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GAME OVER https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLamPUP01E0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP3_UdPz4Vo Attempts are being made to emulate: http://acemulator.org/forums https://discord.gg/ev8W656 Previous post: http://venturebeat.com/2016/12/20/the-asherons-call-mmo-universe-from-the-90s-will-finally-go-offline-in-january/ Both 1 and 2 go offline at the end of January. Existing accounts can play until then, but no new accounts can be made. This makes it the first of the "Big Three" early MMOs to kick the bucket (UO and EQ being the other two). Sad to see it go. Freakazoid_ fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Feb 1, 2017 |
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Dec 21, 2016 04:18
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Many, many fond memories. I will miss Dereth.
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Dec 21, 2016 07:26
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I only played this game for about a minute back in 2003 or whatever, but it was kind of cool. A huge, sprawling, untamed world with massive unexplored areas and full loot on death. I was hoping they'd let me make a private server so I could turn on godmode and see the world. I think I got to like level 12 or something. Dunno why, after all the dumb mmos I've tried, this one should stick with me as the one I'd kill to explore. Particularly since I never actually played it.
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Dec 21, 2016 07:53
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I didn't play this game except in beta. All I really can remember is that I got the impression was that it was an open world like UO - unlike EQ which has zones. UO, EQ, and AC are the "first big three" MMORPGs in my opinion. It's sad to see one of them finally go. I'm going to be absolutely crushed when it happens to UO. EQ will outlast UO I believe, it is still getting support and content, in a lesser amount than the past. Rest in peace. I hope a server emulator is possible for the people that still want to play AC. I always feel sad when a MMOG goes down.
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Dec 21, 2016 08:20
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I signed up for beta when it was just a website with a handful of screenshots, long before Microsoft became involved. It looked too good to be true at that point, and I more or less forgot about it until the e-mail arrived. Thank gently caress my housemates and I had cable internet by then.
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Dec 21, 2016 13:45
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Sad to see this go. Pretty fun game to explore. Made several 100+ over the years.
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Dec 21, 2016 14:46
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I feel I would be remiss if I didn't say something. Played this game like a fiend with two other friends in high school. I dragged one of them kicking and screaming from EQ, and got the other started shortly after. Loved the game's sheer sense of freedom - build your own character from scratch, no "zones" apart from dungeons, and tons of content that just existed for its own sake. The world not being a typical "elves and dragons" world was also a big selling point as all the creatures were completely new. I'll probably log in one last time before they take down the servers, just for old time's sake. Goodbye, AC. You never received the appreciation you deserved, but you won't be forgotten.
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Dec 21, 2016 14:48
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drat, I just restarted with old characters (from 10 years ago) last October. Game is much nicer now, went from L130 to L180 since, not even grinding or macroing, and technically runs must better now then it ever has.
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Dec 21, 2016 16:45
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My first MMO and still my favorite, I played the beta and fell in love. I had a PC gamer ( I think) or some computer gaming magazine at least in my home room in high school and it had one of the bigger ads for AC in it. That is all me and my buddy did was look at it and talk about how excited we were. I had just turned 16 and skipped school to go pick it up at EB games ( I think) when it released, I clearly remember talking to the sales rep about it and how excited I was that it was out. He tried to talk me into getting EQ instead. I had 4 friends hooked within a week and we all played the hell out of it. I made good $$$ off selling in-game items on ebay before it was really a thing, my mom did not understand I think she thought I was doing illegal things for the money for awhile. Such good memories from AC, anytime that group of friends get together we always tell stories about our great adventures in AC and when so and so did this or that. My favorite story is when we were all together up in Arwic and this was really early on I'd say January 2000, a much higher level guy in nice armor ran up to us and died almost instantly. He came back and handed my friend a piece of black obsidian and told him it was a death rock and to not hold it long because it would kill him. We totally believed him because we were not aware of the /suicide command at the time. We traded that rock back and forth for awhile.
