I miss Asheron's Call.

[Chob]

Those who clicked on this thread probably know the game. I wish there was a mmo developer out there who'd have the balls to create a modern mmorpg based on Asheron's Call. If you compare Asheron's Call's crafting system, it's corpse system, it's pvp system and it's unique combat system to the average MMORPG out there now I think the correct term to describe all the other mmorpg's is carebear. A few details:

1) If you die, you drop half your money on you, and a number of pieces from your gear on a corpse. You will be ported to your lifestone, probably best described in modern terms as your binding point. You also lose 5 % of your 'vitae' which is life force, reducing your overall effectiveness by 5 %, this is a debuff that goes away with time but does stack if you die multiple times in a short period of time. You can probably already guess that dying is really something you should avoid as much as possible.

2) Crafting has a tinkering system, where you can apply salvaged materials to an piece of armor or weapon. This is called tinkering, and actually has a chance of failure. Unlike most games, if the tinkering fails, the item is destroyed. This.. can lead to quite frustrating situations but also adds a certain level of challenge to crafting. There are many factors which influence the chance of success though. Max tinkers = 10, the closer you get to the 10th tinker the more chance it will fail and destroy the item.

3) If you're killed by a player on a pvp server, said player can loot the items on your corpse as spoils of victory.

4) Combat is a mix of the infamous clicking/keybinding skills and the skill to actually dodge projectiles. Yes, you can actually dodge fireballs, frostbolts and what not. Not to mention arrows. If it flies in the air, with enough skill, it's dodgable. Creates much more interesting pvp environment (and pve to an extent) where skill matters.

5) It has housing. If you fail to pay rent (called upkeep if I remember right) for a certain period of time, your house becomes accessible to other players, and they can buy it as well. If they do so before you manage to clear out your house, everything in there will now have a new owner.

6) There is no max level. Though technically you can reach such a high level where all your selected skills are maxed out. Leveling beyond this point only adds to e-peen, but the amount of time needed to get there is inhuman.

7) The guild system is very interesting. It's based on a hierarchy where you swear fealty to someone. The person you swear to is called your patron, and if someone swears to you they're called your vassal. Everyone can have up to 12 vassals. A certain % of the experience a vassal earns will be passed on to the patron, the amount being variable to some modifiers, skills such as Leadership on the patron, and Loyalty on the vassal. Even a certain amount of experience the patron receives from it's vassals, will again be passed on to his patron. As you can see, this creates a very interesting guild exp hierarchy, where if you build a proper, balanced 'tree' the exp flow will be insane. Especially to the person all the way at the top, called the Monarch. Monarchies can have their own guild house, huge villas.

Downside is this game is now.. 12 years old I believe. Graphics are outdated. But the game is actually still going. It doesn't have millions of subscribers like WoW does, but it's in the least impressive that they're still adding monthly content updates after 12 years. This game was my first mmorpg, and if the graphics was updated along with a bigger playerbase I wouldn't hesitate returning to it. I've only described the top of the iceberg here!

I do understand this is not a game for everyone, typical carebears from wow will just /cringe seeing half the list I wrote up there.

TL;DR: I miss the 'hardcoreness' of the old mmorpg's. Wow has lowered it's general difficulty curve to the lowest common denominator.

[grandpab]

I'm right there with you. AC was the greatest MMO ever created, and definitely one of the more hardcore games. This was a game before casuals were labeled as casuals and before MMOs were pretty much mainstream. There was no bitching about content being rehashed, or being released too slow, or even really any bitching about the game at all and things were so peaceful. Anyone who played this game during its peak knows exactly how good it was.

No other game has had a better community either, and I think a lot of that had to do with the allegiance system, subway, and how for the most part you had to group for quests, and group for the better exp spots. To this day I can still remember the names of the really good patrons I had. I miss patrons so much, those people would become your best friend in the game, and almost like a mentor to you.

