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.

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, 2010 the number of players online never totals over 40,000.
Gameplay involves advancing levels while training to improve skill levels, hunting monsters using weapons and magical spells, 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 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.
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.
Development

Major updates are released about every six 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, 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.