A Tale in the Desert
Encyclopedia
A Tale in the Desert 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.
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.
- 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".
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. 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.
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.
eGenesis launched a second shard, called Bastet, on February 20, 2010 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.
, 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:
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
) set in Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
, run by the independent company eGenesis. The initial software download
Uploading and downloading
In computer networks, to download means to receive data to a local system from a remote system, or to initiate such a data transfer. Examples of a remote system from which a download might be performed include a webserver, FTP server, email server, or other similar systems...
and all new content are free, with a monthly subscription required to play beyond the first 24 hours.
Gameplay
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
Régional
Régional Compagnie Aérienne Européenne, or Régional for short, is a subsidiary airline wholly owned by Air France which connects hubs at Paris, Lyon, Clermont-Ferrand, and Bordeaux to 49 airports in Europe. The airline operates in Air France livery, retaining its name in small titles and logo on...
or global trade; however, there is no official, backed currency
Currency
In economics, currency refers to a generally accepted medium of exchange. These are usually the coins and banknotes of a particular government, which comprise the physical aspects of a nation's money supply...
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
Jack of all trades, master of none
"Jack of all trades, master of none" is a figure of speech used in reference to a person that is competent with many skills but is not necessarily outstanding in any particular one....
: 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
Nomic
Nomic is a game created in 1982 by philosopher Peter Suber in which the rules of the game include mechanisms for the players to change those rules, usually beginning through a system of democratic voting...
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
Petition
A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer....
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 disciplineAcademic discipline
An academic discipline, or field of study, is a branch of knowledge that is taught and researched at the college or university level. Disciplines are defined , and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, and the learned societies and academic departments or faculties to...
- the group that challenge is in. Beyond those initiations, seven challenges exist for each discipline, arranged into themes:
- The Architecture Discipline is based around building large and potentially ornate structures, such as a useful aqueductAqueductAn aqueduct is a water supply or navigable channel constructed to convey water. In modern engineering, the term is used for any system of pipes, ditches, canals, tunnels, and other structures used for this purpose....
or an exceptional burial temple. The secondary goal of Architecture is to complete these projects as simply and efficiently as possible, which can require substantial planning, trading, and cooperation. - The Art Discipline is primarily based around creative expression in a limited framework, with players building mosaics, breeding scarabScarabScarab may refer to:Vehicles* Stout Scarab, limited production automobile* Scammell Scarab - A small, 3-wheeled articulated lorry tractor unit produced 1948-1967* Scarab Other* Scarab of Ancient Egypt...
s for colour and pattern, forming fireworksFireworksFireworks are a class of explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. The most common use of a firework is as part of a fireworks display. A fireworks event is a display of the effects produced by firework devices...
out of basic materials, or creating detailed sculptures. - The Body Discipline is focused around surveyingSurveyingSee Also: Public Land Survey SystemSurveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, and science of accurately determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them...
the land, both socially and geographically, to determine where various resources are. Some of the challenges within involve finding 28 different varieties of mushroomMushroomA mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; hence the word "mushroom" is most often applied to those fungi that...
, or deducing the locations of cicadaCicadaA cicada is an insect of the order Hemiptera, suborder Auchenorrhyncha , in the superfamily Cicadoidea, with large eyes wide apart on the head and usually transparent, well-veined wings. There are about 2,500 species of cicada around the world, and many of them remain unclassified...
s hidden by other players. - The now-defunct Conflict discipline, removed in the third Telling to make way for Harmony, was centered around the pursuit of excellence in a series of games, generally with perfect informationPerfect informationIn game theory, perfect information describes the situation when a player has available the same information to determine all of the possible games as would be available at the end of the game....
. These games, such as variants on checkers and euchreEuchreEuchre or eucre, is a trick-taking card game most commonly played with four people in two partnerships with a deck of 24 standard playing cards. It is the game responsible for introducing the joker into modern packs; this was invented around 1860 to act as a top trump or best bower...
