A Tale in the Desert III Launches

Teppy writes "The third version of the unique Egyptian MMOG A Tale in the Desert is now available. Changes from previous Tales include the new Discipline of Harmony, a game-wide Events system, and 'Principles'. Principles consist of 49 snack-sized challenges that provide a gentle introduction to a hugely complex game. Other enhancements include regional chat, community-unlockable Tests, dozens of new and changed Skills, and of course the Legacy Tests designed by the Oracles of A Tale in the Desert II. Windows, Linux, and OSX clients are available for download."

Comments

2 Thumbs UP

[TheCarlMau]

I've played since Tale 1, and I've always enjoyed it. I think eGenesis has finally perfected it with Tale 3. The travel system and level system is completely revamped, and a great community. If you're interested in a non-convential, unique game, go for it. There's even a Linux client with a very technical community. ie: everybody whinced when this was posted on slashdot! ;)

Yes! Oh wait...

[Durumbrain]

Although I only played the trial version of ATITD 2, I always say that ATITD isp the best MMOG out there. It is about as far away from the traditional Hack n' Slash you can come today, and I loved almost everything about it (it's a little too expensive for my taste).

I want to see more games like this one! Although it is far from perfect, it shows that out-of-the-box thinking is not only possible, but successful. There is a market for social, intelligent games! It may not be big, but it is there.

Second Life is another step in the right direction. The more high-budget games, the more popular will the "genre" get and the market will grow, which means more and better games. Because of ATITD, we are entering a good spiral of innovative online gaming. Rejoice!

Re:What's different since tale 1?

[Teppy]

Actually, the new Principles that I mentioned in the article submission may appeal to you. Each one is a miniature version of a corresponding Test. For instance, Principles of the Obelisk challenges you to build a 7 cubit tall Obelisk. All Principles are fixed-goal, and nearly all are non-competitive. Tests, including the Test of the Obelisk that you describe, are still mostly competitive.

Completing a Principle advances your level by one (yes, we have levels now), and unlocks new Principles/Tests, Skills, and Technologies.

It's still going to be difficult (impossible) to lead construction of one of the final 7 Monuments with a solo spproach, but you may find Tale 3 to be much more fun for your playstyle than Tale 1.

If you do decide to come back, play for a bit and then tell me if I'm on-track with this analysis. (In-game, /chat Pharaoh)

What do you like about a tale in the desert?

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer: I have only played the game for about 4 hours. I plan to play it for longer to see what comes about, but here's my initial impression:

From what I could gather, the game seemed to be recursive resource gathering/building in order to unlock higher tiers of items that could be built, along with challenges of increasing difficulty that could only be accomplished by having an army of people below you taking care of the base level resource gathering.

Seemed a bit too much like the opening of the gates of Ahn'Qiraj to me in World of Warcraft, where only a clear couple people on the server get to "ring the gong", fight the high level dragons, while the rest of the server is killing 1,000,000 level 12 humanoids for cloth.

I asked some people about the puzzle aspects (which is what drew me to the game in the first place) and received an example of people trading seeds at random to try to grow a certain type of vegetable. That just seemed like another time sink to me that didn't involve clever or intuitive thought, just brute force.

I asked some other players what they were doing for fun, and they explained they were unlocking new types of techniques at the university, which was done by, again, gathering oodles of resources.

I'm not saying this style of gameplay is terrible, but resource gathering and refining is something that's not my cup of tea. My only complaint is that I just kept hearing that a Tale in the Desert was a different type of RPG, but to me it just seemed like it had all the resource gathering elements of other MMORPGs without the instances to explore and monsters to fight.

Re:What do you like about a tale in the desert?

[varcher75]

From what I could gather, the game seemed to be recursive resource gathering/building

That's only part of the game. If you pursue the path of Body, almost everything requires zero resources. Instead, you will have to travel across all of the game world, to find people/items/locations. Or Worship (does the alignment test still exists? That one require you to find 4 other people "astrally aligned" with you) Then, you have the "basic resources" which is the highly repetitive part - but also the part that every player can do, regardless of their abilities (as a player, not as a character). Then you have whack-a-mole resources (from very simple whackamole like Flax, to barley or glassmaking). Then you have puzzle resources (gemcutting. You have a 6x6x6 block with random holes, and you need to cut sides until you get a specific 3d shape from the block. Require good 3D perception, and each gem is different). And the, you arrive into the various "artistic". Using the same resources as everyone, you need to make something that people will judge better than the others'. Basically, you've judged the game from the newbie game. However, unlike Eq-esque games (like WoW), the game changes dramatically once you find a niche to play (the game is all about various niches which you can choose) where fantasy RPGs basically play the same from level 1 to 60, with just different weapons, items and spells.