A Tale in the Desert - news An article by Sue Info taken from www.atitd.com About a year ago, I downloaded the demo for this forthcoming online multi-user game. It sounded my kind of game, more of a city building game than an RPG, no combat and with disciplines to follow similar to Ultima. Me being me, and always with too many things on the go, I never got round to installing it and having a try at the beta version. Too late now! The full game was unveiled on 15th Feb. I went online and dragged off some info about it from the official site. If anyone tries it, do write in and let us know what it's about. There's no registration web page, just download the program (78 meg), run it and follow the prompts. Features Seven Disciplines to strive for Each discipline has seven tests, giving a total of 49 tests for your character to achieve. Player Driven Legal System The laws of Egypt are written and passed by the community. Laws can even be passed to exile rogue players. 100s of Buildings ATITD includes a large number of buildings that can be built once the relevant research is unlocked. Research & Technology Seven Universities and Schools, one for each discipline allow players to contribute resources to research new buildings,tests, and technology. Guilds & Guild Specific Buildings A powerful guild with a large camp can comand respect and power in atitd. Guilds are frequently responsible for major donations to research, unlocking new technology for all of egypt. Combat Free Gaming There no chance you'll be pk'd while playing ATITD. Conflict in ATITD takes the form of the race to unlock technology, or achieve specific goals. Frequently Asked Questions Q. What kind of game is A Tale in the Desert ? A. Like most online games, you have a character with stats and an inventory. But your goals are completely different: 1. Advance in the seven disciplines by passing difficult challenges called the tests. 2. Manage an interconnected network of workshops and factories - your financial empire. 3. Leave your mark on civilization by completing great works. The game is a blend between city-building games and games of guile like Diplomacy and Illuminati. There's no combat - you must win by smart management and sharp-witted negotiation, not by weapons. The game has a plot that unfolds in response to player actions, and when the story is over, the game ends. Q. Explain the Seven Disciplines and the Tests. A. The ancient Egyptians wrote about Seven Disciplines of Man: Leadership, Thought, The Human Body, Architecture, Worship, Conflict, and Art. They believed that if a man could achieve perfection in all seven, he'd live forever. A Tale in the Desert centers around the tests, which measure your skill in the seven disciplines. They don't measure your character's abilities --- they measure your abilities. That's a big difference. For example, to advance in leadership, you'll actually need to be able to convince people to do things. To advance in conflict, you'll need real tactical and strategic ability. To advance in art, you'll need artistic talent. All of the tests share one thing in common: your goal is to affect your fellow players. In conflict, you must defeat them. In architecture, you must outbuild them. In worship, you must coordinate them. No matter the discipline, passing a test revolves around other players. Q. Give me an example of some of these tests. A. Leadership: The test of Trust. To complete this challenge, a player must place a significant amount of gold in a ritual vault, and give keys to ten high-level individuals. If, after 24 hours, none of the ten powerful individuals has stolen the gold, then the player really does know who to trust. He passes the test, and gains a level in leadership. Art: The test of Pyrotechnics. You must gather, make, or trade for various resins and alchemical supplies, and then assemble them at a laboratory. The timing and combinations for igniting the components is left to the player. Each night a fireworks contest is held, and players compete against each other, with the judging left to other players. The contestant with the most dazzling display passes the test, and gains a level in art. Human Body: The test of the Bedouin. You must travel the land in search of the most remote, the most strange and unheard-of locales. In these places you will find altars, and you must anoint these altars with exotic spices and essences. These gods know who has found the most mysterious of places. The persistence, fortitude and endurance of these players is rewarded with a level in the discipline of the human body. Q. In what way is this like a city-building game ? A. If your character walks around, he can pick up natural things: rocks, wood, sand, grass. Everything else must be created by players. Players build workshops that can make new items from raw materials. Each player will typically own dozens of workshops, or he may be part of a guild that owns hundreds. Players try to keep their workshops running optimally - feeding sand into glassmaking tools, feeding wood into charcoal ovens, tweaking the formulae at the chemistry labs, watching furnace temperatures, transferring molten iron from smelting furnaces to casting benches, altering recipes for potions, monitoring the growth of crops... and usually, trying to do a hundred of these things at the same time. Negotiation and alliances add tremendous depth. You can hire yourself out, specialize in a rare skill, create a charity, form cartels - the human element takes city building to a whole new level. The end result of your effort is to produce a few special items: the gold needed to pass the test of trust, the scented oils for the test of the bedouin, the gunpowder for the test of pyrotechnics... or, the materials needed