TERA has “action combat.”
But at their core, all these games pretty much ask you to do the same thing: find the guy with the thing over his head who tells you to kill X things or click on Y whatevers, rinse, repeat until you hit max level, then go and spend most of your time in dungeons. Some games follow the formula a little more closely than others, and they all have their variations, but they work pretty much the same way.
“Nuh-uh! My game’s different! It’s better!”
Pardon me for saying so, but… bull.
I’ve been hearing that argument for nearly 20 years. Yes, before there were MMOs, there were trading-card games, and many of them greatly resembled the industry leader, Magic: The Gathering. I got demos at conventions for about a hundred of them, and whenever I said, “Oh, so this part is like Magic” — even if the rest of the game was totally different — I’d inevitably hear, “No, it isn’t” from the demo-er, who might have also been the game’s designer.
Games often resemble the games that come before them, and people who are very closely attached to the “new” game are frequently loathe to admit their game is a copycat.
Also “my game” for five years has been LOTRO. See how I included it up there? I accept it for what it is.
When all your game has is that very limited number of schticks to differentiate it from the others, it needs to be a schtick that I really want to enjoy. I like the lore of LOTRO. I liked the idea of dynamic events or cutscenes. I’m not as big a fan of action combat.
“Awwww, action combat’s too hard for you, go back to your tab targeting, loser!”
I’ll be the first to admit I’m not very good at shooters. But I’ve played a lot of Skyrim — and plenty of Oblivion before it — so it’s not like I’ve only ever played games where you can lock on to a target. Action combat is the major thing TERA‘s got going for it that makes it really different from other MMOs, and that’s not enough to get me to shell out my money.