A Tale in the Desert Beta Report

Beta 3, part 2

Val Sucher, 2002-02-03

Introduction
As Beta 3 winds down in preparation for release I've decided to report more about the various Disciplines and mechanics of the game. A Tale in the Desert (ATITD) is mostly about crafting and trading. You must create materials to create more and more advanced buildings and unlock new technology.
First, you must learn basic skills to become a citizen in the game. Until you learn these skills your interaction with the game world is very limited. You can pick up a few things and interact with few objects and buildings but that's mostly it. To learn skills you must travel to the various Schools in the region. The starting point for new players is most often the School of Architecture where you can learn the skills that will earn you citizenship in Egypt. However, you must pay a tuition to learn these skills. If you have a mentor, then they will guide you through the process of acquiring these skills and your citizenship.

School of Leadership
Mentors are often initiates in the Discipline of Leadership. To pass a test to become a Student of Leadership they must mentor a certain amount of new players. If you feel they were a good mentor, then you can reward their efforts and build a shrine to honor them. This helps them pass their test. So from the very beginning, ATITD encourages experienced players to help new players. However, beware those who would exploit you if you are new. If your mentor is telling you to gather 500 pieces of wood for them with nothing in exchange, then it's a good bet that they are attempting to exploit you. A good mentor should go beyond simply helping you get your citizenship. They should teach you about the Disciplines, about how guilds work, teach you about the interface and offer advice as well as answering any questions you may have later on in the game. After this the new player is ready to venture off into Egypt and either make their own way as a solo player, join a guild, make a guild of their own, or simply explore and become a trader.

There are many Schools in Egypt. There is one for each of the Disciplines as well as a University. The difference between Universities and Schools is that technology needs to be researched at Universities and that skills taught at Universities are free for all to learn. For skills to be researched at Universities, players must donate the required materials for the technology to be unlocked. You can choose to donate materials to the various Universities for more technologies to be unlocked. Thus all of Egypt gets advanced through the efforts of individual players working together.

Traveling
Travel in the game is accomplished by running everywhere. This can be boring if you have no one to chat with in-game. However, one of the skills players can learn is Navigation. This skill allows you to set waypoints that you can instantly teleport to from anywhere if you have waypoint travel time. You gain waypoint travel time by NOT being online. This is great because now you get rewarded for taking time away from the game to do real life things, like sleeping.

Disciplines
There are seven Disciplines in the game. The Discipline of Thought, Body, Worship, Leadership, Art and Music, Conflict and Architecture. Each Discipline has unique tests that one must pass to be initiated and advance further.

The Discipline of Leadership requires a citizen to take a petition around and get 20 people to sign it to be initiated into the Discipline. In theory, those 20 people who sign the petition believe that the petitioner would make a good leader and thus show their support for the petitioner by signing. Once initiated into the Discipline of Leadership, one has new goals opened to them and receives certain benefits from passing the test. For instance, you can bring a petition to be voted on by the populus of Egypt with fewer signatures on the petition. The next test is the Test of Mentorship which I discussed earlier. The initiate must have 7 shrines built in their honor to pass the test to become a Student of Leadership. One can also continue mentoring and gaining shrines which give more bonuses to the Leadership Student. For instance, with 28 shrines built in their honor, all skills at Schools are half priced. So it truly pays to mentor new players.

All of the Disciplines have direct benefits for those who advance in them. Advancing in the Disciplines of Body and Conflict will increase the players stats and abilities. For instance, you must have a sufficient rank in the Conflict Discipline to prospect for marble. Students in the Discipline of Architecture can craft Fine Steel Axes once a week which allows a player to gather 3x the normal amount of wood from trees. Students of Worship are able to operate Flax Gins which makes the production of vital materials like canvas and rope a great deal easier. Those who pass the test of Demi-Pharaoh in the Discipline of Leadership have the power to permanently ban one person from the game.

These tests get increasingly difficult to pass. Let's face it, people aren't going to trust just anyone with the power to ban another person. The game is centered around these tests and you'll need the cooperation of other players to complete some of them. Each Discipline has seven levels. When you have reached level seven in a Discipline, then you have mastered it and can complete a "Great Work". These so-called "Great Works" have not been revealed in beta. They will have to be discovered when players advance far enough after the release of the game.

Laws
Players also have the ability to create and vote on laws. Vote in a "bad" law and it will be implemented. So players can shoot themselves in the foot. While you can not vote to change the physics of the world (you can't propose a law that would make you fly) you could pass a law about not building mines close together. So players are given a great deal of control over the game.
Combat is nonexistent in the game, however the tests of Conflict and Thought pit players against one another in strategic games. So competing against other players is possible. You just won't be able to hit them over the head with your Sevenblade if you lose.

Overall, the tests drive the players forward. Everyone is striving to complete their tests to advance and thus new technologies are researched and all of Egypt is driven forward. It's a unique model for a game. It will be interesting to see how ATITD does when it goes live.