En Masse Entertainment and Bluehole Studios have announced that Tera will be going free-to-play in February.
The exact date of the change for the Korean MMO, which is currently subscription-based, has yet to be revealed, but the companies have announced the new game service will feature three membership tiers: Founder, Elite and Standard.
In North America, Standard will be the basic free-to-play option, while Elite will confer a number of convenience bonuses not currently available in the game (like faster cooldowns and vanity items) for $14.99. Founder status is acquired by purchasing and redeeming a copy of the game and confers lifetime benefits. The European pricing has yet to be announced, but other than that the only differences are that the Founder, Elite and Standard options are called Veteran, Tera Club and Free respectively.
Some of the free-to-play limitations include character and bank slots, though more can be purchased, and various brokerage and tax fees. Happily there aren’t any race, class or content restrictions, though Elite/Tera Club players do get reduced dungeon cooldowns. For more info on exactly what each package offers check out the fairly extensive North American or European FAQs.
This makes Tera the latest in a long line of MMOs to ditch their subscription fees in favour of free-to-play options. After months of speculation, Star Wars: The Old Republic announced it was dropping its subscription cost last July with the change coming into effect in November, and reportedly boosting player numbers significantly. Funcom’s The Secret World also announced a similar change last month.
In all instances, the companies have cited a changing MMO marketplace as one of the main reasons for them ditching the fees. While World of Warcraft is probably safe for the foreseeable future given its recently revitalised subscriber base, it’ll be interesting to see how Rift fares as one of the few subscription MMOs left that doesn’t enjoy such a large playerbase, as well as what effect this has on Zenimax’s upcoming The Elder Scrolls Online.
You can get more on the changes to Tera and the reasoning behind them in the free-to-play announcement trailer below, which also features an amusingly not-so-subtle dig The Old Republic’s F2P offerings.