"Eine Welt, die schon eine geraume Zeit existiert, hat eine Vergangenheit und somit auch eine Geschichte :). So auch Tibia, und das Wissen um die Geschichte Tibias soll hier gesammelt werden, damit das, was durch die Zeit passiert, nämlich Geschehenes zu Vergessen, nicht geschieht. Dabei geht es hier nicht um die Legenden und Mythen, wie sie in der Enzyklopaedia beschrieben sind und mehr auf Glauben und Träume basiert, nein, hierbei geht es um das reine Wissen über und um Tibia, was dort wirklich geschah."
("A world that has existed for a long time has a past and therefore also a history. So also Tibia, and the knowledge about the history of Tibia should be collected here so that what happens through time, namely what happened to be forgotten, does not happen. This is not about the legends and myths as they are described in the encyclopedia and based more on beliefs and dreams, no, this is about the pure knowledge about and about Tibia, what really happened there.")
Thor
I am Karr Chaos and I have led the Nightmare Knights guild on Antica for nearly two decades. Our mission has been the chronicling of Tibia's past, using resources like this website to continue our long tradition of remembering Tibia's earliest times and its historic journey. When I first began playing Tibia back in 1999 I never realized that this game would form such a large part of my life, nor did I think that this site would stand for more than 18 years as one of the few remaining repositories of history. It is only when I began to write this long tome that I realized how much history had already been lost, and how important it was that I finish this project. Thor too had sat down to write about the past with hope to expand his story but no further words were ever spoken, and what was written was nearly lost entirely. Though I am an early adopter of the internet, I still forget that the permanence of the internet is an illusion, as electronic decay happens instantaneously without notice or warning, like our beloved WoT site.
Today I pick up the torch Thor left behind and carry the Tibian story forward one more step. It is my desire that you learn from this journey, to see how far we have come, how much change we have seen, and understand how Tibia evolved to the game we see today. Perhaps maybe you will one day take the next step, carrying the torch forward one more step as you add to Tibia's history?
I am only one historian, and it would be too much for me to record the entirety of Tibia's 25-year journey. Chronicling the first 5 years of Tibia's history took over a year of research and writing, and each new version I have added since will take more time. For me this is a journey of love, a revisit of my own path, as I look back at one of the longest running MMOs. I have been privileged to be a part of more than 20 years of its history, and now you will see through my eyes as we gaze back at Tibia's metamorphosis from a humble university project into a multimillion-dollar company. All stories start with a powerful catalyst to spur change, and few can be more catalyzing than the birth of the internet.
TLDR: This project is massive, so if you're looking for the cliff notes I highly recommend you check out Ranis History of Antica video I know you're thinking 59 minutes can't be the fast version of Tibia history, but it really is.
What? You don't have 49 minutes watch a video? Maybe you could check out either of the CIPs versions (2002) (2009) (2016) of what happened instead!
Looking back, it seems obvious how the creation of the internet would become an epoch moment for our society. It is funny how these events rarely seem monumental as you live through them, and many people at the time saw the internet as just a niche novelty, a fad to be tried and discarded when the next new thing captured our social consciousness. The early internet really didn't discourage this notion as accessing the internet was often slow and expensive, and the idea of playing a game with people around the world seemed outlandishly crazy.
Playing a game with players around the world might have remained unlikely if it were not for the commercialization of the internet in the mid-90s which challenged all previous thoughts of how the internet would be used. Now those outside of the exclusive domain of rich academia could pay a flat monthly fee to access the internet through their phone lines, provided they had a computer. Without this crucial step, Tibia was unlikely to exist as there wouldn't be a market to support it.
Speaking of Tibia, you might be wondering why an online game would be named after a bone in the leg. In its very early production the game was not called Tibia but "GIMUD – an abbreviation for Graphical Interface Multi-User Dungeon". Tibia was only later chosen before launch as CIP was convinced it "would be unique and fresh, and without any given meanings yet." Unfortunately they later "found out that Tibia is the Latin anatomic term for shinbone, and it became a running gag in the future development of Tibia to give some ingame areas anatomic names as well, like Fibula or Mount Sternum." Also unfortunate for me as Google now believes I am a specialty leg doctor due to all the research over the last year for this project.
With the name of the game chosen, development in Tibia would begin in autumn of 1995 as the vision of three university students:
Stephan Börzsönyi (IT student, University of Passau),
Uli Schlott (Durin) (business IT student, University of Regensburg),
Stephan Vogler (business IT student, University of Regensburg):
"The idea of writing an online role-playing-game emerged during autumn 1995, when we realized the great potential of the Internet. Unlike the text based multi-user-dungeons at that time, our game should have a graphical user-interface, thus giving the player a better impression of the world he lives in." (cipsoft)
Tibia was neither the first MMO nor the first graphical MMO, but it was part of the first generation of this game type and was considered noteworthy in its earliest years. I could spend the rest of this paragraph spouting the history of MMOs but I think you would be much better served by watching Psimek's video which covers much of this early era of the internet and the first MMO's that were created. If Polish isn't your language do not worry, Youtube has a closed caption option so you can read the subtitles in whichever language you choose. Technology sure has changed since Tibia was first created!
Over the Easter holidays of 1996, the three university students began with the planning of Tibia, developing the basic routines that was needed to create the map, handle the objects that would appear on it, as well as implement an editor to easily adjust these objects (MudEdit). In this early phase, the students developed how each computer would talk each other which was needed to turn a standalone game into a multiplayer experience. They "experimented with sockets and the TCP/IP-protocol in order to set up a communication between two hosts", and by August, 1996, had a server program running on Linux and a working client for Windows. This simple client allowed for an avatar to walk around a map created by the MudEdit program. To allow the avatar to be able to interact with the game, the team created a system to move, pick up, and drop items, enabling players to manipulate items on the map as well as in their own inventory which existed on their avatar. From this basic structure all other features could be added, and in the fall of 1996 "the functionality of Tibia grew rapidly."
A graphical game with many different human users needs a way to distinguish players from each other to craft their own stories visually on the screen. The students developed a system to make a semi customizable character, allowing players to choose between different heads, bodies, legs, and shoes from a narrow, predefined list. These different pieces would combine to make a semi unique character. The game developers called this completed character the Player Avatar and was the vehicle that players used to explore the Tibian world, interacting with other player's avatars to craft their own stories.
A semi unique avatar was still not a unique character, so names were also added to the avatar to distinguish them once they spoke to other players in game using the created chat system. Once a player was online they could type a comment in the text field below the graphical window and it would appear above their avatar in a speech bubble, also displaying their chosen name.
The idea behind crafting a unique character was that players would return and invest in their time into their unique character over multiple play periods. To make this possible a user management system was created to allow players to "save" their data so they could resume progress with the same designed character after logging off. This would allow them to build a reputation overtime as the uniqueness of the avatar was visually recognizable in game.
The final step was to create a simple homepage so players had someplace to go to find information and download the game. With this step completed, the game was ready to be launched nine months after it was conceived. The students, who had been juggling the game's creation during their normal studies as part of their school work, decided that the game was ready to launch as a permanent test server.
