While there have been many expansion packs for massively multiplayer games like Everquest, Ultima Online and so on, there really hasn’t been a large scale attempt to do a full stand alone sequel to a game in this genre. That is all scheduled to change this fall as developer Turbine Entertainment and publisher Microsoft prepare to release Asheron’s Call 2, their continuation of their fantasy online RPG they launched just a few years ago. Turbine and Microsoft recent opened up their game for large scale beta testing thanks to offers from Computer Games magazine, GameSpy and Microsoft’s Passport service. HomeLAN got a chance to briefly check out the beta through one of the Computer Games CD-ROM disks. While it has been publicized that the game has had some beta problems in the past week, things seem to have stabilized enough so we could explore this newly revamped fantasy land.
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