A Tale In The Desert's Social Evolution Examined

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.

Comments

Re:Combat-Free MMO?

[I am Kobayashi]

Different strokes for different folks. Some people play these games solely to role play. And I could understand why as a combat person you find SWG boring, the combat system is pretty poorly designed. The crafting system, however, is great :)

Re:Premise?

[PainKilleR-CE]

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.

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 possible to 'try out' unusual political solutions in a virtual world to give some idea of how people may react (and what effects it may have), in order to fine-tune the ideas before presenting them to real-world political bodies.

Just think what a mess they could've avoided if they could've simulated alcohol prohibition, or if they could've looked forward to see today's drug war budget when they decided to make certain drugs illegal. Sure, there's no perfect world simulation out there, but getting involved in the intricate details of a virtual politic could give rise to new thoughts on real-world government.

But... you missed the point of the game

[liberte]

If you only build bricks and farm flax, that would indeed be boring. Maybe you were in a far corner of Egypt with no one else around to help you... that would indeed be boring. But if so, you really missed the game entirely.

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 often so difficult that you must rally the cooperation of many other players to help you accomplish your goals. Did you miss the collective challenge that, by the end of one year, for each of the seven disciplines, at least one person must complete all of the seven tests?

The game is not without its flaws. But in some cases the flaws are deliberate, and we the players are challenged to collectively figure out how to fix the problems that come up.

Yes, it is an artificial world, set up to work much like real life in a couple ways. And yes, we could be putting similar energy into the real world, but here is why I do it. 1. I already do put similar energy into the real world, and it is nice to take a break from that. 2. There are many things very unlike the real world that are fun to play with. 3. We get to change how the game itself works, by passing laws and voting on new features. 4. I don't care for the combat games - I don't need that particular thrill.

There is no other online game like it (cooperative, evolving, overarching goals, in a massive online multiplayer environment), not that I know of. Please post if you know of others - I'd like to play more games like this.