Tibia (computer game)

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Tibia
Developer(s) CipSoft GmbH
Publisher(s) CipSoft GmbH
Platform(s) Windows, Linux
Release date(s) January 1997, 2-3 updates per year (currently at version 8.40)
Genre(s) MMORPG
Mode(s) Multiplayer
Media Download (approx. 20 MB for Windows, 22 MB for Linux)
System requirements Windows 95/98/ME/XP/2000/Vista or Linux with libc version 5+, 38 MB hard disk space (Windows) 44 MB hard disk space (Linux), DirectX 5 or X Window System installed & Hardware accelerated graphics driver (for Linux), Internet access.
Tibia dungeon with some players and creatures.

Tibia is one of the oldest 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 700,000 players, mostly from from Netherlands, Mexico,Chile, Brazil, The United States, Poland and Sweden[citation needed], distributed amongst some 74 servers located in Germany and The United States.

Game play involves advancing levels while 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 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 called the skull system. Some servers do not allow such player versus player combat at all, while others encourage it by rewarding experience for kills.

Contents

[edit] Vocations

In the game, there are 4 vocations, each with advantages and disadvantages. Premium players can purchase a promotion for their characters vocation once they have reached level 20 or above and they must pay a one-time fee of 20,000 gold pieces in-game. Once a promotion is bought, it will last as long as the player has a premium account. When the premium account is renewed, the player also regains his promotion. The 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 on an area. They are noted for their mastery in the art of distance fighiting as evidenced by their ability auto gain the distance skill faster than any other vocation. Their distance skill increases twice as fast as melee for knights, but gain shielding at the same rate. The paladin is also noted for having a well rounded selection of spells including the devastaiiting "Divine Caldera" (exevo mas san).

When promoted, they become "Royal Paladin" their health regenerates at a much faster rate.

All played character classes have support spells and only Druids and Sorcerers can summon. There is no level cap in the game.

Knights These are specialized in close fighting, cannot create runes, and bad and magic. The easiest to play with, and frequently is named as "Blocker". Its strongest spell attack is "exori gran".

Sorcerers These are specialized in black magic. Most of its spells are for attack , and not for healing. Very good attackers at long dinstances. Their life is the mana , that is activated with the spell "utamo vita". For doing magic, it waste its mana , that is recovered via fluids. Its devasting spell is "exevo gran mas flam"

Druids These are specialized in white magic. It has't strong attack spells like sorcerers, but have strong healing spells(exura gran mas res,exura vita) , and can heal other players ( exura sio "name)

[edit] Non playing Characters

"NPC" stands for "Non-Playable Character". They are characters that are in specific places throughout Tibia, and they are not controlled by a real-life human being.

Most NPCs in Tibia exist for the buying and selling of items, but not all NPCs buy and sell things. Some NPCs are in the game as part of a Quest and others are merely for roleplaying purposes.

[edit] Development

Major updates are released every 6 months 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] Creatures

Creatures are the inhabitants of Tibia aside from human players and NPCs. Every different type of creature has its own characteristics which make it unique.

Creatures share the entire world of Tibia, and therefore you can find them all throughout the land. They will generally stay with other creatures of their own kind. That's why you must be careful when entering unknown terrain; one creature doesn't have to be dangerous, but when they group up you might have a much tougher time dealing with your enemies. Different creatures prefer different environments. This is why you can find Deer and Rabbits in grassy places. Slimes will always be found near water (usually underground), Dwarves spend most of their time in the mines and Demons and other Undead creatures prefer places deep underground, far away from sunlight. In general, the most dangerous places are the hardest to reach.

  • Experience Points

Killing creatures will most of the time grant you experience points which will cause your expercience level to increase. But on the flipside there are creatures who don't intend to fight you such as Deers, Rabbits and Squirrels. These creatures have no real way of fighting back, and so they will run away as soon as they notice a player. The stronger the creature you kill, the more experience points you are to receive. Whenever a player dies, by either another player; a monster or an element, they will lose a part of their experience points. This is based on a players level and can be positively be influenced by buying blessings in trade for money. Note: on Player-versus-Player worlds playes can get experience points by killing creatures or other players. On these worlds the Skull system is not activated.

  • Loot

The term "loot" refers to any item that can be scavaged (looted) from the bodies of dead creatures or players. Loot varies by creature, and some items are found more frequently than others. Usually the most valuable items are the most rare. Creatures can only drop items which the game producers have installed them to drop. For instance; an Orc can not drop Dragon hams, while Dragons can not drop a piece of meat.


[edit] Quests

Quests are in-game challenges where a player or group of players solve challenging riddles or puzzles for a special reward; some quests in fact involve challenging monsters a lot of time. The purposes vary; getting money, getting rare items or just have fun with friends. Some quests also need to be completed to access certain area's. A number of quests can only be started if players have a Premium Account, are a certain level, or helped out an NPC in need of an helping hand.

[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. Also, Cipsoft even makes fun of the hackers and bugs by having event monsters named after the hacks or bugs for players to kill and that drop unique loot.

[edit] Magic

There are two types of magic:

  • Instant magic - Are magical syntaxes that once cast will consume some mana in order to produce the desired effect.
  • Rune magic - Magic that is cast while having a 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 characters level and magic level, more so the latter. The damage of some spells, such as a knight's Berserk spell, also take into account the skill level of the character.

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, 22, 26, 33, 37 and 42 you gain the ability to use sequentially stronger ones.

There are also special elemental types of magical damage that each vocation can use and creatures have a strength or weakness in. There are Earth, Fire, Energy, Ice, Holy, and Death damage, besides Physical damage. Paladins specialize in Holy; Sorcerers specialize in Fire and Energy; Druids specialize in Earth and Ice and are also very good healers; Knights specialize in Physical.

[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 may 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, CipSoft propagates that the only recourse is to either create a new character, or if you feel the punishment was not correctly warranted, contact Customer Support directly.

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 2008-07-03.

[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 named after 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:

  • 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 (Schneewittchen 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.
  • In a swamp near the city of Venore, you can find a book with the text "Wyrd sisters by Terry P.", an obvious reference to the book, Wyrd Sisters

[edit] See also

Video games portal

[edit] References

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