Review: TibiaME - Cell Phone Multiplayer is Possible
The MMO Gamer reviews its first game made for a mobile device — Tibia Micro Edition from CipSoft.
TibiaME is an entertaining distraction with a balanced amount of depth just right for a cell phone game. The graphics could be compared to the first Final Fantasy for the NES, only without the huge screen-filling bosses, and there is no sound. It has very basic auto-combat, no spells or abilities, and does not have class trainers or even a character stat sheet. It is, however, the only MMO available on a wide range of cell phones, and is based on a very popular PC game. We’ll give you a glimpse into why players around the world keep coming back to this game from 2004.
Tibia Micro Edition (TibiaME) is a dungeon hack successfully realized on a cell phone sized display. It was difficult to get into it at first, but once I overcame the cell phone controls and small screen on the Java emulator, everything started to come along smoothly. You run around and kill stuff, gain experience, kill stuff, get loot, kill stuff, get lost, die, chat with people, and buy stuff. Your main goal is to get to a higher level and maybe one day slay another player and take a piece of their loot. You can meet people and make friends, but this is greatly hindered by the chat system’s lack of a word prediction feature. Everything has to be typed out in text shorthand, and the game does not work with a bluetooth keyboard. The entire combat and movement system consists of the four directional buttons on your phone. You use the number pad to inspect / use / pickup items, and to switch the bottom of the screen to different views. You can toggle between inventory, equipment, mini-map, and chat.
The game was written in Java so it should work on most phones, but the auto-detect download page on the WAP site (wap.tibiame.com) did not properly identify my Treo 700w with Windows Mobile and should have specifically told me that it was not compatible. It took me a little while before I could conclude this on my own. To run the game your phone must have internet and be either a Symbian Operating System (S60) powered device or J2ME enabled, and have MIDP 2.0 support. As I learned the hard way, you must already have Java; you can’t just install Java like this was your PC. The game requires a minimum of 130 kilobytes of space for the most scaled down visuals, and at least a 128×128 pixel display.
OK, so you have no willpower for this type of game
This format is not for everyone. If you have a PC and are playing a current generation massively multiplayer online (MMO) game you probably have no interest or time for a game of this minimal level of detail. You might be turned off by the slow pace of combat or by the complete lack of any combat animation. I can’t convince you to suspend your expectations for 3D graphics and World of Warcraft clones, but I will try to illustrate that when judged as a game on a cell phone with all of the limitations that go along with it — Tibia ME is quite an ambitious and impressive offering.
Is that a S60 enabled device in your pocket?
Tibia ME is the MMO you can take with you wherever you go. The idea of leveling your character any time, from anywhere is quite tempting. It can be played with one hand and is quite a discreet way to pass the time while waiting for your coffee at Starbucks, sitting on the bus / train, or times when you just don’t have access to a PC. With mobility like that Tibia ME and other games like it might one day replace books and periodicals as men’s preferred entertainment in the bathroom. Watch out Maxim Magazine.
No free lunch
Obviously, you must have an internet enabled phone to play. The best option is having a prepaid unlimited access plan, because even when not doing a large download to update the game data Tibia ME uses about 0.5 megabytes of data transfer per hour. TibiaME is advertised as a free game, however to really get the most out of it any player serious enough to get past level 10 should buy the Gold client for $4.99. This will open most dungeons on Aurea, enable the auto-drawing mini-map, and allow you to list who is online. Quite a bit of the content is still locked behind the Premium account. For 3 Euros per month you will get access to all dungeons and premium only areas, which includes all of the new islands like the haunted Ashmor, included in the Autumn update on November 8, 2007. Premium accounts also gain more experience per kill after level 10, lose less experience when they die, and can use the all new portal system for faster traveling between various dungeons and town. I would absolutely recommend paying the monthly fee if you play the game regularly. If you’re just starting out, the free version should get you about 20-30 hours of exploration before you start to get curious about what else is out there.
Continue on to combat and role-playing
Comments
Respect for the great review.
Let me add some corrections and comments:
1. TibiaME Gold client only enables an ingame minimap, a Who’s Online list, and a Top100 list. It has surely nothing to do with dungeons.
2. Aurea is in no way a “PvP Island”, the one that is actually called so is the special Arena island, that can be accessed from Aurea (find Gladus to the North of the Arena and he will teleport you, even if you don’t have a Premium character). The main purpose of the Arena island is allowing massive team vs team battles.
3. There are actually vocation-dependant quest rewards, and a quest on a Vargos island requires a team of both warriors and wizards (they get teleported to different dungeons, opening paths to each other by pressing buttons correspondingly) for successful completion.
4. Choosing a weapon is not the only choice players have, usually the armour (consists of 6 parts) is a much more important choice, and you might even have to combine your armour against some special creatures or dungeons.
5. About the “story”… Well, CipSoft didn’t really care of developing a main storyline all these years, however the last updates include a long storyline, which leads you through the Aurea (start by talking to Vladir), all Solahmar Islands, and all Ashmor. It even involves choosing yourself a side (a flavour of a non-linear quest). Actually all the great innovative additions to the game were made in 2007, and they’re not that easy to find for a newbie.
6. About the 2% experience loss in the Arena “addition”, and ability to lose millions of experience… This game had 10% (5% for Premium players) experience loss in the Arena since it’s birth actually (i remember how a Top1 player was hacked and executed in the Arena in 2005 till he hit lvl1), and removing the loss recently was CipSoft’s idea. The “user base” is very critical about that, but by removing the loss CipSoft actually wanted a basis for a new PvP system they are going to build, and any player can contribute his own ideas to it on the forums.
7. The “damage evasion exploit”, usually called “dancing”, was actually “half-fixed” (you could kill a monster with it usually three times faster then you can now).
x. Java port is not recommended - it has much less performance and convenience then the original game for S60.
y. Oh, and a fire sword actually has no value in the game, it’s strange that a player 30 levels above you actually took it.
Thanks for the reply, and for the corrections. I wish I had the months it would take to experience the entire game.
The massive team vs team PVP was non-existent when I visited the PVP island. At least on World 10.
I didn’t say that swapping weapons was all you can do — I said it is the thing you do most often. Armour swapping, weapon swapping, either way its not helping make the game a role-playing game.
I was not aware that the EXP penalty was instituted previously for PVP. That is quite amazing! Im glad to hear that the players are demanding things and CipSoft is listening.
And I think he took my FS because I said “yo mamma” and attacked him from out of nowhere.
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