I know it's kind of a packed market at the moment. Some people are still playing WoW/Old Republic. There are like ten MMOs coming out this year, and even more hybrid shooter/MMOs and deep RPGs. As someone who has very little time for MMOs these days, I still find myself trying them out.

Tera seems pretty unique. Aside from being gorgeous and running extremely well (it's been out for a bit in Korea), it has some neat concepts that might make it stand out from the WoW / Rift formula. The combat is more involved and plays more like a character action game than a standard MMO. There is no auto targeting or cycling targets. Your attacks hit whatever they actually hit. There are no dice rolls going on here. There's also a solid guild and government system where they battle for control and install governors over land which dictate things like taxes.

It hits open beta this weekend, and comes out formally on May 1st (characters will transfer over). I'm trying to see how many Giant Bomb members are considering picking it up. I'll be playing it, and was wondering if we'll have enough people to form a guild.

If anyone wants to join up, my character is on the PvP server "Jagged Coast".

Tera is a beautiful looking game, and the combat is amazing, but I just can't get past how generic and boring the quests are.

Servers are still divided into EU and US servers right? Then I'll probably miss out on whatever guild might be happening anyway.

Pomf!

Hmm if it's open beta this weeken I may give it a look.

Tera looks and seems to play amazingly, I probably going to at least try it. The only thing that put me off is the lack fleshed out PvP system.

I might be wrong here but there seems to be no form of arena of battlegrounds combat, except guild vs guld and duels?

As with most of the above my issues are quests are MMO standard fair and a tad boring. The servers being split EU/USA, but that said it is a great looking game. I shall give it a miss though.

I´ll probably try it eventually, but bot any time soon.

The combat in TERA is really good.. everything else, not so much. It's the same typical quest structure from every other MMORPG out there, there's nothing unique, no interesting hooks, no interesting lore, nothing to keep it going and the amount of grinding in the later parts of the game borders on being criminal. The graphics themselves look great, but the style is an absolute mess of different ideas. For example, the human, elves and big golem races all look really finely detailed and realistic.. but then you have the raccoon people and anime girls. It just doesn't mesh. Over all, there are some good ideas, but also some really bad ones. Parts of the game were obviously designed for a western audience and others for the Korean/Asian.

The EU/US split also makes a guild difficult, is that something they plan on carrying over to the full release or is it just a beta limitation?

And sorry for adding more fuel to the hype train, but the fact it's releasing around the same period as Guild Wars 2 is going to hurt the game a lot.

@Denric said:

Tera is a beautiful looking game, and the combat is amazing, but I just can't get past how generic and boring the quests are.

I think this will be the 'downfall' of this game. I don't think it's going to tank, but I will bet anyone, right here and now, that across the board on reviews and after we look back on this game in 3 months (or a year or whatever), that will be the most widespread complaint by an incredibly huge margin.

This article basically sums up how I feel about the game and I know it's just an editorial, but I will fucking take any bet right now that you will hear a lot more people with these feelings in the next few weeks.

Can I ask what MMO people are playing that doesn't feature the dullest most mundane quests they've ever had? Because I've played them all, and they all suffer from that.

I totally understand the reasoning, I'm just wondering what alternative there is at the moment. Even the Old Republic was brought down by the monotony of the side quests (which out numbered the voice-acted main quests about 10:1).

@Rolyatkcinmai said:

Can I ask what MMO people are playing that doesn't feature the dullest most mundane quests they've ever had? Because I've played them all, and they all suffer from that.

I totally understand the reasoning, I'm just wondering what alternative there is at the moment. Even the Old Republic was brought down by the monotony of the side quests (which out numbered the voice-acted main quests about 10:1).

Not technically "at the moment" but it's definitely casting a shadow over everything else.

@WinterSnowblind said:

@Rolyatkcinmai said:

Can I ask what MMO people are playing that doesn't feature the dullest most mundane quests they've ever had? Because I've played them all, and they all suffer from that.

I totally understand the reasoning, I'm just wondering what alternative there is at the moment. Even the Old Republic was brought down by the monotony of the side quests (which out numbered the voice-acted main quests about 10:1).

Not technically "at the moment" but it's definitely casting a shadow over everything else.

I played about 5,000 hours of Guild Wars 1 and have already paid for Guild Wars 2. Trust me, I'm on board. But that's not really the same concept. Diablo III probably has pretty solid quests as well.

@Rolyatkcinmai: You are aware that GW2 isn't instanced like the original was, right? I'm not sure why you wouldn't compare it to TERA.

