Asheron's Call Retrospective

Asheron's Call - A Call-Back to the World of Dereth

Childhood-defining games. As gamers, we all have them. Being an avid RPG gamer since childhood, I've had several games that helped define the early years of my gaming life. Many RPGs I've played have had moments that remained with me for years, and still others completely changed my outlook on the genre, and to this day I still have many vivid memories of these beautiful, shimmering gems. Asheron's Call is an example of such a gem. It's a game that completely took over my life for one summer and did not let go, showing me the huge world of unique possibilities that only an online RPG played with other real, actual players can have. It defined a piece of my childhood, though it was a brief and fleeting piece, still a piece nonetheless.

And it was marvelous.

Before we look at what makes this game great, a bit of history. I started playing Asheron's Call as a young middle-school student about 15 years ago. The game had just come out, and one of my older friends at the time had the game and a paid subscription, which at the time was unheard of for people like me, whose parents did not have a lot of extra cash to spend on such things. We barely had a computer that could get online, let alone something fancy like a paid subscription to an online video game. So, many hours would be spent playing the game at my friend's house, and eventually he let me borrow the game disc (as well as his paid subscription account) to play on my own, primitive computer.

I still have memories of playing the game on a 28.8k modem. It was horrible, even by those days' standards. The game would take ages to update, and I'd often have to leave the computer on overnight and the updates still wouldn't be complete in the morning! Imagine wanting to play this game that completely blew you away, yet having to wait ungodly amounts of time just to log in! When I finally was able to log in, the connection was especially "delicate", as the game would often kick me off right in the middle of some important task, often leaving my character dead and my friends on the other side of the screen wondering where the heck I had gone. Or, my mom had to use the phone. Yes, they were terrible times back then, where one couldn't be online and use a phone at the same time.

True, it may have been horrible, but it was magical at the same time. When the game did keep a good connection, it was an absolute joy to play. I played it during the course of a summer, and I can safely say that I did not see the sun much that year, as countless hours and late nights would be spent exploring the huge world of Dereth, along with thousands of other people. There was such a massive world to explore, and it was all completely fresh and brand new for my friends and I to experience. I made new buddies to explore the world with, and it was a delightful time to be a gamer.

It was true magic.

Others must have thought the same thing, because 15 years later and the game still exists! In fact, it just went "free-to-play", ditching the subscription model for a model that costs a whopping $10 for access to all of the content in the game. Yes, you heard it right. 15 years of content for $10. You get a 50-year subscription to the game with your purchase. No other fees, nothing else to buy. No microtransactions or items to purchase in a cash shop. $10 for everything. Free and clear.

$10 to head back into the wide world of Dereth, for more exploration, more questing and more magical memories to be made.

But the question is - Is the magic still there? It has been 15 years for me, after all, and I'm sure a lot has changed. Let's check it out.

The first thing any 'new' player will most likely notice right away is the truly limitless character customization and freedom of character building present in the game. 15 years have passed, and this area of the game has aged like a fine wine. For example, there are 13 'heritages' to choose from, which function as your starting race in a very extensive character creation process. There are heritages like the human, war-loving Aluvian race, to the samurai-inspired Sho race, and even non-human races such as Undead, a mechanical race called 'Gear Knights', lizard-men creatures and more. Each heritage has a small starting bonus to a certain weapon skill, and the cosmetic differences are abundantly apparent as well. Of course, they have their own lore as well, and you can quickly learn to love the races based on that alone.

There are plenty of ways to express your creativity besides simply choosing your character's heritage. There are 6 core attributes that directly influence the characteristics of your character. You can increase your Strength stat to deal more melee damage and carry more items, or focus on your Coordination stat to hit more often. When creating a character, you are free to distribute your starting core attributes as you see fit. You can experiment and develop your own play style to start with, and that's before we even get to the actual skill selection! There are a ton of skills to toy around with. Any character you can possibly dream of can be created. Want to be a master healer who uses crossbows and summons golems? You can do it. How about a dirty-fighting heavy weapons fighter who is great at tinkering armor? You can do that, too. The game is a true playground for character building, and your creativity is rewarded with a unique, interesting, and most importantly, fun character build to play with.

The way the character development system works is very simple. When you gain experience from completing quests or felling monsters, you can directly apply those experience points to your various stats and skills. As you increase the stats higher, the cost to improve them becomes greater and greater. In turn for raising the stat, you'll be able to equip new and better weapons, use better magical items, and generally have more success doing whatever it is you are trying to accomplish with your character build. The system is extremely addictive, and you will be spending a lot of time simply looking forward to increasing stats and attributes in hopes of bettering your character. Gaining experience points in order to increase your Arcane Lore skill so you can use a special magical item is rewarding, and this sort of reward will keep you coming back for more.

