Asheron's Call

Asheron's Call
Developer(s) Turbine Entertainment Software
Publisher(s) Microsoft (1999–2004); Turbine (2004–2010); Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (2010-)
Designer(s) Toby Ragaini, Eri Izawa, Chris Pierson, Chris Foster
Platform(s) Windows
Release date(s) November 2, 1999
Genre(s) MMORPG
Mode(s) Multiplayer

Asheron's Call (AC) is a fantasy MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) for Microsoft Windows-based PCs developed and published by Turbine Entertainment. Though it was developed by the Turbine team (with Microsoft's extensive assistance), it was published as a Microsoft title until 2004. Asheron's Call is set on the island continent of Dereth and several surrounding smaller islands and archipelagos on the fictional planet of Auberean. The game is played in a large, seamless 3D virtual world which can host thousands of players' characters (or avatars) at a time.

Released on November 2, 1999, it was the third major MMORPG to be released[1][2] and was developed at the same time as Ultima Online and EverQuest.[3] After initial success its subscription numbers dropped as newer MMORPGs moved into the market. All of its host servers are still online over 15 years after the game's original launch.

Gameplay

Set in a heroic fantasy world[3] Asheron's Call allows players to create a character, or avatar, from one of six in-game races. The player allocates a limited number of attribute points (such as 'Strength', 'Coordination', and 'Quickness') and selects skills (such as 'Unarmed Combat', 'War Magic' and 'Melee Defense') for their character, with those base skills starting at a level determined by the character's attributes. Unlike many other games of the genre characters are not locked into a specific class, and can even reallocate previously selected skills to acquire other skills later in the game. Gameplay involves earning experience points ('XP') through a variety of activities, including engaging and defeating monsters in combat, fulfilling quests, and interacting with NPCs. Those earned experience points can then be invested to improve the character's abilities by 'spending' them on attributes or skills. Additional skill points are awarded after the character reaches certain levels, and these skill points can then be used to acquire or 'train' new skills. In addition to earning experience, questing and combat often yield recoverable 'loot', such as armor, weapons, health potions, and spell scrolls. Many types of loot can be improved or imbued with special spells and effects via Asheron's Call's 'tinkering' crafting system.

With their monthly updates, including supplementary content, and occasional live 'world events', Asheron's Call offered "episodic narrative content, periodic new quests, and events that visibly affect the entire world."[3] The game's currency is the Pyreal.[4] The world itself is large at over 500 square miles (1,300 km2).[5] Unlike many other games in the genre, there are no zones or 'instances' on the world's surface. This means players can cross the world on foot, without loading screens or invisible barriers, and any terrain that can be seen in the distance is a real object in the world. The world is also dotted with a system of one-way portals which expedite travel. Some of the portals also lead to intricate dungeons. Many of the dungeons are part of quests and contain unique treasures. The original magic system had specific formulae for each spell that the caster had to discover through trial and error. Magic was challenging and rare. This system of spell components was later phased out and replaced with a simpler system wherein magic casters would carry a "foci" for each of the magic schools they were trained in (creature, item, life and war) and a series of taper candles and scarabs. Each spell is learned from a scroll, either purchased or found as treasure. The old system was left in the game as an alternative.[6]

Players connect their avatars to 'lifestones', where the avatar will be resurrected if killed. Resurrected characters lose half their pyreals, one or more valuable items, and also temporarily losing a certain percentage of their constitution—their primary and secondary strengths and characteristics—in what is known as a "vitae penalty".[7] The player may then bring their resurrected avatar to the place where the death occurred and recover the item(s) from their own lingering 'corpse'. In player-killer ('PK') battles, the victor is allowed to take the dropped items from the vanquished. Regardless, the resulting 'vitae penalty' is removed by gaining a modest amount of additional experience, or 'XP'. Player Killers ('PKs') are players who have chosen to change their characters' status in order to enable them to attack, or be attacked by, other PKs in Player vs Player combat. On most servers, players by default are prevented from attacking each other and must voluntarily change their status to 'PK'. Asheron's Call features a unique allegiance and fealty system that creates formal links between players and rewards cooperative play.[3] A player of equal or lower level can swear allegiance to a player of the same or higher level, becoming a vassal of a patron. The patron earns a small percentage of bonus experience based on what the vassal makes, while the vassal is motivated to seek a patron in exchange for money, items, game knowledge or protection.[8] Players may also join together in fellowships, temporarily splitting the experience they gain amongst themselves.[8]

Characters can create many useful items using the Alchemy skill, such as oils that imbue missiles with elemental qualities (fire, acid, etc.) and gems that increase resistance to different types of damage. Alchemists can create infusions that can be applied to food items to increase the amount of stamina recovered, or recover health or mana.[9] Alchemy also can be used to brew health, magic, and stamina potions. Players can craft ammunition and cook foods include cake, beer, nougat and rations. These can then be combined with oils to increase health, mana and stamina.[10]

