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Tibia (computer game)
Encyclopedia
Tibia is a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) created by CipSoft GmbH. It is one of the oldest MMORPGs and was considered most noteworthy in its early years; however, with the development of MMORPGs its popularity has grown much slower than other gaming
communities. Its most unusual aspect is being in a 2D
environment, which is expected to contribute to the slow growth of the game as the gaming community rapidly shifted to 3D
. It was first released in January 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.
the number of players online never totals over 40,000.
There are currently 77 game servers, 38 in Germany
and 39 in the USA. Each server can actively hold 1,000 players; which is now only seen as being nearly reached on the "Optional PvP" worlds such as Astera, Calmera, Candia, Celesta, Fidera, etc. CipSoft
reports there are about 1.3 million registered accounts. According to polls conducted by CipSoft their customers come from a wide range of countries. The top three countries within the poll are Brazil
with 26.56%, Poland
with 24.38%, and Sweden
with 8.65% representing their share of the aforementioned 1.4 million registered accounts.
During the early 2000s many players from smaller towns in countries such as Australia and New Zealand, as well as across Europe, used to play this game as the bandwidth requirements are lower than many other games, whilst still having reliable servers and many admins patrolling. Since then, as faster and larger internet connections have become far more widespread, the game has not attracted to newer players, though a large amount of the playerbase has been playing for some time. Over the last few years the game has been largely updated to counter that, but whilst it has had limited success bringing in newer players it also has driven a lot of the older players away from the game.
, gathering treasures, doing quests and exploring the Tibia world. Players interact with each other in character for conversation, trade and group battles and partake in guild
s 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.
When creating a character, over 77 different worlds (servers) can be chosen from. While each world is exactly the same in appearance, players cannot communicate cross-server. There are 3 types of worlds:
There is also a Premium world where only premium (paying) players can play. It is of the "Open PvP" type.
The game also has a large number of Non-Playable Characters, or NPCs
. NPCs are there to buy/sell items and for quests and other roleplaying purposes.
The demonym
of a Tibia player is called a Tibian.
There are two types of magic
Spells can be bought from the NPC guild leader of each vocation and runes can be bought from NPCs and other players. Guild leaders are located in most cites. The power of spells relate directly to the character's 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 specially made for mages. With these weapons, they can use their mana points to attack creatures. These wands and rods need a certain level of experience for mages to handle them.
There are also special elemental types of magical damage that each vocation can use and creatures have a strength or weakness in. These are Earth (which includes Poison and nature spells), Fire, Energy, Ice, Holy, Death, and Physical damage. With regards to magic spells, paladins specialize in Holy, Sorcerers in Fire and Energy, Druids in Earth and Ice, and Knights in Physical.
Experience Points are needed to gain levels. Most creatures give experience points for killing them. In most cases, the more difficult the creature is to kill, the more experience points gained.
The term "loot" refers to any item that can be looted from the bodies of dead creatures or players. Loot varies by creature, and some items are found more frequently than others. Loot often includes gold, weapons, shields, helmets, food, quest items, and armor. 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. Most loot can be sold for gold to either other players or NPCs.
New creatures are usually added with each major game update.
With expansion to the game over the years, there are now two main continents, four bigger islands, several smaller islands, and 13 cities. The cities include - in order of appearance - Thais, Carlin, Kazordoon, Ab'Dendriel, Edron, Darashia, Venore, Ankrahmun, Port Hope, Liberty Bay, Svargrond, Yalahar and Farmine. The hunting areas are outside the city walls.
. 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, Gamemasters, Fansite representatives and Senators. Test servers are sometimes opened to the general Tibian public. The major updates usually involve the creation of new cities, hunting areas, spells, weapons, etc. Updates may also include graphic redesign, gameplay changes, and anti-cheating measures. In addition to the major updates, as needed, minor updates are done throughout the year to fix bugs and other minor problems.
Another area of gameplay that gets updated during many of the major updates is "Vocation Balancing". In Tibia, the idea is that all four vocations be equally appealing so that no one vocation is far superior to any other. If it appears that one vocation is far superior than another, changes are made to balance the vocations.
