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MMO Election Tactics In A Tale In The Desert
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a GameGirlAdvance article describing the political machinations inside the game world of A Tale In The Desert, the intriguing non-combat-based MMO title that article author and ATITD development intern Jia Ji describes as "..historical simulation, a mixture of the Sims and Civilization with real people thrown in to make it interesting." Of particular interest are the tactics being used in the game to garner votes in the election for Demi-Pharaoh - "Some players are bribing other players for their votes with ingame resources or favors. Others are forming political parties to used their combined voting power to sway the election process.. we even have the equivalent of a 'Green Party' which believes that mining, heavy industrial production, and other activities that have a detrimental effect on the gameworld's environment should be limited and regulated."
So, people are willing to pay to vote online, while offline presidential elections they don't bother voting one way or another. ......Am I missing something?
peace be with you.
I've played (and quit) many MMOGs, and this is the first one that has held my attention for more than a month (since I quit AC, at least).
The game concepts are unique, the problems and Tests are challenging but not impossible, and almost everyone I've met through the game is a good, friendly, kind, intelligent, helpful person.
I'd go so far as to say that ATITD is the best MMOG I've played, and it has the added benefit of having an extremely high-quality player base. It can be frustrating at times, but only because the puzzles are actually -hard-. I've devoted a lot of time to deciphering one particular aspect of the game (winemaking) and it still largely baffles me. Where most games err on the side of being too easy, this one definitely isn't "dumbed down" for the masses.
Client is a free download (both windows and linux -- and you never pay for it, unlike those sneaky AO people), and there's a 1-month-or-24-hrs-game-time free trial period.
It's really quite fun, and if you're interested in MMOGs at all, you really should take a look.
Actually, one of the developers has repeatedly called this a social experiment and a sort of primer for learning about real life issues.
One of the discussions after the election was how all the canidates essentially had the same platform with just a few small variations between them (sound familiar?). Most people agreed that this is what happens with a committee process...the extremists get filtered out and you're left with essentially bland canidates that, for the most part, campaigned on NOT using thier banning powers unless the fate of the game was in the balance.
This issue also comes up in the law system. Most of the passed laws are easily agreed with, while the ones that attempt something more radical (like land ownership or a justice system) never get teh 2/3rds majority to pass. In fact, there's a group of people that will vote no to any law that even allows the chance of a potentially bad law to be petitioned, much less passed!
So yes, it's a simplified version of real life. However, it's also an effective way of learning more about how things work socially in real life.