Having played extensively from just after launch and recently resubbed and become totally hooked again, I believe there are many more reasons than not that a new player should try and would enjoy Asherons Call:

• Create, level and develop a character according to the person you want to play, not the template that a game provides you with.
• Advance to the mid-game slowly at your own pace, or quickly with the quest hub installed to give you that flexibility.
• Live in a massive world of unrestricted exploration and portal-enabled travel, backed up by incredible lore to give the genuine feel to the game.
• Quest, trade, battle for and create a massive variety of equipment items.
• Detailed tradeskills give you access to even more possibilities to enhance and improve your character, abilities and equipment.
• A varied and detailed combat/magic system enables many styles of play for melee, missile and magic.
• An enormous amount of content for all levels of play.
• PvE and PvP realism to play in.
• Numerous well-constructed informaitonn sites to help your in-game experience if you want to use them.
• Very helpful allegiances of players to give the new player a social environment in-game.
• A consistently developing game world, with monthly updates introducing new quests, creatures, items and storyline.
• Unique races
• Fantastic replayability.

• Dated graphics - a huge priority to mainstream gamers.
• Monthly subscription.
• Small server populations - though finding an allegiance connects you with a decent-sized group.
• Server connection issues with some modern broadband (ADSL) technologies.

AC gives so much nostalgia,  I played this game for over 5 years, and it was my first game I played.  I have been wanting badly to return for years because it really was a great game and I've played about 10 others since then looking for one I enjoyed as much as this one, and still haven't found one that has been as good and kept my attention for long.  I would love to play it again and it's unfortunate more people don't try it, I think it is underrated and it's a huge shame that it lost so many players from "the good old days" but from what I hear and see there has been an increase in numbers the past year or so.  

Unfortunately I'm a poor college student at the moment and that's what is keeping me from it, if it didn't have a monthly fee I would for sure be back to it. :(  

I do agree more people should try it, it was by far the most enjoyable game I've played and sadly enough I do miss it and the good old days!

No one has mentioned the most important reason to try out AC. You could meet this famous guy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5hj91DzNKw

If you get good at the game you will notice drastic real life changes.. obsevrve..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRu5IFFaQqU

There is no other reason to play this game other than to meet this guy and reap all the RL rewards!

Originally posted by apollobsg75

No one has mentioned the most important reason to try out AC. You could meet this famous guy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5hj91DzNKw

 

 

If you get good at the game you will notice drastic real life changes.. obsevrve..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRu5IFFaQqU

 

There is no other reason to play this game other than to meet this guy and reap all the RL rewards!

 Oh man i knew it was him before i even clicked the link. LOL those videos are funny

To expand on my original post, here are some more detailed thoughts on the early levels (1-30-ish) in the game.

A great addition to the game is the Facilities Hub, or Quest Hub which Turbine have added in to give low level characters access to appropriate quests. Going through these quests give inflated XP rewards to accelerate the character through the early stages and get them into the meat of the game (if they wish.). Benefits of this are:

• Gets the person used to the portal system of travel
• Provides a quick way to get into the mid-levels
• Teaches the user to talk to NPCs in-game to find out details
• Completed quests give the user some decent items across all classes to use
• Gives the character a second organised method of travelling around the land

Hello friend,

I am an old-time player as well who played for around 5 years 2000-2005. I've been trying to come back and get back into the awesomeness of the game but i have been having trouble because i now own a vista system. Is there any way you know of to get around this or am i doomed to playing WoW :(

Hi Kiterunner, sorry to hear you're having troubles - where do the problems arise? For me it was all about getting to the screen with the connection and patch bubbles along the bottom and the right side (patch) bubble never filling. I solved this by moving my ISP from one which uses ADSL (BT) to cable (Virgin Media) - saving money into the bargain!

Thoughts on my first couple of months back in game:

• It's massive! So much more ground to explore than any other game I've played.
• Grind? What grind? I've quested my way from 1st to 139th level, with very little grind at all. The sheer number of available quests and added extras is staggering.
• Customisability (is that even a word?!) - the freedom you have to build and develop your charcter the way you want to is enormous.
• Server populations - yes, they are lower than i remember, when the Hub was a booming marketplace/pvp battleground and Qalabar was the town everyone congregated in, but the allegiance I'm a part of has coming onto 3000 followers and there is always a group ready to quest with.

Originally posted by Kiterunner13

Hello friend,

I am an old-time player as well who played for around 5 years 2000-2005. I've been trying to come back and get back into the awesomeness of the game but i have been having trouble because i now own a vista system. Is there any way you know of to get around this or am i doomed to playing WoW :(

 1) Get windows 7, there is no point to using Vista.

2) Microsoft decided to not allow programs to write to the programs directory for no real reason at all. A lot of old programs did this, since there is nothing wrong with it. That means on Vista/7 you either want to install AC in another location that isn't the program files folder (like c:\Asheron's Call) or give the program administrator rights so that it can write to the program files folder.

AC updates the data files when you patch in/ portal to places you haven't been. So if it can't write to the directory, it can't play.

I would come back in a heartbeat if Turbine would update the antiquted net code associated with the game.

Does AC come with a free trial? I played UO for years and skipped the EQ/AC games. I feel like I really missed out. Not that I didnt have a blast in UO...

Originally posted by Pharkas

Does AC come with a free trial? I played UO for years and skipped the EQ/AC games. I feel like I really missed out. Not that I didnt have a blast in UO...

 im pretty sure they have a 15 day free trial, BUT they want you to make a acount to activate it. so you need payment info to activate the free trial.

My favorite MMO of all time, I tried to play again a few months ago, but could not get it to work , so i gave up , shame i wanted to see where the game has gone since I first played.

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 1) Get windows 7, there is no point to using Vista.

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Vista can do just as well as 7 with the right hardware.

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2) Microsoft decided to not allow programs to write to the programs directory for no real reason at all. A lot of old programs did this, since there is nothing wrong with it. That means on Vista/7 you either want to install AC in another location that isn't the program files folder (like c:\Asheron's Call) or give the program administrator rights so that it can write to the program files folder.
AC updates the data files when you patch in/ portal to places you haven't been. So if it can't write to the directory, it can't play.

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The reason for this is security. I would either disable UAC (which of course reduces security) and Or Set the relevant privileges to your user in the program files permissions.