As I look at a long list of old games and even older posts I can't help but think of a few I played years ago.
Asheron's call would have been my 3rd MMO
UO, Everquest, AC
It was never a hugely popular game, but it was unique in many ways.
I bounced back and forth to this game as I got bored w/ others. One of the original problems I had was bad character creation. I didnt have a way to teleport early on. This was a huge problem and ruined my original character. As the leveling was slow at the start this caused me to lose interest and pick up one of my other games.
Giving it another shot w/ some friends I tried it out again. Enjoying the monthly updates - It had more free content than any game I know. There was a story line worth diving into for free - every month. This went on from 1999 until 2014 I believe. However, dated graphics and a mostly solo appeal w/ endless level caps - I lost interest again.
Then for some reason my brother and I tried it one last time - This was my best experience in Asheron's Call. Darktide pvp server - Right from early levels your fighting for your life and items.
Its like original UO when u die you lose your items - There was a catch though - you lost a % of items, w/ the largest values first. Every item had a gold value. So if you had 20 items, you might lose 4 w/ the highest value ones always dropping. So you could collect high value worthless, and light weight items to protect your valued items.
The best part of the pvp was the fight for territory - It truly had epic battles. Not just to "hey come to yew gate lets pvp" but Lets control this dungeon take all the xp and loot 24/7 for months - and defend it the best we can.
The guilds/ patron system worked great. One of the largest guilds on Darktide was founded by some UO players from Chesapeake - The UO server I started on. Just up from my house was a band of guys called the bannana boys - Mostly a prime time group gather around to 10 on 1 noobs as they came into dungeon zones and got fireballed to death. i was never impressed and killed them often when they were not in a large group.
Needless to say, one of these guild leaders has a website and talks about the forming of "Blood" on Asheron's call - The guild/pvp/reputation over there was truly one to be admire. From their own custom scripts/hacks to just full time managing of the patron system - It was a work of art.
Anyone else get to experience this?
