February 15 will be a historic day for Linux gamers as A Tale In The Desert (http://www.atitd.com) will be the first commercial MMORPG to launch with both Windows and Linux native clients. eGenesis is a strong supporter of open source software and it has been instrumental in the development of A Tale in the Desert. For instance: * The server is a cluster of 9 commodity PCs running Red Hat 8. * eGenesis extended the LGPL library Cal3D (cal3d.sourceforge.net), adding tangent-space calculations to support environment-mapped bump-mapping. eCal3D can be downloaded from: http://www.atitd.com/downloads.html * A number of open-source tools and libraries were used during development, including GCC, LibPNG, ZLib and The GIMP. We invite you to join us on Saturday, Feb 15 at noon EST (-0500 GMT) for the grand opening of A Tale In The Desert. The game will be available as a free downloadable demo featuring 24 hours of play time or one month of service, whichever comes first. Following the initial trial period, the monthly fee is $13.95. More information is available on the official website: http://www.atitd.com German speakers are also invited to join Kemet, A Tale In The Desert's German language server operated by MDO Games (http://www.mdo-games.de). For more information, please visit: http://www.kemet-deutschland.de For more information about A Tale In The Desert, please visit http://www.atitd.com A Tale in the Desert is a radically different massively multiplayer role-playing game. It contains no combat: no monsters, no player-killers, no swords or armor! The objective of A Tale in the Desert is to build the ideal civilization by perfecting the seven disciplines of man: Leadership, Art & Music, Thought, Worship, The Human Body, Architecture, and Conflict. To perfect these disciplines, the players must lead complex projects. Unfortunately, it will not be easy. An evil stranger is at work, trying to corrupt the Egyptians and turn them against themselves. The outcome of the game depends solely on the players. The players build their own cities, they choose their own leaders, and they must meet the strangers challenges. If they can organize themselves and negotiate for what they need, Egypt will flourish. Features: * Seven Disciplines to strive for Each discipline has seven tests, giving a total of 49 tests for your character to achieve. * Player Driven Legal System The laws of Egypt are written and passed by the community. Laws can even be passed to exile rogue players. * 100's of Buildings ATITD includes a large number of buildings that can be built once the relevant research is unlocked. * Research & Technology Seven Universities and Schools, one for each discipline allow players to contribute resources to research new buildings,tests, and technology. * Guilds & Guild Specific Buildings A powerful guild with a large camp can comand respect and power in atitd. Guilds are frequently responsible for major donations to research, unlocking new technology for all of egypt. * Combat Free Gaming There no chance you'll be pk'd while playing ATITD. Conflict in ATITD takes the form of the race to unlock technology, or achieve specific goals.