Asheron's Call

Moby ID: 2847
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Description official descriptions

Asheron's Call is a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). This means that you can interact with hundreds (even thousands) of other players while exploring the gameworld provided by the game developers.

Like most RPGs, you start off in Asheron's Call as a rank beginner. As you gain experience, you gain power.

The gameworld is robust and, with the exception of zombies, skeletons, and other types of undead, Asheron's Call features completely original creatures not found in the typical fantasy environment (i.e. there are no Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Goblins, etc).

Character development is skill-based, rather than level-based or class-based. This means that your character isn't restricted in his/her ability because of his/her class, and it means that you don't have to wait until you reach a new level to increase your abilities.

The biggest thing Asheron's Call has going for it, however, is the fact that once a month the game developers change the world slightly and add to the ongoing storyline. Quests are added which can affect the story, and players can complete those quests if they possess enough skill and luck. The first year of Asheron's Call saw the release and eventual defeat of Bael'Zharon, a major bad guy in the Asheron's Call universe. It was the players who released him, and the players who defeated him. This provides a glimmer of the ultimate promise of the MMORPG genre: the chance for players to have permanent, lasting effects on the gameworld.

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Credits (Windows version)

128 People (107 developers, 21 thanks) · View all

Product Planner
Executive Producer and Producer
Lead Designer and Producer
Lead Server Engineer and Producer
Lead Graphics Engineer and Lead Software Engineer
Lead Game Systems Engineer
Lead User Interface Engineer
Lead Artist
Lead Technical Artist
Quality Assurance Manager
Designers
Game Systems Engineers
Graphics Engineers
Server/Networking Engineers
User Interface Engineers
Artists
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 82% (based on 33 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 21 ratings with 5 reviews)

My first and favorite MMORPG

The Good
At the time I started playing Asheron's Call was around 1999 during the public beta. I remember getting a game magazine at walmart and it had a article about a new game that was being developed and it came with a public beta version of Asheron's Call. I had never played a MMORPG before so popped it in and started playing. The game was interesting as the details were unlike most games, it made the world seem real and the characters and interface were very friendly, fast paced and the game made you feel like you had a lot of freedom and control in a 3rd person view.

I remember going into towns and there would be so many people chatting or trading, towns were very busy and lively. The quests were fun and dungeons were good as well. The monarch system was interesting as well as the fellowship system for sharing XP. Also I think Asherons Call had a very unique system of weapons and armor. Gameplay was a definite plus.

Perhaps my favorite feature while playing Asherons Call was the PK server Darktide. Asherons Call had a PVP system that should be aknowledged and incorporated into other games. First of all in Darktide you could kill or be killed at anywhere at anytime, you were never safe except for when you were respawning after being killed by another PK which you had 5 minutes to turn red again. You could lose your loot or loot others which made the game challenging and competitive. Perhaps the most unique about Darktide was that everything was based on a "trust" relationship and forming alliances and knowing people. I can recall many times when I was a newbie being killed by level 50's for no reason and it was a harsh existance. It's a shame very few games actually have the balls to do the same as AC did with the risk factor.

The Bad
There were a few minor annoyances, lag was always a huge issue, over the period AC has been out the population has dropped from thousands and thousands to sometimes a few hundred players. My biggest complaint was not necessarily the housing but rather mansions, when guilds were allowed to have mansions it wasn't so much a big deal until mansion recall was added. Most people left the towns in the game to sit at the mansions. Other problems were macroers and XP chains which caused people to level rather fast, also as a result many new players are discouraged which doesn't leave a bright future for AC.

The Bottom Line
It was an excellent game in it's prime, but now the magic has somewhat disappeared. It's still enjoyable to a degree especially darktide if you want a challenge, but don't expect those once populated towns or large groups of people to go on quests or hunting with you like the old days.

Windows · by matt cohen (10) · 2007

Agree with kbmb

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.

Windows · by The Holy Moly (19) · 2004

An MMORPG designed with the solo player in mind.

