Asheron's Call 2: Fallen Kings Q&A
We talk to Turbine's Jeff Anderson about the status of the sequel to Asheron's Call. New details and screenshots inside.
Turbine Entertainment's upcoming Asheron's Call 2 will be a colorful and graphically advanced online role-playing game. Like other such games before it, the game will let you create an in-game character, then go off on adventures in a vast online world with thousands of other players, seeking the thrill of battle against vicious monsters and the wealth of ancient treasure hoards. But Asheron's Call 2 will distinguish itself in a number of ways, including its intriguing story, which will continue to evolve over the course of the game's life span and, according to the game's developers, will actually let you influence the world of Dereth and change it for better or for worse.
In addition to fighting, looting, and questing, you will also be able to band together in Asheron's Call 2's unusual player-versus-player (PVP) system, which will let you choose to side not only with an allegiance--an association of allied players--but also with one of Asheron's Call 2's kingdoms, and you can choose your alignment starting at character level 10. Once you've done so, you can choose to do battle with other players of opposing alignments in faction-specific areas. Faction champions who defeat many enemy players will actually distinguish themselves by gaining unique skills, such as a specific type of mastery over portals--the mysterious and powerful magical gates of Dereth--which lets them banish their enemies to their last resurrection point, lets them summon an ally of the same kingdom, or even lets them imprison an enemy player in a pocket dimension. Player-versus-player champions may also be able to call forth ancient and powerful monsters to serve them, such as a squad of formidable shadow minions or the fearsome, faceless virindi, which terrorized Dereth in the original Asheron's Call.
Then again, PVP will be only one facet of what appears to be an impressive variety of things to do in Asheron's Call 2: fighting monsters or other players, crafting weapons and armor, joining an allegiance, going on quests, clearing out ancient dungeons, and more. For the final word on the game before its impending release, we spoke with Turbine president and CEO Jeff Anderson.
GameSpot: Thanks for taking the time for this interview. Now that the game is feature complete, could you discuss what you and the team are currently working on?
Jeff Anderson: It's my pleasure. I'm glad to have the opportunity to talk about Turbine. I've always been a big fan of GameSpot. At this time, I can't say too much about our next titles, unfortunately. We should be announcing more sometime soon, but I can say that Turbine continues to be a premier provider of massively multiplayer role-playing games. We are going to take all of our learning and knowledge from Asheron's Call, Dark Majesty [the Asheron's Call expansion], and Asheron's Call 2 and put that experience into the next generation of online gaming.
GS: Jeff, we know that you yourself are an Origin Systems alumnus and that you have highly experienced game designers and producers on staff, including former Interplay CEO Brian Fargo, who is on your board. Could you discuss how your own experience, and that of the Turbine staff, has helped Asheron's Call 2's development? Are there specific errors or pitfalls you feel you were able to avoid?
JA: That's a great question. Turbine has been around since 1994 and has always been 100 percent focused on massively multiplayer online gaming. Having that wealth of industry experience is invaluable when you design a cutting-edge game like Asheron's Call 2. Specifically, we used that deep foundation to help us with nearly every design. For example, our character-generation system (with its [minimal] stats, fast entry, large-scale morphology options, randomize button) is an excellent example of just how much we learned from the original Asheron's Call. Likewise, we made the vault campaign a priority since massively multiplayer games have historically had such a poor approach to linear narratives.
Asheron's Call 2: Fallen Kings Quick Links
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- Microsoft Game Studios
- Turbine Inc.
- Fantasy Online...
- Release: Nov 20, 2002
- ESRB: Mature
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