TERA preview – The 10 greatest moments from the closed beta

Every epic journey starts with a hero, or in this case, a hot Castanic heroine. Character creation in TERA has built upon many of the tropes we've seen in MMOs, offering a slew of preset designs and faces but also providing the ability to tweak facial features via extensive sliders for bone structure, nose, eyes, mouth and ears. The option of seven races gives players a nice starting point for creating a unique look, all of which are highly polished and attractive. If rolling an ugly avatar is more your thing, just hit the random button and you'll receive a face that will compete with the strangest of beasts in TERA.

As any Star Wars: The Old Republic player will tell you, realizing you can customize your user interface is a big thing. When opening up our options, we found that we could move any UI element on my screen to any location. TERA also has controller support (see bottom right of screen), which offers the welcome option to sit back and play the game like a console RPG. As purists, we preferred the keyboard and mouse, but the controller was also incredibly easy to use even when navigating inventory and character menus.

We didn't really get a sense of how beautiful TERA was until our first flight on this flying horse. With the wind rushing through our hair as trees and players below passed beneath the glory of our mount’s wings, we could drink in TERA’s massive world from afar. The flight was a bit long but we couldn't help but the time spent admiring the architecture and gorgeous horizons on our way to Velika city was well spent.

Flying on Pegasus was great, but what we really needed were some hooves to get us around on the ground. The first mount we received was a brown armored horse. Why is this a grand moment you ask? Aside from the luxury of faster travel, mounts in TERA summon instantly with the click of a button. The combat system requires a lot of room to move and dodge, inadvertently causing some quest monsters to be spread out across the landscape. This mount helped keep the action rolling by allowing us to move across the battlefield without the unnecessary hassle of waiting for respawns or bothersome mount summons.

This little Popori was the son of the Fey Forest Keeper. Worried that he wouldn't be acknowledged as the heir, he took matters into his (and our) hands by gathering the materials to make a good impression. In this case, that would be the wings plucked from a dozen fairies. Most of the quests in TERA are typical kill, gather, and delivery tasks, but the stories and combat go a long way in making them more enjoyable. Phonon has you gather the wings from fairies and then places them all over his body for a glittering look. His new shimmering exterior is sure to impress those that doubt his ability as future Forest Keeper.

Tuwongi Mire is certainly an oddity. This swamp-like zone is akin to seeing a half-naked Elvis do the Macarena: you know it's strange, but you can't help but enjoy it. As you can imagine, the zone is themed according to anything amphibious and toady. We saw temples made from giant toads, balloons made from less giant toads, and drums that were played by toads desperately hopping away only to be pulled back by a leash. The area is inhabited by a strange mini-bird cult, all of which have crazy eyes and helmets. One cult had a bear trap helm, another preferred a fruit basket. Most of the areas we saw were of the fantastical magical variety, but this swamp took things to another level.

We were finally starting to dive into the mid-level zones when we came across this jolly fellow. It was clear that he had consumed his fair share of unprepared adventures, so we decided it must be a good idea to attack him. Throughout TERA we ran into challenges that were clearly made for more than one player and this beast of gluttony was no exception. At one point another player tried to save us, but the sultan of chub still managed to crush us beneath his immense weight. Even with a large group it was difficult to take him down. The fight lasted about six or seven minutes, most of which was spent running around trying not to die. It was frantic, but fun.

Our last great moment takes us to our first dungeon run, combining the best of everything we’d experienced thus far. Deep in a mountain-side cave, our group ventured forth to bring an end to any and all demon activity. The encounters ranged from two or three sword wielding cultists to pulls of 30+ rat-like minions. The best fight by far was the final boss. At first, we were prepared to be disappointed when we rounded the corner and saw what appeared to be an unimpressively normal looking boss. But when we killed him, a mountainous creature spawned in his wake. It was like fighting a volcano. He threw rocks, shook the ground beneath us, and even vomited lava all over our tank. It was seven minutes of dodging fire and brimstone whilst casting off every spell combo we could. In the end, we were rewarded with gear that didn't help any of us, but the experience was great and our group decided to do it again.