User:An Adventurer/Early Story and Game Development

Overall Development

In the first Letter to the Players (then called The Spin from Turbine), it was stated that Asheron's Call had been in development for over 4 years. According to Gamasutra's Postmortem: Turbine Entertainment's Asheron's Call, an interview with Toby Ragaini, the total project length was 40 months in development, and 8 months of beta testing. The beta test concluded at the end of October 1999, with an 8 month duration that would have put the start of beta testing at March 1999.

The Beta was divided into 3 phases: Beta 0, Beta 1, and Beta 2. Beta 0 was private and had a duration of ??? to ???. Beta 1 was (public?) and had a duration of ??? to ??? (according to old Mu Sashi site, Beta 1 was active in the month of July, 99. Beta 2 was public (free CDs in magazines?) and had a duration of ??? to October 1999.

During beta the game placed in a code freeze, with only major bugs being fixed.

More details on the early days of Turbine and development of Asheron's Call may be found at:

http://www.mit.edu/~jonmon/ (Flash required)

Additional infomation may be found at:

https://web.archive.org/web/20001202123100/http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20000525/ragaini_01.htm

https://web.archive.org/web/20001202133800/http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20000525/ragaini_02.htm

https://web.archive.org/web/20001214045500/http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20000525/ragaini_03.htm

https://web.archive.org/web/20001202141400/http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20000525/ragaini_04.htm

1994 - 1996

Turbine was founded in 1994. Founder Jon Monsarrat became the first employee in January 1995. By the summer of 1995, they had completed enough development to be able to give real demos of Asheron's Call. By this point, Toby Ragaini had been hired as a game designer, and he built the backstory for the game.

1997

Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 1997

"Microsoft also announced at the show it will charge daily fees for two multiplayer fighting games on the otherwise-free Internet Gaming Zone. "Somebody's got to pay for all this," said Marty Taucher, a marketing manager in Microsoft's Interactive Media Division, gesturing toward the company's spacious booth on the show floor.

The Internet Gaming Zone has a three- tier strategy. Customers can play certain board games such as backgammon against each other for free. Or they can buy a Microsoft game, such as Microsoft Golf, and play against other Golf users for free. Or they can pay a daily fee for playing multiplayer Internet fighting games.

Taucher said Microsoft is likely to charge roughly $1 to $3 per day to play Fighter Ace and Asheron's Call, two "premium" online fighting games to be released this fall."

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"Microsoft Corp. today announced that it is on a roll with its popular Internet Gaming Zone ( http://www.zone.com/ ). Topping the news about the Zone, Microsoft plans to expand the site by introducing its first two premium games, Microsoft® Fighter Ace and Asheron’s Call. Both multiplayer games will be previewed at the Electronics Entertainment Expo (E 3 ) trade show June 19-21 in Atlanta (Booth 2616 in the West Hall, Georgia Congress Center)."

"The second premium game, Asheron’s Call, is an epic role-playing game that will support thousands of players simultaneously. The fabric of this fantasy game, including advanced combat, health, magic and allegiance systems, allows players to develop characters and interact in a variety of ways that provide infinite depth and capability for replay. The rich first-person perspective immerses the player immediately in the dynamic gaming universe. Asheron’s Call, scheduled for release during the first quarter of 1998, is being developed by Turbine Entertainment Software Corp. of Westwood, Mass. Both Fighter Ace and Asheron’s Call will be free for download (connect-time charges may apply) and carry nominal daily or monthly usage fees."

July/August 1997 Issue of FamilyPC

"In an effort to bring online games to the masses, Microsoft is launching Empyrean (code name) this winter at its Internet Gaming Zone. This fantasy, real-time, role-playing game takes place in a 32- by 32-mile virtual world and supports 3000 players simultaneously. If you're nervous about taking the plunge with the hard-core gamers, don't be -- newbies are considered assets, so they aren't killed off right away. Note, however, that while most of the games in the Internet Gaming Zone are free, Empyrean will charge a fee. But it will likely be worth every penny."

1998

Gamepen Interview with Toby Ragaini and Jon Grande

"We have a lot of backstory that we are going to incorporate into the game world. I don’t want to give away too much of the story, since part of the excitement will be from players discovering this secret past themselves. I will say that the player’s characters are being brought to an island that was formerly inhabited by a mysterious race of people that the humans now call the Empyrean. The Empyrean were very advanced in magical and arcane lore, however, they seem to have all disappeared. Where did they go and why? No one has answered that question, although most suspect that the magical portals which dot the landscape are somehow involved."

"We are dedicated to making player characters the main focus of the game plot rather than predefined AI roles or scripted characters. To this end, the storyline going forward is less defined than the back story so that we can incorporate players into the ongoing plot. Plans that we have include monster invasions, catastrophic events that add new areas to explore, and other changes that alter the content of the game world."