It should be said that you can follow a guide if a 'perfect' build is your type of thing, but if you just want to have fun, explore the world and build a fun, unique and creative character, you have all the tools in the world to perform with. You can re-spec your character at a later time, and although in theory, you could probably create a build that struggles with certain things, it is almost impossible to build a 'bad' or 'broken' character. Even if you focus on tinkering instead of combat, all it takes is having the right armor and weapon to help compensate for your lack of raw skill, and you will still be able to progress your build and get stronger over time. However, certain builds will be a bit more difficult to start with, but if you just want to be creative and have fun, you are very much encouraged and welcomed to do so. The character building system is truly is one of the greatest strengths of this game, even 15 years later!

Another great strength of this game is the massive open-world that you get to explore. Dereth is absolutely huge, spanning some 500 square miles (!) of unbounded, fully explorable world. There are many different biomes, such as desert areas, swamps, forests, snow-covered mountains and more, and most of them are simply massive. You can easily and freely explore the world and just continue on in the direction of your choosing to find adventure, and you can surely get lost in your exploration . You are also sure to run across dungeons, which in this game are represented as portals in the game world, or a town, village, fortification or unique enemy type to do battle with. Some of the best times I've had were simply exploring in some remote area, coming across some tough, higher-level enemy type, and trying my best to take them down. Never fear, though, if you are equipped with the proper portal gems, bouncing around from city to city is just a click away, as Turbine has evolved a very simple fast-travel system for those who want to get around much quicker. You will have access to the entire town network system in the game and you are free to bounce around as you like, so you have the option of getting yourself lost with exploration, but also quickly fast-traveling back to civilization.

There are also plenty of quests to take part in if you want a more structured experience, and the game doesn't disappoint here. The quests, as usual in an RPG like this, have some story, lore and a reason for existing in the game world. You will help rescue a maiden who stumbled into the hands of fierce Tumeroks - ugly, cyclops-like creatures. You will be asked to fell undead knights, or a specific undead character that wields a magical and unique item. Recover the Bone Crown from an undead leader, or a special rune that a Drudge has stolen from someone. You will be sent to dungeons to retrieve certain items, and there are quite a bit of what would be classified as "FedEx quests" here, but the system is still fun, thanks to the excellent rewards system. You will be given special items, trinkets, and best of all, plenty of experience points to dive back into character development with as quest rewards, and the thrill of exploring a new dungeon or encountering a new enemy type will keep you very interested in questing and seeing new places.

Limitless character customization doesn't only mean the stats and attributes of your character, but the loot system as well. The loot here is just like the world - massive. There are the usual slots for armor in the game, such as chest armor, helmets, etc., as well as having the wonderful addition of lesser-used areas for armor, such as separate slots for upper and lower arms and upper and lower legs, as well as an abdomen slot. You can equip trinkets such as rings, bracelets, amulets and a special trinket item, and to round things out, there is a cloak slot as well. You can freely customize the armor you wear and wear the best bits for your build as you see fit. Most of the items you will find in Dereth are magical in nature, but the interesting twist is that they have a set amount of mana that they draw their magic from. Once that mana runs out, the item loses its magical qualities and becomes normal armor, however, you can replenish your magic gear with special mana-recharging stones. The buffs and abilities that the gear offers you are crucial to surviving in tougher areas, so you'll want to keep your items charged and ready to go. This allows another layer of deep character customization and character building as you find the optimal or most interesting gear for the build you are going for. Are you a melee character? Wear a helmet that offers a Strength V buff. Like summoning your monsters, but don't quite have the base skill to summon that new monster type? Simple, wear gauntlets that are buffed with Summoning Mastery VI, and now you have enough skill to summon the creature you want. The possibilities for customizing your build with loot are endless, just like the raw stat system that supports character development is.

