Tide's Horizon

Back in the Desert (starting "A Tale in the Desert III")

Since I've been rowing hard over here on my small corner of the Mothership, I haven't had the usual amount of game time I'd like. So, no great essays on what's new in WoW, how to design "r33l PvP!1" or how the world needs more rogues with "authentic" stealth. Etc.

What I have been playing is Oblivion and A Tale in the Desert. Oblivion doesn't need any PR, although it is overwhelming and could use some better intro documentation. A Tale in the Desert (ATitD) though isn't well known enough, and it really is a gem. VC's take note.

To be upfront, I haven't played enough of ATitD yet to do it justice or to really offer any kind of a good overview. What I can do is relate some of my previous experiences and recent re-entry into the game. I played it casually maybe less than two years ago, and never got that far. I'm going to try and explore it some more and sub to it.

ATitD is run by a small company called eGenesis and has only a few thousand players. It takes place in Ancient Egypt and uses lots of historical material to keep the game coherent.  It has a very MUD-like feel to it, and while the game is very stable content and service-wise, it uses older graphic libraries that at least on my machine aren't running that smoothly. Lowering resolution probably will help. The reason I think ATitD is worth reviewing and playing for a bit (and subscribing to folks) is that eGenesis is able to offer a very mature, stable, and very complex game that puts some larger providers very much to shame. This is the power of niche: focus, quality, depth and customer service. There's lots of people building small games and online services, but there are few who manage it with quality. Or actually finish. Or can sustain themselves once live. eGenesis is obviously doing something correct.


ATitD is unique in its game design because it emphasizes cooperation and individual accomplishment through community response. It's a deep crafting game. There is none of the customary DIKU-descendant fantasy combat themes or mechanisms. Players can compete in challenges and "tests" to earn new skills with which they can create free-form art pieces that other players can judge. This community feedback is unique I think in any MMO. There's examples of player-run governance with managing griefers and conflicts and even new feature suggestions. There was even for the second telling a card game-like test between players that was a good style of PvP. But fighting is not the central design.

There is, however, still some competition in the game. There is a uniue advancement model, which I still need to learn, that does incorporate some levelling, but mostly it's a progression by gaining skills or "disciplines". They are (from the wiki):

• Architecture (Building Stuff bigger and better)
  
• Art and Music (The finer things in life)
  
• Harmony (How well you know your fellow Egyptian)
  
• Human Body (Self-improvement and exploration)
  
• Leadership (Getting others to follow you)
  
• Thought (Designing puzzles)
  
• Worship (Honoring the gods, usually by large quantities of stuff)

Within each Discipline there are seven (eight sort of, Initiate doesn’t really count) ranks. You achieve a rank in that discipline when you pass another test in that discipline. You can pass the tests in any order, it is the total number that matters for the rank. The ranks are:

• Initiate
  
• Student - Pass One Test
  
• Prentice - Pass Two Tests
  
• Journeyman - Pass Three Tests
  
• Scribe - Pass Four Tests
  
• Master - Pass Five Tests
  
• Sage - Pass Six Tests
  
• Pharaoh’s Oracle - Pass all Seven Tests, you have achieved "perfection" in that discipline"

There is a "level cap" where successful players (very few) can attain the level of Pharaoh, but it's rare. And what's more, the game resets once a "telling" is complete.

The game is structured with an overarching narrative that describes how a "stranger" once arrived in Egypt with knowledge and challenges for players (Egyptians) to attempt. The service is now in it's third telling. Once a specific period has passed (second Tale was 627 days, 1775 gamedays) the game world resets. Everything is wiped. All players start again. This allows eGenesis to change/add new content, change/add new rules, and most importantly, delete all the player created content so there is a level playing field on restart. I'm not sure about the economy, but I don't believe there is any auction-like service. The point being this kind of wipe I think keeps the game fresh, reduces the threat of mudflation, and most importantly for a crafting game, eliminates the ability of advanced players to out-compete others by economies of scale. Something, for example, SWG could never do effectively (particularly after they removed decay).

This kind of a periodic content change, versus episodic or patchtastic changes, I think is an under explored design idea in MMO's. The need to retain data and player accomplishments ought not to disable the ability for players to reroll wholesale. Current MMO's only allow players to create alts or to hop to new servers in order to start again.

More to come. 

Labels: ATitD, Game Design, MMO, MMORPG

posted by Tide @ Tuesday, February 27, 2007