I Was a Teenage Adventure Gamer Asheron’s Call and Rune
I Was a Teenage Adventure Gamer
Asheron’s Call and Rune
Asheron’s Call
The 2001-2002 business years will be a banner time for massively multiplayer games. And things just can’t get any better than Microsoft’s stab at the multiplayer online gaming industry with its first game, Asheron’s Call. Asheron’s Call takes place in the world of Dereth, a continent with many different places to explore and people to meet.
Most people are put off by the whole idea of multiplayer gaming. Everquest, for example, has roving packs of player-killer gangs who get cheap thrills by going around and slaughtering everyone, mostly the new people who can’t defend themselves. Asheron’s Call manages to fix this problem. The only way to become a player-killer is to touch the stone of Bhaal, and that will allow the person to kill other player-killers on that particular server. And, of course, if you don’t like the life of a player-killer, you can touch the stone of Asheron and convert back to a nonplayer-killer. But you can always go onto the Dark Tide server and become a player-killer.
When it comes to lag, it is virtually nonexistent on the Microsoft Gaming Zone. From what I have gathered, the only town in the world of Dereth that actually has lag is the town of Arwic. However, Arwic was destroyed several months ago by Turbine Games. From what I could gather, Arwic had more than 100 or more people just standing around and trading items. They might not be doing anything at all, they might be just standing there and chatting.
And of course, like any game, there are a lot of people to help out the new guys to the game. I started out on the server of Frostfell and I met a lot of nice people who just came up to me and started giving me stuff. I had one guy come up to me and give me an X note, which is equal to 1,000 pyreals (the official form of currency) if it is given to the Armchage of Tou-to. If redeemed anywhere else, it is worth 800 pyreals. I had one guy come up to me and say, “Hey, I’d give you a D note, but that is too mean to do to a newbie. A D note is worth 50,000 pyreals and a newbie just doesn’t have enough strength to carry around that much money.”
The thing that really surprised me, though, was that people would just come up and start handing over stuff. It’s really cool that everyone gets involved; it creates a nice, warm atmosphere that one can look forward to coming back to. And, of course, everyone does come back. I found myself logging off for five minutes, and already I started to miss the atmosphere that had been created when I was online. People were coming up to me and talking with me, giving me stuff, and taking me on quests and hunting trips. And for the newbie, the only way to level up is to get a high-level mage and go to a Drudge encampment or go hunting the rabbits that lurk about Dereth.
There are plenty of cows to be slaughtered as well. People get a little bit angry when you start killing the cows, but there are plenty of experience points to be gained and two sides of beef that you can sell or give to people. Selling them might get you a small amount of cash, but just going out and hunting something is enough for me. Who needs money? You teach a man on Dereth to hunt, and you’ll feed him for a day. You give a man on Dereth a little bit of armor and a nice weapon, he’ll be able to turn a profit.
“What types of characters can one create?” you might be asking yourself. Well, you can be an Archer, an Enchanter, a Life Mage, Blade Master, or Warrior, among several other character classes. You may also choose to create a custom character and choose his/her specialities. Character creation is a certain five-letter word that rhymes with witch, because character creation is pretty much a direct hit or a complete miss. You can create the perfect character or the worst character to ever stroll about Dereth. I pretty much hit right on the money with my character. I created an archer who is now at level 3 after three days of playing. After attending a wedding and leading the group in prayer, I was asked to join a monarchy and be their priest. How could I refuse such an offer?
The monarchy and patrons and every vassal within this monarchy promised to show me around the world of Dereth and take me on hunting trips and cool quests. And I would also be required to bless people before they went out on quests. But, like I said, character creation is hit or miss, so you might not have as much luck as I did with find a patron. Basically, the odds are pretty much against you. I believe there is a limit on how many vassals you may have for each level of your character. One guy in my monarchy, who said he was at level 73, told me that he couldn’t take me on as a vassal because the limit for his level was 12.
Nobody should miss out on Asheron’s Call. It’s a great game, and so far I’ve been enjoying it. Trust me, once you get started and see all of the cool things the game has to offer, including excellent graphics, nice people, and a good experience overall, it’ll be hard to pull yourself away from the game.
By the way, does anyone want some Drudge meat pies? They’re really tasty …
Rune
The world of the Vikings is a world shadowed in myth and plenty of lore. From the great battles of the gods to the end of the world, all gods have a legend. And Human Head Studios’ latest game, Rune, takes a stab at some of the best Viking lore on this side of the adventure game community.
The game puts you into the role of a great Viking warrior, and you are guarding a sacred Rune stone in your village. The game begins with an opening ceremony of you passing from boyhood into manhood. And before you can accept the honor of becoming a man, you have to beat the village’s skilled warrior in mortal combat.
Rune is probably the most challenging game this year. It’s like Tomb Raider but, uh, different. You’ll spend your time jumping from ledge to ledge, hacking and slashing animals and people, and generally wreaking havoc on everything that you see.
The coolest part about the game is that you can use anything you want as a weapon. This game is not for the faint of heart. Throughout the game, you will be doing a lot of hacking and slashing, and if you aren’t a huge fan of this, avoid Rune.
As a matter of fact, Rune took forever to load on my computer, even with everything installed to the hard drive. And even then, the game ran slowly. I was greatly disappointed. If you don’t have a good system (my system is a Pentium II 350 with 96 MB of RAM and the Diamond Viper II video card with the Savage 2000 controller, and it was running as slow molasses), don’t buy this game. The levels took a good twenty minutes to load. And the first few levels took about 10 minutes each to complete.
The real problem, though, is that we have seen this stuff before. If you’ve played Tomb Raider or Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, you’ll know what to expect from Rune. The only major difference is the graphics engine that is used for each game. Rune uses the Unreal engine, which in my opinion is a bad choice. I’m not exactly bashing the Unreal engine, but as a general rule, from what I have seen so far, games using it have been horrible. Examples of this are Klingon Honor Guard and, of course, Unreal.
I am not overly impressed with Rune. As a matter of fact, if you want a decent adventure game to play, spend ten dollars less and buy Deus Ex or something like that. At least you will get more bang for your buck.
