Last call for Asheron's Call 2

Developer ends the year by pulling plug on massively multiplayer game, turns attention to upcoming licensed projects.

Turbine performed a little house-cleaning this weekend as it shut down its massively multiplayer online role-playing game Asheron's Call 2. Originally released in November of 2002, the fantasy game world met an unceremonious armageddon December 30.

As of press time, the Asheron's Call 2 forums were still up for mourning players, and blow-by-blow accounts of the world of Dereth's final moments had started circulating the Web.

The game's closure was originally announced in August, as the title had become a financial liability for Turbine. Interestingly enough, the original Asheron's Call, which went live in October of 1999, survives its supposed successor. Turbine continues to support the title and in its December letter to players said that it is considering a number of possible upgrades to the game.

With Asheron's Call 2 behind it, Turbine's next titles are a pair of high-profile MMORPGs in the forms of Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach and Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. Stormreach is set to hit stores in late February, with Shadows of Angmar following later in 2006.

28 Comments

  • CLDragonCL

    Posted Jan 8, 2006 5:53 pm PT

    ", for one, will dearly miss AC2. I hated Guild Wars, hate WoW, and I hate every other MMORPG I've tried thus far (Not that Guild Wars is truly an MMORPG anyway, it's basically Diablo with better graphics and gathering towns)."

    uh.. if you havnt played GW, then please dont comment on it... you'll just look like an idiot to those that actualy know the game.

  • acesion

    Posted Jan 7, 2006 4:53 pm PT

    Man if people think guild wars is good then they must be smookin some crak cause i waited for 2 months for that game reserved it got 3 level 20 chars in about the 1st week and the 2nd week was spent getting all the best items. If guild wars is considered to be good amoung MMORPGs then real mmorpgs must suck. I played the closed beta of WOW and i thought it was a decent game but it lacked in so many respects and i LOVE warcraft i mean i bought 2 collecters editions of the same game cause i wanted to keep a sealed one. Most MMORPGS are hastly put together like most anime shows which just spawn off earchother. I think right now MMORPGS are where gaming was in the 80's which means that the market was flooded with a bunch of crappy games making gamers feel as though all MMORPG games are that way. I think that ESP with the power some the next gen systems and the new 45 nm pent chips game creators will have the power to create the living worlds that you now see in TES 4 but we wont see this for another 5 years when MMORPGS rule gaming.

  • proteron

    Posted Jan 5, 2006 10:05 am PT

    Sorry to hear about AC2 for the players' sake, but otherwise it's just the way of online games.

    Isn't it about time to stop parenthetically offering your personal opinion on what Guild Wars is anytime the game is mentioned? Please, give it a rest because nobody cares.

  • saeoh

    Posted Jan 5, 2006 2:47 am PT

    Well, i loved AC2 for first few month..i still think it has best arrow shooting
    Only reason it lost so many player in the early year was stupid server problem. every 2 hours server down. my maximum time to patch was over 2 day..(due to 99% bug and 2kb/s speed)

  • Virus425

    Posted Jan 4, 2006 3:34 pm PT

    According to the Guild Wars FAQ on their website you'll see they call it a CORG (Competitve Online Roleplaying Game). But anywho...farewell AC2.

  • supanova8716

    Posted Jan 4, 2006 2:14 pm PT

    bloodfang36 wrote:
    "Lmao lol rofl. One down. 999999999956666666666837533333333337853 to go. Sorry guys, but it seems that WORLD OF WARCRAFT is going to smash every single MMORPG thats been relased or is going to be released. Remember, its '06 now, and theres the WoW expansion to fret about. I bet that as soon as that comes out, another huge chunk outta all the other gamers in other MMORPG's are going to turn their backs on whatever theyve been playing, and start playing WoW."~~~

    I hated end game WoW. EPIC ITEMS FTL.

  • Sheepofevilz

    Posted Jan 4, 2006 2:05 pm PT

    I, for one, will dearly miss AC2.

    I hated Guild Wars, hate WoW, and I hate every other MMORPG I've tried thus far (Not that Guild Wars is truly an MMORPG anyway, it's basically Diablo with better graphics and gathering towns).

    Yeah, perhaps you could argue that Ac2 is gone and WoW is alive and well. But I really preferred Ac2.

    WoW is so ridden with uncreative same-old same-old elves and orcs, 12 year old idiots, and slow-paced raids that it's a very short lived experience for me. Not to mention Blizzard's inability to produce anything that's not HARDCORE raid-content

    I loathe Turbine for shutting down the game, I loathe Turbine for ruining Dungeons and Dragons, and I really hope the company crashes and burns.


  • Valacan

    Posted Jan 4, 2006 9:55 am PT

    Chrisdojo says: ""Another MMORPG bites the dust... now if they would ALL just go away." I say.....agreed!"" I third the opinion. The sooner MMORPGs all die off the better all video games will be. I'm getting very sick of hearing about them.

  • quiman12

    Posted Jan 4, 2006 9:34 am PT

    unless Middle Earth or D&D can pull people away from WOW, we're all doomed!!!

  • reichsmedik

    Posted Jan 4, 2006 8:30 am PT

    City of Heroes RULES!!!!

  • chrisdojo

    Posted Jan 4, 2006 5:34 am PT

    LordOfMidnight says: "Another MMORPG bites the dust... now if they would ALL just go away."

    I say.....agreed!

  • Buick87GNXv6

    Posted Jan 4, 2006 4:54 am PT

    Who cares I have my guild wars and dont need anything else.