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, and 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.
", and taking advantage of game flaws, such as "teleporting", is considered as a game weakness and may result in harsh bans and instant account deletions for a second offense within six months. If an account has been banished or scheduled for deletion, CipSoft
propagates that the only recourse is to either create a new character, or appeal to Customer Support directly.
The most frequent form of cheating is in the form of using "cave bots", softwares which hunt for players without any input. Complaints on this issue from the player community have been growing during the past years and this is one of the major drawback of the game. So far CipSoft has not been able to counter this problem and it is suspected to be one of the main reasons for the decline of the game. Another common form of cheating is called account sharing. In this case, two or more people share the same account and take turns hunting. This allows the character to gain experience and skill at a much higher rate. In an attempt to lessen account sharing, a "stamina" system was implemented so that if a character is hunting for an excess number of hours, that character would no longer gain any experience for killing creatures.
CipSoft has performed various polls on the official website, suggesting future implementations to lessen cheating. 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.
On 30 January 2009, Cipsoft announced that they banned 4959 characters for using illegal software while playing. A quote from Cipsoft at www.tibia.com states, "These accounts have been identified by an automatic tool with complete accuracy, therefore any complaints about these punishments are in vain. They are final and complaints will be ignored. We will neither reveal our criteria for these punishments, nor will we hand out any proofs." The article goes on to say that Cipsoft is not finished and will continue to work hard to eliminate cheating from the game.http://www.tibia.com/news/?subtopic=latestnews Since then, Cipsoft has used this automatic tool about once a month to ban tens of thousands of accounts.
On 22 September 2010, Cipsoft made fundamental changes to the player versus player fighting mechanism, in an effort to mitigate abuse. An official statement by Cipsoft's product manager in answer to the modification to gameplay: "How can we keep ruling the server now, we can't even enforce our own rules!, How am I supposed to hunt someone off the server now? Well, the answer to this is actually pretty simple: Not at all! This is a game, and everyone who wants to play it has the same right to be able to play it. That means that you are not meant to be able to set your own rules for everyone else on the server and you are neither meant to be able to decide about whether someone else is allowed to play this game. That was the whole idea of working on these issues".
Tibia's "private servers" (also known as OpenTibia servers have drastically increased in use since CipSoft started to make these mass bans against accounts using illegal software whilst playing. Since then, the amount of players online has fallen from around 60,000 players to around 30,000 in a period of 3 fiscal quarters.
's three-part novel
The Lord of the Rings
and its legendarium, suggesting that Tibia's creators were heavily influenced by these works:
Other references can be found throughout the game:
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
communities. Its most unusual aspect is being in a 2D
2D computer graphics
2D computer graphics is the computer-based generation of digital images—mostly from two-dimensional models and by techniques specific to them...
environment, which is expected to contribute to the slow growth of the game as the gaming community rapidly shifted to 3D
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
. It was first released in January 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.
History
In the early years of the game, CipSoft GmbH held player statistics, including amount of registered players; but these were removed with the growth of the game for performance reasons. For this reason, the amount of players cannot be accurately estimated, but the players totaled over 64,000 online on November 28, 2007. Comparatively, as of December 01, 2010the number of players online never totals over 40,000.
There are currently 77 game servers, 38 in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and 39 in the USA. Each server can actively hold 1,000 players; which is now only seen as being nearly reached on the "Optional PvP" worlds such as Astera, Calmera, Candia, Celesta, Fidera, etc. CipSoft
CipSoft
CipSoft GmbH, or CIP, is a video game developer based in Regensburg, Germany which produces the online roleplaying game Tibia. They also market Tibia Micro Edition, a cell-phone-based version of the game...
reports there are about 1.3 million registered accounts. According to polls conducted by CipSoft their customers come from a wide range of countries. The top three countries within the poll are Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
with 26.56%, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
with 24.38%, and Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
with 8.65% representing their share of the aforementioned 1.4 million registered accounts.
