Turbine Confirm Asheron’s Call: Throne of Destiny News

Turbine Entertainment today confirmed development of Asheronâ??s Call: Throne of Destiny, the latest instalment to the popular MMORPG.

The latest chapter is set to continue the ever-evolving stories and adventures in the fantasy world of Dereth, and is scheduled for a PC release in spring 2005.

Players will experience a new epic story and participate in a bitter struggle for power, between the warlike Viamontians and their calculating, ruthless king Varicci II. The game also promises to unearth powerful figures of Dereth who have remained hidden in the past, thrusting them to the forefront of the burgeoning revolution to help define Derethâ??s new destiny.

Amongst the improvements currently being built into the game include significant upgrades to the games graphics engine, upgrading to support DX9 and adding 6,000 repainted textures. As a result the game will support dramatically enhanced texture sizes, resulting in more detailed characters and environments and a marked difference in sharpness and quality. Despite the increase, weâ??re assured that these wonâ??t significantly impact performance, allowing robust play on lower-end machines.

Asheronâ??s Call: Throne of Destiny will also introduce a new playable race, the warlike Viamontians, who have long been the scourge of the nations of Ispar and live on an archipelago in the north. Along with the new race, players will discover and explore a unique archipelago in the North of Dereth, which is held by the Viamontians.

The game will challenge players in Dereth with a new higher-level cap of 275. Along with the new cap is skill credits that players can spend to activate precious gems that augment their character, such as extra carrying slots or lesser death penalties.

Finally adventurers in Dereth will come across advantageous rare items that are scattered throughout the land, which players will have to guard carefully if they donâ??t want to loose them. These items do not need to be wielded or activated, but either used up after you use them or persist with the player throughout his adventures.

In addition to the key features, AC:TD will also provide players with several new monsters, hundreds of new inventory items, a slew of new quests and dozens of new exciting dungeons. Throne of Destiny will include all of the massive amounts of content from the original Asheron's Call, its first expansion pack, Dark Majesty(R), and all of the episodic updates that Turbine has provided since the game's launch.

A small collection of features have been dropped from the game, including the Elder Game Land control feature after initial reaction to it was less then â??stellarâ?. The team confirmed that they plan to take the time to get this feature right, and that it should be available exclusively to owners of the Throne of Darkness expansion pack by summer/early fall 2005.

Microsoft Game Studios had previously published the first two titles in the series, however Throne of Destiny will mark the first title to be self-published by Turbine Entertainment.

We'll have a more details on Asheron's Call: Throne of Destiny soon.