A Tale In The Desert II Progress Report

MMORPG.com has a progress report available for the indie egyptian MMOG A Tale in the Desert. They detail new implimentations in the game, such as recent trials, petitions, and some information on the uber-political test of the demi-pharoah. From the article: "Periodically, there is a test of the demi-pharaoh. This test takes all applicants and puts them into juries of seven. The seven people in each jury are given a set amount of time to converse, argue, discuss and pick the most worthy among themselves to advance to the next stage. If all seven cannot agree on one of their own to advance, no one advances."

Re:Does anyone care?

[Durinthal]

There's a lot more interesting MMORPG projects out there (some that are even open source)

Name one, then. A Tale in the Desert is unique in that it's completely nonviolent and almost 100% player-driven. If I had the time and the money this game would probably get my consideration above the regular MMOs like World of Warcraft, Everquest II, or Final Fantasy XI, just because it seems to be something different from the norm.

Re:Does anyone care?

[Markus Persson]

Pardon me while I toot my own horn, but Wurm Online [wurmonline.com] is a 100% player driven mmorpg (although we prefer to call it a Fantasy Simulation) written in Java.

There's fighting in it, but it's far from the main focus of the game. In fact, I don't think more than half the players have ever fought at all except to fend of agressive wildlife.

Re:What is interesting about ATITD...

[QuantumG]

Well, it's not a project for public consumption so press is kinda the opposite of what I want. But thanks for mention it.

This game never ceases to amaze me

[neostorm]

First they pioneer a non-violent MMO (though I guess IRC could qualify as that). Then they start thinking of alternate styles of gameplay for non-violent scenarios. If any game puts the social aspect in the onling genre first, this one does.

Re:This game never ceases to amaze me

[Frenchy_2001]

First they pioneer a non-violent MMO (though I guess IRC could qualify as that).

IRC? non violent?
A lot too much trouting going around to earn this qualifier...

survivor in reverse

[Jaeph]

Isn't the 7 people picking 1 person just survivor in reverse? I don't watch the show, and I don't see how this is a breakthrough or exciting.

Also, can someone explain to me why "non-violent" is so important? It's not like most mmorpgs are that terribly graphic about the violence anyways; certainly WoW, DAoC, etc don't rate beyond PG or PG-13 in that regard.

-Jeff

ATITD: flawed but reinventing the MMOG

[Finkbug]

Most ATITD players do not pursue Leadership (one of the seven Disciplines). For those that do the jury rounds of Demi-Pharaoh voting are very tense. I've never made it out of first round. Too big a mouth and what good works I do under the radar. The jury rounds move forward until the final candidates go to voting from all of Egypt. It's an important vote: the Demi-Pharaoh can kick paying players. Yup, you read that correctly. Covered Cartouche, also in Leadership, is Survivor: Egypt. Not one of my favorite

Re:ATITD: flawed but reinventing the MMOG

[Finkbug]

DOH! so much for getting the URLs correct:
http://wiki.atitd.net/tale2/Home [atitd.net]

Link I put in original post goes to current census.