A Tale in the Desert Preview
By Andrew "Tchrin" Knight

The setting is Ancient Egypt, you are a simple peasant, your role is to help in proving to 'The Stranger' that Egypt is the perfect land. To do this you have to attempt to complete seven tests in seven disciplines (Leadership, Thought, The Human Body, Worship, Architecture, Art and Music, and Conflict). The game is A Tale in the Desert (ATITD) from eGenesis.

One of the first things people find out about ATITD is that there is no fighting. Thats right...no fighting, but how do we level? You don't, ATITD is skill based, vaguely similer to UO. This allows for a battle of wits not seen in MMORPGs up to now. To beat down your opponant, not literally, you could try to ruin his business as a trader, by under bidding him to his customers or by over bidding him to his suppliers. Or you could pass a law in the game that ruins his livelihood.

Which is normally the second thing people find out about ATITD, that players can make laws that actually effect the gameplay, the land & the fiction for everyone. You write a petition, which has to be signed by a set amount of people, you can then hand it in at the University of Leadership, which calls all people in the land to vote on the law. If the law has a two third's majority in favour of the law, it gets passed. The GMs actually change the gameworld as needed to make the law fact. The clever thing about this is, is that it is self regulating, if a law manages to get through that turns out to be detrimental to the people, then someone can try to pass a counter-law. Which allows for a real battle of wits in trying to phrase your petitions very cleverly to try to get things through. A good example of this happenned in the beta this week. It was announced by the Scientists of a University that the Statue of Octec had a chamber underneath it that may contain information that could aid with the science of Automation. So a Huge stationary battering ram was built to demolish it. However Someone got a law passed which prevented the Statue being demolished to access the chamber, by claiming that there might be another way to access the chamber and it was prudent to wait. Then someone else got a counter law passed that said that the Progression of Science was hindered by the previous law, and that if this law was passed the Statue of Octec could be demolished. Both laws sounded quite reasonable, and both laws were passed. The legal system is something that will be very interesting to watch in ATITD.

Then there is the seven tests in each of the seven disciplines (Leadership, Thought, The Human Body, Worship, Architecture, Art and Music, and Conflict). The tests vary greatly from one to one but all offer an interesting challenge. For example, in the discipline of Leadership, "Leadership: The challenge of Trust. As in Know who to trust. To complete this challenge, a player must bury a significant amount of gold in the deep desert, and then get 1 mile away from it. Next, he must reveal the location to ten trusted friends, and allow 24 hours to pass. After the time has passed, he can retrieve the treasure. If the treasure has been stolen, the player loses the gold and fails the test. There is no penalty for the thief." (From the Official FAQ). Or alternatively the test of Mentorship which has just been put into the beta, in which you have to help Mentor new starters in the game, and teach them certain basic skills, then the new starter can, if they want build a shrine in your honour, if you get 7 shrines, you pass the test. This test in particular is quite clever as it neatly handles the problem of getting companions (ala UO) in the game, by making the job of a companion part of the game.

Other then the tests, the main staple of the game is advancing through the tech tree, currently in beta there has been found over 100 skills, commodities, and buildings with more being added and researched all the time. Buildings vary from a simple brick rack, to mines to the great monuments of the land. As the buildings and skills get further along the tech tree as does the cost, making players cooperate either in trade or as a guild, creating a very social feel to the game.

The other point of note is that the game is only planned to run for around a year, or as long as it takes the players to complete the tests and to unfold the plot. If the game is running along too quickly the dev team will step in and add more content, obstacles or whatever is needed on the fly.

From the beta tests and the player reaction so far to the game, I think ATITD could well be the surprise MMORPG hit when it is released, as to when that is, we're not sure, but the average guess seems to be some time mid to late 2002, but we'll have to wait and see. Although it is only aiming at a niche market, that niche seems to be growing all the time, aided by regular open tests and a very down to earth and open Development team.

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