Asheron's Call (AC) was a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for Microsoft Windows PCs, developed and published by Turbine Entertainment Software.

The game was played in a large seamless 3D virtual world which could host thousands of players' characters (or avatars) at a time.

Set in a heroic fantasy world,[3] Asheron's Call allowed players to create a character, or avatar, from one of three in-game races.

Gameplay involved earning experience points ("XP") through a variety of activities, including engaging and defeating monsters in combat, fulfilling quests, and interacting with NPCs.

In addition to earning experience, questing and combat often yielded recoverable loot such as armor, weapons, health potions, and spell scrolls.

Many types of loot could be improved or imbued with special spells and effects via Asheron's Call's "tinkering" crafting system.

Resurrected characters lost half their pyreals, one or more valuable items, and (temporarily) a certain percentage of their constitution—their primary and secondary strengths and characteristics—in what is known as a "vitae penalty".

[8] The players then brought their resurrected avatar to the place where the death occurred and recovered the item(s) from their own lingering "corpse".

Asheron's Call featured a unique allegiance and fealty system that created formal links between players and rewarded cooperative play.

[9] Characters created many useful items using the Alchemy skill, such as oils that imbued missiles with elemental qualities (fire, acid, etc.)

They were tall slender humanoids with lifespans of 1,000 years[14] and were divided into several cultures including Falatacot, Dericost, Haebrous, and Yalaini.

These cultures had many conflicts over the years, but eventually, in a world of many oceans and seas, the "Seaborne Empire" of the Yalaini became the dominant society.

A Yalaini and member of the royal family, Asheron Realaidain, was born approximately 2,500 years prior to the time when the story starts for players, when they "arrive" in Dereth.

Shortly after Asheron's birth, a war began between the Yalaini people and an army of Shadows, creatures of darkness and chaos, led by a demonic nemesis named Bael'Zharon, the Hopeslayer.

The war with the Shadows lasted over 500 years and the Yalaini, pushed back from the rest of Auberean to the island of Dereth, were nearly defeated.

Asheron and his disciples cast a powerful planar magic spell known as The Sundering, which sent the Yalaini people into portal space in a state of stasis.

After sending his disciples in as well, Asheron retreated to the last place of safety - his castle on a small island - and alone began working on a way to defeat the Olthoi.

Their leaders left for Asheron, who gave them a poison to kill the Olthoi Queen, which they did at the cost of Cragstone's life.

Players originally entered Dereth as one of three "Isparian" races: the Aluvians, the Sho, and the Gharu'ndim, based roughly on medieval Britain, Japan, and Egypt.

[18] While neither Turbine nor Microsoft have been forthcoming in releasing exact subscription counts, it is believed that Asheron's Call peaked in popularity in early 2002 at about 120,000 accounts and has since dropped to below 10,000.

[20] Dark Age of Camelot had 200,000 subscribers in May 2002, taking Asheron's Call's spot as third most popular virtual world.

In December 2003, Turbine purchased the rights to the Asheron's Call franchise from Microsoft and assumed full responsibility for content development, customer service, billing and marketing in 2004.

[33] A second expansion, Throne of Destiny - which included a graphics upgrade, new player race and new landmass - was released on July 18, 2005.

In addition to the expansion packs, the in-game story was advanced by monthly updates, which introduced new quests and gameplay dynamics as part of the subscription package.

Asheron's Call franchise was unique in providing complimentary monthly content updates and "events" that added new quests, skills, landmasses, monsters, gameplay dynamics and bug fixes for all subscribers.

[36][37] The game spent over two years in maintenance mode with no updates, although the occasional server and account issues were dealt with by Turbine staff.

The largest event to occur in this time was the chat being permanently disabled on the Darktide server in order to prevent ingame abuse.