A Tale in the Desert (ATITD) is a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online roleplaying game)set in Ancient Egypt and is currently in its Second Telling (see below). "Pharaoh" is Andrew "Teppy" Tepper, who keeps in close contact with the players, and is the main developer for the game and owner of its parent company, Egenesis. The initial software download and all new content are free, and there is a free trial, but there is a monthly fee of about $15 to continue playing. The playerbase, based mostly in the US and Europe, is small (only about 1000-2000 players), but many of them are fairly hardcore.
ATITD is rare among MMORPGs for its absolute lack of combat or levels. Players can kill their livestock, and will soon be able to go on safari, but that's it. Instead, the game focuses on building, research, and community. Even more uniquely, players are able to have a lasting effect on the world - the game reaches an endpoint, after which a new Telling begins, which bears marks of the Telling before. Players can also create laws (including player bans) and make feature requests. There is also a better-than-average balance between male and female players, and a remarkably high level of civility and generosity, as a result of the difference in focus.
The goal of the game is for the community to build 7 great monuments representing each of the 7 Disciplines of Man: Art & Music, Architecture, Body, Conflict, Leadership, Thought, and Worship. In order to build these monuments, a fairly large number of players must each pass a number of Tests in the appropriate Disciplines. Part of building the monuments is that the players get to design a new Test for the next telling, which starts either shortly after the monuments are built, or if they fail to get built within a short time once it is possible to do so.
However, there are many other things to do besides the Tests, for those players who find them uninteresting: technologies need to be researched, complex systems like cooking and flower-breeding need to be investigated, and plenty of players find new things to do on their own. In the first and second tellings, players have built banks, trading emporiums, public facilites, and enormous sculptures, as well as many external aids, and many have earned significant respect for doing so, even though none of these are related to the Tests.
While it is possible for a hardcore player to succeed on their own, most successful players belong to a guild they consider their home (where success is measured mostly by reputation and having the newest buildings in one's camp). Players can belong to any number of guilds, and in addition to their home guild often belong to regional chat guilds, global chat guilds, special interest guilds, and project guilds.
The game is in continuous development, with the developers often releasing new content almost immediately after it is created. This does mean there are relatively frequent bugs, but they are usually fixed quickly. Neither content releases nor bug fixes usually result in server downtime.
External links
- ATITD Website - The official site, where the game software may be downloaded for free.
- ATITD Forum - The player-run forum for the game. The parent site has several other useful features.
- ATITD Wiki - The player-run ATITD wiki.