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Dec 21, 2016 19:51
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I was about 14 when this came out, and it was my first MMO. I remember how exciting the concept of the genre was back then, and how new and unexplored everything felt back in 1999, with no wikis or leveling guides or anything to hold you by the hand. While I never stuck around with it as long or came to value the community as highly as I later did in City of Heroes (another fallen homie), I am always going to remember the excitement of exploring that first dungeon, traveling across the continent, and the sound drudges make. God I'm getting old.
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Dec 21, 2016 22:42
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The Bramble posted:I remember how exciting the concept of the genre was back then, and how new and unexplored everything felt back in 1999, with no wikis or leveling guides or anything to hold you by the hand. Yeah, that's a big draw of AC for me. Remember how spells weren't catalogued, and you had to find them via experimentation? And if I recall correctly, the more often a spell was cast overall, the weaker it got. So you had incentive to keep them secret, or to use lesser-used spells. What a cool idea. It's a phenomenal way to prevent "flavor of the month" from happening. I wish they'd give a player-run server option.
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Dec 22, 2016 03:50
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For a game that has occupied my free time from early 2000 till now; RIP. Having friends in the game development industry, and ones directly tied to Standing Stone and their publisher(s). Severlin did everything he could to bring AC over in this acquisition. It's truly poo poo he's being slayed on the forums. Private servers didn't happen. That was a corporate cock block as I've been told. The fact WB is holding the IP to this game is some kind of beef none of us will understand without being there. I hope individuals take the initiative to build a server for this client. If anything, people would love to log in just to socialize. This was still a healthy community.
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Dec 22, 2016 05:12
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RIP Quite a few community oriented attempts to buy/emulate going on right now. I hope they succeed!
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Dec 22, 2016 21:34
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They were just going to give out the source code back when it went "buy to play". Don't know what ever came of that. I think only one guy was working on the game, at all.
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Dec 22, 2016 22:32
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Are people moving over to Project Gorgon?
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Dec 22, 2016 22:35
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Alexander DeLarge posted:Are people moving over to Project Gorgon? Is it really anything like AC?
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Dec 22, 2016 23:41
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Diogines posted:Is it really anything like AC? No idea, I never really got into Asheron's Call that much but I know it's designed by two fairly important figures in AC1/2's development.
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Dec 22, 2016 23:56
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I played Asherons Call back when it was owned by Microsoft and on Zone.com. Honestly this game wasn't good.
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Dec 23, 2016 02:25
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Never actually played this game but I did love watching dr34d0g's videos on YT a decade ago ago.
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Dec 23, 2016 02:57
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I said come in! posted:I played Asherons Call back when it was owned by Microsoft and on Zone.com. Honestly this game wasn't good. The thunder of me crushing this noob is followed by the deafening silence of death!
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Dec 23, 2016 03:55
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Pube Factory posted:The thunder of me crushing this noob is followed by the deafening silence of death! Knock him all the way back to Morningthaw!
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Dec 24, 2016 02:46
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I had originally tried to get Asheron's Call 1 way, way back when I was a tiny baby, but the local EB Games didn't have it and I ended up becoming an Everquest-playing plebeian instead. It's a shame I never got to experience it much; it seemed like a really cool game for its time.
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Dec 24, 2016 03:43
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Vermain posted:I had originally tried to get Asheron's Call 1 way, way back when I was a tiny baby, but the local EB Games didn't have it and I ended up becoming an Everquest-playing plebeian instead. It's a shame I never got to experience it much; it seemed like a really cool game for its time. I don't know anything about AC gameplay other than it looked like Everquest without zones, which is cool.
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Dec 24, 2016 04:03
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I said come in! posted:I played Asherons Call back when it was owned by Microsoft and on Zone.com.  quote:Honestly this game wasn't good. It had its ups and downs. I played during a month when they decided to tackle speed hacks but it didn't work and the server caused everyone to rubberband. But I also stole some bank notes someone tried to cleverly hide in the unsecured chests at an inn.