Synopsis

The story of Asheron’s Call spans across several worlds and thousands of years. The primary worlds in the story are Ispar, the world where the human characters in the game originated, and Auberean, the gigantic world where Dereth, a small island continent and the game's setting, is located. The game's monthly updates compose a story. The history of Auberean spans back 35,000 to 40,000[11] years. A race of beings known as the Empyreans dominated the world for most of its history. They were tall slender humanoids with lifespans of 1,000 years[12] and were divided into several cultures including Falatacot, Dericost, Haebrous, and Yalaini. These cultures had many conflicts over the years, but eventually, in a world of many oceans and seas, the 'Seaborne Empire' of the Yalaini became the dominant society. A Yalaini and member of the royal family, Asheron Realaidain, was born approximately 2,500 years prior to the time when the story starts for players; when they 'arrive' in Dereth. Shortly after Asheron's birth, a war began between the Yalaini people and an army of Shadows, creatures of darkness and chaos, led by a demonic nemesis named Bael'Zharon, the Hopeslayer. The war with the Shadows lasted over 500 years and the Yalaini, pushed back from the rest of Auberean to the island of Dereth, were nearly defeated. As a last resort, Asheron and the Yalaini council of five mages were able to stave off their doom and eventually defeat Bael'Zharon through the arts of planar magic - magic pertaining to the planes of existence and the space in between them known as portal space. Using a crystal array, the council was able to seal Bael'Zharon in another plane. The sealing caused a great explosion, and all members of the council were killed. But Asheron survived, protected by Falatacot Blood rites performed by his mother and a Falatacot-blooded 'witch' named Adja, just prior to the explosion. With Bael'zharon banished, the Shadow armies retreated and the Yalaini people were saved.

Asheron continued to research planar magic. Eventually, the Yalaini mastered this art of magic and were able to use it to create portals from one location to another. They used these portals to explore all of Auberean, and eventually began exploring other worlds, including the home world of humans known as Ispar. In their explorations, the Yalaini came to a world dominated by numerous giant insect species. One of these species were known as the Olthoi, which killed one of the explorers. The Emperor of the Yalaini demanded that Olthoi be brought back for research and possibly used as weapons for the empire. This action, along with the mistake of a wizard named Gaerlan, would be the doom of the Yalaini. The Olthoi rebelled and the Yalaini lost the war. After 100 years, all surviving Yalaini were pushed back to the island of Dereth, and almost 80 years later, one single Olthoi Queen arrived on the island and began to breed. With their last place of safety invaded, the remaining Yalaini retreated from the world. Asheron and his disciples cast a powerful planar magic spell known as The Sundering, which sent the Yalaini people into portal space in a state of stasis. After sending his disciples in as well, Asheron retreated to the last place of safety - his castle on a small island - and alone began working on a way to defeat the Olthoi.

More than 500 years had passed when the first humans arrived on Dereth. These humans were quickly enslaved by the Olthoi. Many tried to escape, but few survived. One group did, led by the warrior Thorsten Cragstone. They rescued some others and found an Empyrean catacomb, which came to be known as the Underground City. An ancient text in the city told of Asheron and his castle's location. Their leaders left for Asheron, who gave them a poison to kill the Olthoi Queen, which they did at the cost of Cragstone's life. The Olthoi retreated and the humans began to thrive.

Players originally entered Dereth as one of three races: the Aluvians, the Sho, and the Gharu'ndim. Later additions include Viamontians, Shadows, Empyreans, Gearknights, Olthoi, Tumerok and Lugian.

Development

AC was developed by Turbine Entertainment Software and published by Microsoft. It had a multimillion-dollar development budget.[13] It was designed by Toby Ragaini (lead designer), Chris Foster, Eri Izawa, and Chris Pierson.[14] The development team consisted of 30+ full-time developers, including 6 artists, 4 game designers, 15 software engineers and 5 QA testers.[13] Asheron's Call was technically innovative for its time. It did not use zoning, a technique of partitioning the game world into zones that ran on different computers on a cluster. This caused delay when moving between zones. Instead Asheron's Call had a single seamless world. It used dynamic load balancing to determine which computer in the cluster controlled which location area. If one area became overpopulated and sluggish control of part of that location would pass to another computer with a lighter load.[15] Critical development software included Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0, Visual SourceSafe 5.0, Lightwave 5.5, and Photoshop 4.0[13] Asheron's Call uses Microsoft SQL Server for persistent game data. The original Asheron's Call client allowed computers to use either 3D or software graphics acceleration.[5] The modern client requires a DirectX 9.0 compatible video adapter w/ hardware T&L.

