Asheron's Call

The Good
I played The Realm before playing AC. I thought that that game was awesome, I played for about 16 hours a day, all 10 days that I was on leave from boot camp (pretty sad considering I had 3 months pay in the bank ;))

A couple of years later I played my first beta, and that was for Asheron's Call. Creating my character wasn't really anything new, I'm not new at all to RPG's. Logging in the first time was really the shocker. Something about the open environment and the natural and sharp sounds immediately had me immersed.

Play control wasn't too bad to get the hang of since I could click most everything. I tried out the trainer dungeon. Next to the dungeon was a building with a couple of NPC's. One asked me to perform a task. Instead, I picked a direction and started running. With my goal the horizon (kinda like trying to get to the end of the rainbow :)) I constantly ended up back at the life stone (where you go when you die). Even dying was fun! My character used axe, and little did I know it but I had put all of my points into the wrong attributes (100 str, 100 quick, 10 coord, 100 end, 10 focus, 10 self for any AC'ers that happen across here) and ended up getting whooped quite often...by enemies much lower than my level! It was challenging to say the least but still fun!

Anyway, beta ended without a bang...which was disappointing to say the least. The ending had been building up and after staying up until 3am (on a weekday, work the next day!) the servers simply had the plug pulled. It was a precursor of things to come.

I bought the retail version in Sept 2000, which I think was very soon after it's release. The adventure was still very, very strong. I would spend hours playing this game trying nothing more than to get my icon to move a significant distance on the map. The land of Dereth is pretty big...running 30 minutes in one direction only moved me a hair's breadth on the map. The easier enemies resided close to where players start, so the further I would run the bigger and badder the enemies I was killed by.

Finally I found out that if I took a few portals I could get to where the really, REALLY big boys played. I'm talking level 60 players, it was insane! I would be the only level 12 mage running around on the Obsidian Plains (nasty place) trailing groups of uber high level players and re-looting the corpses of the monsters they left in their wake. I would find all kinds of great things...high quality armor, powerful magic jewelry, some of the finest weapons. The risk was great though.

If you die in AC you lose several of the most valuable items you are carrying (or wearing). Monsters made an entrance 99% of the time by just appearing (in a purple haze). If you were in the middle then 99.9% of the time you were dead very quickly. Especially if the 'spawn' is a group of level 105 Altered Drudges.

After re-rolling a couple of characters I found out that I enjoyed playing a mage the best. I was able to hurl war spells as monsters from a distance. This way I could run from the monster until it lost interest in me and returned to it's spawn point. Rinse and repeat and I was able to take down monsters many levels higher than myself. My first greatest accomplishment was to drop an Amploth Lugian (level 18) at level 1. It took me about 10 minutes but that one kill alone gave me enough experience to level to 2. My next greatest accomplishment was killing a level 276 Diamond Golem at level 33. That one took me about 30 minutes...and gave me 36,000 xp...at level 33 it takes a lot of xp to level...maybe several hundred thousand, so you can see where the returns diminish. Next was level 45 killing a Coral Golem (level 350'ish maybe?).

Anyway...getting back to some other part of the storyline...

My 3rd time at at level 16 (3rd reroll) I noticed that I was beginning to feel the tug of the need to gain as much xp in as little time as possible. Even at that low of a level it would take a couple of hours to gain enough xp to level. At level 32 I gained my fourth and final school of magic which allowed me to cast attribute and skill altering spells...basically I could increase my skills with magic and kill higher level monsters. That was when the Tusker slaughter began.

It did not end for another 13 levels or 2 months later. That is 2 months real time but about a week in game time...which is just sick because that is 7 days (solid) worth of time spent playing one video game, killing the same monster (the vast majority of my kills during those levels anyway). All of that so I could be level 45, thus making the level requirement to pass through the portal to go to Aerelinth(sp) Island. That was a great achievement, my single greatest in the game. It was all downhill from there.

Whether the Tusker rampage finally caught up and I was burning out or it had just dawned on me that I was only bettering my character to get better items to fight better monsters to better myself to get better items...hmmmmm kinda circular. Something happened and my interest from level 50'ish on started to dwindle, even though it was a very, very slow downward spiral.

I had seen several friends come and go. I had (together with my significant other...both IG and IRL ;)) started a clan and broken it up (heart wrenching event) to 'take a break' from the game. I'd spent most of my game time running solo but fighting in groups could be exhilerating....especially a mage and melee combo. I seen a great many changes in the game...but all things end. After 3 years of almost daily play I quit the game. My 'main' and only character that I played consistently had accrued 75 levels and nearly 2 months IG time. This was petty compared to the 100's of maxed out level 126's running around.

A few months after quitting I resubscribed (the "Call" was too much :P) and created an axe character, since I never completed my first one. It took me 2 weeks of RL time and about 3 days IG time to get him to level 65, so great were the changes over the years.

Both characters are currently in retirement...I resub just enough to keep them from being deleted forever.

One day I will let them fade....but I'm just not ready yet.

The Bad
At first the only thing I could complain about was the lag.

Next was the lack of XP received for killing monsters with levels so much higher than my own. You had to really work in this game to gain any XP...if you were solo.

The storyline could not be changed. This was a huge disapointment simply because we were promised that the players would impact the storyline. Case in point when the last crystal stood on Thistledown. The players there organized and defended the last crystal fiercely for 30 days, 24 hours a day. It was a very widely publicized event in the AC community. Because all of the other servers had destroyed their cystals the storyline had to take that path...and the last server? A chosen player was given super buffs, he entered the room with the crystal and cut down every opposing player. (the last crystal did kill him though, and he had to be revived on the spot I believe by the devs...if I remember correctly). Not being able to impact the storyline was definitely something I didn't like.

Later changes were made that re-organized all of the enemies, their levels, how much XP they gave and what loot they dropped. In the end it is far easier to level, which is mostly good. However the value of the currency is next to nothing. My level 65 character can hunt casually for 1 hour and gain half a million pyreals.

Housing seemed to be 1 step forward and 2 steps back. It was a great way to mule items and store extra equipment....but the towns became very empty. Maybe only the allegiance housing was a bad idea....

The Bottom Line
I think that you can try the game for a free. It's definitely worth it to try.