f13.net

For those interested, a new tale is starting tomorrow (Saturday) at noon Eastern time.

I always get suckered into preorders, it seems, and this time is no different.  Even if I don't end up playing much after my typical 3 or 4 months, I want to support this game because it's so different (even if I can't ride around in a litter tagging guildhalls or people with a paintball gun).

More info & download for client:
http://www.atitd.com/

Game forum:
http://www.atitd.net/forum/

Game wiki:
http://wiki.atitd.net/tale3

I'll be playing as Xanthippe.

Playing as Numtini in The House of Ra. We'll be in NE Upper Egypt.

I preordered as well for most of the same reasons. It is different and I thought deserves to be supported. I loved beta though. It reminded me of the early days of crafting in SWG. Except there were no bugs and everything worked.

Slyfeind-Hotep, as usual. If you played with me during the beta, you saw me blitzing through levels as fast as I could. I was a good little tester, and that's what Teppy wanted to see.

But with Tale 3 Live, I intend to remain a peasant for as long as possible. In Tale 2, I realized we didn't have to play by Teppy's little social experiment rules, and could make our own way. So I started the Revolution, a movement against all those tests. And now in Tale 3, we stand against the level system as well.

Rawr.

I'm Righ, it randomly started me in Kush. Then the server crashed.

I'm in as Hutch, I'm camped out in Lower Egypt.


Teppy said something about bad routers. I got booted twice, and the system let me back in within 5 minutes each time. Which isn't bad considering it usually takes about a minute to log on anyway. If that's the worst thing that happens today, then I'll call it a good launch :)

How is the grind compared to the first round?

I played in Tale 1 for a few months and played Tale 2 for maybe a week.

Tale 3 is much improved over those, particularly with the "make the TAB key act like a mouse click" feature.

I don't know if it's grindy, particularly - it's not exactly a solo-er's game.

Slyfeind, Signe, Righ, Somebob and I are in Fool's Paradise (away from the rat race).

I'd put that down as a good launch. I obvioulsy missed the first crash, since I only saw one. Did the citizenship stuff, got compund construction, built a compound, upgraded it through 8 sectors, went back to the school of architecture, only to discover that I'd neglected to pick up the test. My fears were correct, and I was required to build another compound and upgrade it to complete the test. So now I have two upgraded compounds. :)

How many hours to do all that?

I got through the newbie isle in Tale 2 knowing nothing in an afternoon.  But it was pretty empty, so finding slate etc. was pretty easy.  Unfortunately, the mainland was pretty dead so I stopped playing.  Will check this out, however.


Edit:  I'll be in as Tide or Soln.  Dunno how time I can put to it though.

They've added a regional chat, which can sometimes be frustrating in the stupid quotient, but makes it feel far less like you're stranded alone in the desert.

Got citizenship in 3 hours. They made brick racks tiered, and they decay now. And they didnt make the first level less expensive either. I really dont see any differences from versino 2. I think anything different or new is simply in skills, skill progression, and other non-"tangible" things. Still a LOT of AFK running. Eve and ths game have dead time in common. But at least Eve has vendors! I may subscribe for a month. Depends if I get bored right away or not. The Game is kinda limited since so many technologies have not yet been unlocked, and the resulting skill tree's unavailable.

I agree. It builds more a sense of regional community. I bet is it going to make trading easier also.  And of course you can turn it off.

The Waterthread guild is up in Fool's Paradice.

Not to split hairs, but that feature was also in T1 (it was just a bit harder to find). 

The early tech race is always the most fun part of each telling.  People are racing to open techs and are more willing to reach out to the community for help.  Once we've achieved a certain level, things will slow down and people will find their place in the game.  I am having much more fun this telling than I did in T1 and T2, but I can see the spreadsheet wars on the horizon... and it's not pretty. 

For those interested, I have a camp in southern Cradle of the Sun with a guy I played T1 with.  I'm east of Karnak for those unfamiliar with the region. 