It looked interesting but then I saw the fucking horrible female character design.

@Gargantuan said:

It looked interesting but then I saw the fucking horrible female character design.

The skin protects the armor, that how it works right?

Tera is fucking boring but at least looks nice. Its too bad they went with the korean style grind and fetch quest system that Im burned out on. Would rather play raiderz and continent of the ninth to be honest and at least they are free.

my interest level = "meh"

Hope you guys have fun though!

@Gargantuan said:

It looked interesting but then I saw the fucking horrible female character design.

.....................Sold.

@Gargantuan:

I gather those are travel photos from your last trip to Whore Island? If so, please forward the contact information of your travel agent ASAP.

I hear Guild Wars 2 is just around the corner. Tera seems really uninteresting in comparison

what is the monthly fee for Tera? I would be interested if it was Guild Wars style pay for the game and play online for free.

I'm sad to see there is so little interest in Tera here! I've been playing since CB2, and now that the OBT is done for I can hardly wait for this week to go by, and get playing again! I've been having so much fun with this play style, and I love the graphics and characters in the game, and while I am sure its not for everyone this is definitely the first MMO to come along that has managed to tear me away from playing WoW when I want MMO fun.

Just to add my voice. I've been playing Tera since the first closed beta, I admit level 1-20 has been somewhat of a familiar grind albeit with an awesome combat system rivaled by no other mmorpg. It's vaguely similar to Monster Hunter where timing and placement plays a large part.

At level 20 though, with my wife and our friends, we started doing quests with BAMs (big ass monsters) and the fun factor of the game is now AMAZING! The dungeons are a blast, the bosses feel more like an accomplishment and less like an boring endurance run of hitting the 5 same spells over and over. Placement is key, and dodging attacks, it's a rush like some of the best action games can only give you.

One of our friends has always been into fashion but never quite liked games - well Tera's got some bold fashion statements and now she's flinging fire with "ginger rage" as she calls it. Raining death upon all that oppose her!

Be that as it may, I don't care for the story. The English VO is laughable even if Michael Hogan and Claudia Black somehow got tricked into doing this, and frankly censoring bellybuttons on the immortal and youthful Elin race is the most ridiculous thing I've seen. I was gonna be like "Oh US, you and your censorshit." but the EU did the same so I couldn't be a dick about it. I live in Scandinavia, play on North American servers, and I haven't seen a hint of lag. Which is pretty cool too.

We're at level 25-30 now and waiting for the pre-launch - we're all excited and we can't wait to test our skills against higher level "BAMs" and dungeons alike. Also it's freaking gorgeous, c'mon. Give it a try, you might be surprised like I.

I'll be playing in Tera, just to check out the "game-pad" support, but most likely will leave in a few weeks. But I would totally love with some duders, send me a pm or somehting something and we can figure this out!

I think it sort of ruins its beauty by putting in too much. Like there's no balance to the style, it's just sort of like "Is this beautiful?" "Yup! Shove it in the game with the rest of the beautiful stuff!"

I will say after playing Tera its not bad, I think it functions very well and is a bit more tactical and intuitive than most mmo's its just that there's not really much of a way to build your character and you're really shoe-stringed into a play-style right from the start. Also as much as they were touting it as a "true action mmo," the action is very still and not very satisfying, like if you told me all the attacks were being automated I wouldn't have doubted you. But I will say it was good enough to make me care about mmo's for a little while and it certainly seems like it has enough interesting systems/crazy crap to keep people playing.

The GB interest in this game is zero percent or it may as well be. As of this post, this game launches in just a few hours yet just look how few topics there are. You don't even have to scroll down and there are topics here that were created months ago. In contrast Guild Wars 2 just had its first weekend beta and that place is buzzing.

Was mentioned in the I love monday videos that they're going to do something with Tera. Hopefully they let us all know so perhaps some of us can join them and make it a little more fun for them.

I hope they realise that it's very slow to start off, until you get out of what is essentially the tutorial island it's fairly boring. I also hope they go for a more active class (i.e. Melee) because I think it shows off the combat system better than a ranged character. Perhaps going a Warrior or Slayer class.

I need something to take my time while I wait for Diablo. I'm done with WoW, don't feel like re-upping in SWTOR and there aren't any games out there I feel the need to pick up. So this is it, I guess. I'd like to play with some dudes, if anyone wants to play with me, tell me the server and I'll be there after I get this bitch downloaded.

