A History of Asheron’s Call: The First Massive MMO 

As one of the original devs of this game it's really cool to see that people appreciate what we were trying to do, even if it didn't get nearly as popular as we were hoping.

If there were a kick starter to remake this game, I would be all in

... just the sound of the loading portal gave me slight goosebumps. So many memories.

AC is still the game I have most enjoyed in my entire life.

This was my first MMO. I still dream about it sometimes. It truly was a shame that this game did not get the attention it deserved. I imagine an updated AC1 with the same systems would be insanely fun to play.

This game to this day, has an unmatched sense of exploration.

Literally the best game ever made. Period. Remake this game before i die of old age, please.

22 years later and AC1 is still my favorite game of all time. Morningthaw as Kerek the Valiant, Duncan Cragstone and Anarkis.

I played the hell out of Asheron's Call back when it was new. The class-less "Skill Build" system really is unique compared to other MMOs.

I remember the first time I got in trouble on AC. I was running down a beach and got portaled in to a small room with no exit. There was an Admin thereand gave me a lecture. I stripped my character and /died. I was like 11 at the time but this was the funniest moment in my gaming career. Even the admin had a laugh.

I absolutely love Asheron's Call, the most enjoyable was the Shadow War! I remember the night the event kicked off. We were going from one town to the next to fight the ghostly shadows.

Best MMORPG of all time. I still remember still trying to find that perfect UA with the best stats. Looking for that shield (the one you didn't have to buff) with the best stats. By far the best loot system.

Played Asherons from beta until Warcraft went live and our whole allegiance jumped over. Leaving was the biggest mistake. Open world dungeons meant if you were having problems someone could just wander in and help. Developers actually playing the npc's and advancing the story. I am back in it now on Levistras emulator and having so much fun.

I remember smashing Diamond Golems for hours on end to get motes wearing nothing but my ultra buffed Hoary Mattekar Robe with my custom built Battlemage build... Debuff and then whack them with a Bludgeon bolt or whatever it was called. I am saddened to even watch this documentary because the best MMO to ever be created, far far better than WOW, had its lifeline pulled. It is time to bring this game back exactly like it was content wise but add in the most modern RTX3090 type graphics into it. Damn I would love it.

As someone who still thinks about AC all the time I really appreciate this video. Experiencing AC in that amazing in game event at the end of beta and the game itself was so emotional . It was all such a amazing experience.

Leafcull was my server, started playing in 2001 and was really addicted to this game. Really miss the good ol days

The best MMO I ever played, and one of the best games. And I played it way too much. Thistledown server and the Dereth Guard (my monarchy) will always have a special place in my heart. It's hard to beat the excitement of long runs through unknown areas of the frozen north or through the direlands outside Ft Tethana.

Greatest game I ever played. Darktide was something special.

I can't sleep if I don't have my holtburg sound file...

Oh man, what a fun trip down memory lane this was. Thanks, really enjoyed it!

I think they had one of the best loot system's there was and has been in MMORPG's. Each and every monster kill you could get a pile of crap or hit the jackpot. Random stat buffs, attack buffs all kinds of cool stuff. I'm still in the search for a MMORPG with a loot system anywhere close to what they had. ANYONE know of any games out there? i'm hoping ash's of creation or one of the new ones coming out in the next few months will have something close. but I think all hope is lost on loot systems like that again :(. it really rocked

Yun-Fat of Thistledown here. AC was by fart the best game I've ever played. The community made it so. The game itself was wonderful, with unique features such as researchable-spells and deep lore. The Alliance system built wonderful freiendships both inside and outside the game. I miss it daily.

This game is still alive on private servers. I played on Morningthaw back in the day (Verdant Force).

My first MMO. I snuck up at night to play it on our family computer. Back then dad paid per hour for the internet. My young mind thought I could keep it all secret by figuring out how to disable the dial-up modems sound, but when the bill came the jig was up.

