Just before Christmas, we learned the sad news that Turbine would not be transferring Asheron’s Call and its revivified sequel to Standing Stone as part of its Daybreak deal. No, Turbine planned to sunset both games on January 31st along with their forums, which provoked outrage, attempts to save the games, and open distress from players and developers alike.
But now it’s done, and no last-minute reprieve or sale has materialized.
While it’s still fresh in our minds, I wanted to collect our streams, retrospectives, and community efforts all in one place. Enjoy.
Streams
Massively OP’s MJ Guthrie and Andrew Ross ran half a dozen streams over the last few weeks that we’ll be able to keep forever. For MJ, it was her first time in either game, and since account creation was turned off, I sent her into Dereth armed with my old accounts. For Andrew, however, it was a sweet farewell to a long-loved and long-played favorite franchise.
The Stream Team: Trying out Asheron’s Call before it’s gone - If you wait too long, sometimes you will miss out, and Massively OP's MJ almost missed out on seeing the world of Asheron's Call. With the doors closing at the…
The Stream Team: Beginner’s luck in Asheron’s Call - There's still a huge world in Asheron's Call to explore, and Massively OP's MJ hasn't quite made it out of the tutorial yet! Time is a-ticking, so she's got to…
The Stream Team: An Asheron’s Call adventure in paradise - Should Massively OP's MJ be scared? Andrew has an adventure planned, an adventurous adventure! He said they are heading to a tropical island paradise, filled with hot native dudes, beautiful…
The Stream Team: A newbie’s first look at Asheron’s Call 2 - Yes, we know Asheron's Call 2 launched a long time ago (and even more than once, really). But Massively OP's MJ has never played, and she doesn't want to miss…
The Stream Team: Mount questing in Asheron’s Call 2 - Massively OP's MJ really enjoyed her first foray into Asheron's Call 2, but there are so many more places to explore. So what better thing to do before everything goes…
The Stream Team: Asheron’s Call 1 & 2 ride into the sunset - It's never a good thing when a game goes away, and today the MMOverse loses two. In a double whammy, both Asheron's Call and Asheron's Call 2 are riding off…
Here’s a playlist of their journeys, though I’d say you should try to catch the last few minutes of the “final farewell” stream if you do nothing else, as it shows the end of both games simultaneously.
Retrospectives
Because we had an expert on both games handy, we let Andrew run wild with feature pieces on the series, including his rant about the way the whole shutdown and transition was handled, retrospectives of the games’ early days, and lessons to take away from the life and death of worlds.
In appreciation for Dereth: The life and times of Asheron’s Call - Imagine a game where magic was actually rare, complicated, and often underwhelming in terms of time vs. efficiency -- a game where players actually needed to study a language to…
In appreciation for post-apoc Dereth: The life and times of Asheron’s Call 2 - On the left in the screenshot above is a windmill in the town of Cragstone in Asheron's Call. On the right is, well, the same windmill, but in the ruins…
Ten life lessons I learned from the Asheron’s Call series - As Asheron's Call 1 & 2 are going offline shortly, I thought I might give it a final send-off with a list of things I learned from the series. Maybe it's…
The Soapbox: Asheron’s Call is dead, and Turbine killed it - You'd think recent news about Asheron's Call 1 and AC2 would be easy to swallow. After all, we'd already been warned that Turbine was becoming a mobile company. We lived through the end…
Community
The number of people playing Asheron’s Call in 2016 might have been small, but the community of Asheron’s Call players through its long life is enormous, as evinced in the huge number of people who came together to try to save it. In fact, whether they’re working on emulators, videos, petitions, or galleries, many of them are still trying to save it in their own way. (Some are even continuing to negotiate with Turbine, for what that’s worth.)
Asheron’s Call player preserves 50 towns in videos - Tick-tock, tick-tock. The countdown timer for Asheron's Call is running out, as the fantasy title has a half-month until it shuts down for good. The community has been stirred into…
Check out one of the oldest Asheron’s Call players… in all senses of the word - The impending shutdown of Asheron's Call is outright sad news. It's an old title with a lot of strange elements, the likes of which haven't really been seen again. A…
Asheron’s Call players reach out to WB to save their MMO - Another player-led effort to save Asheron's Call from termination is attempting to raise funds from the community to buy or license the game outright. A GoFundMe has been set up…
Fans start a Save Asheron’s Call campaign - The writing is on the wall for Asheron's Call -- or is it? Some fans are hoping that it's not too late to change the minds of Turbine and Standing…
We want to bring attention to a few more. This PC Gamer video shows the end of AC just as ours does, only the streamer is visible — and visibly breaking down by the end. Believe me, dude, I’ve been there — way more times than I’d like to count. You should have seen me bawl when Star Wars Galaxies went dark, and I had six whole months to prepare. Don’t ever let anyone tell you it’s just a game. It’s not.
Vice has an interesting interview out with former Turbine developer and AC designer Jesse Kurlancheek, who’s dropped by MOP a few times to reminisce.
YouTubers Daniel Wedding and Flargenyargen have collected a ton of the game’s vignettesand cutscenes for posterity, and ArkalorHG has collected nearly 2000 game screenshots and handed them off to the community. Expect more collected over on Asheron’s Call Archive.
And finally, while work on emulators (yes, illegal, but there it is) continues, it is possible to log into the game in a way that’ll remind City of Heroes fans of the Icon project. You won’t be able to do much but run around, but at least you can look around and explore.
Hope you see you around again someday, AC.