I'm on Frost Reach (PVE) but I'm at level 36. I'd be happy rolling a new character though.

I don't mind starting a new character. Maybe we can start up a GB guild if there isn't already one.

thinking of buying this to play just for 15days until diablo 3... am i crazy? i know for a fact i would never play more than the full month, but in this case im pretty sure i wont touch it as soon as diablo comes out. then again, im also pretty sure that ill get the games price worth ou of it even in just 15 days, at least time wise... dunno what to do >_>

@Bwast said:

I need something to take my time while I wait for Diablo. I'm done with WoW, don't feel like re-upping in SWTOR and there aren't any games out there I feel the need to pick up. So this is it, I guess. I'd like to play with some dudes, if anyone wants to play with me, tell me the server and I'll be there after I get this bitch downloaded.

i guess im not the only one, this post might aswell have been written by me

Jeff and Brad are playing this but haven't been able to confirm which servers they're on.

@stenchlord said:

Jeff and Brad are playing this but haven't been able to confirm which servers they're on.

because thats what we need, GB's opinions on another MMO

@Rhaknar said:

@stenchlord said:

Jeff and Brad are playing this but haven't been able to confirm which servers they're on.

because thats what we need, GB's opinions on another MMO

What's wrong with them giving their opinion on an MMO? If I remember correctly, Jeff liked SWTOR, but grew tired of it and the rest of them admitted it was a competent game, but it just wasn't for them.

Brad seemed pretty interested in checking it out on ILM and Jeff seemed partially intrigued.

Regardless of that though, it's just an opinion and that of a couple of dudes no less. If they're not giving their opinions on video games, they have severely missed the point of what, I assume, a large portion of their job entails.

I'm really enjoying my time with Tera, but I doubt I'll be playing it in a month's time.  With Diablo 3 right around the corner and Guild Wars 2 behind it, there's no way this is going to be able to keep my attention.  It might be fun to go back to every once in a while but I highly doubt this game will be a heavy hitter MMO in the long run.  It's just too bland.  It does a lot right, but so does everyone else.

@BabyChooChoo said:

@Rhaknar said:

@stenchlord said:

Jeff and Brad are playing this but haven't been able to confirm which servers they're on.

because thats what we need, GB's opinions on another MMO

What's wrong with them giving their opinion on an MMO? If I remember correctly, Jeff liked SWTOR, but grew tired of it and the rest of them admitted it was a competent game, but it just wasn't for them.

Brad seemed pretty interested in checking it out on ILM and Jeff seemed partially intrigued.

Regardless of that though, it's just an opinion and that of a couple of dudes no less. If they're not giving their opinions on video games, they have severely missed the point of what, I assume, a large portion of their job entails.

if you dont think theres anything "wrong" like you say about wanting or caring about GB's opinions on MMOs, you are either new here or dont pay much attention. They have a long history of shitting all over any and every MMO that comes out, they have all said they dont like the genre and outright mocked it in many podcasts, and no, Jeff did not like SWTOR at all, quite the contrary.

Looking forward to GB's opinion on a MMO is like looking forward to their opinion on a JRPG. And this is coming from someone that loves the site and the crew, but you really need to be able to seperate things and know what they like

edit: oh and you say Jeff is intrigued by Tera? lets take a look at some of his latest tweets about it shall we?:

Jeff Gerstmann ‏ jeffgerstmann

By the time Tera finishes downloading I will have forgotten that Tera exists!

Jeff Gerstmann ‏ jeffgerstmann

itmeJP Don't bother! Knowing the amount of time we usually spend with MMOs, we will have both moved on before you can get it installed.

Jeff Gerstmann ‏ jeffgerstmann

Well, at least all this talk about how Tera is potentially creepy will ensure that I won't forget about it before it finishes downloading!

@Rolyatkcinmai said:

Can I ask what MMO people are playing that doesn't feature the dullest most mundane quests they've ever had? Because I've played them all, and they all suffer from that.

I totally understand the reasoning, I'm just wondering what alternative there is at the moment. Even the Old Republic was brought down by the monotony of the side quests (which out numbered the voice-acted main quests about 10:1).

What game did you play again? There was at worst a 1 to 1 ratio of voiced to non voiced quests in that game and that was only later on. Are you counting bonus missions as quests or something? Or are you saying story versus non story quests? In which case the majority of non story quests were still voiced.

That said Tera sounds like it has good combat sort of like what guild wars 2 was trying for but seemed to miss at least in my opinion, and I know it has some of the best graphics you can get in an mmo. The problem is the rest of the content is stale and boring and it doesn't do anything that every other korean mmo doesn't already do.

