A Review of the Massive Online Multi-player Game, Tibia!

Massive Multi Player online games are very popular. We enjoy getting away from our everyday world and moving into a universe unlike our own, where we can be anybody and do anything. Many of these online games are expensive to join up with and require monthly payments that many of us just don't want to pay. The idea behind escaping into another realm of thinking is to leave everything behind, and worrying about monthly instalments of 19.95 just doesn't do anything for me. But there is a game that is completely free and offers the best from any online game. Tibia for your PC is worth checking out if you want an online medieval adventure and competitive play.

The land of Tibia is home to hundreds of thousands of players from across the globe. Most of their players are from the United States but you'll run into Polish, German and Spanish characters as well. The point of the game is to design a character, explore the world, destroy powerful creatures, defend towns and save the lives of your friends. You begin the game in the town of Rookguard on a small island separate from the main cotenant. Here you will have to train your character up to level 8 in order to play in the mainland. You do this by killing small creatures such as rats and gaining experience. Once you hit level 2 you can leave the safety of Rookguard and venture to more dangerous parts of the island.

Once you have achieved level 8 status you speak to an oracle and choose a vocation. Knights are powerful warriors with melee attacks but weak spell casters, druids are weak fighters but have great rune making capability, sorcerers cast powerful spells but have no defense or physical attack power, and paladins use long range weapons like bows and arrows to fight.
You choose the vocation that's right for you, and once you choose there is no turning back.

Once you arrive in the mainland you are faced with a variety of new challenges. More powerful monsters prowl the fields, there are difficult quests to accomplish, hoards of enemy creatures raid towns, and even other players may be out to kill you! In most of the servers Tibia offers, players are allowed to attack one another, and if they succeed they can loot your body, stealing anything that you may have had on your person at the time of your death.

As you advance in levels your magic, or mana and health go up as well. The higher a level you are the more of a chance to survive you have. You can also advance your skills such as sword fighting, shielding, magic casting and a ton of others. There is a large assortment of weapons to select from as well. Axes' swords, spears, bows, wands, rods, clubs and others, each with a certain strategical advantage. Knights advance very quickly with physical weapons but are slow gaining magic abilities, where as a sorcerer or druid will move through magic levels easily, but lack the ability to advance shielding hardly at all.

The map of the island is huge. There are three main towns within the island, Thais, Carlin and Ad'Dendel. Each has a safe area where you can hide from foes and many shops where you can buy food, weapons, armor, and shields. Also in town is where you'll do mundane tasks like banking, and trading goods with other players. Each town hold secrets waiting to be discovered so be sure to explore every squar inch of all three.

Monsters in the game are numerous, with creatures ranging from Trolls, frogs, and rats, to more powerful adversaries like Dragons, Hydras, and Demons. There is an option to upgrade your account to premium status. This will cost a small amount of money at about 5$ a month. With the premium account feature you'll have access to other quests and islands only available to these members, so the option to upgrade is there but not needed to play or enjoy this game. In fact all you need to play is a computer and internet connection, that's it

Tibia is such a huge world with so much to do and explore you can play for years and never experience everything. There are guilds you can join allowing a party to hunt bigger creatures and carry on conversation within the selected group rather then talking out loud. The graphics are a bit low tech, they look similar to the Super Nintendo or Sega style graphics but that's to be expected from an entirely free online game with so many players.

If you have a lot of spare time, or just a little give this game a shot. You'll be sure to enjoy the game casually just hanging out with friends and exploring or competitively trying to outdo everyone out there, being the best swordsmen, axe fighter or magician in the entire world. Also, the main website has a ton of information regarding the game. From a brief history and creation of the island to an in-depth instruction manual, if you decide to give this game a try, then I assure you there will be not shortage of information available. See you in Tibia!