, are now played in weekly or biweekly tournaments. - The Harmony discipline, new to the third Telling, is generally focused around knowing one's fellow players; many of these were based on a discussion at the Ludium game developer conference. They include Marriage, where a player gives reciprocal access to their account and goods to another, as well as Mentorship, which requires players to enter the mentoring island and assist someone in becoming a citizen.
- The Leadership discipline is much like the Harmony discipline in that the participant is required to know his or her fellow players, but rather than predicting their actions, one must influence them positively. One of the tests in Leadership, the Test of the Demi-Pharaoh, requires the player to be elected among all their peers; the reward, accordingly, is the ability to ban seven players from the game. Other tests include a SurvivorSurvivor (TV series)Survivor is a reality television game show format produced in many countries throughout the world. In the show, contestants are isolated in the wilderness and compete for cash and other prizes. The show uses a system of progressive elimination, allowing the contestants to vote off other tribe...
-like game between 12 people, or the formation of a bureaucracyBureaucracyA bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...
. - The Thought discipline is centered around the creation of numerous puzzles: the goal here is to make said puzzles simple enough that they can be effectively solved, but difficult enough to be challenging for the majority of players. Among those puzzles available are logic mazes and a modification on the popular Rush HourRush Hour (board game)Rush Hour is a sliding block puzzle invented by Nob Yoshigahara in the late 1970s and first sold in the United States in 1996. It is manufactured by ThinkFun ....
. - The Worship discipline is centered around the need to please various deities, often through an organized group of players working in unison. The Test most characteristic of this is that of Festivals, which requires 100 players to act in unison within one hour, on a global basis.
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
Monument
A monument is a type of structure either explicitly created to commemorate a person or important event or which has become important to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, or simply as an example of historic architecture...
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
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
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. 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 MMORPGMassively multiplayer online role-playing game
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
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.eGenesis launched a second shard, called Bastet, on February 20, 2010 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.
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 moresMores
Mores, in sociology, are any given society's particular norms, virtues, or values. The word mores is a plurale tantum term borrowed from Latin, which has been used in the English language since the 1890s....
, 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:
- In the first Telling, a player named Knightmare and two others created a character to attempt to force players to use the legal system more responsibly. After one of those other players damaged a public facility by removing a vital resource, the character, Mafia, was banned.
- Additionally, in the first Telling, the developers brought in a character named Khepry, whose actions caused depletion of resources and pollution to a great extent - indirectly.
- Throughout the Tellings, skills have been released which provide a positive benefit to the user, and a detriment to everyone else. These "Stranger" skills, named after the game's primary antagonist, have often caused a great stir.
- In the second Telling, the events team created a character named Malaki. A thief from Persia, Malaki traded worthless chaff for worthwhile materials, but most problematic of all was the absolute disregard he had for any and all female characters - he made several references to slavery and subjugation, which eventually led to him being driven out of the game., though according to Andrew Tepper, the simple controversy brought in more players than it drove away.
- In the third Telling, a series of mysterious chests washed ashore and opened by players brought Lung Spore Disease, which made particular tasks more difficult while players searched for a cure.
- The Test of the Demi-Pharaoh allows a player who has been elected "Demi-Pharaoh" to ban up seven characters each. Roughly one player is elected to this position per month, but once elected, that player is a Demi-Pharaoh for the remainder of that telling. Although this position is hard to obtain, it is also controversial because the Demi-Pharaoh's power extends into the real world: essentially taking away another player's ability to play their character. Players with banned characters may still create a new character, however.
External links
- ATITD Website - Official site
- IGN game profile
- 2005 article at apple.com on the Second Telling
- ATITD as a social experiment
- 2001 Interview with Andrew Tepper at GameSpy.com
- 2003 Interview with Andrew Tepper at GameSpy.com
- 2005 article on the Third Telling at MMORPG