TERA - Day 2 Adventures

By Kevin Mitchell Posted on May 10, 2012

Returning to the Island of Dawn, our hero Jolis starts to explore the island and all the secrets it holds. The Island of Dawn is setup as the starting place for new players. This “newbie” zone is quite large however and a very enjoyable experience to start off the game. It is here where our hero takes his first steps and begins to learn how to be an adept Lancer.

Quests are broken down into story driven quests, zone quests, guild quests and daily quests. Right now we can only work on zone quests and story quests. Story quests, as it implies, follow the overarching narrative that you are apart of. Zone quests follow the basic MMO style quests such as kill 10 bees or collect 18 Faerie swords.

tOur first interaction with other players and a “town” is at the Tower Base. Here there are all sorts of vendors, trainers and quest givers. Learning improved skills and even new skills, I am confident I can take on anything in the zone.

Switching from combat, I took the time to learn how to mine for ore. It is a quick and painless process of clicking on the ore that can be found throughout the land. While your skill is low the gathering attempt may fail, but if you are lucky you can try again and be successful the next time. This ore can later be smelted down into bars that can be used to craft weapons or armor.

There are plenty of threats around from the various species of creatures. I was tasked to eliminate Orc Raiders, as they have been causing trouble for local traders. It didn’t take long before I was face to face with an orc with what looked like baby orcs following behind. Extending my lance, I struck with precision and made Swiss cheese of them. I claimed my spoils of battle and came to the realization that they were Dwarf Orcs, not orc children, that were hiding behind the full grown orc.

Kariagon, a demon plaguing the land, was my next target along with an ogre that has been terrorizing the main road. The rewards for defeating them would land me a nice new shield and lance combination. The battle was hard fought, but I was the victor and stood above the corpses of my enemies. I proudly showcased my new equipment near the Tower Base. For the Lancer, the shield and the lance come as a package with no stats given to the shield – the only stats are for the lance. Since the game is action based, blocking relies on actually blocking instead of just having a high block percentage.

Reaching level 11, I was able to summon a mighty, armored stead that would take me wherever I needed to go. Gaining a mount at such a low level is something I wasn’t expecting. You don’t even have to wait long to summon it. Once you click the button, your mount will appear and your character will begin to ride.

The final story quest for the “newbie” island is to be venture with a mercenary named Leman through a dangerous cave. Leman’s skills are not with a sword, but are of the magic variety. At the end of the cave we reached a massive boss, one of the coolest looking bosses I have seen in any MMO before, and remember we are only level 12. The boss would be considered a raid boss in any other game. The battle was tough, but with my healer keeping me alive and using my tank character the boss was finally defeated. This marked the end of the Island of Dawn, and unless I wanted to finish the one or two zone quests left, I was already over leveled. I was free to leave and fly through the skies on Pegasus to the City of Velkia…