Asheron's Call

Did You Know?

• Asheron's Call won CNET's Gamecenter Best RPG award for 1999 and the 3rd Annual Interactive Achievement Award for Computer Adventure/Role-Playing Game of the Year.
• The game sold 57,143 copies in the United States by early 2000, earning $2.64 million in revenues.
• Chat was permanently disabled on the Darktide server during maintenance mode to prevent in-game abuse.

Gameplay

Players create a character from three races, allocating attribute points to traits like Strength, Coordination, and Quickness, and selecting skills such as Unarmed Combat, War Magic, and Melee Defense. Characters are not locked into a class and can reallocate skills later. Experience points earned through combat, quests, and NPC interactions are spent to improve attributes or skills; additional skill points are awarded at certain levels. Loot such as armor, weapons, potions, and spell scrolls can be recovered and improved via a tinkering crafting system.

Synopsis

The story spans worlds Ispar and Auberean, where the island continent Dereth is located. The Empyreans, tall slender humanoids with 1,000-year lifespans, dominated Auberean for 35,000 to 40,000 years, divided into cultures including Falatacot, Dericost, Haebrous, and Yalaini. Asheron Realaidain, a Yalaini royal, was born about 2,500 years before players arrive. A war with Shadows led by Bael'Zharon, the Hopeslayer, lasted over 500 years. Asheron and a council of five mages used planar magic and a crystal array to seal Bael'Zharon in another plane, causing an explosion that killed the council; Asheron survived due to Falatacot Blood rites performed by his mother and Adja. The Shadow armies then retreated.

Development

Turbine Entertainment Software developed the game with a $4 million budget, led by Toby Ragaini, Chris Foster, Eri Izawa, and Chris Pierson. The team included over 30 full-time developers: 6 artists, 4 game designers, 15 software engineers, and 5 QA testers. It used a seamless world with dynamic load balancing instead of zoning. Development tools included Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0, Visual SourceSafe 5.0, Lightwave 5.5, and Photoshop 4.0; persistent data used Microsoft SQL Server. The client supported 3D or software graphics acceleration; the modern client required DirectX 9.0 with hardware T&L. Development took 40 months plus 8 months of beta testing, originally scheduled for late 1997 but delayed due to team inexperience. The game contained about 2 million lines of code and launched with six servers on November 2, 1999.

Post-release

The first expansion, Dark Majesty, was released in 2001. A sequel, Asheron's Call 2: Fallen Kings, launched in 2002, closed in 2005, and was reactivated in 2012. Turbine purchased the franchise rights from Microsoft in December 2003, assuming full responsibility in 2004. A second expansion, Throne of Destiny, featuring a graphics upgrade, new player race, and new landmass, was released on July 18, 2005. Monthly updates advanced the story with new quests and dynamics. The game eventually became free to play and entered maintenance mode; the last content patch was March 4, 2014, after which only maintenance and bug fixes were released.