| Tibia | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | CipSoft |
| Publisher(s) | CipSoft |
| Year released | 1997 |
| System(s) | Windows, Linux, macOS |
| Designer(s) | Piotrek Internationekczy |
|---|---|
| Genre(s) | RPG |
| Modes | MMOG |
Tibia is one of the oldest PC MMORPGS. Shortcomings are offset by the resulting small download size and modest system requirements.
Tibia's success can also be attributed to the fact that a large portion of the game, which can be downloaded from an official website, is still playable free of charge. This is in contrast to larger, more recent MMORPGs, which must be bought at a store and only provide short trial periods.
For a monthly fee, players can upgrade to a "premium account", unlocking some additional areas and game features such as spells and outfits. These players also have priority login rights on the often congested game servers. Currently, those servers are located in the United States and Germany.
Although servers are located only in Germany and the United States, players arrive from all over the world, with significant groups from the US, Sweden, Mexico, Brazil and The Netherlands.
Players mostly spend their online time training their characters' skill levels, hunting a large population of monsters with numerous weapons and magical spells, and scouring the vast continent for treasures and fortune. They interact with other players for conversation, to trade various objects, or to form parties to take on even stronger foes. Guilds are also important for many players and provide a way in which to co-operate as a team. Examples of heavily developed guilds such as The Pirates of Tibia, a recreation of the pirates in the golden days of piracy in real life, based on old code of conduct articles in a mix with the regular guild structure style makes them an impressing long runner known as almost unbeatable in their gameworld. There are many other known roleplaying guilds in Tibia, such as the oldest one; The Mercenaries, an organized and relatively calm guild, yet deadly if someone pays them well.
On most of the game's servers, players are also allowed to attack and kill each other, although there is a system in place to keep hostile actions under control. Some servers do not allow such player versus player combat at all, while others encourage it by rewarding experience for kills.
Before game updates, test servers are run to find and repair bugs and glitches within the update. These servers are first available for testing to players that hold official positions such as tutors, senior tutors and gamemasters. The test server is then usually opened to the general Tibian public. Because no permanent change to a player's character occurs on the test server, it is also an opportunity for players to explore, attack and fight in wars, without their main character on a normal server being affected.
After learning the basics of the game on an introductory island reserved for new players called Rookgaard, players may choose one of four classical roleplaying vocations: The Knight, excelling in close combat, the Paladin, mainly a distance fighter, the Druid a spellcaster specializing in defensive (primarily healing) spells, or the Sorcerer, a more aggressive spellcaster specializing in offensive (primarily attack) spells.
The main difference between the classes is the rate at which a character's skill levels increase. For example, a Knight will improve his sword fighting skill faster than any other character class.
Monsters players encounter in the game range from non-aggressive dogs and deer, to easy-to-kill rats, dangerous orcs, fierce dragons, demons and also the aggressive boss monsters such as Orshabaal.
Table of Contents
- Locations
Support And Rules[edit]
The Tibian support is based on a hierarchy of ranks, starting from lowest to highest: Tutor, Senior Tutor, The now defunct Counsellor, Gamemaster, and finally Customer Support
Tutors can take a simple test on their account page, and after 3 months of tutorship tutors become senior tutor. Senior tutors have the additional responsibilities of monitoring the public forums and reporting threads. Also, Senior Tutors report any remarks made by players which are against the game rules. Senior Tutors replaced the former rank of Counsellor, ask CIP has faith in people with no actual experience in answering rule violations and they were most recently moved up to the rank of Gamemaster. Many players disagree with this method, but much to their dismay, the CIPsoft had no comment on the matter.
Support itself is lacking at best, as cheating is at an extreme level, and with the current update it has grown to epidemic proportions. Account Sharing, Multi-Clienting and a plethora of other violations plague the game, but CIPsoft takes the time to use a ban on players who accidentally use a cuss word or use the game-chat to talk about Real life, as the RL-Chat itself is hardly ever used. Bans are commonly handed out to players who have done nothing wrong, while leaving the real account sharing players on the USA worlds unnoticed.
