What a refreshing change! AC is such a new experience. Granted, I'm starting my character all over again for the 3rd time, it's still addicting as hell. Let's get to the goods though, and let me tell you what's so nice about Asheron's Call.

First and formost: The Allegiance System kicks ass!

Here's how this works. I'm a new character, don't know anything about the game, probably didn't put enough points into my Run skill (therefore slowing down my party), can easily get killed by the weakest of creatures, and don't have any armor or weapons worth a damn... overall a pain the the ass when combined with the fact that new characters don't know anything about the game and ask tons of questions. How does the Asheron's Call gaming populace respond to such new creatures? They embrace them. Further, they give them money/weapons/armor. They take them under wing and support them. They protect them and answer their questions.

The reason they do this is to gain the newbie's favor... That's right folks, the veterans work for the newbies in a race for popularity. If they succeed, the newbie will Swear Allegiance to the veteran, making the veteran his Patron and allowing the Patron to score another Vassal.

Here's how it works folks. When I joined up, a character named Octavious took me up, helped me out, got me armor and a good weapon, and protected me while we were in the fields west of Holtsburg killing the drudges (annoying golbin creatures). I swore Allegiance to him, and I'll not break that allegiance as long as Octavious treats me well. Whenever I kill a drudge I'll get 100 exp (all values are arbitrary, I'm not sure the actual amount). When that happens, Octavious, being my Patron, will gain 10 exp. The more I kill, the more we both gain. Further, in this magical pyramid scheme, I am level one and Octavious is level two. There are certain magical items that only work if you have a specific allegiance level, so helping people and gaining their allegiance is almost mandatory. You can exist without taking advantage of the system, but you'll lead a lonely life.

However.... (You knew I had to bitch a little.)

The controls for this game are god-awful. It took quite some time to learn where all the important keys were, and even longer to understand how to take advantage of their wack targeting system. If you're comfortable with games that are intuitive (UO was), prepare for a shock.

However, the control problem is actually stemming from a greater problem. There is little to no documentation on how to play the game. There's tons of stuff on what the characters are about, and what alchemy is supposed to do, but there's no real documentation that say outright what to click on. For example, spell research was next to impossible to figure out without reading online tutorials written by players.

Lastly, the fact of the matter is that as far as 3D MMORPGs go, we're just not quite there yet. Granted, the shots of what UO2 (oops, I mean Ultima Worlds Online: Origin *ugh*) and AC2 look like that reality is just around the corner. The player models do not vary enough. I come from the game of UO, where *everyone* had a unique style to their character, and was recognizable immediatly by their clothes. The only time I can recognize Octavious in the game is if he's carrying his green shield.

This has only been one week of the game, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. Now that I've started my archer character (for the third time) again with proper stats, I'm ready to truly learn how this game is played. I'll probably have another review up in a week or so.