Looks like I will settle in 7 Lakes.  I'm near the CS now while I build up some basic things and wait for the grinders to unlock stuff. Once they open up a few tree's, I'll hunt down a place for my compound somewhere as out of the way as I can stand (considering I have to run back to do anything).

Having been to Karnak, I've already seem signs of how the game is going to be played. Basically, it looks like there will be an "in crowd" and some "worthless peons". The former will dominate the tech trees, get the rewards from community labour and basically tell the latter bunch what they need to do for table scraps. You can already see it at digs where some folks are taking stone for their own progress by implied "right" from being a "leader" and denying others from having it "we don't need more of that tool, use the guild one". Some people try and sell their labour "will join the dig for x stones" but the people working for implied guild benefit undermine the contractor market.

I don't know how it will play out in our area - they appear to be very generous and friendly at the moment. However, I can see why there would be a lot of churn of players in ATitD (apart from it being an RSI inducing clickfest) - the technology roadblocks that can only be passed by community help will almost certainly alienate a number of people unable to find their place in the community or unwilling to be a worker for somebody else's goals. Being in at the start and getting to know folks probably helps a lot. It will be much worse for a newcomer in a "competitive" (really cliquish) area once power structures are more formally established.

I think you've hit it on the head Righ.  I left Tale 1 near the end as it felt way too much like "A High School in the Desert" in culture.  It appears that much of that remains and is even strengthened by the way the veterans are manipulating the pace.  As the tests get more selective, the cliques will gain inertia and the separation of haves vs have-nots will get even greater. 

My opinion is that the best way to play this game is to create a mini-game within the game and stay the course until it ceases to be fun.  Having friends along for the ride helps. 

After playing the beta a few weeks, and playing this a few days, I learned how to hotkey things, like planing boards.  I tried to figure it out myself but it just wasn't happening.  So, here's how to do it.

Click on
self
Utility
Options: chat-related
then check Chat and Inventory can be minimized; and Minimized chat-channels are still visible

next click on
self
Utility
Options: One-Click and related
then check Enable hotkeys on flax; and Enable hotkeys on brickracks
(Make TAB work like the mouse button is good too)

now to use it,
press the Enter key and see it say Press Enter to Chat in the chatbox

use the mouse as a pointy thingie and not as a clicky thingie
point it to the thing you want to use the hotkey on, then press the key
i.e, point at a brickrack and press B for making bricks, T for taking bricks

They seem to have buggered up Papyrus.  You plant the stuff and then run up and down the Nile for HOURS trying to find where it might spawn.  It has discouraged me from doing that part of the game completely, at least until it's fixed, unless it's not broken.  If that's the case, they should break it.

That sounds like a more unpredictable version of the T1 papyrus.. in T1, if I remember right, you dropped your seeds on the Nile and then they appeared 10-20 minutes later starting about 80-120 coordinates north.

That may have changed, though. It was one of those systems that always annoyed the living hell out of me. Like pruning grape vines.

Spawns up to 500 or so away from where you plant it, now, or something like that.  It's very frustrating and I really am hoping it's just broken.  I think Teppy designed T3 stoned, drunk and in a bad mood.  I want to pinch him really, really hard.

I remember planting it, running for exactly 1 min North, then waiting 10 mins for it to spawn.  Growing on both sides was the bad part if you grew it alone.

I thought that was how he designed all his content. Witness T2 mining before crystal names were revealed.

I heard one player refer to the different tellings as the different stages of paid beta.  Made me laugh.

He didnt have to "design" T3. It seems like about 95% of it was just copied over from T2. The changes seem to be more in the scripts and such.

9 hour rollback - ouch.  I'm hoping the papyrus problem is somehow connected to the hardware problem.

crap. Do we still have pottery wheels?

It's probably best that women don't read this thread about presumed gender differences in game play:

http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2006/05/atitd_tests_evp.html#more

I'm a man and wanted to give them all a nice big Glasgow kiss.

