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."

Comments

strange

[skinnedmink]

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?

Re:strange

[vrai]

Probably because in the online election their votes actually count for something.

Re:strange

[watchful.babbler]

Actually, it's not surprising at all. John Hibbing of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has done extensive research on Americans' attitude towards representative government, and the results are rather dismal; Americans simply don't like, or can't be bothered with, the messy details of democratic governance.

This doesn't come as a shock, especially to those familiar with the work of Delli Carpini and other researchers on the matter. But conflict, compromise, and coordination are learned habits and in modern America -- unlike, say, Renaissance Florence or colonial America -- there are few opportunities to exercise political habits in the public sphere. (When was the last time you attended a city council meeting? Checked your state and federal representatives' voting records? Read the Federal Register? And why would you, unless you're in a politically-related profession?) Basically, as politics has retreated from the public square to private corridors, we've fallen out of the habit of democracy.

On the other hand, ATITD offers its players a direct connection between politics and policy; it's a little hard to adopt the "Don't blame me, I didn't vote for him" line when your character is zapped out of existence by a single person, just as apathy was discouraged in early American democracy by the devolution of power to small towns and accessible state legislatures. So, there's a hopeful nugget buried in this: if you give folks a reason to vote, they'll remain politically engaged.

Why the Demi-Pharaoh election matters

[Teppy]

You have to understand ATITD's story. A mysterious stranger has challenged Pharaoh and his people to a series of 49 Tests, seven in each of seven disciplines. One of the Tests of Leadership is that of the Demi-Pharaoh.

People are assigned into randomly selected juries of about 7 people each, and each jury must promote one of their own. The person promoted moves to the next round, with the final round's vote taking place Egypt-wide.

The person elected Demi-Pharaoh has just one power. He or she can permanently exile (as in, game over, many months of work on your character gone, don't come back) up to 7 people. Whether to actually use this power is up to the person elected.

So it's a Test about figuring out who to trust with power. Tempers often flair during Demi-Pharaoh elections.

Anyway, if this kind of thing appeals to you, check out the game. I think we're the only MMO to launch with both Windows and Linux clients, and the first 24 hours are free. (I'm the designer of ATITD.)

Re:Hey all.

[Teppy]

In fact, polution does matter in ATITD - it screws up farming, fishing, and a number of other activites for your neighbors. (I'm the designer of ATITD.)

Ahem...

[D3r1v3D]

Don't be so quick to flame a game that you haven't even tried yet. I shared similar conceptions about ATITD before I started playing. I looked at the screenshots and the remarks on the game's lack of combat and couldn't believe that this game could be so popular. However, my friend got me playing about 2 weeks ago and I'm never looking back. This is one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. And while it is mostly due to the gameplay, I think that what makes this game is the people who inhabit eGenesis's Egypt. This game has a high learning curve, but I have yet to come across someone who couldn't or just wouldn't answer a question I had. Whenever I was down on resources, there were always people to lend a hand. And I think it's for that reason that this game is what it is. The people. If you decide you'd like to try out this game for yourself, go to http://www.atitd.com and download the trial version. Feel free to type "/chat Gilratet" once in-game if you have any questions or just need a helping hand.

Don't be too quick to judge

[dria]

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.

Finally, a follow-up article

[Jia]

Hi, I'm Jia, I wrote that article. Anyway, I'm glad that Slashdot finally posted up a follow-up article to the one from four months ago considering we're the only MMOG that actively supports linux and we've been live for over three months.

Our free downloadable linux client is at http://atitd.com/eClient-linux.run. Our engine is also partially open-sourced. "A Tale in the Desert" owes a lot to the open source community too. We're a small company with only two lead developers that basically coded the entire game on their own. Thus, we make use of alot of free software such as, eCal3D (download source here, a derivative of Bruno Heidelberger's Cal3D.

I'm not sure why some Slashdot readers are so hostile to the idea of a "cooperative thinking game." Isn't that what the open-source movement is all about? Does everyone really love mindless hack-and-slash leveling treadmills that much? I guess we'll find out if SWG becomes a success (and I wish Raph Koster the best of luck too!).

Anyway, this is just the first in a series of articles about ATITD I plan on writing for GGA. The next one will probably be about the player-run legal system. So far players in our game have drafted, voted on, and passed laws about theft, land ownership, property permissions, social taboos, obsenity laws, and even virtual rape. Feel free to continue to link to future news about us since we can't afford to advertise on Slashdot (contacted OSDN's advertising department, figure they quoted was 10 times what we paid for our Penny Arcade ad deal).

Re:Hey all.

[Silvanis]

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.