The death system was pretty hardcore too, if you died you better hope you were stocked with death items so you didn't lose your shit. Also there were a lot of times where if you died on a quest you were left behind because you couldn't complete it due to timers. You were only allowed in once or able to be flagged for the quest every so often, so if you died you were screwed. There was no summoning either, so if you died anywhere you had to run back and a lot of times if you were doing something important chances are you had a pretty far run to get there, that's another reason you were left behind on quests if you died.

The loot system is another one of my favorites, random generated loot with random stats was so good. You could find the best item off anything. I remember the theories about the wi flag too.

I remember running around looking for cottages that people lost because they quit and stopped paying for it. You could find some really good stuff sometimes. Sometimes I'd run around just to find cottages in cool spots that I could buy.

I'd like to see the MMO community of today deal with the magic system before they added prismatic tapers too. Back when you had to experiment with different components to learn the hundreds of spells available, and there was a chance you would fizzle and just think those weren't the right components and you'd move on to the next.

The ability to dodge war spells and arrows was the greatest thing about the game. Playing a mage was so much fun, strafing left and right while you put out your vulns so you can deal some crazy damage...fast cast, run casting, breaking the animations...that shit took skill to be good at and be able to dodge what's coming at you.

That's why I'm so looking forward to GW2, it'll be the first game in sooo long that'll have that similar combat system of dodging.

The community was entirely different back in those days. People were so much more laid back and happy. They were good times...People would help each other out because they knew you would return the favor. Plus there had to be trust, there wasn't always houses to mule your gear in. You either had to trust somebody to pass your stuff on to your mule, or you had a muling spot out in the wild that was a safe spot that you thought nobody would find.

I wouldn't even need a graphics update in order to go back, if there were more people playing I'd be paying for a sub right now.

What server were you on?

[Zyzzyx]

I played on Morningthaw from April 2000 to about 2003. I loved it, and it was my first MMO (around 15 years old). I actually went back not long ago to check it out, the community is sadly mostly bots at this point. That being said, Turbine has released steady monthly updates the entire time, which is just plain amazing. They've added so much content that if the community was still very strong the game could still kick ass. Sadly, it will likely die soon. Has a huge place in my heart as being my favorite MMO ever; it kept me going through high school and paved the way for my love of MMO games.

I still miss you, AC.

Edit: God I miss dodging war spells before they "fixed" it. The "exploit" made pvp ridiculously fun for mages, I hated the new system of "you have moved too far". Pvp was epic. Poor melee, though...

Edit two: Oh right, dying...I went back after a few years and went back to the awesome Vesayen (I think it was Vesaye, whichever had the gold mobs), after I had already played it upon its release. I died. Then I went to my corpse, and died again. I forgot to buff my robe. I died again. I had like 4 corpses somewhere, anywhere, and no gear. I lost all my gear. I loved it, because damn you paid for mistakes. Carebear indeed.

[Chob]

Good points made there, regarding subway and befriending patrons/vassals alike. The community was unique to say in the least, there were ofcourse bad apples as well but overall the community was really great.

I played mainly on Morningthaw, where I was monarch to about 1000 characters sworn under me for a few years, name was Ileysa, specced mage/archer. I have had toons on other servers but not played so much that people would remember them.

And god, I remember muling. Also the addons that allowed you to run a character as a trade vendor.. omg so much fun! I would literally stack a character with tons of stuff, stick it in subway and let it stand there as a vendor while I went off to work or school. I come back 8 hours later and find myself a good deal richer. The fact that it was based on an addon meant you could pick whatever currency you wanted; if one was trying to complete a certain armor set and needed materials for that, you could simply only accept those materials as payment.

Ahh the good days.

[grandpab]

That's another thing I miss, the currency. The currency was always changing, and it varied between servers. There were SIKs, sing keys, trade notes, plat scarabs, and eventually salvage.

I played on a few different servers. I started out on Frostfell because that was where my friends played, and eventually moved to Harvestgain with one of my friends. I also dabbled on Darktide a bit but I never took it too seriously. Darktide was some serious shit though, you had to join a guild that basically "owned" a dungeon in order to do any hunting. Then there was the pk guilds and the anti guilds. Pk guilds were at war with everybody, and anti guilds were at peace with other anti guilds but at war with pk guilds, so you had to know which guilds were pk and which were anti if you didn't want to piss some people off.

