Asheron's Call 2: B+

[airspirit]

If there are any MMORPG fans out there, this might be one to check out. I picked it up originally as something to do while waiting for Star Wars Galaxies, and now I'm thinking I may just stay with this.

Pros:
Everything is 3d rendered
Beautiful Graphics (think NWN but in true 3d)
The music is dynamically generated: never repetative
Good action
Good socialization options (average age is close to 30, few k3wl d00ds)
Good dynamic quest system (more every month)
Big world, massive cultural variance
You get to play as a lizard if you want (hsss)
Crafting: accessable and not mind-numbingly boring
Emptiness: The world isn't full of urban blight and ninnies causing havoc

Cons:
Lag. They need to beef their servers better or do a better job with the programming.
Bugs. They still have some minor issues to work out.
Crafting. The components for higher stuff is downright impossible to get until the January patch.
Emptiness: The world isn't full of urban blight and ninnies causing havoc

What I've found is that the players are where the action is in the game: when you have a major quest to do, there are others in the same area looking for people to band up with for the same goal, however there aren't ever so many that it makes the quest too easy. People have so far proven friendly, due to the older average age of the players, so you don't have the "I r0x0r j00" crowd ruining everything. PK issues were dealt with in a very responsible way allowing for PvP servers, and PvP areas in the servers that aren't exclusively PvP. While there are still some issues that are outstanding before the game will get an "A" grade, most of those are going to be fixed in the major January "story patch." I would highly recommend a look if you've ever played and enjoyed (or even if you didn't enjoy so much) Everquest, AC1, UO, DAoC, or other DnD style MMORPGs.

[airspirit]

Coming January 7th or thereabouts is the next monthly content release. Many of the bugs and lag issues will be fixed, as well as some of the crafting issues. Sweet.

[Can O' Beans]

I saw some screens & it did look pertty good

But I vowed to never touch those games again after my 3 year EQ addiction



...although, now I just play BF1942 too much

[DarkEdge]

I played Asherons Call HARDCORE, but I don't care for AC2 at all. I find it to much like everquest. Alot of the people I played with to feel the same way. It looks good though.

[airspirit]

If you played AC2 in Beta or in the first week or two, I agree, it is very EQish. Since the December content patch, many of those issues have changed, and many will be revolutionized again come January.

Example of combat:
Me (Tonk Healer), 2 Lugian Tacticians, 1 Mage, 1 Archer, and a Melee guy all go to a particularly difficult area to get some killing in (pushing us into the next level for various skills ... look into the levelling system, as it is outstanding so far).

The Tacticians build a number of walls against a cliff face and a couple of turrets (they act just like they sound) inside. The archers and I would draw the mobs in (the archers have the range to draw, and being that these critters consider my Tonk as a racial enemy, they all want to bash my head in ... I'm always target #1). As soon as they catch my scent they lumber after with the archers raining death from above. The melee guy would wade out and make tactical strikes on them as their HPs would go down, and I would retreat into the fortress (that the Tacticians are deperately trying to keep up) and start focusing on keeping everyone alive. The mage would be raining death on things through this whole thing, and the turrets would be blasting away, helping us to wear these things down.

Granted, if we were to walk down the beach and just attack one of these things willy-nilly, we would all die, and it would be rare to get a kill. It is the team tactics that make combat stand out.

Questing Example:
An example of a quest would be the Isle Fortress quest early in the game. It takes good tactics or a MASSIVE team to do this. I went in with a group of five, myself (healer) and four random melee/archer types. We stormed the fortress, and after finding the key to open the dungeon, we went in. While the others attracted attention, I put on a run buff and sprinted through the chaos into the lower levels of the dungeon where I came across a huge barracks type area littered with mobs I could barely kill one on one. There were about 20 of them. I snuck my way through the mess until I came upon the ringleader of the group, drew him out with some sparkage to his head, and killed him assasin style. This drew the attention of the mobs who came running after me while I ran like hell to the top screaming "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES." We all made it out okay (except a young archer who went rogue while I was away), and finished the quest.

The gaming experience is unlike any other MMORPG I've encountered. Really, there are many things to build on herre, and it is a matter of time before the devs put further content in further differentiating it from other games. Those who've played AC and just dabbled in AC2 tend not to like it because it's different: duh! It's supposed to be. Give it a chance, and I think you'll be very impressed.