VGOEmulator.net

Turbine is going to be stopping all development for Asheron's Call (a great game BTW), letting it go free to play to subscribers first, and then helping the enthusiast community get up to speed in being able run their own servers, create content, and release their tools.

Turbine knows that if they piss off their current customers they won't have very many returning customers; this coupled with the low end resources needed to run an older game such as this (running virtualized, DB management, DB backup, power consumption, ect) the monetary cost is deferred by keeping loyal customers to current and forthcoming IP.

https://www.asheronscall.com/en/forums/ ... ext-update
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game ... 16#6259816

"Let me reiterate that we have no plans to close Asheron’s Call. We plan to keep the game open and the servers running.

Although this change of focus is necessary for our company, we love the Asheron’s Call games and we want them to live forever. We understand that players who have been enjoying our monthly updates will be disappointed at the change to Asheron’s Call. Our long term plan is to make the game free to all active accounts. We are working on a date in the not-to-distant future where all active accounts will be able to play the game for free. Asheron’s Call and Asheron’s Call 2 will be a gift to our loyal players.

In addition, we have been working within the company to start an initiative sometime near the end of the year to allow players to run their own Asheron’s Call servers. We intend to put the call out to tech savvy enthusiasts that love Asheron’s Call to create a community for players who want to run their own Asheron’s Call servers.

Unfortunately, setting up and running an AC server is not a user friendly experience. Enthusiasts would need some knowledge of running an SQL server, setting up the network, using our tools to configure the SQL server, installing the Asheron’s Call server with our complicated tools, and distributing the client. Our intent is to help these players build a community so these processes can be created and distributed to people interested in running an Asheron’s Call game. If that works out we can look into releasing tools and data files that would allow players to modify game data and create alternate content for their own Asheron’s Call games.

Thank you for being part of the Asheron’s Call community."

If you have never played this game I highly suggest doing so as it is one of the hardcore MMORPG bunch akin to EQ / Vanguard.
PvP is a blast!

If you are even thinking of contacting John Smedley of SOE about the Vanguard sunsetting please do bring up this topic on how Turbine is handling their sunsetting.

Oh yeah I forgot to add this as I heard it back a year or so ago. Turbine really knows how to support and give more to their customers.

I remember having a blast on the last night of beta, doing massive instrument jams (20-40 people playing instruments), devs spawning and attacking major towns.


The original Asheron's Call continued to be operated, even after AC2 was shuttered. In December 2012, AC players were given the opportunity to play AC2 once again, on a new server. This marks the first time a major MMORPG was officially reactivated after closing its doors.

"We have opened up a new server for anyone who has an active Asheron’s Call subscription to play Asheron’s Call 2 for free!" the company said. "Although we would have loved to revisit some of our old characters with you, we were not able to bring over any of your old characters. We do, however, present this new Asheron’s Call 2 server, Dawnsong, to all active Asheron’s Call players with a paid subscription or who purchase an ACTD retail key and subscribe."

Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna, the Director of Community Relations for Turbine, said back in 2005 that the MMORPG was shut down because the game failed to achieve enough subscribers to keep the doors open.

"We spent a lot of time trying to come up with various ways to keep the game running at the subscriber level we were at, but in the end none of them worked in the long run," he said during an interview. "Once we exhausted all of our options, we made the final decision. Nobody at Turbine was happy about that, but it had to be done."

Hanna said the expansion pack, which was released just before the MMORPG was taken offline, was meant as an attempt to bring more people in the game by getting Asheron's Call 2 back on store shelves. "We advertised the game on the web and in magazines too. Unfortunately the expansion pack didn’t really grow the game," he said.

"There are many factors that contributed to AC2’s ultimate fate, and it’s really hard to single one factor out above the others," he added. "There are a lot of things that Turbine has learned from AC2, and we’re constantly applying those lessons to Dungeons & Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online. One of the key lessons that we learned is the customer perception of sequels in the MMO space. They end up splitting your community more so than growing it. So they are counterproductive, unlike sequels in other game genres where they can be really successful."

The new Asheron's Call 2 client, available only for Asheron's Call customers, provides access to the new Dawnsong server. Turbine said it passed initial tests, but there's still a lot of monitoring and tweaking to do to the game environment.

"We want to ensure that our players understand that. This game service will be provided as a beta for all players with an active Asheron’s Call account," Turbine said. "If you are an active paid AC1 subscriber there will be no need to create a new account for Asheron’s Call 2; you will simply log into the Asheron’s Call 2 game using your current Asheron’s Call credentials."

Bit of excitement reliving Darktide through the years here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oICrTxvaQQ