[Asheron's Call 2] Today is the last day for Asheron’s Call 2 and I have the day off from work. Therefore, I will try to play as much as I can today to see how they say goodbye. There has not really been a lot of news out of Turbine regarding any plans they may have, so to be honest my expectations are low.
Here is the first update of the morning. The red X means “offline”.
Checking with the official forums, I find this update from Calandryll:
Hey folks,
Just to let you know, the AC2 servers are not supposed to be down. We are working to bring them back up now.
__________________
-Jonathan “Calandryll” Hanna
The servers came back online and I was sitting at my character selection screen. Talk about a lot of characters. Due to server mergers and such, we ended up with 20 character slots. Check out my army of alts.
We have been given some gifts, one of which is an egg you can use to teleport anywhere in the game world. Someone shouted out the location of an admin area, so off I went. It was in the middle of nowhere, literally. Once there, I noticed a door and some levers. This is going to be cool, I just can’t imagine what great toys the devs have out here.
I pulled the lever. The door opened. I went through. Nothing happened. Oh well.
I was told to make sure that I jumped while here, so I did. Gravity is very light out here, wee!
But what goes up, usually comes down. So, I had to swim back.
We all stocked up on goodies like teleportation eggs, XP eggs, and vitae healing eggs – found in Encomium’s Chests all about the land.
Some people found creative ways to say goodbye. Some people just bowed in silent reflection.
The server I call home, Frostfell, crashed a few times so I ended up on Thistledown for a while. There was a tyrant attack on various locations, involving Lord Deimos and Lady Silva.
We gathered up on top of Deru Tree for a party with Ramen. Pretty good crowd showed up. I even played the drums to join in the motley band.
Back to Frostfell finally, we were attacked by a bunch of giant bugs.
I waved goodbye as I headed out to my final spot, which I called Goodbye Peak.
I watched the sunset and then I switched into my good armor and sun shades.
Prepared for the big event, we get the following message. T-minus 2 minutes. Then 1 minute 30 seconds. Followed by 1 minute. 30 seconds. NOW!
We were all logged out automatically, back into portal space for good.
A final note from Turbine:
December 30, 2005
Empyrean magic has once again fled this world. The battle for Dereth continues on a different plane now. As his final act in this realm, Asheron sealed every portal to contain the expanding horde and protect what is left of the races who called Dereth home.
As of December 30, 2005 the AC2 service is no longer available. Turbine and the AC2 development team would like to express our thanks to the many players who’ve been part of Asheron’s Call 2 over the years. We hope you’ve had as much fun playing the game as we did creating it for you.
It’s never easy to say goodbye to a place you’ve called home, but we hope to see all of you in Turbine’s other worlds.
I’m actually feeling depressed, weird.
- Ethic
I have the Dvd box right here in my hand with tittle “Asheron’s Call 2 fallen kingdom, the next gen mmorpg”.. its a strange feeling to hold it in my hand..knowing all the nice design and content are inside but.you can’t play it any more.. i remember i had to order it from outside my country because it was nobody selling it in my country when it first came out…When i finely got it..it was like the time froze to ice.
Fun times AC2 was, sad that I didn’t stick with it longer. Don’t really know how much you miss something until it’s really gone. Lots of fond memories, life-long friends made, and overall a great time had.
I hear there’s a private server in the works, but I’m not so sure how long it’s going to take before people can start playing it. From the sounds of it, the game itself is there, but everything has to be written from scratch. Would be neat if it got off the ground though. Not holding my breath sadly.
As for the franchise, I’d love to see an updated AC made sometime in the future, but not expecting it to happen. AC1 is just too old, and far too much has happened for me to be interested in it itself anylonger.
Ah well.
Oh, and hey Oreldwin, I remember you from early beta. Nice to hear you ended up on Solclaim,
I found this via the wikipedia entry too. I just can’t fathom what it would be like to have a game go offline like that. I’m sure it’ll happen eventually to Blizzard’s juggernaut that I play quite a bit though.
