In Asheron's Call, you travel through the land of Dereth, accepting quests from local townspeople, eradicating monstrous hordes of creatures and looting treasure. An ancient race called the Empyrean once lived on Dereth, until they were forced to flee from the Olthoi, a vicious race of creatures accidentally summoned to Dereth by the Empyrean magician Asheron. In an attempt to rectify the situation, Asheron opened portals to other realms, encouraging those brave enough to answer his call to enter and help save Dereth from the Olthoi's tyranny.

What makes Asheron's Call unique is that you are not alone - there are thousands of other players exploring the world as well. You can choose to go it alone and forge your own path through the game, or team up with other players and fight together.

As a reward to encourage team efforts, Asheron's Call has a unique social system comprised of Fellowships and Allegiances. A Fellowship is a temporary group created to adventure and explore a dungeon or area. Any experience (XP) earned while in a Fellowship is split equally among the members of the Fellowship. If the group finds treasure, however, they must decide how to share it.

An Allegiance is formed when a player agrees to declare another player as his/her Patron. That player then becomes a Vassal to their Patron. From then on, whenever the Vassal earns XP, a separate amount is created and given to the Patron. In return for the XP, Patrons usually help their Vassals. They can adventure with them, making sure they survive their first few trips through a dungeon. Or the Patron could give his/her Vassal(s) magical items, money, or spell formulae.

If you become a Patron, the more Vassals you have, the higher your rank will be. The highest rank a Patron can achieve is 10. It is advantageous for you to become a Patron because some of the most powerful magic spells, weapons, armor and items can only be used by Patrons with a rank of 10. There are also weapons, armor and items that can only be used by certain heritage groups.

There are three heritage groups in Asheron's Call: the Aluvian, the Gharu'ndim and the Sho. The Aluvian are a proud and warlike people. Intelligent and scholarly, the Gharu'ndim are poets and traders who excel in magic. Masters of unarmed combat, the Sho are disciplined and honorable. When you create your character your choice of heritage group will affect your appearance and some of your starting abilities.

Character creation is the most well designed aspect of Asheron's Call. You start by choosing to be an Aluvian, a Gharu'ndim or a Sho. Next, you choose you character's profession. The available professions are Archer, Blademaster, Enchanter, Life Mage, Sorcerer, Vagabond and Warrior. If you choose one of these professions, your skills are automatically chosen for you. However, the best way to go, in my opinion, is to choose a Custom Character (Adventurer).

After choosing a profession, the next step of character creation is choosing your attributes and skills. The attributes are Strength, Endurance, Coordination, Quickness, Focus and Self. The first two apply to fighting; the second two apply to dexterous activities such as picking locks, as well as jumping and running. The last two apply to magic and item identification. There are over 30 skills in Asheron's Call, ranging from Alchemy to Life Magic to Unarmed Combat.

The final step is to name your character and choose your starting world. You can choose from the servers running normal Dereth worlds, or you can opt for Darktide, a player killer (PK) world. In Darktide, unlike the other worlds, you can kill and be killed by other players.

Asheron's Call is not a graphically intensive game. The 3D terrain is presently pleasantly, with a decent amount of detail. However, the character models are all the same, with only a slight variation between male and female. I would have liked to see an option to have different body types, but that's a minor gripe. The sound effects are realistic, if slightly repetitive. In daytime, birds sing; at nighttime, crickets chirp.

The XP system allows you to spend earned XP on raising attributes and skills, which is an added bonus to the obvious level-up bonus normally found in RPGs. Risking your neck for XP doesn't come without danger. Death brings a vitae penalty to your character. The vitae penalty is applied to your attributes and skills. If you have a 10% vitae penalty, then your health, stamina and mana are 10% lower, and your skills are 10% less efficient. In order to lose the vitae penalty, you must earn the amount of XP listed under the vitae penalty. I would have liked to see another punishment, or no punishment at all. The current system can get you into "vitae pits", a point where you are so inhibited by the penalty that it becomes nearly impossible to earn enough XP to lose the penalty.