Open Letter To The 3D Tibia guys (the indi devs behind 3DDragons)

[Hagality Online]

You might wonder why I haven’t been able to find even a single programmer willing to seriously collaborate on the project. Maybe my vision of bringing Tibia into a full 3D world with smooth animations simply isn’t convincing enough. Maybe this whole idea is just my own personal failed experiment — and even with such a huge developer community like Otland, it’s surprisingly hard to find someone suitable.

I’ve reached out to many developers over time, but usually got either no response or the classic "no time" excuse when it comes to actively contributing to the project. And honestly, it seems like even just one decent programmer together with one artist would already be enough to actually get a functional 3D client up and running. There are so many forks and mods of Tibia out there, but very few people seem interested in stepping outside the usual 2D world and trying something completely new and unique.

Most projects based on OTClient focus on changing GUI layouts, adding some new skins, extra windows, maybe some custom sprites — but in the end, it’s still the same 2D game underneath. Maybe that’s also part of the reason why a full 3D client isn’t getting much attention or recognition from the community — I don’t really know.

In the last few months, I’ve been slowly filling in missing 3D models to cover gaps in the map, still running on TFS 1.4.2 version 10.98. But honestly, at this point, pure art updates aren’t enough anymore to push the project forward — like someone already pointed out earlier. The real progress would come from tackling core code changes, but so far nobody has really stepped up and decided to roll up their sleeves and dive into the coding side.

I’m pretty sure the author of this thread isn’t the only one who already has a fully unpacked version of the client, whether extracted from .assets or directly from the project files. Maybe that’s just how things have to be — and if I won’t be able to fully create it myself, then maybe one day at least I’ll get to play an official 3D version.

In summary:
You could say that we're so close, yet still so far.

Post automatically merged: Jun 12, 2025

At some point, my collaboration with Ron's team during the search for people to work on the 3D project was actually quite productive. That said, I didn’t fully share some of the decisions — mainly the fact that the whole thing was built on their own custom server engine, which pushed the project away from TFS. That approach obviously had both pros and cons. Honestly, if the project had been based on TFS from the very beginning, it probably would’ve made it a lot easier to find people willing to join and continue developing it.

But being in a very similar situation back then as I am now, I didn’t have much room to choose. So I went with it — in the end, I finally found a team that shared a similar vision. Maybe not the only one that exists, but definitely the only one I was able to find at the time.

As I already mentioned earlier, the project was originally based on RonOTS, which is fully custom. Personally, my vision for the 3D version was mostly focused on keeping the default map — the one we all know from Tibia. The idea was to make the entry barrier as low as possible: just like a real Tibian, you log in, you recognize the world instantly, you know where everything is, and you just play.

Since only a niche group of people actually knows the RonOTS map, while most players are already very familiar with the original world, it made sense (at least that’s how I saw it) to build the 3D version based on the classic map. Of course, maybe I’m wrong again — maybe the 2D client with the default map is still the only version really worth experiencing. I don’t know for sure — this is just speculation, because we never really tested it.

 

[Ftilt]

You might wonder why I haven’t been able to find even a single programmer willing to seriously collaborate on the project. Maybe my vision of bringing Tibia into a full 3D world with smooth animations simply isn’t convincing enough. Maybe this whole idea is just my own personal failed experiment — and even with such a huge developer community like Otland, it’s surprisingly hard to find someone suitable.

I’ve reached out to many developers over time, but usually got either no response or the classic "no time" excuse when it comes to actively contributing to the project. And honestly, it seems like even just one decent programmer together with one artist would already be enough to actually get a functional 3D client up and running. There are so many forks and mods of Tibia out there, but very few people seem interested in stepping outside the usual 2D world and trying something completely new and unique.

Most projects based on OTClient focus on changing GUI layouts, adding some new skins, extra windows, maybe some custom sprites — but in the end, it’s still the same 2D game underneath. Maybe that’s also part of the reason why a full 3D client isn’t getting much attention or recognition from the community — I don’t really know.

In the last few months, I’ve been slowly filling in missing 3D models to cover gaps in the map, still running on TFS 1.4.2 version 10.98. But honestly, at this point, pure art updates aren’t enough anymore to push the project forward — like someone already pointed out earlier. The real progress would come from tackling core code changes, but so far nobody has really stepped up and decided to roll up their sleeves and dive into the coding side.

I’m pretty sure the author of this thread isn’t the only one who already has a fully unpacked version of the client, whether extracted from .assets or directly from the project files. Maybe that’s just how things have to be — and if I won’t be able to fully create it myself, then maybe one day at least I’ll get to play an official 3D version.

In summary:
You could say that we're so close, yet still so far.

Post automatically merged: Jun 12, 2025

At some point, my collaboration with Ron's team during the search for people to work on the 3D project was actually quite productive. That said, I didn’t fully share some of the decisions — mainly the fact that the whole thing was built on their own custom server engine, which pushed the project away from TFS. That approach obviously had both pros and cons. Honestly, if the project had been based on TFS from the very beginning, it probably would’ve made it a lot easier to find people willing to join and continue developing it.

