Lord of the Rings? Dungeons & Dragons?

Psh. Whatever.

There was a time when Turbine Entertainment didn't have any fancy franchises under its belt. There was a time when they took my (sweet father's) money each month so I could play Asheron's Call, my first -- and last -- MMORPG. And, most importantly, there was a time when the demon Bael'Zharon strode across the virtual world of Dereth and made the skies bleed their own blood.

Asheron's Call didn't do everything right. Rosy nostalgia aside, I remember a tedious grind and a horribly complex character system. The combination of those two factors ultimately lead me to cancel my subscription sometime in 2002. Until that point I'd stuck around mainly for the game's one defining feature: storytelling, which was so incredibly kickass that I'm getting antsy just writing about it.

Let's jump back to 2000. I was the terribly obese age of thirteen when the new millennium rolled around, young enough to know I liked video games but not nearly mature enough to realize just what a good thing Turbine had going. Even as a preteen, however, I knew the virtual events that unfolded in December of 2000 were something I'd never seen before. And if the games I've played since are any indication, they might be something I'll never see again.

The lore for Asheron's Call is massive, so I'll try and cut to the chase. The general premise is this: fabled wizard Asheron Realaidain, fiddling about with portal magic, accidentally opens a portal to another realm and invites hordes of ravenous insects to come enslave his entire world. Yeah, Asheron's kind of an ass.

So what does the man do? Open more portals to other worlds, inviting curious humans to flood the gates until the insects are finally subdued. Players took on the role of an adventurer fresh to Dereth, gaining control of their character the very moment he stepped out of portal space.

I'm not going to talk much about my character. He sucked. At some point I realized he was better at cooking than fighting, a remarkable discovery considering I hadn't pumped any points into the culinary skills.

Even with my crap character, though, I still got to experience the many sights and sounds of Dereth. I was there when the first mysterious Crystal Shard was discovered and subsequently shattered. I was there when the next four Shards were dug up and given similar treatment.

It wasn't until the sixth shard was discovered, however, that a story arc the developers had nursed for the better part of year finally came to a head. The destruction of each crystal brought a whole slew of new items and magic to the world. This brought greed. Greed brought players swarming to the site of the last crystal even as the world grew darker around them.

Let me make that clear -- the world changed. Grotesque spires popped up near major cities, pushing hordes of dangerous Shadows ever closer to formerly safe lands. Arwic, arguably the most popular town in Dereth, had the misfortune of being completely destroyed by one of those strange towers. The Shadows themselves cackled with glee every time they were killed, their childlike voices screaming with wild pleasure at the thought of their master, Bael'Zharon, finally being freed.



Yeah, those Crystal Shards the players so gleefully destroyed? Turns out they were the only thing keeping good old Bael from running around and tearing shit up. But not all was lost! One Crystal Shard remained, albeit with a very interesting catch. Only Player Killers -- in-game, those high-level jerks that had sworn allegiance to Bael'Zharon -- could enter the shadowy dungeon that housed it, turning what could have been a normal raid on the crystal into one of the greatest MMO events I've ever seen.

The discovery of the sixth crystal split the player base in two. One camp, fancying themselves anarchists and all-around punks, rallied together to launch organized attacks on the last Crystal Shard. The other camp, those who thought it might be kinda bad to unleash a soul-sucking demon on the world, organized defensive parties and stationed themselves around the shard night and day.

Yeah, the bad guys won.

But not immediately! Indeed, one server stood out from the rest for the sheer stubbornness of its players. Thistledown's defenders managed to keep the last Crystal Shard alive for nearly the entire month. I was on a different server, unfortunately, so the all-out war that occurred on Thistledown is something I could only read about from the developers' commentary on the event.

Here's the rundown: the Thistledown defenders were good. So damn good, in fact, that the developers realized they had to step in lest one server out of eight kept the Shard alive into December. This involved creating uber-buffed characters, spawning in some high-level Shadows, and enlisting some of the most powerful PK characters in Dereth to raid the dungeon and clear out the forces of good.

It wasn't a simple process. If you'd like to check out an in-depth look at the sheer chaos surrounding the Thistledown Crystal war, click here to read the developer commentary.

The destruction of the final crystal brought about massive change in the lands of Dereth. With Bael'Zharon free to roam, suddenly all water -- rain, lakes, etc. -- turned to blood. The pale blue sky itself fell into a dark red, and, on occasion, the monstrous shadow of Bael'Zharon himself stretched wide across it, stealing the stars from view.

It was freaking awesome.

I wasn't the only one excited. Bael'Zharon, a massive developer-controlled monster who roamed Dereth and destroyed everything in his path, soon became the target of gleeful groups of players. Some came to talk. Others came to fight. The culmination of that month's plot event even brought Asheron himself out of hiding, another developer taking on the role of the world's destroyer turned savior.



Those were good times to be in Dereth.

So what's the point of all of this pant-tenting nostalgia? This was it, man. This was the moment when I realized that games could tell an incredible story -- a story that took players out of the realm of merely reading or viewing and gave them an active role in shaping the course of the narrative.

Letting players attack or defend the Shard was a brilliant way to engage them in the storytelling. Unleashing Bael'Zharon on the world showed players the repercussions of their actions, for the first time making them feel like something they'd done in a virtual world actually mattered.

MMOs seem ripe for this kind of storytelling. To my knowledge, Asheron's Call was one of the few to do so, which is an incredible shame considering the inherent potential of a persistent virtual world. Where else can you weave a compelling narrative and let your players -- or readers, viewers, whatever -- actively take part in it?

There's something admirable about your typical book, of course, with its neatly contained plot and typically linear narrative. Some of the best books even draw you in so completely that you feel as if you're really partaking in the storyline.

What Turbine did with Asheron's Call in late 2000 completely transcends that. Turbine made players feel like they were actually a part of their world and gave them the chance to shape the future of Dereth. Yeah, yeah, that last crystal was doomed from the start -- but during those long nights spent guarding it, I'm sure the Thistledown defenders knew they were taking part in something special. I wonder if they knew their valiant defense would become the stuff of legends, in my mind growing inseparable from the incredible storyline Turbine was weaving.

From that point forward I realized video games have the potential to tell an interactive story unheard of in traditional media. I've been writing ever since, hoping one day to craft a memorable narrative like Turbine did in late 2000. Perhaps I'll get my chance to do that one day. Perhaps I'll end up in a cardboard box with nothing but a bunch of napkins to scribble on. Such is the fate of the writer, or so I've been told.

Either way, I know I won't forget the magic of Asheron's Call -- the blood rain, the fantastic lore, the chance to feel like I was something more than just another crappy swordsman running around Dereth.

Kudos, Turbine.

I swear to god I'm not crying right now.