  • MichaelMorbid

    Posted Jan 3, 2006 10:52 pm PT

    think mmorpg's are like any other game genre, sometimes they see success, sometimes not so much. think the major problems for mmorpg's can be sumed up pretty easily.

    1). gotta get over the subscriptions: not going to happen, it is the perfect device for companies to profit. some can argue the buisness ethics of paying for a game over and over and over again, but profit is pretty much the bottom line. the concept still turns some gamers off.

    2). grinding vs. accessibility: ties in with the some aspects of having a subscription. the more successful mmorpg's keep a pretty good balance of grinding and access to the cooler parts of the game. if it becomes too grind driven it stops being fun, if it is too accessible there's no point in leveling up.

    3). interaction mechanics: pure and simple, gotta keep players feeling immersed. that becomes a double edge sword sometimes, but theoretically playing with others is good. no one wants to solo an mmorpg and no one wants to always rely on jerks and idiots to complete a quest. all about balance.

    4.) licence: what the game is about matters. dragons and wizards has been done to hell, already established champions in that department. trying to compete with a good game against a great one of the same idea isn't going to do well with gamers. faries, elves, and dragons are big right now. developers just need to do some scouting for more original licenses to work off of......

    if you disagree, in our defense we wrote this in a bitter bitter mood. stupid elves, faries, and dragons.

  • Irvine78

    Posted Jan 3, 2006 10:42 pm PT

    I read the little "accounts" link. It's a little sad actually, having a world die like that. I'd imagine quite a few people had quite a bit of fun playing there. Oh well. They should have been patiently anticipating the Revolution like a good gamer ought. Viva la Revolution!

  • Caboose413

    Posted Jan 3, 2006 8:53 pm PT

    Ioc, I agree, that metaphorically, Guild Wars looks like and smells like a MMORPG. However, the conclusion that if something looks like something and smells like something it must be it is a very ignorant thing to say - take, for instance, GHB and water. GHB looks and tastes like water - yet it is a huge mistake to drink it. I'm just saying, that sounded like an extremely stupid comment to me, as much as it might be said by the common person.

  • Lord_Sun_Ce

    Posted Jan 3, 2006 8:45 pm PT

    Wow....gotta love the WoW fanboys all over this site.... /sigh
    All games have their time span, and that's a good thing; if nothing ever changed then, nothing better would come along. And trust me, EVERYTHING can progress. The newer MMORPGs coming out (DnD, LoTR, RF) seem to hold great promise, especially for those who are not into the whole bright green orc thing =P.

    Still, sad to see a game plummet like that, hate to be the creators who see their creation destroyed. Oh well, move along =D

  • xe3nophon

    Posted Jan 3, 2006 8:33 pm PT

    [This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

  • loc211

    Posted Jan 3, 2006 6:16 pm PT

    Funny I coulda sworn guild wars was a roleplaying game its online it is multi player damn sure is massive hmmm. Smells like it looks like it must be it. Granted it is not a "Consistent world roleplaying game" It still is a mmorpg nub.

  • lquidsnake133

    Posted Jan 3, 2006 6:00 pm PT

    Whats dumb is that Asheron call 1 is still up from the fan base. There is sometime to renew a game. Also people of Asheron Call 1 should play Asheron Call 2 if they that desprate to keep on trying the same game.

  • bloodfang36

    Posted Jan 3, 2006 5:39 pm PT

    Lmao lol rofl.

    One down. 999999999956666666666837533333333337853 to go.

    Sorry guys, but it seems that WORLD OF WARCRAFT is going to smash every single MMORPG thats been relased or is going to be released. Remember, its '06 now, and theres the WoW expansion to fret about. I bet that as soon as that comes out, another huge chunk outta all the other gamers in other MMORPG's are going to turn their backs on whatever theyve been playing, and start playing WoW.

  • timinator18

    Posted Jan 3, 2006 4:48 pm PT

    too many mmorpg's anyways.

  • helluvagood

    Posted Jan 3, 2006 4:34 pm PT

    changed logo

  • LordOfMidnight

    Posted Jan 3, 2006 4:26 pm PT

    Another MMORPG bites the dust... now if they would ALL just go away.

  • Kud-Dukan

    Posted Jan 3, 2006 11:55 am PT

    ROCKINGFOOL, Guild Wars is not an MMORPG. Anyways, I'm glad that Turbine can now pay more attention towards both Dungeons and Dragons Online, and Lord of the Rings Online. I'm looking forward to LotRO, so I hope everything works out for them this time around.

  • ROCKINGFOOL

    Posted Jan 3, 2006 10:54 am PT

    who cares iam playing guild wars and that game will forever be number 1 mmorpg in the world

  • Moltdar

    Posted Jan 3, 2006 10:39 am PT

    Was about time. This game was plagged with bad gameplay! I remember trying the beta back in 2002 and then trying a demo and it always seemed like i was alone in the world even though the game was new, and those were for some of the first quests! The characters also seemed like they were copy/pasted in the world and it didn't feel alive at all (bad lighting on chars). I say they shut it down for the better of all of us!

  • NinjaFoot

    Posted Jan 3, 2006 10:33 am PT

    It has nothing to do with whether Microsoft is publishing it or not. The game never sustained near enough players to justify its continued existence. That much was obvious when all the servers were combined into one server a while back.

  • anthony_basic

    Posted Jan 3, 2006 10:29 am PT

    I guess thats what turbine deserves for wanting Microsoft "not" to publish the game anymore lmao... funnny stuff.

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