Pretty much to the week.
For those of you who don't know it, Asheron's Call was I think the 3rd big MMORPG, after Ultima and Everquest. It has the distinction of being the first of the games to offer updates every single month, basically forcing updates from every online game that came afterwards to keep pace. The graphics are old in comparison to newer games, but that helps them run on older machines, and the character generation architecture is much more open ended then any other game out there.
I played on the Leafcull server, which boasted several devs with characters there. I was a monarch of my own Allegiance for several years, until most of the characters I founded the game with moved on to other games, and then I swore under a variety of others, ending with King Cobra, lord of the 3 mule accounts.
My Allegiance was full of some great gamers in its heyday. When the Olthoi Queen live event was in action, we killed 3 of the 4 generals on the server...and I missed my shot at the unique title granted when I couldn't log on to receive it the next day. Scotty the Handy Man, at my request, beat all the PK people when running the Crystals Quest, and so the level 7 life buff crystal ended up in the primary 'good guy' questing hall. I ran the Aerlinthe Island recall quest so many times I can still picture every dungeon from beginning to end on the entire quest (and people still ask me if I named my character after the island, when I was there first!)
I was a gimp sword melee, back when sword sucked, and I didn't get creature magic until almost a year into the game (that is the stat buffing skill).
But my interest in playing starting waning when I didn't have time to go on all the quests, and joining pickup groups made me feel like I was second string. too, I reached the maximum level, but they put in a 'new xp' tier, giving characters more buffs, and I just didn't have the time or patience to start grinding and trying to maximize those out. Too, I didn't have time to kill things for loot and really upgrade my gear with the latest and best stuff, and I never macroed for loot or gold, so I just fell further behind.
I stopped running the 'auto' monthly quests, and that was pretty much the death knell. Even when I was playing other games, I always ran certain key quests every month, and I just had enough.
I did finish with a Melee, a Mage, and an Archer all at the max level, played straight through that way, no power levelling, macroing, and then respeccing the character as is common. I never maxed my trade character, it was a lot harder because she actually has the trade skills now, instead of levelling up as a playable character and then speccing out, but that was fine. I was satisfied with her progress.
I had the same Villa from the day it opened up, and I actually had the jungle wasp wing needed to take it in a collection of wings on my mule, and I got it when three other people were there waiting for it! :) I took all my items down off the walls and stowed them on mules...that was a sad moment, watching all those old memories get put away. Sure, a lot of the stuff is old and useless, but just to remember what those little collections of pixels stood for at one time...
My main character was Aelryinth, my sword guy, starting with a 70 Str that Gimped me for almost two years, before they introduced the stat mechanic where you could change around your core stats, and let me advance to base 100. He ended up a sword spec, crossbow spec, melee d spec, shield spec, arcane lore spec, item tinker spec, item and creature magic trained. Never used life magic on him, unlike just about any other melee on the server, they all used life magic in one way or another. I just relied on wands.
At one point, they took a snapshot fo skills per server, and I ended up with the highest sword skill at the time, totally irking several higher level melee guys. Hah!
I can remember the times runnign all the differnt portal routes to get there, who had what rare ties on mules so we could get from place to place. You don't need that as much anymore, but there's still a lot of old ties around to strange places in the game.
I haven't seen any of the new content for the past six months, it's almost all group stuff, and I don't like being a ninth wheel in groups.
I had great friends in that game, some of whom went on to become great monarchs on their own after serving under me.
So, a final shout out, where they'll never see it, to:
D'nia. The last one besides me to leave from the old days.
Bane the Bloodguard, my first vassal.
Jagwire, my second vassal.
Stargrove, my Castellan, who held the Allegiance together outside the game.
Photius and Mrs. Photius. yes, Husband and wife in real life.
Damon, one of the best archer players I ever knew, and his buddy Faithless, tri spec dagger guy.
Rage, who built the first xp chain on the server, the first real monarch I recruited, a fellow sword guy.
Eddie Smokingtoad, my first real long term hunting buddy. I still miss him.
Bonghitz, who had his character deleted for his name and rerolled a pure mage he owned with, called Blackened.
Quidlor, the first great solo quester and tank mage in the game I knew. I will never forget him doing a body recovery for me at 1 AM from the 'fairies from hell' in the early game.
Lakeon, the first uber staff character and mass quest organizer across Allegiances.
Og, for creating the Og mage.
Brandish, for all his craziness, who took the tri-spec dagger template I recommended and ran with it.
Briggs, who had no item magic, and who I showed how to use wands. just the greatest guy playing a sworder in the early game.
M'koth, the real life friend who killed the Tremendous Monuga at the end of beta, and got me into the game.
Thase Skotoso, my first real monarch who showed what being a monarch was all about (and who still plays and is a monarch!)
Nightwolf, for being an Aluvian UA and not giving a damn.
Quidlor, a real life friend, for taking after Nightwolf.
Devilmouse the dev, for letting us know how to pronounce Ghar-un-DEEM and TOO-TOO.
Scotty the Handy Man, for running Survivor: Leafcull and getting even the devs involved in it, and putting the buffing crystal in the good guys' dungeon.
Morgana, that crazy brit archer playing 5 hours ahead of us, and still managing to join in and have a good time, fearless of her 5000 deaths and rising, and her husband Tinuvial for joining in.
Nozo Quai, who played when he shifted off duty on the nuclear submarine he crewed. He's working on Wall Street in information support now.
There are others, lots of others, but these are the ones that stuck with me as singular events and people that defined the game experience for me.
Asheron's Call, I'm logging off, and I likely won't ever be back, but I had some great times with you.
=+Aelryinth of Leafcull, Monarch of the Allegiance of the Steel, sword gimp and never macroed once.
Late shouts as names tinkle into my memory.
Romex, the second to last character other then D'nia to stick with me, had to pull out because of health problems.
Redrum, who actually played a UA spear guy in the early game. My very first hunting partner in the game, and intro'd me to Stargrove...and showed me how to use the chat system!
Silent Mage. He's a Filipino down in Texas. People kept leaving their accounts to him, and he kept giving them away to others to play with.
Aeriston, crazy sword/axe character!
Ice Cold, one of Rage's vassals, who played when he wasn't driving a semi.
I'm sure there'll be others.
==Aelryinth
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Ho, you thought I wouldn't see this, Mess?
I'm just amazed YOU saw this.
Hah, Saben, Kyle and you. Wow, that was a while ago.
Thanks for the compliments on being a monarch. I only gave it up when I couldn't do the things needed to stay competitive in the game.
Between all my characters, I think I had over 3 years of game time built up, with Aelryinth definitely being the longest, and my archery Aelry next. How much now, I can't remember, and am not going to log back in to find out.
Nice seeing you on the Paizo boards! I've seen some interesting people on the forums from LC. Remember Sebastian Thor? He popped in a couple times here, as well. Strange who you run into on the internet.
Nice to hear from a member of the old crew I lost track of long ago. I hope you are doing well.
==Aelryinth
Rage: You're probably not going to get an answer... neither Ael nor Messer have posted here in well over four years.