My first MMO, I remember starting before the event and everything was normal, then the monthly patch came out and all the rivers turned red, at the time I was still a noob and didn't have a clue about what was going on. Was wild to experience that kind of world changing event. I continued playing from 99 until FFXI and then came back later. All this time later there are still parts of the game that are locked away in my memory banks and will never be forgotten. Shoushi born and Sawato raised, grew fighting shreth and those mossy creepers in the tower, then you meet the lugians at citadil followed by the olthoi and then Mr tusker. I remember when daggers were double stab and hilts made them the meta for a while. The world was huge and so diverse but still could be traveled on foot and meshed together well not like modern MMOs where there are clear divides between zones, these were slow transitions made it all feel authentic. There were just so many random dungeons and things scattered everywhere. Quests that were just off the beaten path like 3 towers in the south dires land bridge area. Just being able to set off on an adventure in the wild and being able to run for hours straight without encountering a loading screen or being funneled down a predetermined path its more open world than any modern MMO today. The world itself will always be my favorite part of the game. But arguably, the best part was the PVP system. And it was ruthless, you die your loosing stuff whether that's money from having to restock death items or your loosing gear. Eventually they made it less painfull with certain non drop items, and pink pvp. While mages did dominate in the 1v1 encounters, melee and bow were still viable in larger engagements. And bow could hold its own in a duel with a mage, I loved to PVP with my magic d and bow spec with 100 coord, will and focus. Getting blasted in the face only to resist used to make the mages blood boil. I played an emulator a few years ago, even ran into a few people I remember from back in the day. Need to check out the emulators again now that more time has passed.

This game was FILLED with unique mechanics and systems, many of which have rarely ever been tried again by game makers today. For example, weapons and armor sold to blacksmith NPCs would appear in that NPC's stock for a time, able to be purchased by other players. This made things exciting for lowbie players who could hang out around the "cool kids'" towns with higher level dungeons nearby, and poach the junk they sold with the hopes of acquiring something better than what their own level range was dropping. As the gear was randomized, right down to physical appearance, imagine how exciting it was (for the time) to find a tachi with a shiny jade-green hilt, with the text description talking about the multiple rubies studded into it. And the note of gear, one of the most amazing timeless mechanics was the ability to inscribe any weapon or armor with a bit of custom text, that included the name of the player writing it. You could put a cheesy inside joke there, or a little reminder of your many adventures. And since most gear was NOT "soulbound" (a mechanic that games like WoW would heavily popularize, to everyone's detriment IMO), you could give your "hand me down" weapons to your friends, or alts, with the inscription in tact. One could log in one day and see the little message written by an old friend or mentor years ago and be taken back nostalgically to the dungeon-exploring adventures you shared together. One of the things that's difficult to remember is how many little things about the game changed and changed again over time. They might not all be interesting enough to fit in a retrospective, but the monster distributions throughout the overworld, the types of loot dropped by various enemies all changed, mostly to make any given encounters more rewarding loot-wise, but a little uniqueness was lost in the process. You used to be able to count on Drudges to only carry grapes and cheese, it was a bit of a running joke as they were essentially the weakest monster race in the game. But this was also one of the game's strengths, as it allowed for things like invasions, with spawns of new monster types appearing all over the world replacing others as part of ongoing monthly story events.

Asheron's call will always be the best MMO ever made. I don't care about sales numbers they have never been a more involving and challenging game made.

It's still amazing to me that a potential divergence in story line statuses was the single most memorable time I've ever had playing an MMO. I remember running home from work to find out news on whether the shard had fallen yet. I remember hearing about groups making an attempt to destroy the shard in the early morning hours, but the defenders were always covering it. I remember the portal advantage and the leveling of the shard by "feeding it" XP. The developers did exactly what they needed to do in order to ensure that this server did not diverge. I just love that they participated in the game and actually empowered a player to perform the act. I remember starting near Nanto and progressing to the point where our alliance was able to push my name into the global quest completion messages for Aerlinthe and the Olthoi Queen on New Year's Eve back in 2001. Outstanding game. I loved reading about builds, PvP drama, learning about XP chains, being jealous of the old school purple Olthoi helms and Hoary Mattekar (Matty) robes, pre-patch GSA, +113% mod Yumis, Arwic's destruction, the Hub, portal bots, portal storms, Sanctuary's memorial, in game weddings, Vitae penalty, getting a group to help recover a chain of bodies I left in the Direlands, Tusker Den, Virindi, Maggie the Jackcat, Darktide players calling Frostfell players "O.o", dOOdspeak, Turbine's leader boards for skills and character levels, Fort Teth, the first White Rabbit kill, and the Obsidian Plains. -Archain/Event Horizon of Thistledown

The PVP play, for me, is still the very best of any game I've played. I also loved the fact that if you died, you dropped something valuable. This made dying WAY more anxiety-attack-driving and thus more fun and exciting. The vassals thing was great as well as having your own home. Lastly, the sound/ambiance is still my favorite of any game since.

I really miss this game. It was so fun to stay up as a teenager to play 😊 good memories

This game helped define my childhood. In its peak it was nuts.

My favorite game of all time.

