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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.
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 :)
--Kobayashi--
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.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
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.
While I agree that it holds potential to get more people involved in politics, I don't think we have the ability yet to simulate a world that's as lifelike as the "real" world. For instance, The Sims 2 recently announced that it would have people getting older, and maybe dying... we'd need to take into consideration the parents, the schools, the friends, and all the activities that one may participate in to effectively model a world to test theories in. If, in the simulated world, we were going to test the real-life reactions and consequences of legalizing marijuana, how would we represent all the myriad opinions and reactions on the subject without a fully detailed background on each and every simulated person it affected? It would be like trying to build conclusions when you only have the latter 1/3 of the facts.
Also, you'd have to get people to be more involved than simply sitting at a keyboard. You'd have to get them INTO the simulation... and I mean REALLY into it. Some people are willing to die over their belief that abortion should be illegal (or, more to the point, kill for that belief, ironically). If there aren't extremely serious consequences for any illegal actions, people wouldn't take it seriously enough to, for example, stage a protest, riot, revolt, etc.
It's a lofty goal, to be sure, but just not possible yet... of course, I'm all for legalizing marijuana... (just thought I'd put that in there).
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
It's not a lot of fun. Conceptually, I was enthralled by the notion of the players creating and backing their own currency. Passing their own laws. Working together to accomplish a goal. Truly, these are things that hint at what wonders MMOGs could truly be!!
So I payed my 13 bucks. I played for two weeks, and all I did was make bricks, run around, click on a bunch of trees, and 'farm' flax plants by repeatedly clicking on the ground. A Tale in the Desert SOUNDS really freaking neat, but I don't get off on doing the job of a peon or peasant in Warcraft.
Seriously, these are things though that I would love to see in a game that's actually fun to play.
no thanks
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.
Daniel LaLiberte https://www.facebook.com/daniel.laliberte
It is intended to be finite, lasting a year, starting over in a (presumably) modified form afterwards. There are specific goals (Tests) in the game, in different Disciplines- the players will need to have at least one player for each Discipline who's passed all the tests for that Discipline; and do some other things which are as yet not so clear, and as a group can win the game. Or lose it.
So it's set up as a cooperative game in theory... although individuals will often act in their own self-interest much of the time, of course. Some of the tests are of a familiar accumulate lots of stuff and build a big object type; others require large-scale player cooperation, others are purely competitive; there are art design tests, competitive strategy minigames, design of minigames/puzzles in game... lots of variety.
Another point of difference between this and other MMORPGs: communications and guilds. There is no talk to everyone command (like an Everquest /shout) normally available. A player may belong to any number of guilds (which establish a chat channel between members)- and these guilds run the gamut from full community property to being only a chat channel. There are metaguilds formed to discuss regional issues, to discuss experimentation in some area of the game such as brewing or viticulture, to focus on passing a particular Test or set of Tests, to accomplish some particular large-scale undertaking (e.g. the 'Nileside Cafe', building larger pyramids.) Reputation matters even more than in most other games. There are also now a few microphones, which allow one-way communication to everyone who's joined a corresponding channel to hear the messages.
As to PeteyG's experience: if someone shows up and is willing to make bricks and grow flax or do other other tedious tasks all day, there will be some people happy to tell the newbie to do that... but there's nothing stopping you from leaving and finding something more interesting to do. There are no 'levels', within a few days characters can make most things as rapidly as established characters, and it's usually easy to trade for more difficult items.
It's a free download, and the first 24 hours of in-game play are free as a trial account. It's not for everyone, but if the above sounds interesting give it a try. Finally, in addition to windows it's available in Linux... and this is Slashdot.