The Good
I like the fact that the game is designed for solo play rather than group play. This means that when I log in to Asheron's Call, I can start playing the game immediately, rather than spending 30 minutes or more looking for a group.

The landscape graphics are, IMHO, better than the landscape graphics in the only other 3D, 1st-person MMORPG currently available on the market (i.e. Everquest).

The continually updating storyline is a fabulous and wholly underrated aspect of Asheron's Call, and is one of the areas where it stands head and shoulders above the more popular Everquest. Each month, the developers of Asheron's Call change the game world. They add new monsters, new dungeons, new landscape features, and/or new quests, etc. All for free. This can lead to some of the most profound gaming experiences you can imagine. Example:

Asheron's Call came online in late November, 1999. To commemorate the 1-year anniversary of the release of Asheron's Call, Turbine planned on letting Bael'Zharon (AC's Big Bad Guy(tm)) run loose around the world. But to involve the players, they set up the following circumstance:

1) Bael'Zharon was imprisoned in a crystal construct called "The Shard of the Herald."
2) Destroying the Shard of the Herald would get you phat lewt. But it would also release Bael'Zharon.
3) The Shard of the Herald was located in a dungeon that could only be entered if you had activated the "Player vs. Player" flag (allowing you to attack, and be attacked by, other players).
4) There was an item right next to the dungeon entrance which would allow you to activate (or deactivate) the "Player vs. Player" flag with ease.

This setup led to a situation where a group of people banded together to defend the Shard of the Herald from those who wanted to destroy it. On every server but one, these defenders either arrived too late, or they fell to the invaders. But on one server, Thistledown, the defenders managed to hold off the attackers for the entire month. Every day you could log in to the various Asheron's Call websites around the Net and see updates on how the Thistledown defenders were doing. It was one of the most incredible gaming experiences I've ever had.

The Bad
The chat interface is REALLY bad, especially when compared to Everquest's chat interface.

Partly because of the solo-oriented design, and partly because of the lame chat interface, Asheron's Call is a much less social game than other MMORPGs on the market, particularly Everquest. It's not impossible to make new friends in Asheron's Call, but it's a lot more difficult than it is in other games of the genre.

The Bottom Line
An incredibly addicting time-waster that will appeal to a different audience than Everquest, but which is just as much fun.

Windows · by Afterburner (486) · 2001

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Trivia

Pong mini game

When typing in "@logopolis" (without quotes) in the chat window., the player will be able to play a miniature game of Pong in a window that opens up.

This feature was removed when the game was patched, presumably because of copyright reasons.

References

  • Ulgrim the Unpleasant, one of the NPCs in the game that offers sometimes useful advice, will sometimes tell you, "You cannot always acquire what you desire. You cannot always acquire what you desire. But if you attempt it occasionally, you potentially could discover, that you acquire what you require. I'm thinking of setting it to music."

This is a reference to the old Rolling Stones tune "You Can't Always Get What You Want". The actual lyrics are "You can't always get what you want,

You can't always get what you want,

But if you try sometimes,

You just might find,

You get what you need." * The most harmless creatures in the game are rabbits. With the exception of one extraordinary white rabbit at 45.6S, 87.0W, near the town of Ayan Baqur. This particular white rabbit is a tribute to the vicious rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and some would say he's just as deadly... "Look at the bones!" * Just before the release of the movie The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ringin December 2001, Ulgrim the Unpleasant would sometimes say, "Give me any rings you don't want. I've been collecting them ever since I found one near the water the other day." This is a reference to how The One Ring from The Lord of the Rings was lost and then found again in a river.

Awards

  • GameSpy
    • 2001 – #27 Top Game of All Time
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 03/2000 - Best Online Game in 1999

Information also contributed by Maw

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Adam Baratz.

Additional contributors: Afterburner, casimps1, Apogee IV, Patrick Bregger.

Game added December 29, 2000. Last modified March 22, 2024.