Tibia (computer game)
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| Tibia | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | CipSoft GmbH |
| Publisher(s) | CipSoft GmbH |
| Platform(s) | Windows, Linux |
| Release date | 1997, 2-3 updates per year (currently at version 8.11) |
| Genre(s) | MMORPG |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
| Media | Download only (16 MB) for Linux (approx. 16.7 MB) |
| System requirements | Windows 95/98/ME/XP/2000/Vista or Linux with libc version 5+, 25 MB hard disk space, DirectX 5 or X Window System installed & Hardware accelerated graphics driver (for Linux), Internet access. |
Tibia is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) first released in 1997. It is a free game which is open to the public, though players have the option to pay a fee in order to upgrade to a premium account, granting special in-game benefits, including additional areas to explore, access to vocation promotions, and extra spells.
There are about 350,000 players, the majority of these players are from from Brazil, Poland and Sweden, distributed amongst some 74 servers located in Germany and the United States.
Game play involves training to improve skill levels, hunting monsters using weapons and magical spells, gathering treasure, doing quests and exploring the Tibia world. Players interact with each other in character for conversation, trade and group battles and partake in guilds for more role-playing opportunities. On most of the servers, player versus player or "PVP" combat is allowed as well.
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[edit] Vocations
Vocations are the name Tibia gives to classes in the game. Unlike most games, Tibia allows players to specialize only once they have reached a certain level.
In the game, there are 4 vocations, each with advantages and disadvantages. Premium members can purchase an upgrade or promotion to their character, once they have reached a certain level. Promotion gives the character various in-game advantages.
[edit] Paladins
The paladin is the most well-rounded vocation in the game, neither gaining much nor sacrificing much in any area. They are noted for their mastery in the art of distance fighting as evidenced by their ability to gain the distance skill faster than any other vocation. The paladin is also noted for a well rounded selection of spells. They also use Holy Magic
The promoted version of a Paladin is known as a "Royal Paladin".
[edit] Sorcerers
Sorcerers are masters in the arcane arts of chaos and destruction. While they lack in every way when it comes to physical combat, they have many damaging instant spells that other classes lack, eventually giving them the strongest attacking power in the game at the expense of longevity. Sorcerers are particularly noted for their energy and fire spells as well as wielding a very powerful rune spell (Sudden Death)in the game.
Promoted Sorcerers attain the title of "Master Sorcerer".
[edit] Druids
Druids are most popular for their healing skills. They are the only vocation able to create "Paralyze" Runes. Recent updates have increased their ability with attack spells and runes which make them more useful as part of a group. Druids are noted for their control of the ice and earth magics.
A promoted Druid is known as an "Elder Druid".
[edit] Knights
The knight is most proficient when it comes to melee weapons. Their selection of spells is limited and their magic level progresses slower than paladins. They are aren't very effective when dealing with magic and runes. Knights gain more health per level than other vocations and are effective at close-quarters combat with their unparalleled melee damage, shielding and lack of magic abilities.
Typically, knights are designated as the blocker in group hunts for the above reasons. Their unique ability to use the "challenge" spell to draw aggression toward themselves from nearby monsters further makes this even more evident.
When promoted, they become "Elite Knights".
[edit] Cities
[edit] Mixed Cities
- Rookgaard - This city is where all adventurers in the land of Tibia start out. The name "Rookgaard" is synonymous to that island. Rookgaard is split into a free area and a small premium area. During the first few levels a character remains here until they choose to leave the island permanently and choose a vocation.
[edit] Free Account Cities
- Thais - Thais is the unofficial capital of the realm called "Tibia". King Tibianus III rules here. It is the first city that existed in game. The small town of Greenshore lies to the north, and Fibula to the southwest.
- Venore - Venore is a large, prospering merchant town located on top of a swamp, located in the southeast corner of the mainland. The city is neighbored by an Amazon City and Elven Fortress.
- Kazordoon - Kazordoon, or Kaz for short, is a mountain city in the middle of the Tibia mainland and ran by dwarves (some friendly, some not). Kazordoon is also considered the home city for houses purchased in what's known as Outlaw Camp south of the mountains.
- Ab'Dendriel - This city rests with nature and is the home of the elves. Neighbored by Elven Bane, a fort of renegade elves, this peaceful city is notable for the beautiful tree homes and peaceful scenery. The serenity is only broken by restless tourists and badger infestations.
- Carlin - Carlin is a port city with a reputation that doesn't match the charms of its leader, Queen Eloise. Merchants here keep a tighter grip on their gold, but the merchant's worries are unnecessary, as beautiful women warriors do an excellent job of defending the city. Nearby lays the Ghostlands - a mysterious and haunted grounds, Northport - a small community associated with Carlin, and a ferry that travels to the "Ice Islands" for a small fee of gold. Of which one of these islands Carlin has established a small town.