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Dec 24, 2016 05:54
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I played the gently caress out of UO and EQ but never got AC. Only saw a couple screenshots, but it still occupied a place in my mind as the "other" MMO option at the time and this news actually makes me sad despite having never played it. UO and EQ I will have mixed feelings about; on the one hand it will be sad but on the other hand both games became such completely bastardized versions of what made them good it will kind of numb the sting when they finally go, cause the games I actually liked died long ago and only exist now as feeble approximations.
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Dec 26, 2016 17:54
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I remember there was some island you could barely see off the coast so a bunch of people hung out near it to generate a portal storm and a couple of them got teleported to it and explored it, which turned out to be pretty dangerous as despite there being no monsters the geometry was hosed up so you could take a step onto an incline and start sliding helplessly while taking rapid-fire fall damage
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Dec 26, 2016 23:14
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RentACop posted:I remember there was some island you could barely see off the coast so a bunch of people hung out near it to generate a portal storm and a couple of them got teleported to it and explored it, which turned out to be pretty dangerous as despite there being no monsters the geometry was hosed up so you could take a step onto an incline and start sliding helplessly while taking rapid-fire fall damage There was one off the dire lands that people tried that to as well, I suspect that was it.
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Dec 27, 2016 01:36
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Nooo! I just reinstalled a while back to visit and mess around some. Asheron's Call was my first MMO and my time on Darktide still holds some of my dearest gaming memories. Dereth was truly a unique world and some of those monthly updates were amazing. I remember the first time winter came to the game - that was a heck of a shock. The arrival of the Shadows and their Spires (and the eventual destruction of Tufa - which never did get rebuilt drat it!) There was bad with the good of course - an unwillingness to put in basic features other MMOs came to offer, loose ends in the few stories they had out there, neutering the magic system, mixing up the monsters and loot which used to be themed to their location, subway supplanting pre-subway portal paths as the main travel method, and things of that sort. Even so the game offered far more good than bad and I'll miss it. Perhaps I'll see if I can't grab myself a Casting Stein and explore the Direlands as a relative newb one last time.
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Dec 28, 2016 13:42
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This is sad, sad news. I had hoped AC would stay up forever. It was my first mmo and I started playing back in 2000, about a year after it released on MSN Gaming Zone. From then to 2002 was an amazing time in mmo history, and AC was front and center. I tried UO and EQ, but they never had the appeal for me that AC did. I've logged back in many times over the years, returning anywhere from a few hours to months. I will truly miss this game, and knowing that I can't log in to Dereth leaves an emptiness inside me.
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Jan 3, 2017 07:24
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SamEyeAm posted:I will truly miss this game, and knowing that I can't log in to Dereth leaves an emptiness inside me. This is exactly how I am going to feel when UO and EQ go down. I won't just miss the game. I will miss the world. This is the shittiest part of MMORPGs. There will be a point where they turn off the switch and you cannot play it anymore, unless people make great effort to emulate it.
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Jan 3, 2017 10:52
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Ah man that sucks. AC was my first MMO addiction, many a sick day was burned on firing up my 56k modem and cranking out some AC. Some of the things I will always be fond of from the game, being able to add points to your jump. My goal was to be able to jump UP the subway and while I was never close, I jumped higher than anyone else I saw. I was like the loving Michael Jordan of AC. Also getting chased for miles and miles by Zephyr's and Shallows Sharks only to succumb to their death by a thousand cuts like 100 miles from the nearest lifestone. Super don't gently caress with Gold Wasps. And I will always love AC for it's intro to elemental weapons. I think at one time I had like 8 axe's, one for each elemental...and it ruled. The fizzle sound will forever be burned into my memory. RIP AC 
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Jan 3, 2017 19:33
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weird Asian candy posted:I jumped higher than anyone else I saw. I was like the loving Michael Jordan of AC. quote:Also getting chased for miles and miles by Zephyr's and Shallows Sharks only to succumb to their death by a thousand cuts like 100 miles from the nearest lifestone. Yeah, tearing through the wilderness with deadly wildlife on your rear end is definitely something I remember well. And then when I started playing on Darktide, it was a human player at the edge of your minimap closing in on you. Man, what a crazy game. Part of my nostalgia for it is just that it was the first graphical MMO that I played, so the sense of wonder was huge and unable to be replicated in later games, but it also did some really cool stuff. That seamless world, the bits of lore tucked here and there, and the graphics that were pretty drat good for the time... I don't think I would ever have really gone back to it, but it's still sad to see it die out.
