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Topic: A Tale In The Desert IV Public Beta (Read 18342 times)
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Slyfeind
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2037
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How are the new terrain, avatars and other graphics?
Compounds look great. I freaking love them. They're all ancient mudbrick wattle and daub and whatnot, instead of the freakish brick warehouses they used to be. Avatars are weird. They literally wear 20th century clothing now, except one that's a medieval serf. They added a turban to one of the avatars, so maybe that one's supposed to be Persian? When I played, sand and mud and grass were the same color, but they said they were going to fix that, so it may be fixed by now.
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"Role playing in an MMO is more like an open orchestra with no conductor, anyone of any skill level can walk in at any time, and everyone brings their own instrument and plays whatever song they want. Then toss PvP into the mix and things REALLY get ugly!" -Count Nerfedalot
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sidereal
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Compounds are not onerous to build, and in fact you have to build one as the first Architecture test. They get expensive as you grow them, but you won't need to expand your first one for a while. Plus, they're a great way to mark territory. It used to be you'd see a couple of chests and a flax comb and not know whether that guy was ever going to come back and whether they wanted that whole forest or what. Now you stick a big, obvious house down where you're going to be settling and you can see it from a mile away.
Unfortunately, I'm probably not going to be playing this tale. I can't get a look at the multimonth subscriptions since the servers are down to prep for the launch, but unless they're a pretty good discount from the normal $14 a month, I don't think it's worth it. I'm not exactly strapped for cash, but I can't justify paying $168 a year for a game with that narrow a focus and that limited a set of activities. I could pay a little more and renew WoW, and ATiTD doesn't stand up well to that comparison.
$10 a month, maybe.
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THIS IS THE MOST I HAVE EVERY WANTED TO GET IN TO A BETA
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Numtini
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7675
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I think the grass is darker and people were complaining it wasn't as green. I found one female avatar I rather like, but I'd agree they're not quite as Egyptian. I seem to remember last time around that more options were added between beta and release though? There are some differences that I've found functionally less useful--the weeds on flax come to mind immediately--they're far easier to see in T3.
For whatever reasons, the graphics have always worked for me. The chat and item interfaces are horrible though and the lack of scrolling in the map makes me crazy.
And there's no significant discount on the multi-month stuff, you just get fireworks, sheep, cornerstones, redecorating, and the eye bugging titles are back too.
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If you can read this, you're on a board populated by misogynist assholes.
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sidereal
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And now I'm waffling. I reminded myself in another thread that the major problem with MMOs is that every other player is a fucking idiot. Except in ATiTD, that's not true. It's niche enough to self-select and most players are pretty good. That has to be worth a few bucks.
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THIS IS THE MOST I HAVE EVERY WANTED TO GET IN TO A BETA
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Quinton
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3332
is saving up his raid points for a fancy board title
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If there's a group of f13's playing, I'd be tempted to join up for another tale for some very casual egypt crafting, exploring, and crazy teppy social experiments adventures.
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Quinton
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3332
is saving up his raid points for a fancy board title
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email from Teppy about Tale IV: Citizens of Egypt, After almost 3 years, it is with great pride that I announce the launch of A Tale in the Desert IV: Saturday, December 13, 12:00 Noon EST (GMT-0500) Beta was a huge success - the pace of the early game was pleasingly frantic, as it should be, and I hope to be able to keep up a fast pace throughout the Tale. A few pieces of content gave people trouble, including the new mining system, and the greatly expanded ecosystem, but I think that the tuning sessions that we did during beta produced some pretty refined final versions. Of course, there's so much that we didn't get to. Early in the Tale you'll experience the Test of the Kingmaker, the Test of the Constellation, a more refined Cooking system, as well as all sorts of other hidden surprises.
As a final note, you'll notice that I did not sign this newsletter "Teppy (Pharaoh)", but rather, simply "Teppy." It will come as a surprise to long time ATITD players that at the start of A Tale in the Desert IV, there is no Pharaoh, and as the story opens, Pharaoh has just died. Tune in Saturday.
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Demonix
Terracotta Army
Posts: 103
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If there's a group of f13's playing, I'd be tempted to join up for another tale for some very casual egypt crafting, exploring, and crazy teppy social experiments adventures.
I would be up for that, just let me know where and who; will find my way to you.
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tazelbain
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6603
tazelbain
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I talked myself into starting T3. Never again!
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"Me am play gods"
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Nebu
Terracotta Army
Posts: 17613
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I talked myself into starting T3. Never again!
I played T1 6 months, T2 for 2 months, and T3 for 1 month. I'm out.
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"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."
- Mark Twain
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sidereal
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I played T1 6 months, T2 for 2 months, and T3 for 1 month.
I'm out.
The pattern suggests you have to play for 2 weeks.
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THIS IS THE MOST I HAVE EVERY WANTED TO GET IN TO A BETA
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Numtini
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7675
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Maybe he counted beta?
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If you can read this, you're on a board populated by misogynist assholes.
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Mrbloodworth
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15148
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How are the new terrain, avatars and other graphics?
Compounds look great. I freaking love them. They're all ancient mudbrick wattle and daub and whatnot, instead of the freakish brick warehouses they used to be. Avatars are weird. They literally wear 20th century clothing now, except one that's a medieval serf. They added a turban to one of the avatars, so maybe that one's supposed to be Persian? When I played, sand and mud and grass were the same color, but they said they were going to fix that, so it may be fixed by now. Screen shots would be cool. Off a players machine, not a devs sanitized screen shooting machine. 