When the game was fairly new, before Dark Majesty, even the Darktide lifestone areas at Holtburg were fun as hell. There'd be so many noobies running around killing each other, occasionally you'd have a pk come and kill everyone, or sometimes an anti would come to kill any of the higher lvls that were pking the noobs.

[Chob]

There were many different things that were valuable, and eventually ofcourse lost their value. You gave a few examples yourself, SIKs, singularity keys etc were really 'hot' for a while, but later lost their value. I wonder what the currency is these days I believe my brother actually returned to asheron's call not long ago (which sortoff prompted me to post about it) but after doing some digging it seems like the servers are really ghost towns now (bot towns might be a better way to describe it). So I don't think I want to return anymore, even though it is tempting, I feel like there won't be a community to speak of since not many players play anymore.

Too bad AC2 failed so miserably.

[grandpab]

I went back and played sometime within about the last year and a half. It was pretty cool actually. They added this new quest hub place, and it has all of the older quests like Dagger of Ticola, Barons Amulet, Superior helm & Fiery shield, Lilithas Bow, things like that. After you get the item you hand it to an npc and he gives you a pretty decent amount of exp. They did it speed up leveling to get to 50 faster so you can get to the better hunting spots. http://asheron.wikia.com/wiki/Facility_Hub_Quests It's so good for a nostalgia trip.

They added daily quests for the higher levels and they're pretty damn difficult. There was a couple I couldn't do without my patron. You could get some pretty good rewards from the currency you got from the quests too, if you got lucky.

---------- Post added 2011-12-01 at 04:25 AM ----------

There's another thing I just remembered...Vitae points, yet another penalty for dying. You lose 5% of your stats from each death up to 40% and the only way to get rid of it was to go hunting and get some exp, it took so much exp to remove 1%. Just having vitae could get you killed since you couldn't evade as well, or land attacks as easily.

and now for some places for more nostalgia lol...Golem Hill, Lugian Citadel, Black Spawn Den, Direlands, Ayan, Fort Teth, Eastham beach for the golems, Obsidian plains...so many places with so many memories...

This is the only game I've played that actually had secret hunting spots too. You could find places nobody else knows about just by running around the wild.

[Chob]

Yeah, incredible isnt it? I'm trying to remember that dungeon I hunted at for a long time.. pretty much alone. It had golems in the top side of it, and if you went further in and down it had a few undead Revenants. I know that place was farmed for Motes for a while when they were popular. I hunted in that place all the time leveling up my alts, mules etc. Not many went there.

[ZenX]

10 years before I would have been able to participate in such a thing, however, essentially, such software is more of a second life than a game.

The world needs people to contribute to society without having to sacrifice their fun, such is the way for the civilization to develop and spread, and such form of gaming is the bane of society.

[grandpab]

Halls of Metos! I leveled there a bunch too, it was a good spot.

Remeber GSA? That shit was so uber, then the quests to get the different elemental gems were so much fun, and you had to get the stone tool to be able to remove the gem...that was another good quest. I always wanted prepatch GSA but I never got it lol, was way too expensive for me.

and how could I forget Olthoi Horde Den

[Umbra]

Not having played Asheron's Call personally, but I remember hearing about it and being rather interested.

Many of the features you list, though, remind me of the original Guild Wars - the crafting system, the vitae ("death penalty" in GW), possible to keep leveling indefinitely - and the upcoming Guild Wars 2 - player housing, although without the rent aspect, and dodge-combat - so that might be interesting for you. I'm not saying the games are exactly alike, but they incorporate some similar features.

[Zyzzyx]

Not having played Asheron's Call personally, but I remember hearing about it and being rather interested.

