Comment Re:Asheron's Call (Score 1) 40
That was the first of the year long epic. It wasn't for several more months that players understood that we were destroying the very chains of the beast who would come destroy us. The desire to complete the quest, to find out more lore and information, and to attain untold riches (like the unique Nexus Armor) was the same desire the developers used to push us towards our own doom.
The shadows, Bael'Zharon's minions, gained power and with it brought the Shadow Spires floating over cities. Eventually they reduced Arwic and Tufa to smoldering masses, while the city of Cragstone was defended by Asheron himself, aided by the lady Elysa Strathelar.
And while you, as a player, explored Frore, fought shadows, battled the shadow spires (accessed through a series of random portals, so if you died, you had to find a new portal and hope you could find the same spire, to perhaps retrieve your body), and eventually broke most of BaelZharon's crystal prisons, the Battle of Cragstone was held offline during the server update. When the new patch came online and players discovered that the battle happened without them, we were disappointed.
So that's when Turbine developed the final battle for the last crystal - where you could destroy, or defend, the remaining check of BaelZharon's power.
Thistledown did defend the Soul Crystal (as I believe it was called), forcing the developers themselves to stage an elaborate attack in order to maintain consistency between worlds. Asheron Call's first year was an epic event, with complex characters (there's plenty enough reason to dislike Asheron and to sympathize with BaelZharon, who had a intense backstory), rival factions of NPCs and players alike, and engaging dungeons with fun loot.
