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What makes real tibia map so successful in regards to OTS? (compared to custom maps)

What makes real tibia map so successful in regards to OTS? (compared to custom maps)

  • well designed (plenty of space, big hunting grounts)

  • well known - don't need to explore and discover things from scratch

  • suitable for any experience rate

  • immensity and diversity of environment, cities, nature

  • amount and/or quality of quests

  • amount of (unsolved) mysteries, plots

  • there is no custom map matching quality of real tibia map

  • other (please specify in post)

  • I prefer custom maps


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Ziker

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Hello everyone!

I was meaning to ask this question for a long time. I've been wondering a lot and seeing so many real tibia map OT servers made me look for an answer here.

What I would like to know is your opinion on why is real tibia map so widely used in OTS. What makes you play these servers?

I know this question is very broad, especially considering all the changes (additions) made to Tibia map over the years. If you think that any of the answers apply to certain "versions" (in terms of Tibia version), please feel free to include that in your post.

I would like to emphasize the fact we only talk here about the map itself, the environment, monsters (spawns, hunting grounds), houses, cities. This has nothing to do with any gameplay systems like PvP, spells system, vocations, etc.

You may also want to know why this is bothering me. Well, this is simply my natural curiosity and nothing more than that.

I would like to thank you all in advance for helping me to understand this phenomenon by completing this poll and perhaps also leaving more exhaustive answers in posts.

P.S. if you believe I missed any possible reason in my poll, feel free to tell me (I'm not sure you can modify it though).
 
I think players usually play ot servers to play Tibia, why not real Tibia? they dislike certain updates and play oldschool versions from their childhood time.
 
Thanks guys for your answers :) By looking at the votes so far you seem to be quite right on that. Well. I hope there will be way more votes (and comments as for that matter) here!
 
I think it is pretty much all about familiarity.
I know that personally, I'm less likely to try newer products if I'm already familiar with another product and have been using it for over a period of time. Not always, but I will admit it happens.

Regards,
Cody
 
I used to love official Tibia. The thing I like about OTs is that it lets you enjoy PvP, waste hunting, experimenting etc etc with no risk while it still feels like official Tibia. Time spent is also really low on OTs (if it's highrate ofc). It's just pure fun and no "charlove" x)
At least that's how I see it.

EDIT: And I do not have anything against custom maps. The only thing stopping me from playing is that they are usually really low-rate and I can't be spending countless hours on an OT with little to no players and you do not know for how long it will stay up.
 
I used to love official Tibia. The thing I like about OTs is that it lets you enjoy PvP, waste hunting, experimenting etc etc with no risk while it still feels like official Tibia. Time spent is also really low on OTs (if it's highrate ofc). It's just pure fun and no "charlove" x)
At least that's how I see it.

EDIT: And I do not have anything against custom maps. The only thing stopping me from playing is that they are usually really low-rate and I can't be spending countless hours on an OT with little to no players and you do not know for how long it will stay up.

Although your post is more about rates & servers stability, this is an interesting point indeed. I think this somewhat fits "there is no custom map matching quality of real tibia map" option, since I believe most times the reason for custom map OTS failure is the map itself (unbalanced, not suitable for experience rate chosen, etc.).
 
i may be wrong, but here is what i think...
every custom map i ever downloaded tryed in its way to copy official/global tibia map/quests, when ever one added one new quest most people started using it, so since the beginer it was one way race to reach what we have now.
 
This is an interesting topic. I have a moment, so I'll chime in. :)

In addition to what was said above in regards to familiarity, I do believe what determines a project's "success" - at the very core - is ultimately the motive and mindset behind the creator(s). Over the years, I've seen the most random servers with maps that support, at most 200 players, have more than 1000 players online daily. I've seen hundreds of "Real Map Servers" with great potential and good-hearted owners fail because the mindset, knowledge base, and motive behind them is flawed. And I've even seen the most elegant of custom servers, with unlimited potential, fail because the creator was not able to properly manage a community (e.g. trying to accomplish it all alone) nor wanted to ask for help when needed.

As with anything, timing also plays a key part in the "success" of a server. What I believe you are asking is more so, "Why are real map projects so popular?" Success is relative to the beholder. I define success differently than you or the person reading this, whom probably assumes I'm being "smart." I'm not, I swear! :( In my opinion, real map projects are most popular due to a little bit of every choice in your poll, but mostly due to the ease of hosting one and its familiarity.

Any project has the potential to be a success. That is my opinion. I'd love to write more but I'm on a phone.
 
This is an interesting topic. I have a moment, so I'll chime in. :)

In addition to what was said above in regards to familiarity, I do believe what determines a project's "success" - at the very core - is ultimately the motive and mindset behind the creator(s). Over the years, I've seen the most random servers with maps that support, at most 200 players, have more than 1000 players online daily. I've seen hundreds of "Real Map Servers" with great potential and good-hearted owners fail because the mindset, knowledge base, and motive behind them is flawed. And I've even seen the most elegant of custom servers, with unlimited potential, fail because the creator was not able to properly manage a community (e.g. trying to accomplish it all alone) nor wanted to ask for help when needed.