AC2 was so enjoyable. I yearn to run through old dereth, and to chat with people that had their OWN credit cards. Sniff Sniff, damn you Turbine! DDO and LOTRO are horrible games. Still…after hundreds of dollars later…I still want AC2 =(. I wish Turbine let me in secret server, I would donate for a private server. =(
I have the box in my hands and I agree with Zonaxo… it’s strange to know almost everything is in these cds but you can’t play it anymore. And it is true that you never know how much it’s important to you until it’s gone. AC2 was a great game and could have been better with time. Turbine did make a mistake.
Well, I’d love to see it back, but I don’t think it’ll happen. Maybe one day… AC3 ? :)
Asheron’s Call was my first MMORPG. A friend that had played AC beta-tested AC2, but said he really couldn’t get into it. We’ve since moved on to other games.
I downloaded the trial account to AC2 and never signed in – then one day I saw that they were shutting it down. It’s great that this site is still available in rememberance of a game that some people did enjoy. I hate to see an MMO die, and I wish they would have at least allowed players to run their own servers. How much work would that have taken for them to do that?!
I played AC2 since the beginning…nothing like throwing down turrets and watching them go to town. I remember when my first mirra dropped, I remember the feeling of becoming a hero. I still have screen shots. If I ever came across a million dollars, I would find a way to open this game back up and let it ride no matter the server population.
Deathstrike
Morningthaw
Well Deathstrike, if you do that. you might be able to even earn some money on it, because i am pretty sire the population wont be that bad, there are many mmorpg out there to day, ppl like to try out different ones to see witch is best, AC2 are still the best for many, graphics and content wise..
Never played AC2, only AC, had to give it up cause it was recking my life, jus living to play. Sounds like i shudda givin it a try.
I remember AC beta, i never had so much fun. Then i switched to darktide on release, a world that was terrifying and ruthless. Everywhere you went was dangerous, you would get killed hunting, shopping, killed when you’re almost at the end of long quest, your ‘friend’ would kill you over and over, then never speak to you again. Your enemy might give back some item that you had worked for weeks to get, or you might kill someone twice your level, loot them and spit on their corpse lol. I dont spose ill find that kind excitement again, the joy, anger, depression, fear and blood lust. Its been about 5 years, i still miss it. The worlds all seem shallower now, more ‘user friendly’ (gag). If anyone knows a game where ‘anything goes’ plz post it. Guildwars is good pvp, but theres no soul to it.
Props to all who made these games great, one day it may happen again, although i dont think my wife would like that ;).
p.s. Shout outs to Zedd-Zan, take care buddy.
I wasn’t there when AC2 came down… but I was there when it was up. I had an account in AC2 for about 2 months and played a Lugian Raider named Jagermeister. I have a history of canceling and renewing accounts as I can’t afford to keep subscriptions to all the games I like. AC2 was one of the few I never went back to. In retrospect I am not sure if I should be happy that I avoided the pain of being told I couldn’t play a game that I enjoyed, or if I should regret not sticking around… this comes with the thought that maybe if just a few more people had kept playing, it wouldn’t have needed torn down.
This was the first MMO that had been closed that I had played. The Realm and Asheron’s Call, both ancient in comparison are still floating around out there.
Anyway, I am beginning to digress. This was very well written and the screen shots were great. A great tribute to a game born from high hopes and grand imaginations.
Played for two years as a Lugian on Frostfell, still miss the game after another 2 years.
oh man.. i so miss this game.. it was the best mmorpg ever. i hate all the mmorpg thats out now… asherons call 2 really was my kind of game.. really sad it went down the drain… hope theyre putting it back up sometime.. but doubt it :/ R.I.
I played this game since beta and i loved it for the few years that it was out. Deff in the top 3 best games made. The damn chat server being down killed out most of the people but im sure a re-release would make Turbine some $$. Bring it back up guys!
the “real” Eantos Larklight from Frostfell
I am seeing all this content on this page and for 2 years i thought i was the only one who felt this way…i am playing wow , wishing AC2 was where i was really at..i mean cmon…who wants to be in undercity as an orc when i can be a lugian with Turrets at three trees(remember three trees?) cmon turbine please do your thing Asheron is weeping…..
I miss AC2. I miss Darktide. I’m also playing WoW but mainly because most of my AC2 buddies are still playing WoW. I would love to see AC2 or a next generation game of the AC Franchise like AC3. I’m so tried for human, elves, dwarfs and orcs. I want my Lugians, Tumeroks, Empyreans and Drudges back!
