Russia and CIS regions blocked from Tera's European servers

By Robert Purchese Published 2 February, 2012

Operator Frogster cites "legal reasons".

European servers for new MMO Tera will IP-block gamers trying to access the game from Russia and from any former Commonwealth Independent State, operator Frogster has told Eurogamer.

"Those residing in Russia, or a former Commonwealth Independent State, will unfortunately be unable to access Frogster servers in Europe for legal reasons," the company explained.

"We apologise for the inconvenience, especially to those who were looking forward to playing the game.

"Thanks to those who have taken the time to provide feedback, it is with great regret that this measure has been taken."

Frogster's comments follow a controversial announcement by Tera's North American operator En Masse about who will and won't be able to play the game.

"It is with great regret that this measure has been taken."

Frogster, publisher, Tera Europe

''En Masse will block IPs based on region. Asia, Africa, Russia, and the Middle East are included on the block list. While we appreciate that there are players in these regions who would enjoy playing on En Masse servers, it's unfortunate that the vast majority of Internet traffic we see from these regions are from cyber-criminals relating to account theft, gold-farming and other hacking behaviour," En Masse announced.

Frosgter's position was, until now, unknown.

Tera is a Korean MMO with a combat system that requires you constantly target opponents rather than select them, then work through your hotbar abilities. Tera also leaves dodging up to you. It's more of an action game, if you like, and can be played using an Xbox 360 controller.

Tera's longer name is The Exiled Realm of Arborea. Tera's longer name is not Tera Patrick.

Guild Wars maker NCsoft joined Tera in headlines recently by trying to block the game's North American launch. NCsoft claimed Tera developer Bluehole stole software and assets.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (13) Latest comment 3 weeks ago

  • crsmithy #1 3 weeks ago

    "Tera's longer name is not Tera Patrick."

    Now that would be interesting

  • darkmorgado #2 3 weeks ago

    In Mother Russia, game plays you!

  • Rogueywon #3 3 weeks ago

    Sad for legitimate players in the affected regions, but my experiences in other MMOs over the years does suggest that the concerns about gold sales, scams and account thefts are highly justified.

    I've suspected for a while that we might actually start to see a reverse-application of the "Great Firewall of China" principle, with Western companies (and Japanese/Australian) limiting access to their services from countries with strong associations with behaviour like this.

  • bobfish09 #4 3 weeks ago

    Someone has probably picked up the license to operate the game in Russia, keeping out gold farmers and cheaters isn't a legal reason.

  • Casserole #5 3 weeks ago

    This just applies to European servers, right? Makes no sense for a Korean made MMO to block out their own home audience.

  • overcorpse #6 3 weeks ago

    @bobfish09 Have you ever played an MMO?The russians are just as bad as the chinese for gold farming and such like.

  • actionfitz #7 3 weeks ago

    "En Masse will block IPs based on region. Asia, Africa, Russia, and the Middle East are included on the block list. While we appreciate that there are players in these regions who would enjoy playing on En Masse servers, it's unfortunate that the vast majority of Internet traffic we see from these regions are from cyber-criminals relating to account theft, gold-farming and other hacking behaviour," En Masse announced."

    lol fucking what?
    pretty harsh generalization there boys...

  • DDevil #8 3 weeks ago

    From what I've heard of the game Tera sounds like pure waste of bytes anyway.

  • bobfish09 #9 3 weeks ago

    @Casserole

    European servers - Block on Russia

    North American servers - Block on Russia, Asia, Africa and Middle East

  • bobfish09 #10 3 weeks ago

    @overcorpse I wouldn't care to judge, but either way, that isn't a LEGAL reason.

  • cowell #11 3 weeks ago

    @bobfish09
    I'm with you on this. The legal reason for blocking access to EU servers is to maximise the value of a local service running in Russian in an agreed contract. My guess is that the Russian localisation won't be ready in time for the EU launch and they need to stop them from joining the EU game rather than wait.

  • overcorpse #12 3 weeks ago

    @bobfish09 Not a legal reason no but they are just protecting their game from the parasitic leaches that destroy ingame economies.And i for one say Kudos.

  • Balverine #13 3 weeks ago

    "Guild Wars maker NCsoft.."
    Jesus fuck I wish people got this one right. NCsoft is the PUBLISHER. ArenaNet made it.

    Don't even say that shitty publisher made such a great game.