![]() Each level represents the mastery of a principle chosen by the player, and with higher levels come more diverse skills and opportunities.įor players who enter the game feeling lost, A Tale in the Desert offers the opportunity to latch on to a "mentor" - an experienced player who will help you as part of her own testing. Once a series of introductory quests is completed, the player moves up to level 1 citizen status and can work his or her way up to level 3. ![]() Even then, this game's leveling wasn't so much about growing huge in power and numbers as it was signifying that you had advanced to meaningful stages in your development.Īll players begin as level 0s, also known as peasants. While leveling is a pretty routine feature for most of us, it actually didn't exist in A Tale in the Desert until the third Telling. To date, only the first Telling has seen the players accomplish all of these challenges, which typically end in constructing large monuments. The ultimate goal, so to speak, of each Telling is for the whole body of players to rise up and meet great challenges as a community. The current Telling, the fifth in the game's history, began a little over a year ago with a freshly elected Pharaoh and new game mechanics, such as aquaculture. New Tellings introduce additional or modified disciplines, tests, and social structures that the previous ones lacked. While this would be horrific for most MMO players in typical loot-hoarding games, it worked to give ATITD players a sense of journey, a real goal, and a clean slate every two years or so to begin anew.Įach Telling isn't merely a server reset but an opportunity for change. Indie developer eGenesis decided from the start that the game would operate as a series of "Tellings," each one with a beginning, middle and end. At the highest level of the game's design is the struggle between the task-giving Pharaoh and the mischief-making Stranger, both of whom challenge the players in different ways.Įndings are unheard of in most MMOs but quite common to A Tale in the Desert. "Remember that 'no combat' is not the same as 'no conflict' - the game, especially at higher levels, can be highly competitive," Lead Designer Andrew Tepper said back in 2003. The tests encouraged players not only to build a physical infrastructure for the world but to bond together and form lasting cultural connections. ![]() Players chose to pursue a variety of disciplines - from architecture to harmony - and accomplish a series of tests that each required. ATITD put players in the sandals of ancient Egyptians tasked with building a civilization from a virtual sandbox. Instead of fighting mobs-slash-loot piñatas, players were invited to shift their game worldview and focus on achievements, crafting and socializing instead. ![]() But if nothing else, A Tale in the Desert proves that there can be more than just fisticuffs and fireballs to MMOs. When an MMO has no combat, won't people get bored in a jiffy? Looking a the vast, vast majority of online RPGs out there, you'd think this would be the case - combat comes as a factory default in most games, along with snide-impact dirtbags and hot air conditioning. This week we're going to look at some of the more unique features of this innovative yet diminutive MMO, which began telling its tale back in 2003. Even though its population has pegged it as an eternally niche game, it's proven that constant fighting isn't the only thing that can draw an online community together. As Jef recently noted in Some Assembly Required, it is an "odd duck" of a game, skewing as far away from combat as possible to focus on two often-neglected aspects of MMOs: crafting and politics. Instead of storming down a path well-traveled, it took a machete and made its own trail - a trail down which few have followed. Right there is the crux of ATITD's unique position in the MMO industry. " A Tale in the Desert, he replied, then added: "Note that 'innovative' doesn't necessarily mean 'successful.'" Since he was - and is - a highly opinionated designer, I asked him what he thought was the most innovative MMO from the last decade. Readers of the ever-so-humble Game Archaeologist will recall that earlier this year I had the opportunity to exchange informative words with Dr.
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