A Tale in the Desert (ATITD) is a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) set in Ancient Egypt. The initial software download and all new content are free, with a monthly subscription required to play beyond the first 24 hours.
During the 7th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated A Tale in the Desert for "Massively Mutliplayer/Persistent World Game of the Year".
Gameplay
A Tale in the Desert is a social MMORPG which does not include combat. Instead, a variety of social activities provide for the basis of most interaction in the game. The game's main focuses are building, community, research and personal or group challenges called "Tests". ATITD has a global foregame, midgame, and endgame: on average so far, every year and a half the game ends, achievements are tabulated, and a new "Telling" begins, with certain modifications requested by the player base, or by arbitrary developer choice. To be clear about this, the game actually ends; a wipe is performed, and the game (and all players) start from scratch using the mechanism that it is now a couple of player generations removed. Within a Telling, players can write, introduce, and pass laws (including player bans), and make feature requests.
There is an in-game economy, including an amount of regional or global trade; however, there is no official, backed currency. Players can mint their own currencies but these have never had widespread adoption. Additionally, there are sufficient activities to be learned and performed that it is considered exceedingly difficult to be a Jack of all trades: this too leads itself to a much more social aspect.
A recurring theme is a "welcoming island" which established players can enter at any time: this allows them to train new players at their own leisure, and introduce them to the specifics of the game. After completing a series of tasks given to them, players may make their way to the mainland and begin the real game.
When a new player exits the welcoming island into mainland Egypt, they may immediately begin trekking around to look for a suitable settlement location or community. Upon reaching the mainland, the first goal of most players is to begin the central challenges of the game (Tests), find public resources, and expand upon what knowledge they have while integrating themselves into the community at large.
ATITD has a legal system, a controlled variant on Nomic which is generally restricted by what the developers can code, as well as the nature of such a system. With the legal system, players have the option to create petitions of any kind, like the redistribution of expired accounts' materials, the direct ban of a player, or even a change in an avatar's sex. The legal system as currently defined can only restrict players' options, alter ownership rights, or change a minor portion of a challenge; however, within those options, the possibilities have not been exhausted. Finally, the legal system also requires a great deal of cooperation between players, as a petition must be spread, signed, and returned with a certain threshold of signatures.
This game has no physical combat system, however, the psychological combat of social PVP can be very intense. While players do not engage in direct combat, the social tests in the game (many of which require community votes) encourage social combat which encourages the best and worst social behavior in players. More than one player has wondered (correctly) if this game is a sociology experiment in progress.
Tests
The majority of ATITD challenges take the form of 56 defined "Tests", separated into several groups. Of these, the first in each group is a trivial request, intended to introduce players to the discipline - the group that challenge is in. Beyond those initiations, seven challenges exist for each discipline, arranged into themes: