Asheron's Call: Difference between revisions

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It revolves on an island in an alternate universe called Auberean, [[After the End|after the world is destroyed]]. The titular Asheron, while researching dimensional portal magic, accidentally let loose the Olthoi, a race of [[Hive Mind|insect]] monsters that very, very quickly took over his world. The entire game of ''Asheron's Call'' takes place on a small island called by the original people, Ireth Lassel, and is the site where Asheron's research took place. Before the start of the game, the portal experiment, which had ran wild after opening the portal to the Olthoi homeworld, opened random portals to a world with 3 (later 4) human races, Ispar. The Isparians come through and are quickly enslaved or killed by the Olthoi, but a later rebellion allows them to overthrow the Olthoi and, in killing the Olthoi Hive Queen, free the land, which they rename Dereth, for colonization.

The player, when created, is considered to be a new arrival to Dereth from one of the random portals to Ispar. Character customization does not use the typical class system that most MMORPGs use, instead allowing a character to pick a number of skills using a points based system, and allows the player to buy more skills as he or she levels up. Experience does double duty: XP levels up characters, earning points to buy new skills, but is also is put into a pool where it is spent to improve stats and skills directly. Character builds, called Templates, are often discussed in and named by the community, for example, a "3 school melee" (a melee character with 3 magic skills), a "Og Mage" (named after a particularly successful PVPer), or a "Pure Archer" (Bow or Crossbow, Melee Defense, and no magic).

 

 

The original game is sometimes considered a [[Franchise Zombie]] -- while monthly content updates continue, the active ''Asheron's Call'' player base has been shrinking for years. Many theories abound to why this is -- most people agree that at least one of the 100+ monthly updates fall under [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks]] -- but the answer may be more marketing than anything else. Whereas ''[[Ever Quest]]'' released its expansion packs as new titles (thus keeping it eternally inside game stores) ''Asheron's Call'' instead chose to release its expansion packs as free downloads. As such, the game propagates mainly by word-of-mouth, and not much by that since a lot of things are showing their age nowadays.

* [[An Adventurer Is You]]: The peculiar mechanics of fighting means that the roles are limited mostly to nuker, healer, debuffer and D.P.S.

* [[Ancient Conspiracy]]: The Filinuvekta (Winds From Darkness), an undead aristocracy that ruled their empire through pawns.

* [[And Your Reward Is Clothes]]: A long quest line rewards you with a... simple fedora that does nothing special. Also, the traditional Halloween mask festival.

* [[Another Dimension]]: There are at least five major worlds in the cosmology (Ispar, Bur, Tuu, Ezheret-Hazahtu, and the unnamed Olthoi home), besides the elemental planes and several eldritch places. All except Bur, the Burun (frogmen) homeworld, are inaccesible from Auberean.

* [[Anti-Magic]]: Chorizite is a metal that ignores magical energies. It was first introduced as the [[Kryptonite Factor]] of magic users in PVP.

* [[Ascended Fanboy]]: Magaritte de Jacquette and Ned The Clever are N.P.Cs stand-ins for notable players Maggie The Jackcat and Ned Cleversun. Maggie The Jackcat ran for many years a [http://www.thejackcat.com/ famous reference site for the game]. Ned Cleversun was her vassal (an ''Asheron Call'' unique game mechanic, basically a guild member who generates experience points for another guild member), and he passed away in late 2008. (Maggie retired from the game after Ned's passing.)

* [[Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever]]: {{smallcaps|TREMENDOUS}} monougas.

* [[Badass Bookworm]]: Elysa Strathelair, future queen of Dereth, was a scribe's daughter. She managed to translate Empyrean, eventually leading to finding Asheron's retreat. She later dealt the killing blow to the Derethian Olthoi Queen.

* [[Big Fancy Castle]]: In-game player housing includes these. Usually it takes a guild to pay the rent, though.

* [[Blob Monster]]: [[Sdrawkcab Name|Knathteads]].

* [[Blood Magic]]: Falatacot magic relied mostly in human sacrifice.

* [[Crystal Prison]]: The one that held Bael'Zharon, for starters.

* [[Dark Is Not Evil]]: A strong will can bend it to any use. Falter, and it will bend you instead.

* [[Death Course]]: Gaerlan's Fortress. It includes a [[Corridor Cubbyhole Run]] and a [[Solve the Soup Cans]] room.

* [[Designated Victim]]: Until 2002 (when it was finally found and fixed), players with the dreaded "Wi Flag" gained aggro instantly. The game used an ID number randomly assigned at players during creation to select aggro when no other considerations were in effect, meaning that monsters drew a bee line towards Wi-flagged (an unusually low ID) players as soon as they entered a new room or there was a respawn.

* [[The Dragon]]: Isin Dule to Bael'Zharon, at first. Despite their [[Villainous Friendship]], he eventually became a [[Dragon Their Feet]] when he realized Bael'Zharon was [[Brainwashed and Crazy]].

* [[Emote Command]]: "@atoyot" and ''Asheron's Call'' 2 "@gokart" being the most unusual.

* [[Enemy Civil War]]: The Virindi, of all people, had one.

* [[Everything Is Better With Penguins]]: Just penguins.

* [[Evil Is Deathly Cold]]: Undeads love cold. It is good for their rotting bodies.

* [[Evil Versus Evil]]: Bad guys have conflicting interests. Some want to destroy everything, some to lord over it.

* [[General Ripper]]: Nuhmudira, one of the foremost human mages and counselor of the Queen, got obssessed with the potential danger Empyreans might present and eventually defected, now siding with anyone who wants Empyreans ''dead''.

* [[Golem]]: Empyreans used them for pretty much everything, and built them of pretty much any material. While many are fairly smart, to this date only one is truly sentient.

* [[Heel Face Turn]]: Many major antagonist factions have eventually aligned with the Isparian kingdom wholly or in part. Turns of note included Martine's, which allowed the defeat of the megalomaniac Empyrean mage Gaerlan, and Isin Dule's, which prevented Bael'Zharon's victory during the Fourth Sending of Darkness.

* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: The Empyrean Mage Council that defeated the Third Sending of Darkness.

* [[Hugh Mann]]: Simulacra look like humans, but they surely don't act or talk like one.

* [[Inexplicable Treasure Chests]]: Why are so many funky shaped chests lying around in the wilds?

* [[Killer Rabbit]]: The "[[Monty Python|White Rabbit]]" monster which is level 666, has the most powerful piercing damage attack in the game, has one of the more powerful electrical attacks in the game and can cast the "Bunny Smite" spell which kills the target instantly no matter where the target is. To top it all off she'll attack you if you even ''look'' at her funny. (More specifically, you can identify creatures to see their stats without them noticing you. However, identifying the white rabbit will cause it to murder you; This is unique to the white rabbit.)

* [[Large Ham]]: Gaerlan and pretty much every Empyrean. And ursuins (an strange bear-like huge bunny/cat) are apparently aiming for an Oscar in their death animation...

* [[Respawning Enemies]]: Areas have "encounter points" which will spawn a suitably large number of a monster that is appropriate to that area, on that spot. These typically turn active as you walk towards them.

* [[Scary Scarecrows]]: Hollow Minions, Virindi watchdogs and bodyguards.

** Asheron's Call had a (not undeserved) reputation for being full of botters, people using 3rd party programs to play the game. When asked why, it turned out that Turbine had wanted to ban botting for years and had fixes ready to go, but Microsoft vetoed them every single time, due to some of the botters running 10-15 accounts ''at the same time.''

** ''Asheron's Call 2'' had the in game discussion system break down. Turbine had a fix within hours... but Microsoft refused to allow them to push it for months. The fact that Microsoft was starting to push ''[[wikipedia:Mythica|Mythica]]'', what amounted to Asheron's Call 2's replacement, at the same time, did not go unnoticed by anyone. Turbine was eventually allowed to fix the chat system, ''almost a full year later'', but the damage was done and [[AC 2]] closed shortly afterwards.

* [[Sdrawkcab Name]]: Someone in Turbine really likes this trope. See the [[Shout-Out]] entry.

* [[Sentient Phlebotinum]]: The Shadows are powered by this. And it hates ''everything''.

* [[Shonen Upgrade]]: Augmentation gems and Luminance.