Tibia shaped my childhood. It was, and still is, quite a unique game:
- The chat was used not only for player communication, but to interact with NPCs ("hi, buy 1 plate armor, yes") and casting spells (you say "utani gran hur" to cast Strong Haste).
- Items could be dropped on the ground and moved. Some of them blocked entity movement, or made stairs, creating all sorts of strategies.
- PvP was ruthless: clans would "blacklist" players they didn't like, killing them on sight until the player lost almost all their levels and were sent back to the tutorial area.
- Monsters were (ab)used for PvP: players would often lure strong monsters to major roads, or use stairs/holes to pile up many monsters in one tile for a deadly trap.
- Death penalty was very strict: 10% of your total exp (easily weeks or months of work), all the items in your backpack, and an independent 10% dice roll of dropping each equipment piece.
I actually think the PvP and death penalty was too harsh for young me, I still remember the panic of being chased, or getting disconnected (your character stayed in the world, helpless, for a few minutes).
Tibia has inspired me to learn programming and then to become
a game developer. Almost 20 years later, when I no longer need to code in my professional work, I am creating a game that is heavily influenced by Tibia and its mechanics in my free time.
Their PVP system was insane - you really felt the death of your character. Like, you could lose weeks of your game in one second.
I remember that dying in this game is extremely stressful. Moreso than in any other game I played. Each death removes the XP from your character often equivalent to XX hours of effort to level up. And it is not that hard to die, so you have to put a lot of attention in what you are doing and it creates an illusion of importance. It is very addictive. I do not recommend it.
I remember dying in the MUD i played. You respawn naked in town, finally get to your corpse and find that the mob that killed you has looted pieces of your gear and is now holding your sword. good luck beating them now. and as bonus you have aged. now it takes more movement points to move from room to room, eventually you are just too old to more about practically and have to re-roll. To avoid dying there was a panic threshold, where your character would pick a random direction and flee. Fun memories of being chaos of being chased by angry mobs, while i was bleeding with a broken leg, lost, in the dark.
Was there a reason originally that sound was not implemented? For the players here, what did you do instead? Did you have a "Tibia playlist" in winamp or similar?
Ok, we've taken the oldness claim out of the title now. (Submitted title was "Oldest active MMO, Tibia, is adding sound to the game after 25 years"). Let's discuss the interesting bits now please!
- The chat was used not only for player communication, but to interact with NPCs ("hi, buy 1 plate armor, yes") and casting spells (you say "utani gran hur" to cast Strong Haste).
- Items could be dropped on the ground and moved. Some of them blocked entity movement, or made stairs, creating all sorts of strategies.
- PvP was ruthless: clans would "blacklist" players they didn't like, killing them on sight until the player lost almost all their levels and were sent back to the tutorial area.
- Monsters were (ab)used for PvP: players would often lure strong monsters to major roads, or use stairs/holes to pile up many monsters in one tile for a deadly trap.
- Death penalty was very strict: 10% of your total exp (easily weeks or months of work), all the items in your backpack, and an independent 10% dice roll of dropping each equipment piece.
I actually think the PvP and death penalty was too harsh for young me, I still remember the panic of being chased, or getting disconnected (your character stayed in the world, helpless, for a few minutes).