Ashen Empires

One of the most corrupt and dying games out there . don't waste your time with it GM's are players and ban people who are better at the game than them. there's legitimately 10people who play the game anyway

Don't let the playtime fool you - years before there was Steam integration, I had played for countless thousands of hours. My main issue right now is, after having returned several years later to play the game again, I have a level 105 character who is effectively stranded on a server with a dead population. No really, every time I log in, there is a max of like... 2 other people logged in as well. I have checked in multiple times a day, each day, just to see if there were any population peaks; there isn't. In recent years, they created a third server with similar rules called Ascension, which seems to float at the 30+ range. Still nothing spectacular, but I asked to have my level 105 character, who I spent thousands of hours on, to be transferred to Ascension so I could play this _MMO_ again with other people. The answer I was given is that they are "not accepting transfers to Ascension at this time" and that "players over level 105 do get bonus orbs, so you would have more options if you releveled over there" and then they closed the ticket on me. Keep in mind that this is not a limitation - they offer transfer services for a staggering $50 a pop for those willing to pay... except not to Ascension, which is their highest population server anyway and the others are dead??? I put a second ticket in explaining myself in more detail, but the response was, to summarize: "I get it, you want to play with other people, but we're not doing it - PVP needs gear and skills." No consideration for the time I spent crafting my character. No consideration that my character is land-locked on a MORE hardcore PVP server so what's the difference. Basically: "If you want to play with other people, better start all over again". Baffling. This is an MMO that, presumably, they want other people to play and continue playing, otherwise they would not have bothered having it published on Steam. The game is already almost dead, and here you have a legacy player wanting to come back and invest more of his time and money, bring along his friends to jump in and experience the game with him, and they flat out refuse a server transfer with no context and ask me to re-level from the start like the time, money and effort I put into my level 105 character didn't matter at all. This is not how you run an MMO. This is not how you try to attract new and old people to revitalize an MMO. I am extremely disappointed and beyond sad that I will not be able to play this game with other people again unless I start from scratch, simply because they are "Not offering server transfers this time" to a server that is only averaging 30 players to begin with. If this is the level of service and care you expect from a small MMO development team, go for it - but if you don't want to feel like your time, money and efforts have been completely invalidated, stay far away. The folks running the show do not care about you, the community, or the overall health and longevity of the game... which is a shame, because the game is otherwise very fun.

This game appealed to me because I had nostalgia for Ultima Online. This comes nowhere close to it. It's cool it in's own right - a legend of the past. And I'd love to see online games like this again - this is just dead and lingering.

Cool game ran by power tripping devs. Avoid.

Not for me, but givew it a try if you like old school style games.

Overly strict rules and poor communication between players and game masters made for a frustrating experience

Incredibly fun game similar to Ultima Online. Was a direct competitor to Runescape back when they were both new. No idea how a terrible game like Runescape has more players than this absolute gem. Oh, and the music is beautiful!