I hated it when tacticians were first nerfed, At that point I knew AC2 was doomed. I hate to say it, but they did it to themselves. Never nerf, make the weaker better. WOW followed this as well as COT/COV.
i beta`d it, all the old school AC1 players told Turbine it sucked on the forums.. (kinda like the beta of SWG..)
I bought the game (big mistake) and played it for a week or 2.
Went back to AC1 and kept playing that till `06 (started in `99)
AC2 was not worth the name Asherons Call
“Dan: pretty big difference from AC with graphics from the last century (don’t get me wrong i love Lego :P) .. and AC2 that had very high graphics and content..”
Graphics do not make a game good.. (see AC2..)
AC1 is still a great game (to bad Wow stole most of the subscribers)
I played Ac1 beta and Ac1 until Dec 2002 when i switched over to AC2…I rolled a Elem and Tact on Coldeve and butchered coutnless Order people…
I found this on Wiki in hope of getting more people to a project…Khuanshar and InfernalX are part of it…a German coder from Dawnsong called Haraxx has started up a server emulator so we can get back in game :D
So far you can play a lvl 60 something Tummy Hero and walk around the forge in Cavendo before you get the dead server message :(
Go to http://www.rpg-le.de/forum/?c=5 and register there and then comes tears and nastolgia, well anticipation really for Demo v. 4 :D
TheOneAxiom is right, come to this board, it’s a wonderful project :). AC2 is still breathing, hardly, but still !
I’ve been around since AC1 beta, then AC1, then AC2 beta, then AC2 to the end….I’m amazed to see people still posting about AC2, which in my opinion was also the best MMORPG. Whether it was rediscovering the ruins of old Dereth, crafting for friends and guildies, or raiding with the Serpents of Darktide, I miss it all.
Even more amazed to see character names that I remember posting here! I still play AC1 and it’s cool, but a totally different game. I know I’d donate to a project to get AC2 back up and running again, in addition to the monthly fee…but I don’t think they would ever do it.
I’ve emailed Turbine several times about re-launching the AC2 via open source (yeah right) but figured it was worth a shot. I miss the fear on all of your faces when Zero-Consequences brought the rain in your hall. Shouts to Coma/Neon Night Shade!
I never really played ac2, but i played ac. Im sad its been cut off cause i was thinking about trying it. i played morningthaw on ac1. i quit. the levels and names of my characters:
Inferneon: level 63 axer
Timebreaker:level 40 mage
Olgotherelet:level 29 or 30 staffer
I played AC2 up till about a month before it was shutdown. I started playing WOW with guild members from AC2. I heard talk of AC2 reopening its doors,is there any truth in that? I know that many of us will come back to AC2 from WOW in a heartbeat. best game ever!
when the anoucement of ac2 shutting down i was like no way this is a sick joke. i saw the post for myself, i was crushed. the xpac just came out i had to drive 4 hours round trip to get the xpac. prolly a good reason the game had a low population. put the game in wal-mart end of problem.now bring it back and make it easy to buy and im not talking price i mean availabilty. I miss my lvl 75 zerker !!!!!
Wow! This is amazing. I was sitting here perusing gaming sites and started looking at some of the sites from MMORPGs I own but haven’t played for quite a while. When I saw this listing on a Google search, I popped over to take a look. I am amazed that there are still posts about a game 16 months after its sad and untimely demise.
I must admit that I actually never got around to playing AC2. I bought it with the intention of playing of course but had so many other games going I just never got started (dumb huh). When I heard about its apocalypse, I was saddened because I knew there were loyal players losing their ‘world’, and because I had missed out on a part of MMORPG history (small as it may be). As I type this, I’m looking at the box and strategy guide sandwiched between DAC and AC1.
I can imagine how you all felt who played AC2 (especially those whose AC2 experience was their first taste of an MMO). I’d feel the same if EverQuest went under since I began my journey with it 2 weeks after its launch. I’ve since played many others… EQ2, AC1, UO, AO, DAC, LOTRO (currently), just to name a few! – and am now eyeing Sins of a Solar Empire for a change of pace, but I may need to revisit EQ for a while first after reading these posts. I’m feeling homesick.