Asheron's Call took 40 months plus 8 months of beta testing to complete.[13] It was originally scheduled to ship during the fourth quarter of 1997.[13] Production was delayed over a year because of the inexperience of the production team.[14] The finished product contained approximately 2 million lines of code.[13] There were six servers available at launch. Asheron's Call launched nine months after EverQuest[14] on November 2, 1999. After its release Asheron's Call had 80,000 players by the end of its first year.[15] By the end of 2000 its subscription rate was third behind Ultima Online and EverQuest, with 90,000 subscribers from 200,000 box sales.[15] While neither Turbine nor Microsoft have been forthcoming in releasing exact subscription counts, it is believed that Asheron's Call peaked in popularity in early 2002 at about 120,000 accounts and has since dropped to below 10,000.[16] Dark Age of Camelot had 200,000 subscribers in May 2002, taking Asheron's Call's spot as third most popular virtual world.[17]

Reception

Asheron's Call received generally positive reviews from critics. On the review aggregator GameRankings, the game received an average score of 81% based on 26 reviews.[18] On Metacritic, the game received an average score of 81 out of 100, based on 15 reviews.[19]

Asheron's Call appealed to explorers and people who appreciated story arcs.[20]

Awards included:

Post-release

A first expansion, Dark Majesty, was released in 2001. In 2002 the full-fledged sequel Asheron's Call 2 was released, which would be closed in 2005 but then reactivated in 2012. In December 2003, Turbine purchased the rights to the Asheron's Call franchise from Microsoft and assumed full responsibility for content development, customer service, billing and marketing in 2004.[22] A second expansion, Throne of Destiny, which includes a graphics upgrade, new player race and new landmass was released on July 18, 2005. In addition to the expansion packs, the in-game story is advanced by monthly updates, which introduce new quests and gameplay dynamics as part of the subscription package.[23] Both expansions include the full version of the game. The Asheron's Call franchise was unique in providing complimentary monthly content updates and "Events" that added new quests, skills, landmasses, monsters, gameplay dynamics and bug fixes for all subscribers. Storylines link multiple episodes to form distinct "story arcs".

Asheron's Call originally charged a monthly subscription fee, which was eventually discontinued. The title is now free to play and in maintenance mode. No further content will be released and there are plans to provide players with the ability to host their own servers.[24] In February 2014, Turbine announced that the last content patch would be released in March 4, 2014, and after that the patches would be limited to maintenance and bug fixes.[25][26]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Asheron's Call Game Review at mmohuts.com Archived July 12, 2014, at the Wayback Machine.
  2. ↑ Asheron's Call at GameIndustry.com
  3. 1 2 3 4 Grossman 2003, p. 299
  4. ↑ Castronova, Edward (2008-11-11). Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun Is Changing Reality. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9780230607859.
  5. 1 2 "Features". Asheron's Call. Turbine. 2005–2008. Retrieved April 10, 2010.
  6. ↑ "MSN Gaming Zone - Asheron's Call - News - Letter to the Players". 2003-10-15. Archived from the original on October 15, 2003. Retrieved 2016-01-02.
  7. ↑ "Gameplay". Asheron's Call. Turbine. 2005–2008. Retrieved April 10, 2010.
  8. 1 2 Fullerton, 2008, p. 284
  9. ↑ "Introduction: Basic Tradeskills". AC Vault. IGN Entertainment Inc. December 29, 2004. Archived from the original on July 13, 2011. Retrieved October 14, 2009.
  10. ↑ "Asheron's Call Vault - AC - The Ultimate Resource". 2004-09-13. Archived from the original on September 13, 2004. Retrieved 2016-01-04.
  11. ↑ Stormwaltz Developer Quote - On Historical Outline
  12. ↑ Stormwaltz Developer Quote - The Historical Overview Archived January 5, 2010, at the Wayback Machine.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Grossman 2003, p. 300
  14. 1 2 3 Bartle 2004, p. 27
  15. 1 2 3 Bartle 2004, p. 28
  16. ↑ Mmogchart.com
  17. ↑ Bartle 2004, p. 29
  18. ↑ "Asheron's Call Reviews". GameRankings. Archived from the original on 31 March 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-04.
  19. ↑ "Asheron's Call (pc: 1999): Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2008-04-04.
  20. ↑ Bartle 2004, p. 147
  21. ↑ Multiplayer Online Games Directory / GOTM
  22. ↑ Gamespot.com
  23. ↑ Ac.turbine.com
  24. ↑ http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/03/09/massively-exclusive-turbine-on-the-future-of-asherons-call-and/
  25. ↑ Plunkett, Luke (3 March 2014). "15-Year Development On An MMO Comes To An End". Kotaku. Gawker Media. Archived from the original on 7 March 2014. Retrieved 8 March 2014.
  26. ↑ "The Spring Update is now available!". Asheronscall.com. Turbine, Inc. 4 March 2014. Archived from the original on 8 March 2014. Retrieved 8 March 2014.

References

Further reading

External links

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