"One interesting aspect of the game is that NPC monsters won’t all be identical. They will have skills, attributes and specialties just like players. This means that the King of the Olthoi will likely be more powerful than the average Olthoi warrior."

"Right now there are 14 major types of monsters. Each of these will have many variations that will increase the total types of monsters to over 50. For example, the tumerok is an evil raiding humanoid monster. In Asheron's Call, you will find tumerok warriors, tumerok scouts, tumerok chieftains, etc. each with unique abilities of their own."

"We're trying to effectively do two things: 1) continue the trend that Ultima started of boosting the production values of on-line games to rival that of retail games and 2) focus the design of game-play on the interaction between players. Playing with and against other real people is always more challenging and interesting than playing against AI controlled opponents. That's something that we've all learned from playing games like SubSpace and Ultima On-line. We're really trying to build role playing universe that rivals the depth of the AD&D games that we all used to play in college. That's an incredible elusive goal, but one that we continue to chase."

"We're planning on starting our beta in the summer and shooting for commercial release this fall. We are counting on getting a great deal of user feedback in our beta and have scheduled ample time to respond to the feedback that we receive."

Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 1998

"Asheron's Call: An Epic Online Adventure
Asheron's Call(TM) online multiplayer game, which is scheduled to arrive on the Zone in early 1999, draws together thousands of players within a dynamic, 3-D online world. Players can create truly unique characters, with varied combinations of visual appearance, attributes and skill sets. The setting for the game is a 24-by-24-mile island with all types of terrain, including mountain glaciers, desert wastelands, swamps and subterranean dungeons. The game immerses players in an intense fantasy role-playing environment where they must choose to compete against or cooperate with thousands of other real players. An extensive system of allegiance and influence greatly enhances social interaction. The story line in Asheron's Call evolves dynamically over time based on the decisions and actions of the Asheron's Call community. The game is being developed by Turbine Entertainment Software."

1999

Microsoft GameStock 99

"Evolving Story Line Asheron's Call provides an engaging back-story equivalent to 4,000 years of game history for players to discover. On-line game administrators will be actively working to advance the overall story line based on the decisions and actions of the Asheron's Call community."

Microsoft Gaming Zone Interview with Toby Ragaini

"Asheron's Call takes place in a mysterious world called Dereth. People began magically appearing on Dereth about 50 years ago but were quickly enslaved by the vicious, insect-like creatures called Olthoi. Thanks to the heroism of Elysa Strathelar, the humans rose up in righteous fury, and were able to overthrow the Olthoi.

The game takes place about 10 years after this victory. It is a dangerous and exciting time. Olthoi and other monsters still lurk in their dark domains. Humans have carved out a few small towns, and brave individuals have found the artifacts of a mystical race of people called the Empyrean, who once inhabited Dereth. Is there a connection between the Empyrean and the magical portals that dot the landscape? Many mysteries like these have yet to be solved."

Later Dev Quotes

"We all work using backstory developed years and years ago, mainly by Toby."

"When writing 'The Reign of Alfrega' in beta, I worked out the reigns of a number of Aluvian rulers."

"At ship, we had a few pieces of lore and a handful of overview docs - not much beyond that. The Empyrean development of portalspace, for example, amounted to three line-items: Asheron uses portal magic to trap BZ, Asheron creates a stable portal, Asheron brings in the bugs."

"the original vision has it that he was surprised and overwhelmed, unable to close the exploratory portal to the Olthoi world before thousands had already come through. Kellin II, his usurpation of the throne, and his desire to use the Olthoi as weapons are entirely my reworking. I wonder what Toby thinks of it all..."

"There's about 40,000 years worth of historical outline in our database. It is, however, only an outline. While all the major players, major events, and chains of cause and effect are covered, the details are left for us to fill in as we go."

"the fates of Atlan and Maila were determined long ago by Toby's fiction. In fact, their doom was wrought back when AC was called Empyrean. The fact that Atlan's squire survived was also established. However, the details of Atlan's last march, the name of the squire, and Maila's twilight reminiscences I made up on the spot."

"The person I *think* had the most infleunce was Toby Ragaini. Toby created Asheron and Bael'Zharon (originally named Aiden and Yservius Pentecost), the Empyrean, and lots of other things we take for granted today."

Beta & Other Early Maps

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  Beta Map

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  Beta Map

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  Early Aluvian Realm from Zogblaster.com

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  Early Gharu'ndim Kingdom from Zogblaster.com

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  Early Sho Nation from Zogblaster.com

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  Early World Map

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  Dereth at Release