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Well now, this came out of nowhere. Once upon a time, Turbine’s – which is still running to this day – had an apocalypse dropped on it. A vastly re-shaped world that had “sequel” written all over it – but mainly on the box, because it was called Asheron’s Call 2. It was quite well-received back in 2002, but by 2005, subscriber numbers had dwindled to a mere 15,000.

To put it in perspective using entirely made-up math, that’s one 11 trillionth of a World of Warcraft. So Turbine dropped another apocalypse on its flagship fantasy world, only this time, it was a bit more final. Except that, as it turns out, it actually wasn’t at all. Without even so much as a warning, Turbine’s, breathed life back into its dusty lungs, and sent it on its way.

There is, however, a slight catch. While you might expect the revived AC2 to be another addition to Turbine’s proven F2P roster, it’s instead only available to current Asheron’s Call subscribers. (I’m also somewhat shocked that AC1 is still subscriber-based, but that’s a conversation for another day.) For now, though, it’s just a beta, so perhaps a wider release will occur further down the line. “Although the server has passed our initial tests, we have a lot of monitoring and tweaking to do to the game environment and we want to ensure that our players understand that.

This game service will be provided as a beta for all players with an active Asheron’s Call account. That said, the game server is currently up and running. So join us for a nostalgic trip back to a Dereth where the golden age was not interrupted.” Still though, this is very good news. Plenty of MMOs have gone to the big server Valhalla in the sky, but I can’t think of too many that made the mighty viking leap back down to Earth. Admittedly, Asheron’s Call is far from the biggest name in the business these days, but it could help set a precedent.

I mean, imagine if developers decided to bring back a server or two of, say, old-school Star Wars Galaxies (pre-NGE, naturally), City of Heroes, or Tabula Rasa, but as bonus features attached to other modern MMOs. That might provide companies with sufficient financial motivation to give long-deceased worlds another go. For now, though, Asheron’s Call 2 is back! Are you interested? Evidently, people still play the original.

Are you one of them? Desmolas says: Man, this game brings back so much nostalgia from 12 year old me. At the time I thought it was the best thing ever, chatting with other 12 year old russian kids (apparently) and killing da monstas together.

My first proper ‘modern’ mmo experience. Then my dad cancelled my account because of the monthly sub:( I remember at the time, they promised monthly and sometimes weekly updates that changed the game world. Except, unlike some of todays mmo promises, they actually followed through. Buildings in the main game world started as skeletons of themselves, and were slowly built up as weeks went. It was reaalllly cool to see and it felt like a proper evolving, living, breathing world. That’s how my rose-tinted specs see it anyway.

I don’t know if its because im older now and understand games more, but all i can see it today’s mmo’s are the games inner cog workings right in your face. For example, GW2’s dynamic event system is supposed to feel fluid and dynamic, but i think it actually feels rigid and predictable. It feels like a game, and less a world.

I almost prefer WoWs yellow exlamation point quest givers than the failed pretence of a dynamic world. Says: If you play AC1, make sure to take time to find the, I forget what it’s called, but it’s a sort of “Quest Museum” place whose curators teleport you to the old historical quest sites (Green Mire Yari, Dagger of Tikola, etc) and then give you up-to-date and useful rewards (XP, items) for bringing back the historical item and showing it to them (you get to keep it, too). It’s a really clever way of helping people quickly level up through the drudgery (ha!) of low levels, while also ensuring that the original and lovely hand-crafted quests of yore aren’t lost in the flood of newer and more rewarding expansion questsit is also like a built-in walkthrough to finding all the old obscure portals, so you don’t have to rely on out-of-game places like. Aepervius says: That’s possible but I think what did AC2 mostly in, was the expectation that people would migrate from AC1 to Ac2, but that did not happen.

People “held” onto their won-by-grinding-a-long-time power tightly and decided to stay in AC1. California Driver Performance Evaluation Score Sheet there. Thus AC2 got poor number (less than 100K) and dwindled rapidly to 1/3 or 1/4 number a year or two afterward. From what i can remember from AC2, it also asked a lot of juice from your graphic card. *shrug* I left relatively rapidly, maybe 6 month after the start. Never really regretted AC2. Socrate says::Owhy would anyone pay that much for AC a month.some people have way to much money,all in all AC was their only “decent” game and other then this EQ and UO already did stuff much better and in a much more fun and well made way. Malkav11 says: I wish I could see this propagating a wave of revival MMOs, but I think this is Turbine capitalizing on being the success story of F2P conversion, and that the other games mentioned are dead as the dodo.

SWG, for example, runs into the issue of being a licensed property owned by a company that no longer has the license. NCSoft has already been very explicit about their disinterest in continuing City of Heroes in any form (sounds like that might also have been a license issue).

I wouldn’t expect them to revive the much less popular Tabula Rasa, either (and Garriott might have to sign off on that, dunno for sure). DE says: Oh Tabula Rasa, what an oddity it was. I remember walking past a local retailer and there were two trash containers full of discarded, still sealed Tabula Rasa Boxes. A month or two ago (from that point of time) they were basically throwing it away at costs of 5€. I walked past thinking, well iI guess this era needs its ET. I have no idea why it turned out to be such a flop in the end though. Admittedly I have never played it either.

I guess it never managed to grab my interest – and that of many others. Reading about it now, it seems like it might have been my kind of game. Arglebargle says: Tabula Rasa was an MMO designed by a (fractious) committee, thus resembling camel more than horse. NCSoft made the mistake of letting Garriott (idea man, but terrible project manager) run the development, and piss away large amounts of money and time.

They then sent in a couple of other managers to ‘fix it’, but you had too many chiefs, working at cross purposes. I’d imagine that some of these issues lead to the swift killing of the franchise, and the attempt to cheat Garriott. NCSoft’s management does not seem to be the most ept around.

Deadly.by.design says: I really loved Asheron’s Call, but the original beta for AC2 left me kind of wanting. Also, college. Quality Improvement Tools Pdsa Soccer. We have to remember that this is an MMO world that has no NPC vendors. It’s all player-based.

That’s a neat idea, but it’s also a big part of why a small player base hurts this game. So, if Turbine is smart, they’ll keep the server number limited in hopes of high density. I still get nostalgic thinking about AC. If too many players were in a concentrated area, it would cause “portal storms” that would wisk them away to a nearby area. In reality, it was just a way to keep the servers from choking, but it still fit in pretty neatly with the portal lore. Long live Thistledown server, defender of the Shard. Deadly.by.design says: Yes, I think there was a plaque.

Our server also had other important milestones. Tim the Enchantor being the first to hit the initial level cap, Vidorian becoming a Dark Master, and Maggie the Jackcat who wrote the popular game guides, etc. Other than having small bits of contact with two out of three of those notables, my only relevance for Thistledown’s tale was my monarch, Wren the Blurry.

She got interviewed by some gaming site as she was, at least at one time, the monarch with the most followers. (>3,000) It might’ve been Gamespy, and I think my character name even got referenced as being on her guild council. Total nerd stuff as I look back on it, but it was pretty sweet ten years ago. Says: I was never able to articulate anything about the sequelit just seemed to have slightly missed the mark in every way and added up to something that didn’t keep me playing (especially at the choppy framerates my old computer got with it). Whatever was lost was indefinable, at least to mebut in part I think just getting a more polished engine and a more directed experience did it. Slide-casting at 35 miles per hour, and memorizing coordinates of good hunting spots and all that, was a big part of the original.

That being said, the lore of Dereth is lovely and refreshing in most any form, and hopefully they’ve learned a few things and made some tweaks? =) Excited to try it tonight.