When it comes to MMORPG’s that are published in more than one country, there are localization patches that must be taken care of, including both text (such as translating the quest text or skill names from one language to another), as well as mechanics (as, for example, it is often seen that Korean gamers prefer grinding in their games, whereas players in North America are seen as the opposite). What this does, or at least is supposed to do, is help get a core game out to each country, in a way the players can understand it and in a way that is adapted to the country’s play style. This is a huge part of why the MMO’s take so long to get patches from one country’s game to another. In the case of kTERA vs. NATERA (Europe’s servers are really grouped in here as well, as another separate style), this lag created between releasing patches in one country and releasing them in another is problematic.
In the case of most MMORPG’s, it is easy to understand why they take a bit longer to “port” from one area to another. For example, when AION came out in Korea, there were no guards posted all over each side’s leveling maps. As a result, players from the enemy faction could roam freely, killing anyone they ran across. The same was true for the NA version at first as well, however this was changed before the game actually went live (out of Beta). In cases like this, they are changing what are arguably core concepts of the game, and doing so takes a lot of time to plan out effectively. In the case of the guards, for example, adding too many would cause problems with the PvP system, and too few would have no benefit. It is balances like this that require time and effort to ensure they are right.
Now, the problem comes in when we are dealing with TERA. The majority of the game (if not all) ends up being the same between NA, EU (I think – I do not deal with EU TERA too much so I may be wrong on this) and kTERA. In other words, there is a lot of time skipped ahead by removing the need to keep balancing content and ensuring that the changes are good for the western market. In fact, if you follow the kTERA news, it will pretty much tell you exactly what is going to happen with the other versions in the future.
