Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Intriguing (and now in its fourth run) combat-free MMO A Tale In The Desert is launching an experimental second server to see how much of a “telling” can be generated by player actions, rather than by the dev-tweaked game. They explain:

This will be the first time A Tale in the Desert has run a second shard while another telling is currently ongoing. A Tale in the Desert has always been a great sociological experiment, asking questions like “What will happen if players can completely control the world through the use of laws?” and “Will players work together in a project when working against each other could potentially have more benefit to one of them?” This experiment continues with the launching of a new server, to see what will happen when players have no limitations but themselves.

Sounds interesting, but I have to admit having less than an hour’s experience with this game. Any vets want to chime in on the significance of this? A free trial of the game is currently available for others wanting to investigate.

[Since we've been right in the mainstream of the industry for the last few, thought it would be worthwhlie moving towards the periphery. A Tale In the Desert is the Kingdom-of-Egypt-'em-up MMO which people who don't really understand describe as a co-operative game. It's only a co-operative game in the same way the House of Commons is a co-operative game to run Britain as well as possible. With such an interesting game to talk about, Andrew Tepper gave a great interview, which I often mention bits of when interviewing other developers. This interview was done just at the close of the First Telling incarnation of the game, when they were about to launch its second. It's now on its third.]

From the first second you logged onto A Tale In the Desert, it was clear that it wasn’t just another massively-multiplayer game. For a start, it did the unimaginable in the videogame world and entirely removed direct combat. However, it wasn’t the Sims Online’s glorified chat-room. In this ancient Egypt challenges awaited for you to overcome. While initially it seemed to be about constructing in a grand co-operative venture – kind of a game of Settlers where you played one of the eponymous characters – players soon discovered that it was a far more political game than a world of simple, happy worker ants. Social puzzles abound, which had to be overcome, with personal gain faced off against group success. It’s a game that challenged its player base in a way that no other game was even attempting. “A tale in the desert was the game I always wanted to play – and it’s kind of ironic that it’s the one game that I can’t play,” ruefully notes Andrew Tepper, President of eGenesis, “Obviously, that wouldn’t be fair.”

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