Asheron's Call Only $10 No Subsciption

Not sure if this is old news here but Asheron's Call, an RPG with 14years of content, can be bought for $10 and requires no subscription. It's truly a game with old-school sensibilities and has been satisfying my role-playing itch. Approach it like a single player game (or not), regardless I think it would appeal to members here. Just wanted to put it out there - I've certainly been enjoying it.

I played Everquest when it first came out but it didn't hook me. AC however hooked me hard. I had a lot of fun in this game. It was horribly unbalanced tho and the lack of end game things to do finally got me to leave. It's been many years since I've played so maybe balance and content is better now. I even sold a suit of armor for $250, the only time I've actually sold digital goods.

What a game! For $10 it's a steal, and is still a blast to play today. I played a bit a year back and it was great.

My first MMORPG love, this game.

Toff said:

I played Everquest when it first came out but it didn't hook me. AC however hooked me hard.

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Same here and I really don't like MMORPGs very much at all. In fact Asheron's Call and Dungeons and Dragons online are pretty much the only ones I've played for any significant length of time. If there's still a good community surrounding the game, $10.00 and no subscription is an outstanding value.

If only it didn't look like vomit on my screen

That said, I absolutely loved it back in the day.

I remember a few of my friends from EQ one going to play this game, but I never tried it myself. Is it more pve or pvp? If the latter, I wouldn't care for it.

Carnifex said:

I remember a few of my friends from EQ one going to play this game, but I never tried it myself. Is it more pve or pvp? If the latter, I wouldn't care for it.

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If you don't like PvP don't roll on Darktide and don't use the command that make you available for PvP on the other servers.

There is also a wiki that might not be 100% up-to-date.

I looked in on this about six months ago and they were allowing people who paid subscription to also play on their ressurrected Asheron's Call 2 server for free. I heard they had shut it down for good along time ago and was surprised they brought it back.
Asheron's Call had more depth but AC2 had promise that never got realized I think.

https://www.asheronscall.com/en/forums/showthread.php?t=57257

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DArtagnan said:

If only it didn't look like vomit on my screen

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Hey now, it's not so bad! http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=394547013

I wonder what ended up being on that island east of Eastham?

Looks good to me, Zloth!

Question. Is it easier for a returning player to get into the game? When I play MMORPGs, I like to have quests and reasons to explore. I revisited this game a few years back and couldn't crack it. I didn't know where to go or who to talk to or anything!

I played this game as a middle-schooler and absolutely loved it back when it first came out. I'm wondering if I just need to spend more time with it to crack it this time. Any tips for a new player?

Zloth said:

Hey now, it's not so bad! http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=394547013

I wonder what ended up being on that island east of Eastham?

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It's bad

It's the perfect example of how early 3D graphics don't age well at all.

It's the sad thing about technology and how we (well, some of us) quickly adapt to advances.

Because I loved how freeform Asheron's Call was. It just suffered from the same issue EQ suffered from: huge empty world full of grind.

What's sad to me, is people not being able to appreciate an older game like this, or older 3D graphics in general. I can understand it, I guess, it's just very shallow, and a sad thing.

All I can do to help combat this is to continue shining a spotlight on older games and hoping people take the time to go back and study them a bit. You can still have fun with a game with older graphics, honest!

I think the next game I write an article about will be Asheron's Call.

Fluent said:

What's sad to me, is people not being able to appreciate an older game like this, or older 3D graphics in general. I can understand it, I guess, it's just very shallow, and a sad thing.

All I can do to help combat this is to continue shining a spotlight on older games and hoping people take the time to go back and study them a bit. You can still have fun with a game with older graphics, honest!

I think the next game I write an article about will be Asheron's Call.

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Instead of changing what other people are like, I highly recommend trying to understand the source of the differences. I know some people need others to be like them - and have to look upon them as "shallow" or "wrong" because they don't agree with you about things, but it's rarely a good way to see things for what they are

Honest!

Well, I just happen to think that a lot of people could learn something from the past, including games. All too often I've seen past things just discarded as worthless, and it's a bit troubling sometimes.

But hey, I guess that is the gift and the curse that we as humans live with. We press forward so quickly, enjoy something for a short time and then it's "on to the next one".

You're right, though. To each their own. As the great MF Doom once said, "Do yourself, I will continue to do my thing".

