Once upon a time, streamlined WoW-style questing, raiding, and PVP felt fresh and daring. However, like most things that begin with the phrase “once upon a time,” the very notion seems almost unbelievable in this day and age – more akin to a swords ‘n’ sorcery fairytale than actual historical fact. And so, many MMOs that were once treading water have recently realized that they were in quicksand all along. In many ways, Tera‘s easily as guilty as anyone else with its utterly tedious questing and tired world design, but the action-heavy MMO’s hardly resting on its laurels. Its province-running political system is an attempt to add a dash of EVE-style intrigue to the tried-and-true MMO formula, and the results thus far have ranged from brilliantly outside-the-box to well inside the range of the banhammer.

(more…)