I loved this comment:

"Preferential play patterns represent populational tendencies, not hard-and-fast genetic destinies (and please don't bother writing up your anecdotal account of how your girlfriend loves to frag things or your boyfriend loves Harvest Moon, these demonstrate nothing generalizable)."

Here's a generalization for you - the MMOG market is such a tiny specialized niche, you shouldn't go looking for further differentiation within in. Try writing a game that more people are willing to play before you think of adding "girl game modes" like "choosing a mate". Also, reading several dozen intellectual bores who like to design games spout opinions based on pop psychology is painful. Its the written equivalent of listening to thousands of hippos on the Zambezi.

I didn't even read that article, but that sentence you posted makes me stabby. No one should mentally masturbate that hard. They'll break their cerebrapeen.

QFT

How does anyone know who is a real life female and a real life male?  Based upon toon choice?

A smart man would make a female toon so that he can become a sought-after bride.

I want "The Camel Riding Game" and "The Interior Decorating Game" and "The Paintball Massacre Game" and "The Acquisition and Taming of Pets Game".

All I need to know.... is /hambone still working :p

Yes!  The rest of the game... not so much.

The free stuff far out weighed the stuff I lost to the reset.

As someone who has only played the first month of T1, I think the game has impoved significantly.  Mainly do to regional chat, the game doesn't feel as empty. Ya, it has "teh stupid."  But if you don't settle in the high-pop region, its not bad.

I'd say that so far, even in a high-pop region (LE), it's not bad.

Yeah, you get the occasional nitwit, and the regional chat scrolls by at a brisk pace.

But most of the text is about meeting up for digs, acro lines, meeting Grandchildren, arranging research and trades, etc etc. Pretty useful imo.

I'm developing a twitch when I play lately, where I want to subvert the dominant paradigm.  I don't know why.  Maybe it will pass.

But I think it's the stupid levelling system Teppy put in.  Still not seeing any value in it.

I've been acroing at UBody for a few days merely because I don't want to run all the way back to Fool's Paradise PLUS as soon as I start to leave I learn a facet or teach one or something....

and I can do it afk.

We're currently limited by tech. No one can finish the Harmony init, because you need to meet an initiate of Worship, and the Worship init can't be completed until we invent camel milk and diamond mines.

For newbs coming into the game a month from now, there will be a lot more choices available for leveling. Right now it feels grindy because, even if you have finished all of the available inits, you can only reach a maximum level of 7.

The reason we get stuck at one place while our camels die is because the game has decided to poof our home setting.  It's really annoying to keep running all over the place.  It didn't do this in beta!  I also see no purpose in the leveling.  If any game screams, "NO LEVELS", it's this one.

Dammit.

But the techs ARE limited by level.  I cannot go to a school to learn something beyond level 6 right now, if it's a level 7 skill.  The levelling system is going to drive _everyone_ to do things they don't want to do, merely to get the ding so they can do something they do want to do.

Like DAOC and pvp.  Even Mythic learned that lesson, eventually.

I predict people quitting when they realize they cannot get to the cool stuff without grind.  And the ones who stay will yell "who needs ya anyway, losers!"

Does Teppy just cater to the catasses or what?

(I'm just pissy because my acro was ruined! Ruined I tell you!)

Yes, Teppy seems to cater to the elite, catassing, obsessive players.  His aversion to publicity will do nothing to attract new players and the crowd he seems to cater to will drive off any who dare to try the game.  He also seems to mess with people.  Sort of like "gods" did on MUDs.  It's very annoying even when playing for free but when you're paying to play, it's completely unprofessional.

Yes. He's consistently done this over the past two tellings. Both times I played for 3 months and then quit due to grind burnout and the rapidly-increasing gulf between those who could play all day every day and those with other things to do; I'm not making that mistake again with T3.

Personally, I think he's scared of losing his existing (slow-turnover) hardcore fanbase by attempting to make the game more broadly appealing.