Fluent said:

Well, I just happen to think that a lot of people could learn something from the past, including games. All too often I've seen past things just discarded as worthless, and it's a bit troubling sometimes.

But hey, I guess that is the gift and the curse that we as humans live with. We press forward so quickly, enjoy something for a short time and then it's "on to the next one".

You're right, though. To each their own. As the great MF Doom once said, "Do yourself, I will continue to do my thing".

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I think we all have a lot to learn, and I think it's a common mistake to consider a subjective position as the universally correct one.

I have no idea why you think the past is being discarded as worthless because people move on from it, but I will leave that to you

But, clearly, you have some personal investment in this whole "the past" thing - since you constantly bring it up. I sympathise, but I can't really change that I'm the kind of person who likes to look forward rather than back when it comes to games. But I'm also lucky enough to have a memory - and I consider Asheron's Call to be a game ahead of its time - and vastly superior to EverQuest in a lot of ways.

But I can't go back to that level of abstraction in an MMO - where I need certain immersive qualities to lose myself, and that's generally what I want to achieve when I play such games.

I don't have an investment in the past. I like the future and present all the same.

I guess where this comes from is the fact that, for most of my adult life, I've been interested in things that were 'thrown away' or discarded.

For example, when I built my own music studio in my bedroom, I bought a bunch of ancient machines. Vintage synthesizers (before they came back into vogue), vintage compressors, equalizers, strange tape echo machines, etc. Now, a lot of them were considered great gear back in the day, so it wasn't really junk, but there was a certain something special to me about playing with this ancient stuff that you just didn't see much in modern studios. I didn't know too many people jamming on an Arp Axxe with a Space Echo tape echo, for example. Many still consider that stuff relics of the past that has outlived its usefulness, etc.

So, when it comes to games, I liked to look in the past as well. I don't think everyone discards the past as trash, but just look at something like the cell phone culture we live in in now. People literally trample others just to get the shiny new cell phone, when there are objects that are a little bit older than can still be fun. But I guess it's just me.

I really have no deep investment in it one way or the other. For example, all my music making now is done on a laptop with a nanokey keyboard. Very simple, very modern, etc.

I'm glad that you fondly remember the game, too. I do as well, and I really want to go back to it now and do a little bit of coverage on it for the 'Watch. I still really enjoy the old stuff, so it works for me. And you don't enjoy the old stuff, so it works for you.

On to the next one.

I think your interest is totally valid - and I support it. What I don't understand is that you need your position to be the position other people have.

But it's no big deal.

I think it's wonderful that there are people who're invested in what things used to look like - and who want to preserve such things.

Personally, I think life is way, way, WAY too short to go back - when there's so little time available to progress and go forward.

I love my gaming past, though, and I have incredibly warm memories of games I loved - and still love. A lot of those games haven't been surpassed when it comes to design or mechanics - but they've all been surpassed in terms of technology. That's something I consider a completely natural and "ok" part of our hobby.

But I would never tell you that you were being foolish or wrong for spending so much time with things of the past.

Then again, I don't have any desire to make people think like I do. I don't recommend it, frankly

Sorry, I didn't mean to call you foolish. It's early here and I didn't have my coffee yet.

You're right, it's not foolish, or sad, and I can understand why people do it. It's natural, really.

I do have a big fascination with old things, and it's fun for me. But I shouldn't really expect others to feel the same way.

Technology has certainly advanced, but I still find the design of many old games to be perfect for me.

To each their own, and all that.

Fluent said:

Sorry, I didn't mean to call you foolish. It's early here and I didn't have my coffee yet.

You're right, it's not foolish, or sad, and I can understand why people do it. It's natural, really.

I do have a big fascination with old things, and it's fun for me. But I shouldn't really expect others to feel the same way.

Technology has certainly advanced, but I still find the design of many old games to be perfect for me.

To each their own, and all that.

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That sounds a lot more reasonable

Also, here are a few games that, in my opinion, haven't been surpassed at all - despite all the technological advances:

X-Com (1993)
System Shock (1994)
Master of Orion 2 (1996)
Master of Magic (1995)
Privateer (1994)
MYST (1993)

Just a few examples of games that STILL represent the peak of their respective genres, even 20 years later.

Great list, DArt! I'd love to check some of those out soon.

Master of Magic is truly the best strategy game I think I've played, up there with the earlier Civilization games. The mixture of magic spells, city building, etc., is truly superb stuff.

Thanks for making my backlog a few games bigger.