But being in a very similar situation back then as I am now, I didn’t have much room to choose. So I went with it — in the end, I finally found a team that shared a similar vision. Maybe not the only one that exists, but definitely the only one I was able to find at the time.

As I already mentioned earlier, the project was originally based on RonOTS, which is fully custom. Personally, my vision for the 3D version was mostly focused on keeping the default map — the one we all know from Tibia. The idea was to make the entry barrier as low as possible: just like a real Tibian, you log in, you recognize the world instantly, you know where everything is, and you just play.

Since only a niche group of people actually knows the RonOTS map, while most players are already very familiar with the original world, it made sense (at least that’s how I saw it) to build the 3D version based on the classic map. Of course, maybe I’m wrong again — maybe the 2D client with the default map is still the only version really worth experiencing. I don’t know for sure — this is just speculation, because we never really tested it.

yo!
Just some side note from me in case this is any help for you:

A LOT of people enjoy tibia because of its simplicity and because it is what we know and play for over 20 years, and so do some devs just adding on top of that. the amount of work to turn it from a 2d to a 3d game will consume years of time that could be spend on different things that will lure in more players on the long run potentially since as mentioned above (might be a bold claim but yeah) I dont think even 10% of the tibia community would ever test tibia in 3d. I did try the one that was hosted a while back a few times, i quit out every single time before even getting the first couple of levels, it just didnt feel like tibia and after that its just a different mmo with similar mechanics to my favorite game. why bother playing something thats close to my fav game but isnt?

I dont wanna discourage you, kinda maybe just throwing into perspective why no one jumped up on the idea of working on your project.

Anyway i wish you best of luck with this

 

[samco]

I can just say that i was trying to connect to Ron like 2 times in last year and never got an answer.

 

[Hagality Online]

yo!
Just some side note from me in case this is any help for you:

A LOT of people enjoy tibia because of its simplicity and because it is what we know and play for over 20 years, and so do some devs just adding on top of that. the amount of work to turn it from a 2d to a 3d game will consume years of time that could be spend on different things that will lure in more players on the long run potentially since as mentioned above (might be a bold claim but yeah) I dont think even 10% of the tibia community would ever test tibia in 3d. I did try the one that was hosted a while back a few times, i quit out every single time before even getting the first couple of levels, it just didnt feel like tibia and after that its just a different mmo with similar mechanics to my favorite game. why bother playing something thats close to my fav game but isnt?

I dont wanna discourage you, kinda maybe just throwing into perspective why no one jumped up on the idea of working on your project.

Anyway i wish you best of luck with this

You probably have quite a lot of valid points here in what you're saying, but still — even 10% would be quite a significant amount of people.

It’s very possible that at some point I simply got stuck in time and I still hold onto my speculations about a 3D client to this day.

To be honest, I don't really know the current state of the gaming world, nor do I fully understand what players are actually looking for nowadays. I'm not much of a gamer myself, which probably makes it even harder for me to fully connect with and understand what the majority of players enjoy.

Personally, I also didn’t really feel the vibe in custom Tibia worlds. Maybe the 3Dragons world that was presented just wasn’t as exciting for me as seeing the familiar cities from the 2D sprite world brought into 3D objects. But again, that’s just my own speculation… I don’t really know.

Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts — and I’m glad I found the motivation to reply to your message as well. Cheers!

Post automatically merged: Jun 12, 2025

I can just say that i was trying to connect to Ron like 2 times in last year and never got an answer.

Conversation is often something that easily slips away from us in our daily routines. Maybe your messages were overlooked somewhere along the way, or perhaps they were directed to the wrong person who wasn’t the one you should’ve been talking to about this — honestly, I don’t know.

Your message regarding your experience with TFS and the Unity engine — had it not been missed — probably could have contributed significantly to the development of the 3D client. Dedicating just a few hours per week to the project for relaxation purposes might have had a much bigger impact than someone who was constantly struggling to balance personal life with the project.

The 3D project has always been treated as a hobby-oriented approach — much like how many people handle their side projects for fun, relaxation, or simply as a creative outlet.

For me personally, working on the 3D client is something that relaxes me, not something that forces me into action. Some people enjoy playing, others enjoy mapping, and others enjoy coding or building new UI windows — we’ve always been looking for people like that for the 3D client as well. After all, there’s nothing better than enjoying yourself while seeing something come to life right in front of your eyes.

That’s probably the main reason why I’ve never fully abandoned the project — I take it very personally. That’s also why it’s so important to eventually find the right person who can help bring this to the finishing line.

Is there still any chance for this? Honestly, I don’t know. Probably yes — there’s always some light at the end of the tunnel. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t even bother writing this. It’s simply that thing called hope.