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A Tale in the Desert
Sandy99 writes "A Tale in the Desert is a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (mmorpg) that has been in development for 4 1/2 years and goes live tomorrow. There is no killing in this game. It is all about cooperation to unlock the knowledge of Egypt. A basic overview is at
the official site.
Discussion forums are at atitd.net. Maps of Egypt and construction knowledge are at
atitdmaps.com. Everything has been produced by a handful of independent developers and a bunch of volunteers. This is also the first mmorpg to debut with both
windows and linux clients."
Shows the developers know nothing about what motivated explorers. Early egyptology was a cutthroat business, funded by people with huge egos (not to unlike how much of North America was explored by botonists seeking to bring back exciting new specimens for their patrons in the old world.)
A well. Should be fun, after all, you can have lots of fun with Settlers of Catan and it doesn't involve (much) killing.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I have played a number of MMORPGs, work on the WorldForge project, and have been playing Tale on an off for well over a year now, and I have found it an absolutely facinating game. Above all else this game is about politics. The tasks that need to be done in order to make progress in the lang of egypt quickly get beyond the abilities of single players, and guilds become essential to achieve anything, and this is where the fun starts. True leadership is required to get a guild functioning effectively, and a guild can be made or broken by the effectiveness of its key members. The democtratic system in the game, which mean that the players can vote to implement almost any rule also leads to some interesting outcomes.
The various betas ran under wine long before the Linux game came out, so many friends who only play games under Linux have also been joining in. The arrival of the Linux client is most welcome though. I will almost certainly maintain a subscription to this game, and play it when I can, although free time is so hard to come by.
Free trial - 30 days or 24 online hours, whichever comes first.
$14 sounds expensive, but consider you save $30 dollars by not having to buy a box.
It ends up being equivalent to a game that costs $12 / month that you buy at your local store for $30 and you play over a year.
and I have to say that it bored me out of my mind. Be prepared to spend hours upon hours doing nothing but clicking on things over and over and over, and running for about 45 minutes to get to places. The whole game revolves around building things, and it takes a LONG time to get the necessary materials collected, grown, or made. That being said, there is a sense of satisfaction when you DO manage to build something impressive or complete a task.