to complete one of the great works. Q. What are the great works ? A. When a player becomes immensely powerful, wealthy beyond measure and of high level in one or more of the disciplines, it is time for him to help uplift the civilization as a whole. The Egyptians wrote that if a single man could perfect the seven disciplines, he would live forever: but if an entire civilization could perfect the seven disciplines, then the land would become a Utopia, and the society would last forever. And in the long run, this is what the players must achieve in order to win the game. The first step is technology. There are hundreds of universities across the land, and each contains a technology tree. The technology of Egypt is advanced by contributing to these universities. In time, the great works will appear in the technology trees. Although little is known about what these will be, it is assumed that each will be a massive undertaking, requiring hundreds of high-level players utilizing every skill, technology, and power they have earned over the course of the game. It is said that the completion of a great work transforms a civilization in unknown ways. Q. How do lawmaking and politics fit into the game ? A. The players have total control over the laws of Egypt. You can create any laws that are needed to maintain order. This is necessary, because it is easy for players to interfere with each other in their quest for financial gain. To make a law, you typed the proposed Law, in English, into a simple petition dialog. You then go talk to people, asking them to sign your petition. If you gather enough signatures, the system triggers a vote on the law. If the majority of the players vote yes, the law is forwarded to the eGenesis programmers. We implement the law using our scripting system. Laws are not the same thing as feature requests. Governments have the power to control their citizens, not to control the laws of nature. So we will ignore laws that change the way the world works - if a law says lead can be turned into gold by clicking on it three times, it is rejected. But laws prohibiting or compelling other players to act a certain way will be enforced. Be careful - in our last beta, some of the laws turned out to be devious forms of manipulation! The players had to live with the consequences of their mistakes, until they finally managed to get the bad laws repealed. Q. You say that wealth is needed for great works. How wealthy can you get in the game ? A. Filthy rich. But it's not easy - you have to create something that people want, and sell it to them. More importantly, you have to make sure that what you're creating is rare, and therefore valuable. Some players search for hard-to-find natural resources. Some players build up their skills to the point where they can make something more cheaply than anyone else. We've even had players discover formulae and keep them secret for a very long time, in order to preserve the rarity of what they're making. Q. Which discipline should I pursue first ? A. Each discipline requires a different set of skills. Most players will prefer one discipline over all others, but some will enjoy branching out. Leadership: you'll need to be good at convincing other players to do things. Conflict: you need to be good at strategic duels, especially trading card games. Architecture: you need to be good at making money, so you can afford huge edifices. Art: you'll need a good sense of what's dazzling, what's impressive. Worship: you'll need to be good at coordinating large groups of people for big rituals. Human Body: you'll need to be a good explorer and traveler. Thought: You'll need to be good at solving puzzles and analyzing strange dilemmas. Q. Once you have accomplished all seven challenges in a discipline, is that it? A. Once you have attained level seven within, say, Architecture, you have mastered the discipline. Only masters of architecture are able to complete the ultimate goal within the discipline: the great work of Architecture. Once this has been accomplished, your next step is to branch out into the other disciplines. Q. Did you say the game has a plot, with a beginning, a middle, and an end ? A. Absolutely - every good RPG has a story that unfolds. As the players make progress towards the seven disciplines, these advances trigger certain events. These events must be dealt with by the players. The game will unfold differently depending on how the players react to these events. In time, Egyptian society will conquer the challenges and master the seven disciplines, and the game will be over. And yes, when it's over, it's over. Q. Where can we learn more details ? A. Check out one of the best community sites atitd.net for more information. System Requirements: Required: Pentium 400 192Mb Ram 3D Accelerator Recommended: Pentium 700+ 256Mb Ram GeForce video card The Official Forums Official Forums are hosted by atitd.net Fan Sites ATITD.net - a great all round resource site. ATITD.info - the site of the technology tree. egogrinder - a wiki site for ATITD. Egyptbay - ingame trading site for atitd. ATITD.co.uk - uk site with good guild coverage. Pages of Anubis - all round resource site by imotepreturns. The Oasis - general community site. Mmorpgitalia - Italian language site. Latest content: Sculptures Unleash your creativity Scarabs Breed your scarabs to refine their shell art, then enter them into the contest. Cooking The long awaited cooking comes to ATITD. Food created can increase, or decrease stats. Vine Cultivation Cultivate your vines to produce grapes, and ultimately wine. New Interface A new interface, with the ability to hide menus. Some of the new content may require new technologies to be researched and unlocked at the Universities of Egypt. - O -