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Quinton
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3332
is saving up his raid points for a fancy board title
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I'm Quinton in Tale four. Not sure where I want to setup shop. Anybody more organized than me planning on anything?
Also, I probably won't have much time in-game until tonight/tomorrow due to stuff going on in EVE...
I'm hanging out in Cat's Claw Ridge at the moment, out of nostalgia.
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« Last Edit: December 13, 2008, 09:13:25 AM by Quinton »
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Signe
Terracotta Army
Posts: 18942
Muse.
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I think I'm giving this phase a pass. I walked around a bit, pulled up some grass, logged off and haven't had the urge again. What happened with the thingy about Teppy killing himself off or something? It said to log in Saturday to find out but I'd rather someone just tell me.
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My Sig Image: hath rid itself of this mortal coil.
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Numtini
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7675
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I have a compound up just north of the U-Arch in Ab whatever (used to be 7 lakes) right on the Nile.
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If you can read this, you're on a board populated by misogynist assholes.
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Tale
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8567
sıɥʇ ǝʞıן sʞןɐʇ
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I have indeed been to the desert.
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Demonix
Terracotta Army
Posts: 103
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Now that it has gone live, quinton and I are neighbors in the CCR region. The people are friendly and helpful, with publicly available facilities for your more advanced needs or bulk projects. Impressions (last time I seriously played was T1):
1) Travel seems faster...speed changes depending on what you are running on, with roads being the fastest and sand the slowest 2) spawn times for things like mushrooms and herbs seem to be faster; when travelling I can count on coming across at least 5 different herb spawns 3) flaxing is still flaxing, le sigh 4) Endurance based activities (digging, processing flax) feel more bursty...for example, you used to have to rest between stages of flax processing...now you can do it all in one go and rest before you clean the comb.
All in all, I don't find it as grindy as I feared it would be. some of the tests are kind of wierd (present two camel milk and two grilled fish at the school of worship in the presence of 21 people), but I'm having fun running across the landscape, identifying herbs, and making stuff.
Quinton and I are both interested in mining and metal work, so we may make a small mining concern. I know we are all die hard MMOG cynics, but if you want to give it a shot, come on in.
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« Last Edit: December 18, 2008, 06:53:25 AM by Demonix »
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Numtini
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7675
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I'm having a great time. I wandered around... a lot... Did a full tour of 10 regions and never once got a ****ing onion seed. But if you're short on cabbage, I'm your girl (10 Universities, 5 gave me cabbage--I've since traded for two onions).
I'm still not sure where I'm settling. I met one of the people from my T3 guild and I'm set up with them, but I think they may be too much on the achiever side for me. I burned out last Tale essentially before beta even finished and I'm thinking life in the sticks might be more to my liking.
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If you can read this, you're on a board populated by misogynist assholes.
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Slyfeind
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2037
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Ugh, people are having fun, and even Numtini is enjoying it. I'm jealous. I just can't get past the cockblocks. I hate sculptures, but you have to do them in order to start acrobat. I hate acro too, but you need it to get your stats up.
That, and I miss the Ancient Egypt themed avatars.
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"Role playing in an MMO is more like an open orchestra with no conductor, anyone of any skill level can walk in at any time, and everyone brings their own instrument and plays whatever song they want. Then toss PvP into the mix and things REALLY get ugly!" -Count Nerfedalot
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Numtini
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7675
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I built my scultpure, threw in three pieces of grass, and tore it down. Zap. I agree on the levels, but at least so far, I can tolerate it.
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If you can read this, you're on a board populated by misogynist assholes.
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Quinton
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3332
is saving up his raid points for a fancy board title
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I'm pretty happy in Cat's Claw Ridge at the moment, but if some huge awesome collective of f13 folks formed elsewhere, I'd consider relocating. I'm probably going to play a bunch over the next two weeks (holiday vacation time) and then likely in fits and bursts. I'm not hardcore enough to do megagrinds for unlocking stuff, but I like to contribute here and there, try new technologies, and contribute to local projects.
I'm totally happy being part of a more casual guild (or guilds -- this is ATITD, if you don't have 20+ chattabs you're some kind of hermit), or being a casual contributor to more hard core achiever projecty things. Mostly I enjoy ATITD for a change in pace from classic MMO stuff and the pew pew of EVE.
I'm Quinton in-game too, feel free to say hello!
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Demonix
Terracotta Army
Posts: 103
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I built my scultpure, threw in three pieces of grass, and tore it down. Zap. I agree on the levels, but at least so far, I can tolerate it.
oh, you dont NEED to make a successful sculpture to pass, just build it, open it to judging, and tear it down? I know what I'm doing tonight!
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Sunbury
Terracotta Army
Posts: 216
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I have indeed been to the desert.
On a horse with no name?
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Numtini
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7675
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I met someone on the road making trades for seeds and ended up moving to Sinai.
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If you can read this, you're on a board populated by misogynist assholes.
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Nebu
Terracotta Army
Posts: 17613
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Has this gone live yet? I'm bored with CoH.
EDIT: Appears that it did on 12/13.
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"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."
- Mark Twain
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LK
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4268
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I can't bring myself to do it. The initial allure is great but then there's always that wall of grind that you hit.
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"Then there's the double-barreled shotgun from Doom 2 - no-one within your entire household could be of any doubt that it's been fired because it sounds like God slamming a door on his fingers." - Yahtzee Croshaw
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