I sure do wish I would have loaded AC2 the day I purchased it. I think I missed out on something quite special.
wow, reading this is kinda sad. I, too, would play this over any game out there, and i’ve tried alot to get that fun experience i felt with ac2. i miss tazzy. Serps of Darktide and R. Rabble 4ever ;)
Syn
Although I had taken off before the close of the servers, due to RL, I do miss running around Dereth and down to CC to unload keys and stock up minerals/tools and let’s not forget the Dadd allegiance meetings that would only lead to a crash.
Waiting on the day I can log back in to stoke the forges for a crafting fair with Billy, Jojo, BM and Momm =P.
Granted the populations were low, we had such a quality community where other MMO’s still have yet to compare. It’ll be thanks to those quality people that we see it again someday. /pray
I played WOW for a bit after AC2, but it was never the same. The community was much better in AC2. Plus, you could play as much or little as you wanted, and still be on par with most people (gamewise). It was a fun game, and I wish it would make a return.
Korvin Korona
Tumerok Zealot
Shadow – Frostfell
Wow, It’s funny how games like AC and AC2 get ruined.. I used to play AC with friends from the start, tried out AC2 beta with the same RL friend’s that played AC. I must say 1999 passed by pretty fast, and now I regret to see people downed by this… Including myself, God there doesn’t go a day that I don’t wish AC would come back the way the tree line was the way you made your char through the lvl’s is still to this day the best I have seen.
I was talking with my buddy who played with me in AC and we couldn’t help say if AC would come back with the same tree basis for you char, but they added the graphics a game can have to this day.. No game would match it. Not WoW not AoC nothing.
AC = my best game experience to this day almost 10 years later. that has to say something.
My first MMO was World of Warcraft, and still love it to this day. I feel left out because i started on a new flashy MMO. i’ve always wanted to play those old MMO’s like eq and ac. Just to experience waht the first and best are like.
Sorry to hear your end.
Ac2 fans – we like to see ya on http://www.rpg-le.de/forum/index.php
Oh yeah, and my characters were from AC1. But i Started playing AC1 in 2007, so actually i started AC… *sob* i miss AC1 so Much! I cant play it anymore, but i play Diablo II (under account name Callom, main char name Heande, USEast Realm.) AH! I have an idea for a protest… For those who play AC1 on here, Log out for twelve hours. then go to Turbines building and start holding up signs that say “WE WANT ASHERON’S CALL 2 BACK!”. Oh ya and my chars are updated:
Inferneon-Level 70 former axer, now xbower.
Timebreaker-Deleted
Olgotherelet-Deleted.
Very sorry to hear AC2 died, and with all due respect,
Killam
I got busy with life in early 2005 and unintentionally left of AC2. I’d alwasy planned to return but never managed. I was thinking about it recently, and what did I learn? I had no idea it had been shut down until today, nearly 3 years later. So sad!
Ehrenguard, where have you gone?
~Laus
A warm tribute to my first MMO, and to the Legacy of Arnor and all friends in Ac2. Hail!
Diablul, Lvl 70 Defender/Bounty Hunter
Hey all, ive been monitoring this site for awhile and they have progressed pretty far. Check it out if you want to visit the world of AC2 again. http://www.lost-company.info/
I still remember when this message was broadcasted to the server: “The arcane energies of the Shrine of Transcendence have empowered Thoms. He is now a Hero!”
That whole hero quest experience truely felt epic.
I miss you Dawnsong… i miss you!
(CE@crag anyone? ;))
this made me /cry :( I miss AC2!! :(
and a side note:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC2
It has a link at the bottom to your post about AC2.. may be why you get some hits.
Dereth! omg! i will never forget these lands. Nice memories from there. The fear and the excitment of a ranger leaving out the refuge near Arwik for the very first adventure in her life.
Was my first MMORPG, played in Dawnsong (Europe) and will never forget the best server community move i have ever seen. A couple of fridays (may be saturdays) almost the whole server was against Lord Deimos.It was great.
Was really sad things were that bad.
Asheron’s 2 was a killer game, WoW borrowed a lot from AC2.
