really focusing on PvE now and making sure that the balance and pacing in the game is correct, making sure the classes are good. Then when we balance for PvP, we’re going to be balancing for party play, not one on one. There are some cool things we’ll get into later on.

Amira: Will there be any NPC faction reputation systems?

Brian: Right now there’s no faction system.

Amira: Which aspects of the game are specifically being westernized?

Brian: Everything, because we’re taking the feedback from everywhere and saying, you know, what are your players saying about this and what our players saying. Oh! They’re saying the same thing, so, a lot of it; you have so many resources before the launch with which you can do only so much stuff. You’re not going to be able to do everything, or every game would be perfect.

So, if we have a feature that players are really caught on and the Korean gamers are really caught on, it really prioritizes it because, you know, more bang for your buck, right? But there’ll also be things that the West has to have that maybe Korea doesn’t have. Maybe its promotional items or it’s the pacing in the game. Those are the kinds of things where we talk to the developers and we decide where we can allocate our time best.

Because they have not launched in Korea, all suggestions are valuable. There are things we’ve suggested that have been turned down, but then brought back up and put in. So we’re exploring something in terms of an achievement system, that’s definitely something the West prefers. Like I mentioned the pacing is a big thing. We’ve been given the green light to have a different leveling curve than in Korea, which is a huge difference, but we can’t just pick things. We need to do our research and do our focus group testing and see what our players want.