It wouldn't even take much to make it more appealing. Just put in place a limit to the number of skills you can learn. That alone will mean that casual players would have more opportunity to produce useful gear they could use to trade for other things. As long as everyone can learn all the skills in the game at their particular level, there will be nothing a casual player does that is not done a hundred times faster and in greater bulk by those who live in the game. Oh, and of course, a built in currency so a real economy can blossom.

Well... I was initially very excited about playing the game again, but the addition of levels has really killed it for me. The appeal in this game was the sandbox aspect of it and many portions of that are now gone.  Between that and the whining in chat channels, I doubt I'll last my first month. 

I have to agree, Nebu.  This game should NOT have levels.  More than any game I can think of, levels are wrong for it.  The whining, however, amuses me.  It is the epic whining that all whining aspires to be.

PS You would think that after 1, 443 posts, "Nebu" would be in the spell checker thingymabopper.

I was drawn to this game by the potential for filling a niche in a larger society. I really enjoyed that you could embark on a discipline path and set yourself apart from the unwashed masses with that choice. As a corrolary to that, I loved that everyone was given the easy choice of not paticipating in a particular discipline.

The addition of levels (and their symbiotic relationship with most everything else in the game) davlued many of the tests for me by coercing those not interested in them to participate to progress. (Transmute Option to Grind) As a result you have groups of people gaming the tests for their own personal gain and those that truly enjoyed the dynamics of the test having to suffer for it.

My largest complaint about the level system is the half-ass implementation. The levels were hastily implemented and it shows. There is no corrolation at all between the types of tasks you completed to get your levels and the resulting unlocked skills. So far it seems that everyone follows the same path to get the easy levels. This cookie-cutter churning out of 'experienced' citizens leaves me wondering what niche I can fit into that hasn't been saturated by level-seeking zombies.

I must agree it makes for some great drama though.

I just don't get what the point to the levels is. Other than Teppy being really stubborn.

My guess is to make the game appeal to a wider player base.  A majority of players need to be led by the hand.  A key to the success of WoW imo.  The game was extremely linear in approach.   

I dont mind the levels so much. STay or go doesnt matter to me. I dont like the way that potential skills and the path to get there are so hard to discover. There is soemthing wrong with being virtually required to spend time on a Wiki to figure out what it is you can do and how to get there!

There is nothing in game that allows you to see whats possible for skills. The Universities tech some things free, but certain skills are only available at certain Schools. And if you dont know which one, you're in for at leats an hour of running around trying to find it.

May I suggest that you look HERE (http://wiki.atitd.net/tale3/Home) for all of that information.

I looked on their boards and can't seem to find it.

Yah, I know... hearken back to the previous paragraph, and notice how I opine that it sucks that players are virtually required to visit a wiki to learn basic stuff about that game....

That's because it's on the regional chat channels.  The most recent was when the Test of the Obelisk opened up.  You have to build an obelisk taller than the previous obelisk in your region and it has to remain the tallest for one hour to pass.  Each time a person makes one, it takes longer to make and more resources.  People decided to form queues and build only the next size so it would be easy for everyone to pass.  Of course, some people jumped the queues or built their obelisks too high, or whatever.  It was hilarious.  People screaming that "someone jumped ahead in line!"  "You made your obeliske too high!"  "You have to do it the way we say you have to do it because we say so!"   The test reads as if it's a competition, so people who might be new, or just haven't figured out that the elite will try and dictate everyone and everything have no idea what's going on.  I think all the chat, even spacial, is logged for Teppy's own personal, somewhat perverse, pleasure.

Yet another test not compatible with the level system. Teppy is too in love with this own ideas to see what is happening to his game.

the test is not required to level, is it?  I thought for levelling, one needs a 7 cubit obelisk for passing the principle.

Please say no, I don't want to build a 100 cubit obelisk.

For the amount of time it would take, we may all be better off getting together in Egypt and actually building a real damn obelisk. Now THAT would be a trip.