During the early 2000s many players from smaller towns in countries such as Australia and New Zealand, as well as across Europe, used to play this game as the bandwidth requirements are lower than many other games, whilst still having reliable servers and many admins patrolling. Since then, as faster and larger internet connections have become far more widespread, the game has not attracted to newer players, though a large amount of the playerbase has been playing for some time. Over the last few years the game has been largely updated to counter that, but whilst it has had limited success bringing in newer players it also has driven a lot of the older players away from the game.
Gameplay
Gameplay involves advancing levels while training to improve skill levels, hunting monsters using weapons and magical spellsMagic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
, gathering treasures, doing quests and exploring the Tibia world. Players interact with each other in character for conversation, trade and group battles and partake in guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
s 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.
When creating a character, over 77 different worlds (servers) can be chosen from. While each world is exactly the same in appearance, players cannot communicate cross-server. There are 3 types of worlds:
- Open PvP: You can attack and kill anyone but you will get a "skull" for this, which means that anyone can kill you without getting that respective "skull" mark.
- Optional PvP: Player-versus-player combat is not permitted unless during guild wars (which must be accepted by both sides). No skull system.
- Hardcore PvP: Player-versus-player is encouraged - instead of penalties there are rewards (experience).
There is also a Premium world where only premium (paying) players can play. It is of the "Open PvP" type.
Characters and vocations
In the game, there are four vocations, each with their advantages and disadvantages. All new characters start out without a vocation. Once a character reaches level eight, they can go to the Island of Destiny where they choose a vocation from four choices. Knights specialize in melee, paladins in distance, sorcerers in offensive magic, and druids in elemental/healing magic. Once a vocation is chosen, the choice cannot be reversed without a character reset. Premium players can purchase a promotion for their character's vocation once they have reached level 20 for a one-time fee of 20,000 gold pieces. The Promotion gives the character various in-game advantages.The game also has a large number of Non-Playable Characters, or NPCs
Non-player character
A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
. NPCs are there to buy/sell items and for quests and other roleplaying purposes.
The demonym
Demonym
A demonym , also referred to as a gentilic, is a name for a resident of a locality. A demonym is usually – though not always – derived from the name of the locality; thus, the demonym for the people of England is English, and the demonym for the people of Italy is Italian, yet, in english, the one...
of a Tibia player is called a Tibian.
Magic
All four vocations can use magic to some degree. Sorcerers and druids have a wide variety of magic spells available to them, while paladins and knights have a limited variety.There are two types of magic
- Instant magic - Magical syntaxes that once cast will consume mana in order to produce the desired effect
- Rune magic - Magic that is cast by using a rune
Spells can be bought from the NPC guild leader of each vocation and runes can be bought from NPCs and other players. Guild leaders are located in most cites. The power of spells relate directly to the character's 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 specially made for mages. With these weapons, they can use their mana points to attack creatures. These wands and rods need a certain level of experience for mages to handle them.
There are also special elemental types of magical damage that each vocation can use and creatures have a strength or weakness in. These are Earth (which includes Poison and nature spells), Fire, Energy, Ice, Holy, Death, and Physical damage. With regards to magic spells, paladins specialize in Holy, Sorcerers in Fire and Energy, Druids in Earth and Ice, and Knights in Physical.
Creatures
Creatures are the inhabitants of Tibia aside from human players and NPCs. Every different type of creature has its own unique characteristics. Player characters hunt creatures to gain experience points and loot.Experience Points are needed to gain levels. Most creatures give experience points for killing them. In most cases, the more difficult the creature is to kill, the more experience points gained.
The term "loot" refers to any item that can be looted from the bodies of dead creatures or players. Loot varies by creature, and some items are found more frequently than others. Loot often includes gold, weapons, shields, helmets, food, quest items, and armor. 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. Most loot can be sold for gold to either other players or NPCs.
New creatures are usually added with each major game update.