Every item had physical models... player housing was done better then any other game ever.. the sense of exploration and wanting to collect intresting and unique items... no other game has made me feel these things.

God I miss AC. Nothing compares even today. Thanks for the history. I was in middle school when I was playing so I didn’t know the business info. I think the only thing you missed was more on the community engagement. For example, at launch Turbine recruited people to be guides called Advocates who were not GMs but were in game to help guide players and answer questions in the starting zones. IGN boards were also huge in staging events and building game info. Shout out to AC Friends.

I was standing in front of Del Cabon on Harvestgain when he hit 100. First level 100 on the entire server as far as I remember. Best MMO of all time hands down

There never was a better game than Asheron's Call. In all honesty, I just do not understand why someone has not brought this game back to live play.

my god, i would do anything to just spend 1 hour hanging out in a well-populated mayoi or the subway back in 2000 again.

Still, in 2023, the greatest PC game that ever existed. It never got the respect it deserved. The community was great. They had new events every month. The backend server architecture was amazing for 1999, so many players in towns and no lag on a 56k modem connection! The fact that you could run from one end of the huge map to the other without loading screens was a great thing, there wasn't anything to disrupt your immersion in the world. EverQuest didn't have that and neither did WoW. I've never since felt as immersed in a game world as I did in Dereth.

This was the best game that ever existed.

This was amazing! Took me back and taught me a lot about the behind the scenes, great work

This was my first mmo and I love this thing.

It was my first ever MMO back in the day, great times were had 👍

I'm playing this right now on DocTide -- havent had this much fun since 1999!

Best game ever ! The 2 first years in AC (2000-2002) is still today my best gaming experience ever ! It was adventure ! Discovery ! Pure fun ! and great people ! I was on Morningthaw, as "Overlord Notir" or as "Tower Shield" later.

Definitely was not the first, but one of the most rememberable! MMORPGs started in the early 90s. Even Ultima Online was before Asheron's Call. Did anyone ever ask if Turbine would sell the rights to the game?

Literally nothing from AC made it into the next gen MMOs, which is a damn shame. They all went the Everquest way, which is another damn shame.

This video hits an emotional string. Asheron's Call was my first MMO, and because of that, Asheron's Call was basically my idea of what an MMO should have been. An open world where you had a lot to learn and how everything was an organic experience. When I say organic experience 13:18 was the best example. I was around for that and Baal Z during that time when I was in high school. Players had to make their own choices and it affected the actual world. Mostly played WoW in my MMO career but I wish I spent more time on Asheron's Call. My issue with MMOs today is that nothing is organic anymore, where there is a set storyline for every player is the main hero. It doesn't feel organic and I can tell the devs choose to sacrifice immersion. We need more games like Asheron's Call.

Not a day goes by that I just can’t fathom why a dozen people could do a game like this in 1997. But for the last 15-18 years no one seems to even be able to try. God help us mmo gods bring us a hardcore mmo like days of old.

I was in the Beta. I remember getting stuck between a table and the wall and reporting this to a Administrator and then being ported to the start of the dungeon. It was the best ever. Great magic system. Darktide was my home. I still have the original CD.

Excellent video, was my first MMO, just recently started playing the emulator for that nostalgic hit :)

Love the content. Keep it coming !

I played Asheron's Call for a *long* time..including beta..and i was there for the mass logoff/death of the game. What a ride.

I played from release heavily, then DAoC came out and I split my time between the two for several more years. After many years away, I just started again on Levistras and revisiting all the old haunts is vastly more fun then I expected!

another great one!! keep it up!

I remember getting my CD in the main and Alpha testing began! :)

Tremendous monouga's were introduced near the tail end of beta too as a stress test for the server's before taking beta down for launch. I remember seeing thousands of bodies in shoushi as a kid lol, portal storms (games indication of lag) was also prevelant

UO was a massive MMO too and it came out in 97 IIRC.

I remember when i first made a character, survived the beginning, then survived the run to a nearby town. I made a big 3rd person post celebrating how my character made it to town... And nobody cared

I became an "AC orphan" when my mom got addicted to this game. It was all she card about. She even installed it on her work computer and would load it when she had the office to herself throughout the day. She cat fished a guy and they would talk on the phone all the time. I attended their in-game wedding on Harvestgain with my own character. He ended it after a year of trying to meet in real life failed for obvious reasons. Despite that, I have fond memories of exploring and doing quests in this game. It was a blast. I didn't have the patience to get my character, Echo Theory, above level 40. The game became more and more unfamiliar as I drifted away.

