Revamped Starter Experience, Limited Returning Hero Program Now Live In ‘TERA’ With ‘Lost Isle’ Update

Instead of starting their journey on the Isle of Dawn, new characters in TERA will now find themselves on Stepstone Isle. The new area gives characters a chance to hit level 11 at an “accelerated path” in a more streamlined experience. The new area comes with the “Lost Isle” update, or patch 36.03, that also boasts a new character creation screen and introduces the “Returning Hero” program.

The updated character creation screen in TERA is a welcome change. Players can now choose a character’s race and class on single screen rather than bouncing between two to do so. The user interface for the experience has also been revamped to look much sleeker and improve readability. Even the character selection screen is different, and it now displays characters more clearly, letting player even move their characters on the selection screen.

The “Returning Hero” program added with the “Lost Isle” update in TERA gives high-level benched characters a chance to catch up. The program is designed for characters level 58 and higher to provide them with enough encouragement to hit the level cap of 65. Characters that have not logged in to the game for a least a month will have access to the “Returning Hero” tab in the Vanguard Request screen. The tab informs the player on the class of the character and its abilities. The program even lets the character upgrade their old gear, but this aspect is only available once per server. Players should use it wisely.

Of course, patch 36.03 did more than just introduce a new starter experience and the new Returning Hero program to TERA. The full patch notes, which can be found on the official site, indicate that there are a number of chat improvements, dungeon alterations, and achievement changes as well. The Looking For Group (LFG) chat option now has an option to restrict which message the player sees. This option makes it so that the party leader can only see messages from players that are within four levels, either higher or lower, of the current character. Additionally, players can now create private chat channels with four-digit passcodes. One player can create and join up to eight private chat channels.

As for dungeons, the latest patch removes masterwork alkahest drops from six of them. The patch also increased Vanguard Request experience in nine of the dungeons in TERA. On the achievement side of things, the “Timescape Conqueror” and the “Vault of Kaprima Conquer” achievements have had their qualifications changed. The full list of affected dungeons and additional achievement steps can be found in the official patch notes.

Players logging into TERA for the first time after a hiatus might find their names changed, however. An inactive character name release was executed in May 2015 that freed up names for new players. If you have not logged into characters on TERA since June 2014, each character’s name will have a “_1” added to the name. That does not mean that the name is now taken by a new player; however, it is a possibility. As the Inquisitr noted, players that have characters with the “_1” added to their names will be forced to undergo a name change before logging in to the game.

Since its initial Western release in early 2012, TERA has welcomed the Fate of Arun expansion in 2014 and has transitioned well onto the Steam platform in 2015. At the time of its release, TERA was the MMO with the highest peak concurrency of the MMOs available on Steam, and it continues to perform well with thousands of players actively logged in right now.

Will you be returning to TERA to experience the new starter experience or to pick up where you left off with a shelved hero?

[Images via En Masse Entertainment]