Guild Wars 2 is despite all their claims not an mmo. 5 hours of that game is all it took for me to see that. In the end it will be supported purely by the pvp end of the spectrum which is never going to be a competition to an actual pve based MMO like Tera.

@Karkarov said:

@Rolyatkcinmai said:

Can I ask what MMO people are playing that doesn't feature the dullest most mundane quests they've ever had? Because I've played them all, and they all suffer from that.

I totally understand the reasoning, I'm just wondering what alternative there is at the moment. Even the Old Republic was brought down by the monotony of the side quests (which out numbered the voice-acted main quests about 10:1).

What game did you play again? There was at worst a 1 to 1 ratio of voiced to non voiced quests in that game and that was only later on. Are you counting bonus missions as quests or something? Or are you saying story versus non story quests? In which case the majority of non story quests were still voiced.

That said Tera sounds like it has good combat sort of like what guild wars 2 was trying for but seemed to miss at least in my opinion, and I know it has some of the best graphics you can get in an mmo. The problem is the rest of the content is stale and boring and it doesn't do anything that every other korean mmo doesn't already do.

Guild Wars 2 is despite all their claims not an mmo. 5 hours of that game is all it took for me to see that. In the end it will be supported purely by the pvp end of the spectrum which is never going to be a competition to an actual pve based MMO like Tera.

if you think Tera will do more business than GW2 (which I assume you do by saying GW2 wont be a competetion to Tera's PVE) you are absolutely insane. Nobody will remember Tera in 1 month, i cant even find anyone that knows about it besides seriously hardcore mmo-jumpers like myself. Even Rift had more buzz around it

@Karkarov said:

@Rolyatkcinmai said:

Can I ask what MMO people are playing that doesn't feature the dullest most mundane quests they've ever had? Because I've played them all, and they all suffer from that.

I totally understand the reasoning, I'm just wondering what alternative there is at the moment. Even the Old Republic was brought down by the monotony of the side quests (which out numbered the voice-acted main quests about 10:1).

What game did you play again? There was at worst a 1 to 1 ratio of voiced to non voiced quests in that game and that was only later on. Are you counting bonus missions as quests or something? Or are you saying story versus non story quests? In which case the majority of non story quests were still voiced.

That said Tera sounds like it has good combat sort of like what guild wars 2 was trying for but seemed to miss at least in my opinion, and I know it has some of the best graphics you can get in an mmo. The problem is the rest of the content is stale and boring and it doesn't do anything that every other korean mmo doesn't already do.

Guild Wars 2 is despite all their claims not an mmo. 5 hours of that game is all it took for me to see that. In the end it will be supported purely by the pvp end of the spectrum which is never going to be a competition to an actual pve based MMO like Tera.

if you think Tera will do more business than GW2 (which I assume you do by saying GW2 wont be a competetion to Tera's PVE) you are absolutely insane. Nobody will remember Tera in 1 month, i cant even find anyone that knows about it besides seriously hardcore mmo-jumpers like myself. Even Rift had more buzz around it

@ttocs said:

@Rhaknar said:

@Karkarov said:

Guild Wars 2 is despite all their claims not an mmo. 5 hours of that game is all it took for me to see that. In the end it will be supported purely by the pvp end of the spectrum which is never going to be a competition to an actual pve based MMO like Tera.

if you think Tera will do more business than GW2 (which I assume you do by saying GW2 wont be a competetion to Tera's PVE) you are absolutely insane. Nobody will remember Tera in 1 month, i cant even find anyone that knows about it besides seriously hardcore mmo-jumpers like myself. Even Rift had more buzz around it

I agree. Tera will have a fanbase, but it will be seriously limited when Guild Wars 2 (hell, even Diablo) comes out. It just doesn't have the staying power to convince people to stick around.

Ttocs is pretty much dead on accurate. But maybe not for the reasons he suggests. Rhaknar you seem to have misinterpreted my post. I am not saying Tera will do better business than Guild Wars 2, I am not even saying Tera will do decent business in the first place. I am saying that Guild Wars 2 has more in common with Diablo than it does WoW. It isn't "really" an MMO RPG, it is just an online action RPG. Guild Wars 2 and Tera were never in competition to begin with in other words. They are apples and oranges.