Here's the fun part:  You get 1 level for a 7 cubit obelisk.  You get a second level for completing the test of the obelisk.  At this stage of the game more levels = more skills and more advantage in passing early tests due to less competition.  The entire level design favors the hardcore catasses and leaves casual players fighting for table scraps as most tests are completed on a competitive basis. 


For some reason Teppy thinks it's more "fun" to leave things cryptic for people to solve every puzzle.  Yet another flaw in logic as the puzzles are often identical to the way they were in beta favoring those that played heavily there.  Teppy is making an attempt for mass appeal while keeping the game in a state where the dedicated playerbase has a huge advantage.  I think his subscriptions are going to dwindle even more rapidly than in the second telling.  Teppy jokes that his user manual is simply "click everything".  I think he's going to be disappointed when "everything" includes the "cancel subscription" button.

To pass the Principle, the starter Tests, you just need a 7 cubit obelisk. The queue is for the full sized obelisk, which gets to you to be a Student of Arch. And that, if you are not already a student of something else, will give you another level. Just build the 7 cubit one.

I liked the idea of the “mini-Tests”, and Levels to count them with, when it was first proposed. Another thing to do in Egypt. But making specific Levels a requirement for learning skills or starting tests is a bad plan. So, good basic idea, bad implementation. As always with MMOGs, you can’t really judge the feature list till you see how its implemented.

Hellinar: a happy Peasant, wandering the desert collecting mushrooms, far from the drama.

Well said.

Thats pretty catchy!

Haha, seconded.

I can accept that Teppy is insane, but the thing about ATitD that really confuses me is how a game like this can attract such a quantity and quality of flaming assholes.

In his defense, that whole "click everything" manual is what attracted me to ATITD. I hate how the citizenship guide walks you through everything. For me, it's about exploring and figuring shit out. If anything is explained, there's no more game. That's like reading a walkthrough to Myst or Riven before you play it.

I made citizenship in Tale 1 with no guides, no mentors, no nothing. I just ran around and clicked everything. I was thrilled when I finally deduced how to build bricks...to say nothing of my first kiln. Now, everything's spoon-fed, and people complain that it's such a grind.

If anything's up for debate, it's whether this kind of deduction is "fun" or not. I liked it, and was sad to see it go.

It is a grind, Sly.  I have to say, however, having to run around and figure it out for yourself actually makes it less of a grind.  Sure, it might take longer but you are occupying your mind, not following directions. 

Well... my point is that it is fun.  It would be more fun if everyone had to figure out the same puzzles from the start.  The problem is that Teppy does so little to change things that having played an early telling arms you with significantly more information that someone new to the game.  While I can understand that experience should grant you an "edge" in any game, in this title it puts you in a whole other league.  The laziness makes the wiki overvalued and forces players to decide if they want to enjoy discovery or keep up with the Jonses.  

First past the post competitions in a game based on discovering technology that's remained largely unchanged over several years' iterations is a somewhat gigantic flaw in subscription game logic. Teppy seems to be a pretty solid game 'creator' but an extraordinarily poor game 'designer'. Fiddling with ATitD is enjoyable, actually playing it in a gaming sense is not.

Well stated. 

The game was a ball at the beginning of T1 when everything was new to everyone.  There was competition.  There was teamwork.  Most of all, there was discovery.   Now it feels much more like an arms race than it does a game or even an mmog.  The constant bickering and posturing among players really takes away from what was once a brilliant concept. 

Embrace the bickering.  Be amused by the bickering.  It's like a new game in and of itself!

Screw levelling.  Think of things that are fun to do.  Once I'm past stone blades, I'm going to make a guild called HOTFEMSIRL and plop it down in some obvious location, probably Karnak.  Endless amusement will follow guild advertisements on regional chat, I bet.

The whole "gaming" thing is a mystery and a puzzle to me as well.  I just don't get why telling people where your art or puzzle is for voting isn't gaming, but driveby acro is.  I'll find a way to exploit it, one of these days!

What happenned to your twitch?

Playing EQ2 now for twitchiness!  I'm noobing along, and it's fun!