[edit] Premium Account Cities
The Premium account area is used by players who have paid an extra fee for the usage of this game. All Free Account Cities are also accessible by Premium Accounts.
- Ankrahmun - A city of pyramids located on the island of Darama. It lies in a desert to the east of the jungle, but below the city of Darashia.
- Port Hope - A wooden city located in the Jungle of Tiquanda on an island below the main continent.
- Edron - A big city. North of it are plains with all sorts of land creatures. It is located on an island to the east of the main continent.
- Darashia - Northern desert city of Darama, which is home to Nomads.
- Liberty Bay Southern city located on a tropical island, similar to many Caribbean islands.
- Svargrond - A Nordic city, populated by Norse-like icemen.
[edit] Development
Major updates usually are released semi-annually by CipSoft. 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.
[edit] Monsters
New monsters are added regularly, including Nomads, Wyverns, and even boss monsters. Some monsters are also changed in order to balance the difficulty of the monster with the reward they give.
[edit] Areas
New villages and even continents are added constantly allowing players new places to explore. Such places often include monsters unique to that area and new quests to be completed.
[edit] Vocation Balancing
Each of the four vocations are intended to be equally appealing. To try and accomplish this, the vocations are balanced fairly often, adding features and taking away others in order to remove any bias toward one vocation.
[edit] Bug Fixes
Bugs are also repaired in many of the updates in order to not only fix problems in the client, but to also make it more difficult for cheating programs to be used.
[edit] Magic
There are two types of magic:
- Instant magic - Magic that is cast automatically when you enter the words of the spell.
- Rune magic - Magic that is cast while having a blank rune in your hand.
Spells can be bought from the guild leader of each vocation (Knight, Paladin, Druid, and Sorcerer) which are located in most of the towns.
The power of spells relate directly to the user's character and magic levels, more so the latter.
Magic wands (for Sorcerers) and rods (for Druids) are especially made for mages. With these weapons, they can use their magic points (Mana points) to attack creatures. These wands and rods need a certain level of experience for mages to handle them, as example, at level 8 you get your first free wand/rod, then at levels 13, 19, 26 and 33 you gain the ability to use sequentially stronger ones.
[edit] Support and rules
The Tibian support system is based on a hierarchy of ranks, from lowest to highest: tutor, senior tutor, gamemaster, and finally Customer Support. Retired gamemasters and long-term tutors may also - with prior invitation by CIPsoft - choose to adopt the title of senator.
[edit] Cheating
Sharing accounts, selling accounts and using any and all non-official programs such as "bots" for playing Tibia is considered cheating and will result in harsh bans and instant account deletions for a second offense within 6 months. If your account has been banished or scheduled for deletion, the only recourse is to either create a new character, or if you feel the punishment was not warranted, contacting support.
The most frequent form of cheating today is in the form of using cave-bots, which hunt for players without any input, and sharing accounts with one or more other people, allowing for much faster and constant experience and skill gain. Cipsoft has performed various polls on the official website, suggesting future implementations to lessen cheating, but so far, few public announcements and updates have been made on the issue. Screenshots and/or videos, called "TibiaCams", once were used as incentive to investigate cases of severe or otherwise game-altering cheating, though this practice has been unofficially stopped. The reason for this is that the screenshots or videos can be manipulated to show false information.
[edit] Tutors
The role of tutor encompasses a number of duties, including: answering questions from the in-game help channel and on the help forum; checking the tutor forum and in-game channels regularly; reporting bugs and bad names.
Following 3 months of active tutorship without a bad/false name/bug report, a tutor is automatically promoted to the position of senior tutor. In addition to the tasks of a tutor, this title brings with it a number of further duties: moderation of the public forums and ability to report inappropriate statements from the public in-game channels.
Eligibility for the tutor position is determined by the outcome of an online multiple-choice test on the official website. All subject matter for this test is game-related and can be found in the guide section of the official website. However this test is only available to players whose accounts fulfill certain conditions. Tutor Guide. Retrieved on 2008-04-18.
[edit] References to popular culture
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.
- There are also many references to the Dragonlance book series. Some of these include Kinslayer, the hero of Edron.
Other references can be found throughout the game:
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- 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 fairy tale Snow White (Schneewitchen in German)
- 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 (Femor Hills in the game) are all places in the game as well as bones in the human body. The city of Thais used to be named Tibia (in the earlier days) and the Tibian world was built around it with other bones-of-the-leg-names for locations. When other cities and surrounding areas were created however, Cipsoft renamed Tibia, Thais as to avoid confusion. Thais may also refer to the thighs of legs.
- 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 N' 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 that resembles the layout of Pacman.
- Numerous NPC's 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.
- 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 the 90's TV show and movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
