TERA Fansite Stretches Across the Pacific
En Masse’s very own Minea quizzed the founder of the TERAfied website about mixing news and opinion and getting info straight from the source. Here’s her interview with Raptorak, webmaster for TERAfied.
First, thank you for creating TERAfied, a great site! How were you introduced to TERA, and what made you decide to create a TERA fansite? I was actually introduced to TERA from back when I was playing Aion and Lineage II. While I was playing these, a friend gave a heads-up about a new MMORPG (and at that point it was claimed to be Lineage III). It was the Lineage III part that really caught my attention in the beginning, and as newer information came to light, I fell in love with how different the game was. To me, getting away from the tab-targeting style we’re so used to is great just because it’s different. It adds to the strategy, and I like the challenge.
As for why I chose to run a fansite for it, I love journalism. Mix this with TERA, and you have a new fansite!
A community member commented that TERAfied features news from its Korean version as well as the North American one from En Masse. Additionally, TERAfied has news and opinion articles both. What would you say TERAfied’s best feature is? Its focus? I’d say its best feature is my openness to being realistic and honest with readers. One thing you’ll notice about both TERAfied and terRIFTic (a Rift fansite I run as well) is that there are both positive and negative articles. A lot of players try to relate ”fansites“ towards being nothing but ”fanboyism“ and positive remarks, when really it should be about bringing to light various things that are impacting the games.
The focus of the site is pretty much anything TERA-related. I think a big part of keeping up with the game and its future is to keep up with what’s happening with the other versions as well.
What has been the most difficult aspect of creating TERAfied? Most rewarding? These are actually both one and the same: getting the word out. The hardest part about it so far has been getting players to know it exists (without feeling spammy), but as more do learn about it, there’s a lot of pride in knowing that everything is working out.
What plans do you have for TERAfied in the future? This is by far one of the hardest questions to answer. What I’d ideally like to do is create a lot of conversation among players and the site, as well as hold contests and such. Players can help make this happen by sharing input on the site with me (positive and negative), whether it’s about topics they like/dislike, the layout of the site, or anything else. As it is, I’m a single person, and so having more input helps to sway and shape the site to better fit readers and what they want.
Anything you’d like to say to the TERAfied users? To En Masse? To the users: feel free to contact me for any reason whatsoever! Whether it’s a complaint, comment, suggestion, etc., it’s all taken very seriously. Also, I’m on the lookout for anyone else who would like to help out as a contributor, as I feel more voices will be beneficial to the community as well. And to those who enjoy the site, please help share the word with others!
To En Masse: thanks for a wonderful game! All games have their ups and downs, and this is especially true when you are moving into what is essentially a brand new world.
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