As with anything, timing also plays a key part in the "success" of a server. What I believe you are asking is more so, "Why are real map projects so popular?" Success is relative to the beholder. I define success differently than you or the person reading this, whom probably assumes I'm being "smart." I'm not, I swear! :( In my opinion, real map projects are most popular due to a little bit of every choice in your poll, but mostly due to the ease of hosting one and its familiarity.

Any project has the potential to be a success. That is my opinion. I'd love to write more but I'm on a phone.

Thanks for this opinion. Yes, I believe the popularity in terms of players online / longevity of the server is a synonym for success really, so you're right about that. In that case I would say both questions answers the same thing.

The last sentence here points me to the conclusion that your answer may be from owner's / hoster's perspective, but please correct me if I'm wrong. I also read my post again and it seems I forgot to mention that significant fact!

Anyway, I really like this answer, not because it fits my own view (I'm actually the kind of person who enjoy exploration, so custom maps are something I look for), but because it does add a lot to the topic, while not trying to "sell" the opinion as the only righteous one.
 
In my opinion it's a combination of the familiarity and the success/love we have of the real map for multiple reasons, most of which are listed as options here; like the large amount of epic, difficult and interesting quests, the diversity and kind of balanced mix/well designed environments, mysteries, I would even say the real map is very good at "setting the right mood" with their environments - like the map is sensational, it's a success in almost every regard in my opinion (except for too few/slow respawning/small hunting spawns, but that's part of Tibia's charm and why people runemake and RPG forever and why we look(ed) so much up to highlevels, etc).
I'm talking mainly about the old 7.x map here, I'm not sure this is still true with newer maps.
So in short I think it's the overall very high quality of the (7.x) map, but I chose multiple options with my vote because many of the reasons WHY I think it's a high(er) quality map are present there.
 
Personally I prefer custom maps, but I think that there isn't any good server with a good custom map..
Of course there are always servers with custom maps, but these are also custom servers, where the game is completely altered to some rpg style game..

I'd like a big custom map, that is not overload with details and stuff like the global map is nowadays (new areas atleast). A map on which you can do what you're supposed to do in Tibia.. Hunt, level up, loot items.. Do some non-intellectual quests.. A bit more like Tibia's oldschool times. I mean somehow Tibia is just a Hack'n'Slay like Diablo..

I'm planning such a server, on a 8.6 basis, I just finished my basic map, with few towns, all custom npcs, some quests, houses and all that..
It's supposed to be a long term 2x rate server, the map and the way I set the server up, it should be very simple grinding, what the Tibia players like..
Simple big map, simple npcs, critical hits, stat points you can spend on extra hp, mp, cap, exp gain, loot chance, damage, crit chance, crit damage.
I have put like 8 months into development already, with some short breaks. I highly think that this can be successful, since it is kept very basic.
So from a developer's perspective you might want to keep your server basic, if you make it custom. Because the only thing that could be in the way of success, might be that players don't feel too much like exploring/learning your server. Or maybe bad advertising.
For the exploring part, I thought you might always give some basic map spoiler/hints on the website that could attract players to try it, since they get spoilers...


But back to topic, to sum it up, I think the combination of these points:
  • well known - don't need to explore and discover things from scratch
  • there is no custom map matching quality of real tibia map
Make up why most custom map servers don't succeed, or people don't even make a custom map because of the work load (look at the work I put in so far, I bet if I had started a real map server I would have finished it already) and even if you put the work in there's a high potential that the map/server is not successful.
 
Personally I prefer custom maps, but I think that there isn't any good server with a good custom map..
Of course there are always servers with custom maps, but these are also custom servers, where the game is completely altered to some rpg style game..

I'd like a big custom map, that is not overload with details and stuff like the global map is nowadays (new areas atleast). A map on which you can do what you're supposed to do in Tibia.. Hunt, level up, loot items.. Do some non-intellectual quests.. A bit more like Tibia's oldschool times. I mean somehow Tibia is just a Hack'n'Slay like Diablo..

I'm planning such a server, on a 8.6 basis, I just finished my basic map, with few towns, all custom npcs, some quests, houses and all that..
It's supposed to be a long term 2x rate server, the map and the way I set the server up, it should be very simple grinding, what the Tibia players like..
Simple big map, simple npcs, critical hits, stat points you can spend on extra hp, mp, cap, exp gain, loot chance, damage, crit chance, crit damage.
I have put like 8 months into development already, with some short breaks. I highly think that this can be successful, since it is kept very basic.
So from a developer's perspective you might want to keep your server basic, if you make it custom. Because the only thing that could be in the way of success, might be that players don't feel too much like exploring/learning your server. Or maybe bad advertising.
For the exploring part, I thought you might always give some basic map spoiler/hints on the website that could attract players to try it, since they get spoilers...


But back to topic, to sum it up, I think the combination of these points:
  • well known - don't need to explore and discover things from scratch
  • there is no custom map matching quality of real tibia map
Make up why most custom map servers don't succeed, or people don't even make a custom map because of the work load (look at the work I put in so far, I bet if I had started a real map server I would have finished it already) and even if you put the work in there's a high potential that the map/server is not successful.