It should be noted that the game is 15 years old, and despite an engine upgrade in 2005, it still retains much of the look that it had 15 years ago. The graphics are dated, the animations are simple, but yet the game is still endearing and very charming to look at. If you play long enough, you will come to really appreciate the colorful nature of the game, and you will start to see that every player character in the game can look entirely colorful, interesting and unique. You will see other players running around in awesome-looking armor. Some of them will have matching sets, others are completely mismatched and wild looking, but all are unique are visually interesting to look at. The long distance views in the game can invoke a sense of awe-inspiring vastness to the game as well, and you will truly feel like this world is massive and worth exploring. If you give it a chance, you will soon forget that the game looks dated, and it will start to unleash its charm upon you in a big way. Even seeing different types of trees in a forested area, or the different, gorgeous sky effects adds so much to the experience, because it shows off some of the attention to detail in this vast game. Hunt for beasts in a desert biome and you will start to see the brilliance of the art design. The art design is fantastic and still looks good, even today! Just don't go in expecting 2015 visuals, and you should still greatly enjoy the look and feel of this gem.

Of course, one can't talk about an MMORPG without mentioning the social aspect, which is often the selling point for games of this genre. Thankfully, the game has been tweaked enough now that social interaction is not absolutely necessary to progress the game. Sure, it will make things easier, and you may make a friend or two in the process, but those of us who love single-player, engrossing RPGs will feel right at home here. It's a huge world and a site like ACPedia.org is great to have running in the background. If you crave social interaction in a game like this, then play on the Frostfell server, which still has a decent-enough population that you can find people to talk to and play with. It should be noted that the population is not huge, but there is enough activity that you will see others running around and occupying the same part of the world as you, especially in the starter areas. However, head into the wilds, and you may feel like you are exploring this world on your own, with only the general chat window to tie you to the other players. It's a great feeling and one can enjoy this game whether they are social or feeling not-so-social as well. The option is yours and you can choose to play the game as you like, which is a very welcomed feature for me.

There are other interesting aspects to the game that I barely mentioned thus far, such as the crafting, which is known as 'tinkering' in the Asheron's Call world. You can salvage raw materials, such as steel, mahogany, bronze, etc., and once you have a full bag of salvage, you can apply it to a weapon, item, or piece of armor to enhance its properties. A fun way to increase the raw armor level of a piece of armor is to enhance it with steel, which will raise the total armor level by 20 points! Other creative tinkering jobs can be done as well, and you're only limited by your imagination and the amount of salvage you have. Thankfully, there is a marketplace in the game with other real characters where you can purchase salvage if you don't feel like salvaging it yourself. You can also fletch your own arrows and darts, tinker weapons, items, armor, partake in cooking, make potions with alchemy and more.

I guess the bottom line with this game is that there is so much content to explore here, that for the price of $10, it is *the* best deal in RPG gaming out right now. There is literally 15 years of content here to explore, from a game that had a subscription fee for its entire existence. Sure, the graphics may be dated, and don't expect a population bustling with millions of players, but if you like a slower-paced, old-school, charming experience, you really can't go wrong with this game. I hope Turbine promotes it a bit more and draws a bit more attention to it, because there is still a lot of raw potential for fun here, that even newcomers to the MMO scene will find a lot to love here. This is not your typical MMO that has come out recently, this is an old-school experience through-and-through. Yes, there are modern conveniences like fast-travel, and the Facility Hub for compact questing, but a lot of aspects of the game are there for you to discover on your own.

For those who want a more convenient, modern experience, there are some little perks in the game that you should like. For example, I mentioned the Facility Hub, which you will receive a portal gem that can be used an infinite amount of times right at the start of the game. Once you've got a few levels under your belt, you'll want to visit the hub to pursue a few specially-selected quests that have been compartmentalized for easy access. Simply go to the level 20 room, or level 25 room, and there will be a quest or two that you can do in order to help you progress your character's level. The quests here are fun, and the lore is interesting, so definitely read and don't skip anything. You will also be able to buy Town Network portal gems, which will take you to rooms that have direct portals to every city in the game, so you won't have to run for hours to get from place to place if you don't want to. These additions make the game easier to get into now, yet there still is a distinct lack of hand-holding in general, so don't expect blinking quest markers, compass arrows, or anything like that. This game is a relic from a time where those things did not exist, for better or worse. In my opinion, for the better!

So, there you have it. Asheron's call is still a magical game that I can see myself making many new memories in, exploring the beautiful world of Dereth alone or with friends. If you find yourself with an itch for a huge, immersive, deep, complex and very rewarding RPG experience with a social aspect, then look no further than Asheron's Call. I want to stress that the 'RPG' in 'MMORPG' is very much the focus here. This is an RPG first and foremost, and nothing has been "dumbed down" or taken away from the core goal of delivering a rich and interesting RPG. Throw in a social aspect and you have something magical that can involve you in many hours of fun gameplay.

With 15 years of content for $10, it's really a no-brainer. Check it out and I'll see you in Dereth!