Asheron Call 2's run lasted from 2002 to 2005 as the sequel to Turbine's original Asheron's Call, which is still active to this day. Yeah, MMOs are weird like that sometimes. In a forum post yesterday (via Rock, Paper, Shotgun ), Turbine abruptly announced it's bringing back Asheron's Call 2 via the new Dawnsong server.
Players holding active Asheron's Call subscriptions only need to download the client to access the server and start poking sharp things into Dereth's creatures. Turbine said no additional fees or account info is required—just download and play— though the studio said it has "a lot of monitoring and tweaking to do" during the beta period.
Turbine suddenly switching back on a nearly seven-year dead MMO is mysterious, but it's a nice bit of nostalgia. Perhaps other companies might follow suit with their own shuttered MMOs. (Earth & Beyond, anyone?)