Many of the features you list, though, remind me of the original Guild Wars - the crafting system, the vitae ("death penalty" in GW), possible to keep leveling indefinitely - and the upcoming Guild Wars 2 - player housing, although without the rent aspect, and dodge-combat - so that might be interesting for you. I'm not saying the games are exactly alike, but they incorporate some similar features.

Some of the most feared early enemies were called "Umbra Shadows". You're an enemy!

[grandpab]

Some of the most feared early enemies were called "Umbra Shadows". You're an enemy!

I'll fire vuln him

Grandpab says, "Cruath Quatak"
Grandpab says, "Zojak Quaguz"

[Bearshield]

AC was my first MMORPG and that game was so much fun! I used to love hopping in random portals just to see where I'd end up. I used to die in the worst places lol and then one of my friends would of course have to find my body and take my stuff lol. If I got lucky, they might give me some of it back. Buffs actually made a difference instead of just being something your character is balanced around. And you didn't have to play a cookie cutter class, you could be a melee with some magic ability or a caster who could heal and nobody cried about how it would affect pvp. There was so much to see and do in AC. And oh my gosh do you remember the white rabbit??

Do you know to this day they are still doing monthly content patches for that game and the sub fee is still only 10 bucks?

[grandpab]

do you remember the white rabbit??

Pookie! I was pro at running around the tree.

[babalou1]

LC player here.

I miss AC so much. To bad AC2 was horrible.

Best memories:
When the water turned to blood and shadows were everywhere because Bael'Zharon was loose.
Going to Aerlinthe the first time and killing Lady Aerfalle.
Olthoi Queen.
The ENTIRE Martine Story line.
Watching Elysa and Asheron both get 1 shot because the dev's controlling them forgot to buff themselves.
EDIT: Getting my Bunny Orb and PPGSA


EDIT: Dark-Fyre and Night-Lyte of LC

[tusker]

I played on Solclaim since the day it launched. AC was an incredible game and quite original (and weird) in many ways. I played it heavily after UO. Looking back, I loved it. Some aspects of AC seem rather repetitive looking back (the grinding, killing the same stuff over and over just to level) but in general, the initial experience of AC was incredible. Ok ok, so there's grinding in WoW, too. There's similarities, yeah. Looking back, I think of AC in a good light, I can just see where the flaws are, I guess. It wasn't perfect, neither is WoW, etc.

[Zyzzyx]

I'll fire vuln him

Grandpab says, "Cruath Quatak"
Umbra Shadow resists your spell.
Grandpab says, "Zojak Qua...crap"

Worse when you have high skill but it still happens...

[Big Law]

Remember Shard of The Herald? Remember TD (I think) being the only server to defend him and turbine having to control NPC's to kill off the players so the storyline could advance on that server lol.

How about Turbine controlling Bael'zharon and attacking cities, or when Bael and Asheron, both controlled by Turbine, fought each other.

That's one thing I loved about AC. The devs would control NPC's and make the game world a lot more interesting. Remember BSD? Remember That Tusker Island? How about Aerlinthe? OMG What about CRATER! hahah I remember there was a bug to kill that fire mob over and over in the water by getting him stuck behind the invisible wall, he gave some good ass xp.... Remember draining Tuskers from behind a wall for xp? Then feeling good as hell when you were finally able to tank them lol!... How about Tuskers critting your HANDS hard as fuck.

I also remember making level 1's on darktide and just having a war at the holtburg starting area with other level 1's... rofl


WHOA... PEERLESS ATLANS!!!!! OMG How about the major fire stone quest and falling to your death because you sucked at jumping or didn't have high enough jump skill???? AHHHHHH AC owned all!!

[grandpab]

I think I started playing just after the BZ vs AC stuff, but I remember the story from my friends about the one friend we had who died when he was looting the chest to get the staff from that event. He got so mad he threw his monitor and broke it lol. That staff was so rare though, I can only remember there being 1 or 2 people with it.

There was one event I remember where the devs were controlling one of the Monougas that were like 100 feet tall. He went on a rampage killing people in a town and there were so many people trying to kill it, but I spent the entire time casting heals on it lol. I tried to keep it alive as long as I could.