Personally, I love the customizablility of games, I can't even touch games where everyone looks the same and the armor does too, the old one I can do that in, sadly is Diablo 2, but, it's not that popular anymore and the only game that stands up to AC for me is CoH/CoV. the game play is different in both the games but I find that it is the only other game that stacks up with AC. The thing I love and hate about AC is the fact that it sets the standard for me, this is a game that I believe everyone should play and then from there should go off and try to find a game that stack up with it. It is really hard to find another game where the armor of people doesn't look the same (atleast colorwise) and the heads aren't just 3 generic looks with no flexiablitiy on color. The next thing that AC brought to the table is non linear quests. It's not like most games where it's like go and kill and get your reward and the quests come out of nowhere, it's you choose what quests you want to do and you can do them all on one character. The only except to this is whether or not you kill that one person (forgot the name of the quest >.<). The last and one of the most important ones is the reskill/restat quest. THIS SHOULD BE IN EVERY GAME!!! I loved how you could gimp yourself to the extreme, mooch XP until you were level 20 and then you could just go and fix yourself in the the 2 temples. I don't know why people in developement of games haven't clicked on to that one. But in all seriousness, CoH/CoV is the only other game in my mind that stacks with AC

PS: I left AC after hitting level 155 >.<;; it was great and everything but, that is the point in time where the grind would take 3 hours and I would jsut have my good old friend... I can't even remember the plug-ins name lol but I used it for killing the the olthio ><;; until they introduced the ninjas... DAMN YOU NINJAS!!!! lol but seriously... if I didn't get bored of the grind, I would have kept playing AC, it was so much fun and it took me forever to get way up there... I was going to rejoing AC:DM but... I heard from someone that I should wait until AC:ToD and I was like... K, did that and all I got from people was like o.o OMG, it's a viamontian and he is such a high level and all I could think to myself was, my patron was higher level and my friend was also a higher level and they were viamontians aswell

PSS: Karesta in HG is the best Monachy ever! lol Praise be to her when I caused such greif and never got banned ><;;

In my opinion Asheron's Call was and is the greatest MMO period. I played it from release till about 2004 when WoW came out. Every aspect of AC was great, GM's would come and play with people and every once in a while bring out a Tremendous Mongua to Cragstone or Arwic and just demolish people... i mean .. what other game does that, well don't think to hard because there are none.

The PvP system in this game was phenomenal, the whole quest line to get yourself a hollow weapon and later on a deadly weapon just so you could do damage to people in full GSA (greater shadow armor fyi). It was fun to port to Ayan Baqur just to watch or participate in all of the PvP'ing by the lifestone.

Questing was soo groundbreaking for me in this game because you had to talk to NPC's to get information about things that are just things to anyone else... but you know that deep down that person wants you to go talk to the person he was talking about so that you would be sent somewhere else so that you would be sent to someone else to collect shards or motes to create some beast item or something like that.

The shear player base alone is a topic i could talk about all day. The people were nice, and always willing to help. People became well known and there were actually players that would idolize other players, personally i had a hero or two back in the day when i was playing (i was 10 when i started playing with my dad and whole family) like Tigerslady, or Aces High a few players who helped out and hell they were good people Tigerslady being a GM and Aces High being the First to 126 (back in the day). This was on Solclaim btw for anyone wondering ;) with Nimble and Ruthless and Zircon and B-L-O-O-D-Y, Gabs, Laris Bloodsong and Eleln Ripley.. it was a great realm and those were all great people, For those people with good memories that played on Solclaim My character was Son of Stile and my dad's was Stile The Swift and maybe you'd remember Camendur Silversmith

anyways i agree greatest game ever to come into creation and i could reminisce all day with anyone about this game and its many features and places to chill... specially the Lugian Citadel or Eastham windmill haha but anyways :) thought i'd throw in my 2 cents although it's more like a $1

~Son Of Stile

All the games now are just some version of a canned set of ideas. They have better graphncs, sound effects, spell effects, and lots of AI 'content'. I HATE having to do quests in order to play a game.

In AC, especially on Darktide...it was 1. get out of the Outpost area 2. Lifestone somewhere reasonably safe 3. find a spot to level and make loot.

Man, the game was so far ahead of itself and was under appreciated because of it's l;ess than stellar graphics. But, its gmeplay was immeasurably better than anyhting I have played since.

In Darktide, you felt affraid yet somehow in control of what would happen to you. Battles were fought for territory, cities, and revenge. When you looted someone;s Matty robe, you cherished it as a prize(or  Frore Helm).

Ahh  it wont be like that again, ever. Darkfall may come close, with its non-class system, but the world being so "pretty" may distract from the experience of PVP. AC towns were simple. A raid came by, and you fought it out, licked your wounds, and replaced your death items. Then you killed vitae, and moved on to the next battle...does it get better than that?

World of Warcraft

For me nothing I've played since Asheron's Call has been the same. From what my memory recalls of when I first started playing AC, there was this huge feeling of wonder at everything. I REALLY felt like I had stepped through a portal from another world into this new fantastical one, where there was danger yes, but beauty as well.

Over the years as I play other games, I've often thought back and compared my feelings for them with my feelings for Asheron's Call. There have been many times in other games where I've had the, "OMG that is awesome!" or "I know I'm going to die but this is too damn fun I don't care!" or even those very rare moments when we're left speechless and thoughtless to how powerfully something effects us. And yet, and yet while there have been many they have been widespread, spaced between with many boring hours of quests, grinds, idiots, and loading...

Perhaps, I say to myself, it's because Asheron's Call broke my metophorical MMO "cherry" and introduced me to a world where...not only is anything possible, but it happens right in front of you with regularity. The first time I encountered a portal...

Or maybe it wasn't me, but Asheron's Call, perhaps it was the greatest MMORPG of all time and it will just be a couple of centuries before people realize it.

Either way I've talked with many people over the years about this, and every MMO gamer out there holds a special place in his/her heart for their very first online game. Be it UO, Asheron's Call, Everquest, or lately for many newcomers WoW. We change on some, perhaps spiritual, level, where these images are etched into our very souls. Yes, we humans are perhaps too easily fooled, because I don't just miss the world of Dereth, I'm homesick for it.

I so love AC and would still play it prolly if the graphics weren't so outdated.  Iv'e played pretty much all mmorpgs that there are and I have to say hands down this is way better than anything else.  It's the only game where they made the combat system not complete auto attack and point and click.  You could actually win pvp with skill and dynamics.  I don't know why they didn't make ac2 just like ac1.........  Thats a whole new story lol.  They should use ac2 graphics and ac1 game play call it ac1.5 haha.  Still love this game........

Well, I've played a few games. I am a young gamer, which means i really hadnt got the chance to play this game. I've heard INCREDIBLE things about it. I am pissed i wasnt around to play it at its peak.

I havnt had a game stick with me more than a year due to lack of a lot, if this game wasnt so outdated, id be in it :D

Off topic but what us the size of AC1 with all patches? Thinking of trying this game inthe next few days.

It's 369 mb installed not sure if that is with all the patches...  I know it is under 1gb installed tho.......  You can dl it here http://ac.turbine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=77&Itemid=71&NavItemid=62  They have a 14 day free trial http://trial.ac.turbine.com/  there are lots of turtorials on the game.  I would suggest reading some of them before playing deffinatley give an advantage.

Just to say that AC1 will not run on a lot of new Vista sys. I have an XPS Dell it wont run on that. sadly.

I didnt read all the post, but I'm sure allot says like this.  Is there any game that I played long, most fun, very curious, and adventuring like AC?  No game even come close!