Bluehole Studio is a Korean MMORPG developer founded in March 2007 by former members of NCsoft’s Lineage II development team. Last week Bluehole officially unveiled its blockbuster MMORPG “TERA” at “Hangame Invitational 2009“, which has been planned to launch its closed beta test in the first half of 2009 in South Korea.

“TERA” has been planned and developed over almost three years, and nearly 32 billion won(roughly 27 millon dollars), including 8.5 billion won funded from Silicon Valley VCs, has been invested in it. According to Bluehole, “TERA” is differentiated from World of Warcraft or Lineage II by

“i.  Dynamic battle system                                                                                       ii.  Next generation graphics                                                                                    iii. Enhanced commodity experience”

“TERA”’s most distinguished feature from other MMORPGs is Non-Targeting battle mode. Gamers are usually pointing their mouse into a monster to hit, slash, and kill. “TERA”’s non-targeting mode, however, allows gamers to directly attack monsters without having to select monsters, which gives gamers more realistic battle environments. Some gamers say, on the other hand, the feature may cause adverse effects, saying that gamers are not familiar with the non-targeting mode so it may be too early to say “TERA” is the next flagship MMORPG. The answer to the question will be clear after the commercial launch of “TERA” in 2010.

As I posted before, Korean online game is really advanced. There are 3 major companies in Korean online game market, NHN, Nexon, and NCsoft.

Among them, especially NCsoft has their edge at MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). NCsoft’s Lineage seriese is a legendary in Korean online game industry, NCsoft launched Lineage 1 in 1998 and Lineage 2 in 2003 and both were very successfully in Korean market, also they are earning money from Europe and other Asia too. Recently NCsoft launched their new MMORPG named AION and it seems to be preety success so far. Following is AION’s official trailer.

AION was released as OBT (Open Beta Test) on November 11th, and it started to charge a fee for playing game from November 25th. However, it still keeps its online game ranking as #1 as follow.

With AION effect, visitors for NCsoft’s game portal, PlayNC(www.plaync.co.kr), are also increasing, and it is ranked as #5 among game portal in Korea. Actually, NCsoft hasn’t made the masterpiece again since its first big success, Lineage 1.  AION’s launching is very successful so far, and AION might be the the next step for NCsoft.