Customer Support should only be a last resort for players seeking assistance as the members send out email assistance which is generated by a bot and is almost all of the time the same letterhead that tells the same information to every player, regardless of the reason of banishment. It also should be noted that when a player receives a ban in game, whether it be justified or not, a removal of the banishment is against CIP code and is never acceptable.
References[edit]
Tibia has been noted to include several References to J. R. R. Tolkien's three-part novel The Lord of the Rings and its legendarium, suggesting that Tibia's creators were heavily influenced by these works:
- Similarly to The Lord of the Rings, Tibia uses the theme of Norse mythology, including races of Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs. It also references names from Norse mythology, such as Durin, that Tolkien refers to.
- Several monsters in Tibia are closely related to those in The Lord of the Rings such as giant spiders or orcs.
- A non-player character quotes from The Fellowship of the Ring (the first part of The Lord of the Rings).
- In Tibia, the underground dwarven city of Kazordoon has a similar name to the dwarven city of Khazad-dûm in The Lord of the Rings.
- In the city of Thais, you can find Frodo's pub and Sam's shop. Both of them are main characters in Tolkien's book.
- In the city of Liberty Bay, there is a small sewer and a locked room with 4 tortoises and a rat, along with weapons such as a katana and throwing stars, in reference to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- The monster Orshabaal, was an idea copied from a monster called the Gatekeeper in The Dark Age game.
- The island of Goroma, with a large volcano, is also an idea copied from the server Veronia, which contains a large volcano and other similar secrets.
Other references can be found throughout the game:
- Somewhere within the dwarven caves, there is a sleeping beauty locked in a room with seven dwarves, a witch and an apple that cannot be grabbed. This is in relation to the Disney movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
- In King Tibianus' court, his guards are named Harsky and Stutch. These are similar to Starsky and Hutch.
- In the Jakundaf Desert, there is a complex cave system that contains a book that refers to the "Holy Hand Grenade" from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
- The game also contains several references to human anatomy, starting with the title Tibia (the shin bone) itself. Fibula, Sternum and Femur are all places in the game as well as bones in the human body.
- In a bar in one of the games cities, the player can read a sign which informs the player that "Crossbows n' Tulips" will be playing soon in the bar. This is a parody of Guns and Roses.
- Some of the gravestones in Tibia mention penguins and windows, referring to the Linux penguin, Tux, and the Microsoft Windows operating system.
- In a tomb, there is a floor [1] that resembles the layout of Pacman.
- Numerous NPCs in the game talk about "Excalibug" being the ultimate weapon, similar to Excalibur in King Arthur stories.
- There's a place called "Hard Rock Tavern", a reference to Hard Rock Cafe.
![[1]](http://tibianews.net/picday/000729.jpg){kind=link}
Game modifications[edit]
Note: The following practices are likely in violation of the program's license or Terms of Service.
It is possible to edit the graphics of the game by modifying certain files, a technique that can be used to create interface skins or change the actual game sprites. These modified files are then exchanged on web sites and internet forums (such as [2]). Some such modifications may give players unfair advantages, for example when trees and other large objects are made invisible so that items hidden behind them can be easily detected. This is considered as cheating.
Other modifications include AFK tools and aimbots. These are also considered cheating and looked down upon by the official community but the usage of these tools is rampant. The first popular cheating application for Tibia was Tibia GG, followed by TibiaSuite. Tibiasuite did not become very popular, but TibiaSuite2 became one of the most used cheats on Tibia. Unfortunately for users, TibiaSuite2 had a back door that sent a persons account details to the creator of the program. Later other cheats took its place such as TibiaBot NG and BlackdProxy. Currently, there are several cheats available, but many require an additional payment after a short trial. However, many people have found a crack which can be used to tackle the 'trial' problem so that they can use the program forever.
Cheats are very popular in Tibia. In fact, the number of cheaters were so high that the game creators started to include cheats in the official client since the version 7.8 . The official cheats are actually: aimbot, lighthack and autohealer.
Misc:
The Dark Age is a game that has evolved from Tibia.
External links[edit]
- TibiaRing - Multilangual source of unique informations about Tibia
- World of tibia - Fansite of Europe's largest free graphical
multiplayer online roleplaying game (English and Deutsch)