Quests
Quests are in-game challenges where a player or group of players solve challenging riddles or puzzles or fight difficult creatures for a special reward. Rewards vary from gold to equipment to items needed for other quests. Some areas of Tibia can only be accessed once a certain quest is completed or started. For example, the Isle of the Kings can only be accessed once the White Raven Monastery Quest has been completed.Areas
All characters start in a tutorial island which was added in 2008, there they can gain some basic knowledge about the game, they can choose to go through the tutorial or continue to Rookgaard. Rookgaard, created in December 1999, is where players learn to play Tibia. Once a character has reached level 8, it can leave Rookgaard, through the Island of Destiny, for the mainland. Once a character leaves Rookgaard, it can never return, unless it is lowered to level 5. If this happens, characters are completely reset. After the summer update of 2008, two new areas were added to Rookgaard, a tutorial island and a vocation island. When Tibia started out in 1997, there was only one city and that one city was called Tibia. Since the addition of more cities, the city of Tibia was renamed "Thais" and the name "Tibia" has since come to refer to the name of the main continent.With expansion to the game over the years, there are now two main continents, four bigger islands, several smaller islands, and 13 cities. The cities include - in order of appearance - Thais, Carlin, Kazordoon, Ab'Dendriel, Edron, Darashia, Venore, Ankrahmun, Port Hope, Liberty Bay, Svargrond, Yalahar and Farmine. The hunting areas are outside the city walls.
Development
Major updates are released about every six months by CipSoftCipSoft
CipSoft GmbH, or CIP, is a video game developer based in Regensburg, Germany which produces the online roleplaying game Tibia. They also market Tibia Micro Edition, a cell-phone-based version of the game...
. 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, Gamemasters, Fansite representatives and Senators. Test servers are sometimes opened to the general Tibian public. The major updates usually involve the creation of new cities, hunting areas, spells, weapons, etc. Updates may also include graphic redesign, gameplay changes, and anti-cheating measures. In addition to the major updates, as needed, minor updates are done throughout the year to fix bugs and other minor problems.
Another area of gameplay that gets updated during many of the major updates is "Vocation Balancing". In Tibia, the idea is that all four vocations be equally appealing so that no one vocation is far superior to any other. If it appears that one vocation is far superior than another, changes are made to balance the vocations.
Phasing out of Game Masters (GMs)
In late 2010, CipSoft GmbH decided to phase-out the "Game Master" system which had been used since launch. The Game Masters, commonly known as "GMs" to the community were well compensated for their time with a rare item of their choice. CipSoft GmbH implemented a new report statement function to the game client that players could use themselves, and the official course of action is for customer support to deal with all game queries, these representatives can be noted on the game's forum boards as Community Managers, or "CM" for short.Support and rules
The Tibian support system is based on a hierarchy of ranks, from lowest to highest: Tutor, Senior Tutor, and Customer Support. Retired gamemasters and long-term tutors may also - with prior invitation by CipSoft - choose to adopt the title of Senator.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, and 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.
Rule violations
Sharing accounts, selling accounts, using any and all non-official programs such as "botsComputer game bot
A bot, most prominently in the first-person shooter types , is a type of weak AI expert system software which for each instance of the program controls a player in deathmatch, team deathmatch and/or cooperative human player. Computer bots may play against other bots and/or human players in unison,...
", and taking advantage of game flaws, such as "teleporting", is considered as a game weakness and may result in harsh bans and instant account deletions for a second offense within six months. If an account has been banished or scheduled for deletion, CipSoft
CipSoft
CipSoft GmbH, or CIP, is a video game developer based in Regensburg, Germany which produces the online roleplaying game Tibia. They also market Tibia Micro Edition, a cell-phone-based version of the game...
propagates that the only recourse is to either create a new character, or appeal to Customer Support directly.
The most frequent form of cheating is in the form of using "cave bots", softwares which hunt for players without any input. Complaints on this issue from the player community have been growing during the past years and this is one of the major drawback of the game. So far CipSoft has not been able to counter this problem and it is suspected to be one of the main reasons for the decline of the game. Another common form of cheating is called account sharing. In this case, two or more people share the same account and take turns hunting. This allows the character to gain experience and skill at a much higher rate. In an attempt to lessen account sharing, a "stamina" system was implemented so that if a character is hunting for an excess number of hours, that character would no longer gain any experience for killing creatures.
CipSoft has performed various polls on the official website, suggesting future implementations to lessen cheating. 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.
