A Tale In The Desert's Social Evolution Examined 32
Thanks to Gamer's Pulse for their revised review of A Tale In The Desert, discussing their re-visiting of the unique Windows/Linux MMORPG. The review sums up the combat-free MMO title's goals as: "working together, being social, and trading with other people, all in the name of a unified Egypt", and the reviewer talks about the "new laws and structures and new technologies" being implemented, and the new problem of virtual deforestation: "Recently, the skill of clear cutting was offered in a new university, and some people didn't heed the warnings [that] once a tree was clear cut, you couldn't get wood from it for a whole week." The resulting wood shortages mean that "newcomers to the game won't be able to pass their tests to become citizens", but in-game, tree-friendly legislation may be pending.
Combat-Free MMO? (Score:1)
Seriously thought, Star Wars: Galaxies offers the ability to go through life without killing anything, but, having done it myself for awhile, it's extremely boring. It may come as a surprise, but the amount of time and money you spend playing games trying to make money and/or friends, you co
Re:Combat-Free MMO? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Combat-Free MMO? (Score:2, Insightful)
Your kind of rant is a thinly disguised attempt to sound righteous, but does nothing to promote a healthy social well being for people who fall under the category you are describing. In fact, it only serves to draw an even darker picture of reality for them as their experience with your kind of ignoran
Re:Combat-Free MMO? (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't know much about ATITD, and from what I've read I wouldn't enjoy it, but just because it doesn't have combat doesn't mean it can't be an interesting game.
-Jeff
P.S. I'm too wordy; how about tetris?
Re:WTF griefers? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:WTF griefers? (Score:1)
Not to mention that there are griefers even in games with player killing, such as people purposely exploiting bugs that hinder other players (quick examples from my far-too-much-time playing TFC: blocking pathways with items that can't be destroyed or using 'ghost' exploits that allow you to spam grenades while not being seen or being able to move through walls (or ghosting into the wall or sky in such a way that you can launch grenades into a high-tr
Re:WTF griefers? (Score:1)
Premise? (Score:3, Insightful)
WhoTF wants to get home from work to haggle about the rules of an imaginary country? If you spent that time participating in/giving educational compaigns for the real world (no matter what the cause), perhaps the typical apathy of the public would be gone.
Instead, we have yet another excuse to sit on our asses. "MMORPG's Egypt accepts 1 millionth citizen!" reads the headline, while voter participation is near 20%. Sheesh! I'm starting a potato chip company.
Re:Premise? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, there are no statistics to back up any of your links to apathy and such, so we can just move on to this point: people interested in the politics of a virtual world may be more likely to participate in real world politics. It could also be poss
Re:Premise? (Score:4, Interesting)
While I agree that it holds potential to get more people involved in politics, I don't think we have the ability yet to simulate a world that's as lifelike as the "real" world. For instance, The Sims 2 recently announced that it would have people getting older, and maybe dying... we'd need to take into consideration the parents, the schools, the friends, and all the activities that one may participate in to effectively model a world to test theories in. If, in the simulated world, we were going to test the real-life reactions and consequences of legalizing marijuana, how would we represent all the myriad opinions and reactions on the subject without a fully detailed background on each and every simulated person it affected? It would be like trying to build conclusions when you only have the latter 1/3 of the facts.
Also, you'd have to get people to be more involved than simply sitting at a keyboard. You'd have to get them INTO the simulation... and I mean REALLY into it. Some people are willing to die over their belief that abortion should be illegal (or, more to the point, kill for that belief, ironically). If there aren't extremely serious consequences for any illegal actions, people wouldn't take it seriously enough to, for example, stage a protest, riot, revolt, etc.
It's a lofty goal, to be sure, but just not possible yet... of course, I'm all for legalizing marijuana... (just thought I'd put that in there).
Re:Premise? (Score:2, Funny)
Given how successful MMOGs are it would appear that it's quite a lot of people.
Thank you for taking a break from saving the world and posting this comment in the games section of slashdot. I do appreciate it. But while you are busy being self-righteou
Social Experimentation (Score:1, Insightful)
Online communities are the future...if you can't see this, well then you probably can't see the green code dripping down all around you either
A Tale in the Desert is cool! But... (Score:5, Interesting)
So I payed my 13 bucks. I played for two weeks, and all I did was make bricks, run around, click on a bunch of trees, and 'farm' flax plants by repeatedly clicking on the ground. A Tale in the Desert SOUNDS really freaking neat, but I don't get off on doing the job of a peon or peasant in Warcraft.
Seriously, these are things though that I would love to see in a game that's actually fun to play.
Re:A Tale in the Desert is cool! But... (Score:3, Insightful)
I now find myself in a vast social web of politi
But... you missed the point of the game (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you not see the hundreds of other kinds of buildings that you can make and dozens of technologies you can use? Did you miss the challenges of the tests of the seven disciplines? The early tests are easy, and give you something of the flavor of the later, harder tests, which are
Re:A Tale in the Desert is cool! But... (Score:2)
... and what about this? (Score:1)
Re:... and what about this? (Score:1, Interesting)
This is a great game! (Score:1, Informative)
It's not just a social experiment... (Score:5, Informative)
It is intended to be finite, lasting a year, starting over in a (presumably) modified form afterwards. There are specific goals (Tests) in the game, in different Disciplines- the players will need to have at least one player for each Discipline who's passed all the tests for that Discipline; and do some other things which are as yet not so clear, and as a group can win the game. Or lose it.
So it's set up as a cooperative game in theory... although individuals will often act in their own self-interest much of the time, of course. Some of the tests are of a familiar accumulate lots of stuff and build a big object type; others require large-scale player cooperation, others are purely competitive; there are art design tests, competitive strategy minigames, design of minigames/puzzles in game... lots of variety.
Another point of difference between this and other MMORPGs: communications and guilds. There is no talk to everyone command (like an Everquest /shout) normally available. A player may belong to any number of guilds (which establish a chat channel between members)- and these guilds run the gamut from full community property to being only a chat channel. There are metaguilds formed to discuss regional issues, to discuss experimentation in some area of the game such as brewing or viticulture, to focus on passing a particular Test or set of Tests, to accomplish some particular large-scale undertaking (e.g. the 'Nileside Cafe', building larger pyramids.) Reputation matters even more than in most other games. There are also now a few microphones, which allow one-way communication to everyone who's joined a corresponding channel to hear the messages.
As to PeteyG's experience: if someone shows up and is willing to make bricks and grow flax or do other other tedious tasks all day, there will be some people happy to tell the newbie to do that... but there's nothing stopping you from leaving and finding something more interesting to do. There are no 'levels', within a few days characters can make most things as rapidly as established characters, and it's usually easy to trade for more difficult items.
It's a free download, and the first 24 hours of in-game play are free as a trial account. It's not for everyone, but if the above sounds interesting give it a try. Finally, in addition to windows it's available in Linux... and this is Slashdot.
ATITD pros and cons (Score:2, Informative)
Re:ATITD pros and cons (Score:1)
That tree cutting problem ingame... (Score:2)
- Lumberjack.
- Recent work experience?
- Sahara forest.
- Hey, Sahara is a desert!
- Now it is...