Review: TibiaME - Cell Phone Multiplayer is Possible
Keep it pure
I really enjoyed reviewing TibiaME, and it would be nice to see it keep growing. In the future CipSoft should continue to do what they’re doing right. Staying away from instancing and non-persistent areas of the world is a must. I was very pleased to see that CipSoft had truly embraced such a pure vision of dungeons. Exploring with the possibility of actually running into people adds a very nice sense of life to the otherwise monotonous grind. If I can scrounge around a dungeon and pick up other people’s garbage to make some cash, I feel like the area isn’t as stale and boring as some barren instance.
In an effort to add more player interaction to the game there should be certain dungeons where PvP is enabled and players could still block each other’s path. This would be an exciting area to adventure in when you can really focus on the game and can afford to risk combating other players for control over an area. I have heard that there is a PvP change coming soon where players who die in an arena will lose 2% of their total experience. I think that’s a wonderful addition, and adds quite a new dynamic for higher level players who could stand to lose millions of points if killed.
It would be nice if the game mechanics allowed for some items that could actually buff a character with haste or a blade-turn – to affect game play in some way. This would be in lieu of some form of character development, skill training, or class specific epic quests at regular intervals.
Aside from that CipSoft should stick to their guns. I suppose there are a few things about the game that have gotten you hassled by the user base. If players used to grief others by blocking the exit to a dungeon with their body, its good that you removed collision. That is affecting the player’s free movement. If some players are botting and using scripts to level while AFK, that’s removing the human element of the game and reducing it to a bunch of automatons. Keep up the harsh punishment you’ve been issuing. However, when it comes to the damage evasion exploit, don’t fix it. Let players squeeze what challenge they can out of a very by-the-numbers combat system. You have players all over the world, some of whom don’t have a PC at home and only have their cell phone for their connection to the internet. If they want to attempt to kill a dragon 10 levels above them for the chance that it might drop some rare loot, let them try. That isn’t hurting anyone.
Something is keeping players interested after three years. As host of the network you have had a very hands-off approach to moderation. Your stance on game interference is respectable.
“… Players have to get along with each other or look for a different hunting area. We cannot interfere in this matter.”
“… try talking to [the other player]. You will find that peaceful solutions are more often possible than you would think.”
**
It is very optimistic to basically say, “play nice now,” and leave the players alone to work it out, and I applaud you for that. Stand by your mantra. Keep the player’s liberty as a focus, and that may be your biggest attraction.
Rating: 3.5 / 5
Recommendation: If you need a good cell phone game you should pay the $5 and download the Gold version. Try it for free right now on your PC.
Web site: www.tibiame.com
PC emulation software: sonyericsson.bajo.pl download page (click the blue disk icon)
Java TibiaME client: www.tibiame.com download page (choose Samsung, S501i)
Wireless site: wap.tibiame.com
** Taken from www.tibiame.com/faq/?language=en&faq=1032
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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