I would pay $30 a month to play this again, so fricking STUPID that once an MMO dies, you can never play it again. TURBINE cancel LOTRO and start up AC3!!!!
Note: AC was on Morningthaw and guild AOD on AC2…sorry for portal camping everyone =(.
AC2 had something that was so very special. It was hard, it felt like exploring, there were so many option trees that actually did interesting things that it felt new every time, and the developers actually played. I remember running into an area that was water above the land (a serious error that allowed you to swim above some walls) and a dev joined the group i was in swimming around in the water. Then he despawned it, and logged the issue. So much fun, so many good things.
I wish I had been able to find that XPAC for the game before it folded. I still wish I had gotten enough points in my shadow tree to get the cool shadow based abilities. Yes, I have played many folded games and none still make me want to go back like AC2 does.
Also, Roccus? AOD? oh, boy. Used to fight you guys all the time, was fantastic. Hated the portal camping, but turnabout was fair play too, and was grand.
yes, i too loved asherons call. if only say, ea or ubisoft or blizzard bought it that would be great – ac3 would be wonderful.
Lotro is played a lot. Turbine makes $$$$$$$. turbine doesnt care about
-ddo (small, wierd, unimaginative)
or
-asherons call one- (too bad graphics for the modern age)
wish they made ac3, if it was made right it would be a wow killer
Still my fondest MMOG memories come from AC2. The pace of AC2 was great. Whether you were playing the role of cat or mouse, the unrelenting open ranged PvP of DarkTide was exhilirating! Since I missed my opportunity to play at launch (which I heard was probably a good thing), I would love to start over as a L1 again on Darktide.
To all AC2 faithful, I salute you all. Especially those from DarkTide that I knew best in Reciprocative (AKA Reciprocal) Rabble as well as our enemies alike.
i was about to try to enter ac2, when i found out about they already shut down the game, i almost cry, i had a lot of friends there, this is a very sad time, i dont have words. lets get back to AC1
Wow… I remember beta-testing this game… I loved it. It was still very incomplete, but it was still really fun. And the graphics were awesome. And like everyone said… the sky! It was just so awesome… I even have a screenshot sitting here on my computer. Ah, the memories… too bad I couldn’t find a way to pay for that game before it died, because I really wanted to come back eventually. I knew it died a while ago, but reading this, a tear comes to my eye… this must have been sad for everyone that stayed around until the very last minute. Heck, it’s sad even for me, who tried to help making this game better by testing…I wish it didn’t end up like that, because it deserved a much better fate. Hopefully, this will come back from the ashes in a form or another eventually, even if I highly doubt it. Sad, because I’d like to see that world once again. It was one of my first MMORPGs, and I’ll never forget it.
I stopped playing due to my Tactician getting nerfed so bad I could not solo stuff under my level. AC2 made a lot of bad decisions and they caused this project to fail. Now they are attacking the faithful for their interest in bringing back a shadow of AC2. It is kind of sad that they cannot just let it go. I still miss AC2, but know that they would find a way to punish players for their lack of balance in their world. WOW were great at rebalancing without punishing the players too much, but AC2 was really heartless about it. Like a 3 year old not wanting to share, you have to play how he wants you to… period. I want AC2 back, but I don’t want Turbine to run it. A bitter-sweet farewell to the 1st of the “next gen MMORPG”.
>.> I still miss the old AC2. Quinguuuuuuuuuu xP
The greatest game experience ever for me was early AC1 (around 2000-2003), after that Turbine wrecked it.
It was incredible, like reading Lord of the Rings for the first time – you surrendered to it. The addiction! The obsession!
You don’t experience magic like that anymore.
is there any news on the privot server for AC2?,i am still looking for a PS for AC1
Has played many MMORPG, however, nothing of these approached only roughly AC2: It is absent in many plays simply the uniqueness what has put out AC2 thus. Has searched many forums for a private server for this, however, has never found one. If this play became very much with pleasure again to plays. As far as i me can still remind, called the German server Abendgrau . I had played on the one hand a FI Tumerok and a turret farmer. What cool Game if one thinks that one could still tear what with walls and pileworks. Does somebody know a possibility to let activate this Game again? Would be present absolutely!