I loved this game. EQ was crap by comparison. I even made an in game tour book of the Sho lands with coordinates of ruins and POIs. Love Love Love this game. The Lugian Pit took 20 min to run to from the nearest lifestone. That was in the far north. NO modern MMO has matched the wonderful exploration of a giant map the way Asherons Call did.

a legit remaster/remake of this game is the only game i would sub to or pre order.

Great recap video of AC and the history of it, never has been or maybe will be an MMO quite like it. Bonus points for mentioning the Shard of the Herald, I remember Camping that dungeon in shifts under the leadership of Mythrandia (RIP). -Schindler (Name on the monument for the defense of the Shard)

Asheron's Call was my first MMORPG, I still havent found another MMORPG ever since that has been as good or that ive had such fond memories of :-( its sad that the game never got updated to Asheron's Call 3 with modern graphics. Frostfell Server ftw!

I played for 7 years. Devide Level 238 Battlemage Solclaim

I only played this game a little bit, but the buffing system was total insanity. So you can cast buffs that increase your stats, so far so good. Now the power of the buffs you can cast is based on your stats, so by buffing yourself with your low level buffs you are now able to cast higher level buffs, so you do. That's a little out there...but guess what happens next? That's right, by casting the higher level buffs you are now able to cast *even higher* level buffs, so you do and...it doesn't end there, no sir, this continues for some time... Now I'm one of those weird people who likes casting buff spells, but even for me a 20 minute buffing routine (exaggerated for effect...but only a little...😆) was a bit much...

I remember playing with my nephew in Beta. We were hunting around and he said "Follow me. I gotta go loot my corpse." And I said "You can loot your corpse???"

Great video! :)

After playing on a server that partially re-implements the spell research system, my takeaway is that it's only especially difficult the first time around. If you take notes, and notice patterns, you can just about work out the spell formula for any spell apart from the tapers for the higher end variants. And then from there it was apparently rather easy for the developers of the tools of the era to work out what algorithm was used to determine the otherwise random taper formula -- for example there was such a concept known as taper rotation, where the next level up had the taper one back from the earlier version as it's first. And I've heard tell of some mythical accounts (apparently your account name was used as a seed for RNG) where due to a bug every single taper for every single spell was just a red taper. Those accounts obviously had a massive advantage. That combined with the challenge of the system being blown wide open early on is probably what led to the later simplification of the system and the proliferation of magic to the point where endgame content was no longer balanced with all play styles in mind. Magic was intended to be a heavy risk versus reward system, where letting secrets get out was punished and the magic was grueling to learn but rewarding to use. I can tell you that if magic was intended to be used by everyone from the word go it would have been much weaker -- you certainly wouldn't have been able to add effectively 20 levels to your character instantly. The durations were initially so low that it was clear that you weren't intended to always run around with all of your buffs active. You were supposed to more or less just buff yourself for the situation at hand -- much more emphasis was placed on finding gear that buffed your skills for you to wear in combat rather than merely what protected you best or was lightest. There's a lot of nuance to the game that was lost over time.

Thanks for this video. Many videos I've seen that cover Asheron's Call miss a bunch of the important concepts from the game, but you hit many of the things that made it a standout game. Ironically, mages are now considered kind of underpowered compared to other classes.

PRE PATCH GSA BABY

For 20+ years, all I knew about this game was some screenshots in magazines I saw at the time. Always thought it looked REALLY cool.

Loved Asheron's Call. Played it through high school but had to quit when I went to University. Tried other MMOs since, but they were all amusement park experiences instead of a true open world like AC.

Damn, I miss this game so much. Particularly prior to the weapons being changed into groupings… The character creation is simply the best when it came to skill builds.

Can’t wait to watch. AC was my first MMO

Leafcull represent!!!! To this day AC is the best MMO ever made. It is a shame no developer has carried the mantra of using AC as inspiration for a modern MMO.

I LOVED Asheron’s Call.

This game lived rent-free in my head for years, the art and world design seemed very reminiscent of Morrowind which was one of my favorite games of the era. Problem is that I was never into MMOs and I didn't know anyone (at the time) who was. I always found the idea of paying a monthly fee for a game rather annoying. I kinda wish Freemium pay models existed then because I absolutely would have played. I also didn't realize it had gone free to play in 2016. Damn shame! But I'll have to give the user-hosted games a try some time.

Sadly, this game flew completely under my radar. Thanks for another interesting peek into 90's gaming history!

