Perhaps due to declining sub numbers or to compete with the other free to play titles on the market, TERA is being converted to a full free to play model in Japan and Korea early 2013. This may be the best thing for the game in those territories, and it could be coming to the North American and European servers in then future.
NHN, the publisher of the title in Korea and Japan, announced the change in business model two days ago. It seems that the servers will still have subscriptions available to those who choose to continue to pay for a monthly sub, but there is not a lot of information on this point yet. The servers in both territories will see an increase in dungeon timers and a decrease in character slots.
The Korean server will be officially be going free to play on January 10th, with the Japanese TERA servers F2P conversion already completed. The Japanese cash shop will not be implemented until the middle of February.
Along with this shift comes a big update that TERA NA and EU won’t be seeing anytime soon, but players in those territories should keep an eye out to see if Frogster or En Masse end up taking the F2P route with their servers.
Source: MMO Culture