On 30 January 2009, Cipsoft announced that they banned 4959 characters for using illegal software while playing. A quote from Cipsoft at www.tibia.com states, "These accounts have been identified by an automatic tool with complete accuracy, therefore any complaints about these punishments are in vain. They are final and complaints will be ignored. We will neither reveal our criteria for these punishments, nor will we hand out any proofs." The article goes on to say that Cipsoft is not finished and will continue to work hard to eliminate cheating from the game.http://www.tibia.com/news/?subtopic=latestnews Since then, Cipsoft has used this automatic tool about once a month to ban tens of thousands of accounts.
On 22 September 2010, Cipsoft made fundamental changes to the player versus player fighting mechanism, in an effort to mitigate abuse. An official statement by Cipsoft's product manager in answer to the modification to gameplay: "How can we keep ruling the server now, we can't even enforce our own rules!, How am I supposed to hunt someone off the server now? Well, the answer to this is actually pretty simple: Not at all! This is a game, and everyone who wants to play it has the same right to be able to play it. That means that you are not meant to be able to set your own rules for everyone else on the server and you are neither meant to be able to decide about whether someone else is allowed to play this game. That was the whole idea of working on these issues".
Tibia's "private servers" (also known as OpenTibia servers have drastically increased in use since CipSoft started to make these mass bans against accounts using illegal software whilst playing. Since then, the amount of players online has fallen from around 60,000 players to around 30,000 in a period of 3 fiscal quarters.
Allusions to other conceptual fantasy genres
Tibia has been noted to include several References to J. R. R. TolkienJ. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
's three-part novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
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 mythologyNorse mythologyNorse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...
, including races of Elves, Dwarves, Giant Spiders, and OrcOrcAn orc is one of a race of mythical human-like creatures, generally described as fierce and combative, with grotesque features and often black, grey or greenish skin. This mythology has its origins in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien....
s. It also references names from Norse mythology, such as DurinDurinDurin is the name of seven Kings of Dwarves in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. They were held by the Dwarves to be the reincarnations of the first one, Durin the Deathless, resembling him in appearance and said to have preserved memories of their 'earlier lives'.Tolkien took the name Durin, like...
, that Tolkien refers to. - A non-player characterNon-player characterA non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
quotes from The Fellowship of the RingThe Fellowship of the RingThe Fellowship of the Ring is the first of three volumes of the epic novel The Lord of the Rings by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It takes place in the fictional universe Middle-earth. It was originally published on July 29, 1954 in the United Kingdom...
(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, There is 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:
- Within the dwarven caves, there is a sleeping beauty locked in a room with seven dwarves, and a witch and an apple that cannot be grabbed. This is in relation to the fairy tale Snow WhiteSnow White"Snow White" is a fairy tale known from many countries in Europe, the best known version being the German one collected by the Brothers Grimm...
- In King Tibianus' court, his guards are named Harsky and Stutch. These parody Starsky and HutchStarsky and HutchStarsky and Hutch is a 1970s American cop thriller television series that consisted of a 90-minute pilot movie and 92 episodes of 60 minutes each; created by William Blinn, produced by Spelling-Goldberg Productions, and broadcast between April 30, 1975 and May 15, 1979 on the ABC...
. - 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 GrailMonty Python and the Holy GrailMonty Python and the Holy Grail is a 1974 British comedy film written and performed by the comedy group Monty Python , and directed by Gilliam and Jones...
. - The game also contains several references to human anatomyHuman anatomyHuman anatomy is primarily the scientific study of the morphology of the human body. Anatomy is subdivided into gross anatomy and microscopic anatomy. Gross anatomy is the study of anatomical structures that can be seen by the naked eye...
, starting with the title TibiaTibiaThe tibia , shinbone, or shankbone is the larger and stronger of the two bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates , and connects the knee with the ankle bones....
(the shin bone) itself. Fibula, Sternum, and FemurFemurThe femur , or thigh bone, is the most proximal bone of the leg in tetrapod vertebrates capable of walking or jumping, such as most land mammals, birds, many reptiles such as lizards, and amphibians such as frogs. In vertebrates with four legs such as dogs and horses, the femur is found only in...
