A Tale in the Desert

A Tale in the Desert
Developer(s) eGenesis
Publisher(s) eGenesis
Engine First-party, in-house
Platform(s) Windows, Linux, Mac
Release date(s) Tale 1: 2003, Tale 2: 2004, Tale 3: 2006, Tale 4: 2008, Tale 5: 2010, Tale 6: 2011
Genre(s) MMORPG
Mode(s) Multiplayer

A Tale in the Desert (ATITD) is a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) set in Ancient Egypt, run by the independent company eGenesis. The initial software download and all new content are free, with a monthly subscription required to play beyond the first 24 hours.

Gameplay

Two players standing near the sea

A Tale in the Desert is a social MMORPG which does not include combat. Instead, a variety of social activities provide for the basis of most interaction in the game. The game's main focuses are building, community, research and personal or group challenges called "Tests".

ATitD has a global foregame, midgame, and endgame: on average so far, every year and a half the game ends, achievements are tabulated, and a new "Telling" begins, with certain modifications requested by the player base. Within a Telling, players can write, introduce, and pass laws (including player bans), and make feature requests.

There is an in-game economy, including an amount of regional or global trade; however, there is no official, backed currency for the most part, and efforts to implement them have met with little success. Additionally, there are sufficient activities to be learned and performed that it is considered exceedingly difficult to be a Jack of all trades: this too leads itself to a much more social aspect.

A recurring theme is a "newbie island" which established players can enter at any time: this allows them to train new players at their own leisure, and introduce them to the specifics of the game. After completing a series of tasks given to them, players may make their way to the mainland and begin the real game.

When a new player exits the welcoming island, they may immediately begin trekking around to look for a suitable settlement location or community. Upon reaching the mainland, the first goal of most players is to begin the central challenges of the game (Tests), find public resources, and expand upon what knowledge they have while integrating themselves into the community at large.

ATITD has a legal system, a controlled variant on Nomic which is generally restricted by what the developers can code, as well as the nature of such a system. With the legal system, players have the option to create petitions of various types, from the redistribution of expired accounts' materials, the direct ban of a player, or even a change in an avatar's sex. The legal system as currently defined can only restrict players' options, alter ownership rights, or change a minor portion of a challenge; however, within those options, the possibilities have not been exhausted. Finally, the legal system also requires a great deal of cooperation between players, as a petition must be spread, signed, and returned with a certain threshold of signatures.

Tests

The majority of ATITD challenges take the form of 56 defined "Tests", separated into several groups. Of these, the first in each group is a trivial request, intended to introduce players to the discipline - the group that challenge is in. Beyond those initiations, seven challenges exist for each discipline, arranged into themes:

Upon completing a Test, a player advances in rank for that discipline. The various ranks range from Initiate to Oracle, and determine one's proficiency in the discipline. At the Oracle rank, where the player has completed all seven Tests, they may build a Monument to celebrate that discipline. Furthermore if 127 disciples are found to take part in it, the players may create a challenge for the next Telling, to replace one of those used before.

The ultimate goal of the game, therefore, can be summed up as "having enough players cooperate and complete the Tests for every discipline so that seven Monuments can be built before the end".

First Telling

The First Telling was released on February 15, 2003, after approximately three years of open testing. While considered to have more bugs than the others, it also had a tight-knit community, formed in part by the crossover of various guilds during the beta. So far, this is the only Telling to have "won" the game, by completing the main challenges; it lasted approximately one and a half years, and ended on September 2, 2004.

Kemet was a German server running concurrently with the first Telling, although released on February 1, 2003: while the international version was produced solely by eGenesis, much of the work on Kemet was done by MDO Games, an overseas publisher.[2] Ultimately, due to the extremely low population of the version, it was dropped for the second incarnation, but the result carried over into the next international version. Additionally, the majority of MDO's translations from English to German were kept. Kemet ended at the same time as the first international Telling.

The Second Telling

The Second Telling began on September 3, 2004, with a host of changes: one new challenge was released for each discipline to replace an old one, over the course of the game, as well as a second test for the discipline of Worship. This Telling implemented changes to various technologies from the first, as well as an overhaul of the GUI; a different tutorial for newcomers replaced the old midway through. The players did not manage to complete the challenges in the second Telling, but did finish Monuments for the disciplines of Architecture, Body, Leadership, and Worship. The Telling ended on May 24, 2006, roughly 627 days after its inception.

The Third Telling

The Third Telling, released on approximately May 30, 2006. A relatively loose leveling system was added as a means to connect with gamers who are more familiar with mainstream MMORPG design. The Discipline of Conflict was dropped in favor of a new discipline, the Discipline of Harmony. Mining was returned to something more like the first tale, but with its own mysterious workings. The Test of Mentorship was modified to fix an issue that made it more challenging for those who began to play late in the tale. Additionally, an in-game event calendar was added, so that developers and players could more easily communicate events without the need for a third party website. The Telling ended on December 11, 2008, roughly 926 days after its inception.

The Fourth Telling

The Fourth Telling was released on December 13, 2008.[3]

eGenesis launched a second shard, called Bastet, on February 20, 2010[4] This server is running concurrent with the existing main shard for the fourth telling, and uses most of the same code for the main shard, but with the exception that all of the tests are unlockable immediately - thus making the speed of this tale completely player-controlled.

The Fifth Telling

The Fifth Telling was released on August 7, 2010.

The Sixth Telling

The Sixth Telling was released on December 3, 2011.

Controversy

Because of the social aspect of A Tale in the Desert, players tend to react more heavily to events which break or strain social mores, even when these events are introduced by the developers rather than rogue players. Because, in the legal system, players can implement punishments or bans against others, the effect is most often caused by characters played by eGenesis staff. Some examples include:

References

External links