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Jan 3, 2017 20:57
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I played UO/WoW off and on, but AC was always my favorite. Fond memories of it:
I hope an emulated server is available at some point just to buff up and kill some poo poo again.
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Jan 4, 2017 04:31
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weird Asian candy posted:Ah man that sucks. AC was my first MMO addiction, many a sick day was burned on firing up my 56k modem and cranking out some AC. The thing that really sucks is this is the easiest MMO for fans to acquire since there's no middleware, probably doesn't share much code with D&DO/LOTRO and doesn't put those games at risk security-wise and it's an IP no one cares about. Hell will freeze over before Warner Brothers decides to invest in another Asheron's Call game... And they won't get it.
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Jan 4, 2017 07:23
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When AC went non-billing, they had stated they'd make the game files available for players to host private/emulated servers. Unfortunately, this announcement didn't include any information about it, and the remaining AC developer who was working on the files has since had his publicly available Linkedin information updated to say he's no longer with the AC people. Most of the community assumes that the lack of private server file information means they're unlikely to happen, now, despite the publicly-stated hope of private servers being used to lure in people to purchase new AC accounts, post-subscription shutdown. There's a lot of ill-will on the official AC forum, due to this. erazure fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Jan 4, 2017 |
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Jan 4, 2017 09:53
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There are is an effort being being made on postcount.net to finally get a good emulator running and one scam effort. It's sad to see it go especially since I started playing again.
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Jan 4, 2017 15:12
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PowerBuilder3 posted:drat, I just restarted with old characters (from 10 years ago) last October. It is so much fun now which is why it's such a shame. They kept adding more and more good content up until they stopped 2 years ago
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Jan 4, 2017 15:14
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Wikipedia Brown posted:That's dope, haha. I loved that kind of thing, too. Oh yeah. I remember running for hours and hours getting to the most remote spots possible just to see what was there. Or running to BFE to pick plants to dye my armor white. The game was really incredible for its time. One of my best memories that I just remembered was my buddies and I thought we would be hilarious and all created a member of TLC, ran way the hell up into the mountains somewhere hours away and found a house. We were like this is awesome, our own little girl band house all to ourselves because there was no one around for miles. One day we ventured out around the house to see what was out there and it was our first experience with Giant Mattekar which was way higher level and tougher than our level 1 ladies. The thing made some terrifying noise and started chasing us, so we ran back to our house and after myself and my brother made it in I closed the door so our third member couldn't get in. That turned into 10 minutes of laughing hysterically as we watched the red blob chase the green blob in circles on the radar until the thing finally caught my buddy and killed him. Such good times
weird Asian candy fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Jan 4, 2017 |
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Jan 4, 2017 22:06
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I havent played AC since just after the Lugian and Tusker dungeons are implemented but I'm still a little down now that things are finally over. In the day before wikis most of the wonder and secrets of the game were well preserved, and the game's community at the time helped that by remaining tight-lipped about the things they figured out. It was by no means a good game by today's standards but back then it was incredibly innovative and one-of-a-kind. It also set my bar for what 'too much grinding in an mmo' was, which made everything that came after it (DAOC, WoW, FF11/14, etc.) feel easy by comparison.
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Jan 6, 2017 20:19
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This is something I really appreciate about the Project Gorgon community. Most things are left unspoken unless you really ask for them. Shame I generally missed out on Asheron's Call but unfortunately I was already invested in Everquest when it came out and it slipped under the radar until years later while I was interested in Star Wars Galaxies at the time. If Asheron's Call wasn't delayed, the whole genre might have been very different today.
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Jan 6, 2017 20:35
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