A tale in the desert IV http://www.atitd.org  is making some changes to the way it handles new tellings. In the past the game restarts from scratch once the requirements have been met. The entire server is wiped and everyone starts at level 0 .  tellings can take 2+ years  to complete. Sometimes leaving new players feeling a bit lost and behind when they start in the middle of a telling.  This will all be changing soon , as the developer Andrew Tepper has plans on starting a new telling every 3 months, with separate shards/servers for each telling.  When you begin to play the game , you will then have the option of deciding where in the telling you would like to start , from new , 3 months , 6 months etc. into the telling.  He plan on implementing this soon in the current telling , with a vast majority of the players in the current telling playing on one shard  and starting a new shard where new players will be directed to an empty tale IV where they start from scratch.  He hopes to  have it running in full swing , by tale V.

      This announcement today met with a lot of criticism from the current player base who feel some players will jump to the new shard once released, and will keep them from attracting new player to their shard. Others are willing to give it a try, hoping it will increase the player population. ATITD is a niche game that only has about 300 active players.

   If you have never played it , its worth checking out. You get the first 24hrs of gameplay free. after that the cost is 13.95 a month. I suggest staying for at least a month ,  the first 24hrs doesn't give you a feel for the game. It is a niche game , there is no fighting , no kill 10 monsters and repeat.  You might find enjoyment with building a massive compound, decoding genomes on flowers , flax . Making wine , beer and discovering new flavors ,  Learning chemistry and making explosives. You can also try you hand at completing test , solving riddles and leading your people who will construct a great monument in your name.  It can be whatever you make it.

  So if your looking for something out of the norm, it might be worth checking out the game now before it starts  soon from scratch.

As a former player of ATITD, and long term player(tale 1-present), I can safely say this will not make the game any better, or bring in new players.

ATITD, and it's content, has become redundant over the last few years. Teppy has had several issues with tests, and their release over the years. The player base has also progressively slowed down to almost a complete stop. The ideas are no longer fresh, and the end-game result is always the same.

The same guilds, same players, will always have their GM friends, and Teppy to back them up. They will always be the first to complete, and first to unlock.  After a few years of this, it makes the games objective quite boring,

Teppy needs to invest more time in creating different challanges, rather than trying to open more servers that will just be dead.

Wow, you made your first post 6 years after joining? That's an amazing amount of restraint. You weren't being held prisoner in someone's basement during that time by chance?

 Poor ATitD. . . a month after such a Big Announcement, and nobody seems to care. I don't think new shards for new players are going to help the game get fresh interest. A complete relaunch/ redesign from the ground up might. But I really don't think the tale system is what's keeping new people from jumping in.