Tera Review

I've said a lot of stuff about Tera in the past. I'm a pretty huge advocate of the action-MMO which requires a lot of skill to play successfully. The combat for melee characters feels like a really hard hack-n-slash, and like a third-person-shooter for ranged characters. But as it turns out, playing Tera skillfully requires more than just fast reactions.

There's an aspect to the MMO that was mentioned only in passing when it was first announced, specifically Tera's Political System. MMOs have had player housing before, and turf-wars aren't anything new, but the Political System is something else entirely. There are two tiers to the political system -- the Vanarchs, who are like the lords of a section of the world map, and the Exarch, who is the ruler of an entire continent.

While the path to the Exarch is still unknown, the path to becoming a Vanarch is clear. In actual fact there are two paths -- being excessively capable of slaying other players in PvP in order to attain a very high rank, or by winning the popular vote during the week-long election that takes place every 21 days.

However you do it, once you attain the position of Vanarch, you gain access to special mounts, get your name slapped on the part of the map you own, and gain the ability to influence certain aspects of your map section. You can raise or lower the taxes in the area, thereby altering the overall cost of the goods (and how much money ultimately lines your pocket). You can also throw people in prison (assumedly the NPCs, not the players) for any number of reasons. If being tyrannical isn't your thing, you can improve the state of the land by attracting specialty vendors and enable or disable people-killing (open-world PvP) in your territory, even run your own events.

A currency called Policy Points has some sort of influence over your stay in power. The details are unclear, but it is possible that points have to be spent to actually create events/alter taxes/change the general state of things.

One thing is clear -- the best way to be a leader is to be well-known and well-loved. Tera may end up having one of the best communities as a result. Or it could be full of empty political promises.