TERA : Neither Publisher to Block IPs
According to a new post on the North American TERA forums, community manager Evan 'Scapes' Berman reassures customers that there will be no IP blocking or country restrictions put in place by either Frogster or En Masse when the game goes live. There has been much discussion of the topic since the announcement was made that Frogster would be publishing TERA in Europe. Concerns were raised about IP blocking and/or regional restrictions forcing players to one publisher or the other. This, according to Berman, is not the case:
We're pleased to address a question that has been a hot topic in the community since En Masse Entertainment and Frogster announced the local publishing of TERA in North America and Europe - "Will players in Europe and North America be able to choose to play on game servers in either territory?"
The answer is that En Masse and Frogster will not implement IP blocking or other territorial restrictions to prevent connections from outside of their respective service regions. This means that in Europe or North America, you will be able to freely select which territory you wish to play TERA.
Our goal is to give players the choice as to which server they are going to discover the world of TERA. In a time that players are becoming more connected around the world, we believe that IP blocking has no place in a world class Action MMO. Note that accounts created with one publisher will not be able to access the other publisher's servers. Additionally, player data such as characters or progression will not be shared or transferrable between different publishers' servers.