(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, CipSoftCipSoftCipSoft GmbH, or CIP, is a video game developer based in Regensburg, Germany which produces the online roleplaying game Tibia. They also market Tibia Micro Edition, a cell-phone-based version of the game...
renamed Tibia, Thais, as to avoid confusion. Thais may also refer to the thighs of legs. ~ The Thais Parody theme was actually meant to be after Brazilian Footballer Thaís Helena da Silva or simply "Thais" as CipSoft have always been influenced by their football and back when Tibia was first created had a large number of Brazilian fans. - In a bar in one of the game cities, there is a sign which reads, "'Crossbows n' Tulips' will be playing soon in the bar." This is a parody of Guns N' RosesGuns N' RosesGuns N' Roses is an American hard rock band, formed in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, in 1985. The band has released six studio albums, three EPs, and one live album...
. - Some of the gravestones in Tibia mention penguins and windows, referring to the LinuxLinuxLinux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
penguin, TuxTuxTux is a penguin character and the official mascot of the Linux kernel. Originally created as an entry to a Linux logo competition, Tux is the most commonly used icon for Linux, although different Linux distributions depict Tux in various styles. In video games featuring the character, female...
, and the Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
operating system. - In a tomb, there is a floor that resembles the layout of Pac-ManPac-Manis an arcade game developed by Namco and licensed for distribution in the United States by Midway, first released in Japan on May 22, 1980. Immensely popular from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is considered one of the classics of the medium, virtually synonymous with video games,...
. - Numerous NPCs in the game talk about "Excalibug" being the ultimate weapon, similar to ExcaliburExcaliburExcalibur is the legendary sword of King Arthur, sometimes attributed with magical powers or associated with the rightful sovereignty of Great Britain. Sometimes Excalibur and the Sword in the Stone are said to be the same weapon, but in most versions they are considered separate. The sword was...
in King Arthur stories. - There's a place called "Hard Rock Tavern", a reference to Hard Rock CafeHard Rock CafeHard Rock Cafe is a chain of theme restaurants founded in 1971 by Americans Peter Morton & Isaac Tigrett. In 1979, the cafe began covering its walls with rock and roll memorabilia, a tradition which expanded to others in the chain. In 2006, Hard Rock was sold to the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and...
. - 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 comic, TV show and movie Teenage Mutant Ninja TurtlesTeenage Mutant Ninja TurtlesThe Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are a fictional team of four teenage anthropomorphic turtles, who were trained by their anthropomorphic rat sensei in the art of ninjutsu and named after four Renaissance artists...
. - In a swamp near the city of Venore, you can find a book with the text "Wyrd sisters by Terry P.", a reference to the book, Wyrd SistersWyrd SistersWyrd Sisters is Terry Pratchett's sixth Discworld novel, published in 1988, and re-introduces Granny Weatherwax of Equal Rites.- Plot :...
. - In Thais, there is an NPC wearing red and yellow clothes named Donald McRonald, a Ronald McDonaldRonald McDonaldRonald McDonald is a clown character used as the primary mascot of the McDonald's fast-food restaurant chain. In television commercials, the clown inhabits a fantasy world called McDonaldland, and has adventures with his friends Mayor McCheese, the Hamburglar, Grimace, Birdie the Early Bird, and...
parody. - The game is very similar to the Ultima series in many aspects.
See also
- Massively multiplayer online role-playing gameMassively multiplayer online role-playing gameMassively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
(MMORPG) - CipSoftCipSoftCipSoft GmbH, or CIP, is a video game developer based in Regensburg, Germany which produces the online roleplaying game Tibia. They also market Tibia Micro Edition, a cell-phone-based version of the game...
- MUDMUDA MUD , pronounced , is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, with the term usually referring to text-based instances of these. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction, and online chat...
- Tibia Micro EditionTibia Micro EditionTibia Micro Edition is the world's first MMORPG for mobile phones.It is often called TibiaME or sometimes Tibia: Land of Heroes The story of TibiaME is inspired by the online role-playing game Tibia. It was first marketed by CipSoft GmbH only to T-Mobile customers using Nokia 3650 and Nokia 7650...