New Asheron's Call Event

Today, the Microsoft Gaming Zone will unveil the latest of the world-changing events in its popular online role-playing game, Asheron's Call. The latest event, "Twilight's Gleaming," picks up where the previous event, "Taste of Twilight," left off. Though the land was previously invaded by menacing shadow creatures, the brave adventurers of Dereth were able to fend them off. However, the shadow creatures' mysterious dwellings - the huge, foreboding towers known as shadow spires - remained.

The spires have since moved across the land by unknown means and have assaulted several well-known towns in Dereth. One of them made an unsuccessful attack on the town of Cragstone and eventually crashed into a nearby lake, creating an enormous burnt crater. Unfortunately, the high-traffic towns of Tufa and Arwic weren't as lucky; shadow spires appeared near these towns and released hordes of new and terrifying creatures that destroyed both towns. Players who begin new characters and choose either of these towns as a starting point will start their characters' lives at the outskirts of either town, where a few shell-shocked merchants ply their trades out of makeshift huts and describe the destruction of their town to any passersby.

Twilight's Gleaming will be a complex event in which adventurers will do battle with new creatures, explore new areas, and discover new types of treasure. The event will introduce several brand-new creature species, including the hulking quadruped Ursuin, the nautilus-like Niffis, and the arachnid Grievver. As with the game's other denizens, these new monster types won't resemble the dragons and griffins of traditional high fantasy; they'll be strange, new creatures unique to Dereth. All of these creatures will be rendered using Asheron's Call's new high-polygon-count rendering system (which was introduced into the game six months ago), and, as such, they'll look extremely detailed and will move and fight with fluid animation.

In addition, player characters will be able to explore a wide variety of new dungeons - many of which will be lined with beds of mysterious crystals. As usual, these dungeons will be tailored toward characters of a specific range of character levels. In general, the dungeons of Asheron's Call prevent low-level characters from the certain death of exorbitantly high-level dungeons and prevent high-level characters from cleaning out low-level dungeons. As such, no one character will be able to complete all of the quests of Twilight's Gleaming alone; interaction with other characters of different levels will be necessary in solving the event's compound quests. For instance, you may have to send a low-level character to hunt down a low-level monster to release another, higher-level monster for your higher-level character to defeat.

Fortunately, Twilight's Gleaming will provide diligent adventurers with a number of new rewards, including new items that can imbue their existing weapons and armor with enhanced magical powers. In addition, players will also gain the means to dye their clothing and armor different colors, which will let them further customize their characters and make them appear even more distinctive than they already do.

But Twilight's Gleaming won't just introduce new monsters, dungeons, treasures, and quests. It will also mark the introduction of Asheron's Call's long-awaited safe-trade feature. Previously, the only way players could trade items between their characters would be to drag and drop items from their characters onto other characters, or to leave items on the ground. The new trading system opens up a trade interface at the bottom of the screen, which players can use to drag and drop items and coins into a row of trade boxes, then complete the trade by clicking a "confirm" button. If, at any point in time, any changes are made to the trade, the "confirm" button will be disabled, as no trades can be made until both parties are absolutely sure about the exchange. The new safe-trade system will help prevent cheating and theft of items and money.

For a close look at the new event, check out our 36 screenshots from Twilight's Gleaming, linked in the gallery to the right. You can also see these new changes and additions in effect in Dereth as soon as you log in to Asheron's Call today.