I find a lot of what you're saying here to be true (unfortunately). I've seen few nice custom maps myself and some of them are really nice to play for a while, but they usually seem to be too small to accommodate a lot of players. Usually they are just packed up with stuff, everything is close and easily reachable.

This seem like a nice piece of advice as well. While I am not planning to create any kind of server - I would never find sufficient player base for a type of server I would find satisfying to spend my time working on really :) But it is a great advice for other people, who perhaps would like to work on a custom server, though it's quite off-topic.
 
Let me excercise my right and bump the thread! :) I'm very positively surprised by the amount of votes here, but I still believe there's more than 40 OpenTibia players on this forum! Let's reach 100 votes? (at least) :)
 
Ohh, nice job guys :) 51 votes in. I would really like to thank anyone who took their time to vote in this poll and/or add their thoughts on this topic! Well, usually more you get makes you want even more than than before, so I'm bumping the thread to see if there are any people who missed it and perhaps have something to add? :)
 
From the hoster's side:
-Easy to setup
-Minimal effort in developing
-Can serve as a good foundation to build your own custom content
-Has superior popularity due to everyone's familiarity with it

From the player's side:
-Super familiar, everyone played rl tibia before coming to OT
-Access to premium zones for free
-Many choices for exp rate
-better chance to experience all of rl tibia content in a short amount of time
-More likely to be better balanced balanced than a custom map
-quickly experimenting with vocations and power leveling strats before going back to rl tibia

Thats what i can think of atm. I am sure there is more
 
From the hoster's side:
-Easy to setup
-Minimal effort in developing
-Can serve as a good foundation to build your own custom content
-Has superior popularity due to everyone's familiarity with it

From the player's side:
-Super familiar, everyone played rl tibia before coming to OT
-Access to premium zones for free
-Many choices for exp rate
-better chance to experience all of rl tibia content in a short amount of time
-More likely to be better balanced balanced than a custom map
-quickly experimenting with vocations and power leveling strats before going back to rl tibia

Thats what i can think of atm. I am sure there is more

Yeah, It seems like everyone is about familiarity these days :) I'd say the access to premium zones is not that obvious, there are plenty of servers where you need to buy PACC as well to do all these things! But about the balance, yes, I can agree, though this again is what I believe the usual problem of custom maps - they're not well designed. Thank you for your opinion!
 
Familiarity may seem to be the underlying reason, but have you considered why that is?

If you consider behavior and delve into the mindset of most members of this community, it comes down to a lack of passion to build something great. In other words: laziness. Very few have that "drive." These days, people (not only on OtLand) lack motive and passion to pursue and develop their own vision. And some even lack the willingness to create a vision to begin with. Most expect or want instantaneous results or gratification, and are quick to judge others before taking a good look in the mirror. Hardly anyone puts in the work to make something great. People often do what is expected or what is common and settle for "good enough" as opposed to paving their own path and striving for something different; something better. It pains me to see so much potential wasted by individuals trying so hard to be just like everyone else.

Edit: Downloading a data pack and hosting it to gain experience and knowledge is excellent. :) Everyone has to begin somewhere. Be that it may, therein lies the problem. The ease of doing so creates a "barrier," so to speak. There is no desire or passion to progress. It is so simple to download, run, make some money, fix a few bugs (if that), and reset. It's a vicious cycle I see people fall into over and over, time and time again.
 
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Familiarity may seem to be the underlying reason, but have you considered why that is?

If you consider behavior and delve into why we see so many "real map servers" online, it comes down to a lack of passion to build something great. In other words: laziness. Very few have that "drive." These days, people (not only on OtLand) lack motive and passion to pursue and develop their own vision. And some even lack the willingness to create a vision to begin with. Most expect or want instantaneous results or gratification, and are quick to judge others before taking a good look in the mirror. Hardly anyone puts in the work to make something great. People often do what is expected or what is common and settle for "good enough" as opposed to paving their own path and striving for something different; something better.

It pains me to see so much potential wasted by individuals trying so hard to be just like everyone else.

To be honest, I assumed prior to making this poll that this will be the most popular answer and the reason behind this assumption is exactly what you just said. I must say I had this little spark of hope that this poll would turn out with a surprise and the conclusion would be that people play real tibia map simply because they have no choice (no decent custom maps for example). The fact is you're referring to server creators and I knew this is the very likely reason behind so many real tibia map servers, but I was hoping that the players just go for real map due to no alternatives.

But what you said is one of the reasons why I don't own and will not own a server - I don't think people would ever want to share my vision by playing it (I'm not even going to mention finding people who'd join me on the journey of creation), when they can wait a week or two for another real tibia map server, quickly get the level and well... get bored :) wait for another one, do the same and so on. But please, anyone who may find this offensive. I'm not here to blame players nor offend them by any means. This is simply truth, isn't it? And it's nothing to be angry about, it's all about having fun and enjoying the game - if that makes people enjoy it for a little while at least, let it be this way.
 
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