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Rise and Shiny revisit: Asheron's Call
Another week of this column makes me amazed at how yet another older title, this time Asheron's Call, got so much right and yet remains so under-appreciated. A lot of this dismissal of past MMOs comes from the simple fact that humans do not enjoy something they have seen before, at least not the same as they enjoyed it when they first found it. In other words, we loved games like Asheron's Call, but they have fallen out of favor because we have moved on to bigger, newer, shinier things. After all, most of us don't sit around a fire and swap stories for entertainment anymore; we watch television. Although, damn, a fire sounds nice doesn't it? The warm feeling that I might feel from an evening swapping tales in front of the hearth is the same one I get from older titles like Asheron's Call. These elder titles have a charm built in, thanks to dated graphics that remind us of younger years and times of discovery. But there's something else going on here. These older games, games like Asheron's Call, are still really good.
Rise and Shiny recap: Asheron's Call
This is going to sound like I'm whining, but here goes: Sometimes I get tired of playing games. Yes, yes, I know -- this is a wonderful job, and anyone who enjoys playing games and talking to developers would love it. But once in a while, when I am feeling particulary tired, have a headache, or am just plain not feeling it, the last thing I want to do is log into a game that is either too challenging or too grindy. Normally I just skip it for a few hours and come back to it later. This last week was busy for me, though, so when I had time to play, I really needed to play. So I would load up Turbine's Asheron's Call, sigh, and log in. Even though I was having a great time from the start of my trial, I was having a blah week. Almost as soon as I saw the famous teleportation tunnel graphic, though, I just felt better. There was, in fact, not a moment of drudgery during my time with the game. It helped that I was hanging out with some of the top players in the game, but the easy-to-learn hard-to-master systems worked like modelling clay: Almost anyone can make something out of it, but if you take your time, you can make something truly unique. Click past the cut and I'll let you in on some of my experiences. They weren't perfect, but they were fun. %Gallery-115338%
Asheron's Call July event date announced
There's nothing like waking up, experimenting with a little magic and unleashing a portal that connects to another world all before lunch. You quickly find out your new transit route is to a planet filled with vicious insect-like species that proceed to invade the world and annihilate civilization. Dereth, the world in Asheron's Call has never been the same since, and you can thank Asheron Realaidain for that genius. The adventures continue as Asheron's Call nears a milestone, the 100th content update is due out soon and the July event is scheduled to deploy Wednesday, July 23rd from 7am-2pm EDT. Big things are expected, details on the society systems emerged several days ago, and other details regarding loot and landscape hunting are also planned. There aren't 10 million people playing Asheron's Call, hell maybe the playerbase is in the mere hundreds. The fact that Turbine honors their commitment by continuing to release new content every month, and expand an ongoing storyline for almost a decade attests to their dedication and stalwartness to the Asheron's Call playerbase. No matter how many people are playing that's an amazing accomplishment. [Via Warcry]
