Servers
Note: This page contains historical information about the retail servers. It does not pertain to emulated servers.
Retail Servers
At release, the following 6 servers were available: Darktide, Frostfell, Harvestgain, Leafcull, Morningthaw, and Thistledown. Solclaim was the first new server to open on the 6th of June 2000. Wintersebb was the second new server to open on the 24th of January 2001. Verdantine is the latest server to open on the 9th of June 2004.
Darktide was a Player Killer only server. All other servers defaulted characters to Non Player Killer, but also allowed characters to change to Player Killer, and, later, Player Killer Lite.
As part of the publishing agreement with Microsoft, all of the retail servers (excluding Verdantine) were originally hosted by Microsoft and accessible via the Microsoft Gaming Zone. Turbine bought back all franchise rights from Microsoft in 2003 and consequently took responsibility for server hosting. The servers remained at a facility in Washington State until 2008 when all server hardware was replaced and relocated to a facility in Massachusetts near Turbine headquarters. Due to various quality of service issues that caused extended downtime the servers were moved to a new facility on March 30th, 2009.
For more information on each server, see:
Planned Servers
In August 2004, Turbine announced that it had signed a deal with Jolt Online Gaming Ltd to operate the running of AC in Europe. This included the new Dawnsong server that would go live around the same time as the release of the Throne of Destiny expansion. Unfortunately, plans to launch the server were eventually cancelled due to fears it would further spread players out and split existing communities.
- Turbine Jolts Asheron's Call® and AC2: Fallen Kings® in Europe
- Dawnsong on the Horizon
- Status of the Dawnsong (European) Server
Test Servers
Vanguard - A private test server where a select few players tested content prior to it going live to the retail servers. This server existed, presumably, for the entirety of the retail game.
Shadowclaim - A public test server that was available from April 26th, 2003 to April 28th, 2003 to stress test some new server hardware. The character database was an exact copy of Solclaim, hence the name Shadowclaim.
- Original Link: http://zone.msn.com/asheronshadow/default.asp
Destiny - A public test server that was available from June 22nd, 2005 to July 12th, 2005 as an open preview of the upcoming expansion pack Throne of Destiny. The character database was an exact copy of Leafcull.
Shadowfell - A public test server that was available from October 4th, 2008 to October 6th, 2008 to stress test new server hardware. The character database was an exact copy of Frostfell.
For more information on other test servers and programs (circa 2000) see: Backstage at Asheron's Call.
Beta Servers
Like their retail counterparts, the Asheron's Call Beta servers were hosted via the Microsoft Gaming Zone.
Beta World Red was the Beta 0/1 server - the first world to be be brought online for the Asheron's Call Beta.
Beta World Green was the Beta 2 server. It was online from 08/03/99 to ?? and was announced as having "many new features" over the previous red world.
Beta World Blue was the Beta 3 server and was open to the public. It was online from 10/18/99 to 10/24/99 and was using the new September game build.