For the record I did purchase Guild Wars 2 expecting an MMO that played more like an action game. Instead I got an action game that was trying to pretend to be an mmo. I didn't like it and I won't ever play it again. My bad for listening to the wrong sources and not doing enough of my own research. Tera on the other hand I find less interesting than a glass of low fat skim milk. PS: I hate milk. Tera is just another Korean mmo and I earned my "been there/done that" badge on that type of mmo a long time ago.

So what do I suggest for someone looking for a MMO? I suggest trying Star Wars the Old Republic. At least it has an actual story and does try to mix things up with a more action based combat system that is considerably more fun and mobile than WoW clone #5.

For people who want an online action RPG? I suggest waiting for Diablo 3.

Who do I suggest Guild Wars 2 and Tera to? Nobody. I will say this I expect Tera to do average business at best and Guild Wars 2 will do well though I don't think it deserves to. It's hype was far greater than the product.

I was thinking about buying this and playing it for a month and then quitting... But now I'm getting into Super Monday Night Combat and that'll be what I play for a month and then quit.

@Karkarov said:

So what do I suggest for someone looking for a MMO? I suggest trying Star Wars the Old Republic. At least it has an actual story and does try to mix things up with a more action based combat system that is considerably more fun and mobile than WoW clone #5.

For people who want an online action RPG? I suggest waiting for Diablo 3.

Who do I suggest Guild Wars 2 and Tera to? Nobody. I will say this I expect Tera to do average business at best and Guild Wars 2 will do well though I don't think it deserves to. It's hype was far greater than the product.

Here's the thing that makes you look like a crazy person though... SWTOR's combat is very much in the vein of WoW, whereas Tera's is not. I'm not saying Tera is some incredible game. It's not. But you're nuts if you think SWTOR's story arcs are enough to justify how WoW it is everywhere else. 90% of the quests in SWTOR are the same MMO crap you're used to. The main story quests are great, but they are few. Tera's quests are super unoriginal, but at least the combat and political systems are bringing something new to the genre.

@Karkarov: What the hell are you talking about? In what way isn't GW2 an MMO when the areas are bigger, more open and allow for more players than TOR and how could you have "seen all the content in 5 hours" when you were playing a beta that restricted you to 3 of the 5 starting zones?

ALL of the personal story content in GW2 is voice acted (although the beta wasn't fully voiced in a few places). The dynamic events and random NPC's use text to keep you moving along, since quests don't wait for you. If an event starts moving with other players, you'll simply miss it.

Not only does it not sound like you've not done any research, it sounds like you haven't even played GW2 or even know the slightest thing about it. TERA and GW2 both have much more active and involved combat systems than typical MMO's, if you're going to complain about either of those games, the combat is not the aspect to pick on. I quit TOR after less than a week, solely because the combat is so bad.

@WinterSnowblind: Please take a reading comprehension class and get the emotional "he said bad stuff about a game I like" crap out of your head.

I said and I quote:

Guild Wars 2 is despite all their claims not an mmo. 5 hours of that game is all it took for me to see that.

Meaning after playing for 5 hours I came to the conclusion it wasn't really an mmo. I never said anything about how much content I did or did not see, nor did I ever say it was a "crappy game that sucks balls". I simply gave my opinion and said I didn't like it and wouldn't recommend it. I even said I thought it would "do well" as in be a successful release. More to the point I never even said how long I actually played it in total which was more than 5 hours. I could understand you getting pissed if I was saying this stuff in a thread about how everyone loves Guild Wars 2 but I am not. I am saying it in a thread about Tera and letting people who enjoy Guild Wars 2 have their fun in their threads and not forcing my opinion on them when they clearly won't agree with it.

@Rolyatkcinmai: You omitted the line that preceded that about how "this is what I would recommend if you wanted to play an mmo". Also you never got past level 10 if you think the combat is similar to WoW at end game. I do more movement and use a greater variety of skills in one game of Huttball than I do an entire clear of Dragon Soul. That said it is still an mmo and people who don't like MMO's wont like it. Also like you said it isn't a "massive" departure from WoW but it has enough that it feels different. But if you are not interested in an actual MMO I would avoid it, just like I would tell you to avoid Tera, WoW, Aion, Rift, blah blah blah.

As for Tera's new "systems". I am sure the combat is good. I haven't played it but I haven't heard anyone say anything bad about it either so I won't go there. But political systems, player government options, etc etc have all been standard fare in Korean mmo's since before WoW was even created. You probably just never heard of the games it existed in. The earliest I can remember is one called Dark Ages, it was even released in NA. Go google Korean MMO Dark Ages if you don't believe me, I assure it predates Tera by decades. Well about a decade and a half.