Dekaru is trying to bring back the classic style of Asherons call for the emulator (you have GDLE and ACE). Its amazing to see all these devs work on rebuilding and making the greatest MMO in our childhood even better. If any devs stumble onto this comment, thank you for putting your time and effort into this. You are truly appreciated.

Happy christmas bud

No mention of the housing system? It was a little late in the life of the game but really cool. You could get apartment style rooms, smaller houses, giant houses, and even castles. There was a huge monthly upkeep as you moved up but you could store items and hang and display trophies. Not sure if any other modern MMOs do something like that.

Good times that game. The game felt so realistic and characters felt like extensions of self. Seemed like every other day people were getting together romantically in real life because of a bonds they made in this game.

I miss playing AC so much - but despite there being emulators (I am back in that) I don't think people will flock to the game. The biggest issue is the game being not so friendly for new players and the graphics being old as well will put off a lot of people... We need a new rendition, new graphics, same world, same system with just slight modifications (bit more handholding in the begining) and we would be alive!

Loved this game. It did something unique, it brought the player themselves into the game. This was your own story in a brand new world. Nothing was given or spoon fed to you, you had to work for everything you had. I remember people would keep their hunting grounds as secret as possible. If you saw someone in your spot you could drag mobs onto them to get rid of them :) I remember when they blew up Arwic, it was mind blowing that they had world changing events like that. It felt like a real achievement when I got my first set of Amuli Shadow Armor. Thistledown was my home, and Elydaor Ibn Darkness was my name.

Released 3 years after Ultima Online -- very interesting to hear this is the first!

I loved this game. LOVED.

It's a crime that ypu aren't getting more views. Highly under recognized.

One of the best games I've played ever, and I've been playing video games for the last 45 years. UO, then AC1, both much better than EQ in my opinion.

Man i remember watching my dad playing this game. I use to sneak on his account while he was at work and one time I accidentally got his character killed and lost all his hard earned armor, gold and weapons he was pissed 😂 later on i got hooked onto world of warcraft that was my version of asherons call

AC was very action gamey - "run" and "jump" were trainable skills, everyone ran at different speeds, and it made a difference in chasing ppl down. You could level jump high enough so that you could leap, in one jump, onto buildings the center of a town and shoot at people with arrows. It felt much freer than any game since!

This is such a great blast from the past. That portal entry in the beginning sent me back 20 years. Asheron's call was amazing, and I really miss it. I pretty much raised myself on that game, and remember all of my patrons, and every struggle and zone as patches changed XP grind spot popularity. It was really nice to see Q'bar again, I miss Cit. Unfortunately like many games, as AC got easier due to 3rd party programs, the less interesting the game was. It became meta to get buff bot, to the point where they made extended spell times. My favorite thing to do was not use any magic except for portals and weapon buffs, and instead rely on Arcane lore and armor spells to always keep me buffed. Sometimes I wouldn't be able to take my armor off, or else I'd have to spend forever wearing the right order of gear in order to unlock the abilities on armor. 10/10 video thanks

Great work Sir thank you

i botted 6 accounts on this on 2 different PCs back in 2000 on darktide and sold all the gear and characterson ebay making around 2000$ a month as a kid , good times , i will say to this day no mmo has felt even close as fun, the monarch system , dungeon control guilds, and the world PVP was untouched to this day

I wish someone could do with Asheron's Call what the small dev team of Ultima Online:Outlands did (free private server). They took the base game back in 1998, kept the PVP mechanics mostly intact, but created a whole new game map with a TON of new PVE mechanics. They release a lot of new content, patches and skills frequently and 4 years in still has a huge active community, both in PVP and PVE. Asheron's Call:Outlands would be a dream come true :)

This IP could be so much more. It has a great world, characters, and stories. It could have books, comics, graphic novels, shows, movies, and more games. I can't believe its fallen into the basement of forgotten IPs....

never played the game myself, but I've watched a few videos about the development and the history of the game and the way they approached the lore and storytelling was very unique, they did it in a way where their world felt alive from what I can tell looking in from the outside.i thought it was unique and not to mention cool as hell when i read that the dev team would play roles to evolve the living story. something thats not even being done today!!! think about that! it's all just interesting as hell. Oh, year nice work as well you knocked it out of the park!!

Was also my first MMO. Still go play is sometimes on private servers!

great channel

I loved that you could put up a meat shield in a dungeon and keep archers and mages behind and damn that was fun

I watched Hebian-To get destroyed at the end of beta. I was logged in on shutdown day. Hi, from Qube Rewt, Phat Ho, and Dogrobber, Thistledown. Great times were had.