Both DotA and Tibia were popular games in Sweden and other countries in Northern Europe, long before League of Legends and even World of Warcraft came to the market. It doesn't make ask much sense to drop names anymore, but if you were around back them you probably know about a few of these players:
* Liam Darkcrosser (Swedish player on Aurea), deleted due to account sharing. Not sure if true or false, because many Swedes played on LAN cafés back in the days. He was getting drafting into the army anyway, which is the reason many Korean players quit OGN/LCK according to Christoffer "Montecristo" Mykkles.
* Messiah (Spanish speaker, forgot which server), played until he got bored. He then have the character to his little brother who masspked until deletion. The older brother went on to create BlackD tools, mostly to help his disabled friend play Tibia (according to an interview).
* Qwenball Toots (UK player, Aurea), is the only player I know personally from the Toots clan back in the early days. I must assume they played together before then, because they started with a family name, rather than a guild. Maybe it's tradition from when there was no such guild system. Maybe just for fun. I believe he came from or went to Valoria after the wars against Liam (Mandus) because he later created a perfect copy OT server of the wars on that server, aka Warloria.
The reason CIPsoft had such success in early days, was that starting "fresh" on every new server became the norm, but at some point it became a paradox. There was a market of character trading and that's not really acceptable for a children's game. A high level could sell for $100s or $1000s or even more. It was insane.
After all, Tibia started out as a MUD, that were originally just text and became what later became known as MOBA. There was no point in grinding PVE just to PVP.
All of what you said is true and fact, but I still don't see what this thread is all about. Is there a question to be answered? A dilemma to be solved?
We can go on discussing similarities and differences between the two games for ages, but ultimately, and there is no denying it, they are 2 completely different games.
Games, before, were very new to the whole multiplayer thing. You were lucky to find a game with a good multiplayer mode, and that just worked for local networks or, in case of consoles, 2-player modes. It was extremely rare to see an MMORPG 20 years ago, when Tibia was made. In it initial state, it wasn't exactly what you would call an MMORPG, like stated above, it was a MUD, and then slowly developed further. Similar to what some of us are doing with our OTs, Tibia also started as a bunch of college students trying to find something to do in their free time, grabbing sprites from another game and coding noobishly (tibia's client and engine were rewritten from the core numerous times according to Tibia.com's articles). League of Legends on the other hand is just a second attempt and approach at something that already existed in the same form, with a few changes here and there, because Guinsoo saw the opportunity to turn the popular Dota (which was a WC3 mod) into a standalone game and create some mechanics that were not possible in the WC3 editor to further innovate the genre. But in the end, all MOBAs share 90% similarities and have pretty much nothing new to offer, it's only up to you to pick one that you like the most.
Like Sportacus said, these games are different from ordinary games. They are a hobby, and they are something you must put constant work into. Tibia and League are 2 of my favorite online games of all time, but I don't play Tibia anymore. I haven't played RL Tibia in years. The servers (the ones I'm familiar with and have characters on) are either empty, dominated by war teams, or filled with hateful people and botters. Back in the day, I'd hang out in depot, play some fast-hands and dice, talk with people, and to this day, I accredit everything I have to Tibia. But I find no joy in playing it anymore. It's only nostalgia and wishful thinking speaking from me right now.
League took Tibia's place because it's a different thing. It lets you play a game, two, three, but once the game is over, it's over for good and you had your share of "league adrenaline" for the day, then you can go on with your life and do other stuff during the day. And even though you are playing the same game, chances are, that in your entire life (unless it's premade on purpose), you will never play 2 same games of league in terms of champion matching. With 127 champions in the game, there are over 2 quadrillion different combinations that 2 teams of 5 players can set up as the picks for each game.
In Tibia, you are never truly 'done' with the game, not now, not ever, not even Kharsek, because the game is designed to have no end. The game is designed to keep you playing forever and constantly developing the same character, killing the same exact monsters over and over until you blow your brains out. All of the content is super predictable, there is little to no dynamic in today's Tibia, and the game has not had anything new to offer for ages. The last
really nice change were the "world changes" they implemented a while ago, but that was a fad that lasted shortly, and now they're predictable and repetitive as well. Cipsoft makes steps in the right direction sometimes, but often when they do that, they follow up by taking 10 steps backwards. There have been the same 4 vocations for 20 years, and correct me if I wrong, but up to level 150, you will have unlocked all of your spells and things your character can do. Now go spam those same spells for years and years to come just to upgrade your equipment with what? Other equipment that has the exact same stats and abilities like your previous stuff, except maybe 1-2 more armor or defense.
If anything, looking at all of this as a developer can make you realize what you have to do to make your own game better and what
not to do. Cipsoft, for me, has always been an example of how not to run a company, and it has been a motivation in the sense of "if Cipsoft could
succeed, then I can succeed 100%". Riot games? ... Well, rito is rito, but more often than not, they seem to know exactly what they're doing, otherwise, they wouldn't be the one of the most powerful game companies in the world right now, coming up a few years ago and already competing with companies like Blizzard, Bethesda, EA, etc.