@Karkarov: I'm not saying your opinion is wrong, I'm saying your facts are.

MMO = Massively Multiplayer Online. GW2 has a fully persistent, online world, populated by hundreds of other players. Again, the areas are bigger and have more capacity than they do in TOR.. so in what way is TOR or TERA an MMO but GW not? TERA also features a totally different combat system, so it's surely not that, and I don't see why you would ever consider the definition of MMO to be "boring WoW style combat". This wasn't an attempt to bash you, but an honest question (okay, it was such a ridiculous statement that I was perhaps a little hate fuelled, but still).

@WinterSnowblind said:

@Karkarov: I'm not saying your opinion is wrong, I'm saying your facts are.

MMO = Massively Multiplayer Online. GW2 has a fully persistent, online world, populated by hundreds of other players. Again, the areas are bigger and have more capacity than they do in TOR.. so in what way is TOR or TERA an MMO but GW not? TERA also features a totally different combat system, so it's surely not that, and I don't see why you would ever consider the definition of MMO to be "boring WoW style combat". This wasn't an attempt to bash you, but an honest question (okay, it was such a ridiculous statement that I was perhaps a little hate fuelled, but still).

Okay I will rephrase. Is diablo 3 an MMO RPG? I don't think most people would say it is. Alot of people might ask themselves, why can't I play this single player? Why do I have to be online? I feel the same way about Guild Wars 2.

GW2 by their own admission has systems in game that scale events, monsters, players, and all that based on who is there and actually contributing. I once did a "heart" totally by myself and it took me no longer than it did when I did one while 5-10 dudes were there doing it with me, nor was it harder or any more rewarding by myself. The other players had almost no effect at all on my game or what I was doing. In TOR (or any traditional MMO RPG) you will run into enemies you have trouble with alone, or quests/"dungeons" you simply can't do by yourself. I could tell those sort of things where somewhere "out there" in GW2 but they were few and very far between and I never ran into one.

More to the point if I were to group in TOR even for single player stuff I would have gotten more EXP, higher chance of rare loot drops, etc. Even when I group for single player content in TOR it feels more fun and dynamic, not to mention it goes faster. I didn't feel that way in GW2. With no trinity and no combat roles you also remove all depth from group combat. There was no difference in how I approached a fight against a giant spider alone than how I approached it with 6 other people wailing on it. Other than that it was harder to hit in melee with all the people in the way.

Alot of people make the complaint that Guild Wars 1 was more like a single player game. When I stopped to think about it and ask myself "What game does GW2 feel most like to me?" Guild Wars 1 was the answer I came up with. Yes I realize they aren't "the same" but that is the vibe I got and the feel the game gave me. In the end it felt to me like I was playing a single player game where a bunch of other dudes just happened to be hanging out around me. As a result in my opinion, GW2 really has no massive need for community outside it's server versus server combat. If anything makes GW2 a great "multiplayer" game it will be the PVP. However if all it took to be an "MMO RPG" was large zones with tons of players pvp'ing against each other than Battlefield 3 would be one too.

This discussion is also a reason why I think it was a bad idea to drop the RPG from MMO RPG to begin with.

@Karkarov: People argue that GW1 wasn't an MMO, because it wasn't. It had instanced areas and focused on small groups you assembled in towns before heading out for missions. It was essentially the same as Diablo, but that comparison doesn't work with GW2 in the slightest.

"Hearts" are different from Dynamic events, they're supposed to be completed solely, unlike dynamic events, which are massive server wide events which sometimes require over 30 people to complete. You maybe never encountered them in the beta because.. again, you were restricted to the starter zones. If you played up the level 15-ish content, you actually would have started to see some of those bigger events. The more players that join in an event, the more it scales to keep it challenging and yes, the more rewards it will give you (although the beta definitely had some balancing issues in this regard). There are also dungeons starting from level 30, which can designed for groups of 5 people and are made to be extremely challenging.

Finally, there IS a trinity GW2. The holy trinity has been replaced, since the "healing" aspect has been removed, but this is replaced with more of an all round support role that's meant to help players avoid damage, rather than just soak it up and rely on one person for healing. It makes each class more diverse and makes the team work and co-operation aspect a lot more important.. but again, if you're solely playing in low levelled areas, it's not something that's really going to come across.

Edit: Feel free to take this to a GW2 thread if you want to discuss it more. I won't derail the TERA thread more.