ho is this guy in the picture? It is our new content designer Count Tofifti. And here is part three of our content team's Chill and Grill answers...

Q: What about new spells or runes? It's been like 4 or 5 updates since the last time you've added any.

Count Tofifti: Tibia grew enormously over the past years and each potential change impacts the balance of the game. When you look at the boards you can find many players demanding a rebalancing - and they are right. The average levels and skills, for example, have increased a lot and we have to adapt to this situation. Right now we are reevaluating Tibia's spell system which is a pretty complex matter. When we are finished with that, it's very likely that we will introduce new spells. Don't nail me down on a fixed date for it. New spells are on our agenda, though, and I guess that's a promising outlook, isn't it?

Q: Will addon 3 be in effect in the future? If yes, can it increase hp or mana or make us run faster or raise stats?

Lionet: The third addon is a concept we still play around with from time to time. One of the difficulties we face when dealing with an additional addon is the technical implementation. It is, for example, not possible to enhance player stats or attributes like health or strength via addons as they were conceived as a graphical effect only. Another thing is that the layer of a new addon would draw over the existing two. This means that any graphics we design would have to fit perfectly to each of the two addons that already exist for every outfit. If we create another addon in the style of the current addons, it should enhance each of the other two but not completely cover or interfere with them. Possible alternatives could either be a completely new style of addon or a really large or very small one. We have not yet decided which path we want to take with the third outfit addon but we are currently working on something which goes in quite a similar direction.

Q: Some years ago I noticed that the Tibia map seems like RL world map, but turned 45? (Svargrond = North pole and PH Ankh Darashia = equator line). Knowing that, I was able to speculate about the theme of the next city updates (e.g. Northeast = China - Zao). Is this true or just coincidence?

Chayenne: This is a really interesting observation, but honestly just a coincidence. I think it's safe to say that we never, ever looked at a real life map when creating our areas and themes. However, we did think of temperature zones - coldest in the northwest, hottest in the southeast - but they are not, at least not intentionally, similar to anything that exists in the real world. With Zao, we also didn't want to copy existing classic Asian themes, but instead tried to create our own mix that does contain some elements often used in Asian themes, but also a lot of other things to contrast it and to make it less clich?. In any case [deep, narrative voice]: The layout of the Tibian map is fictitious. Any similarity to any other map layout whether on Earth (before or after terraforming) or on alien planets is merely coincidental. ;)

Q: Before the Ankrahmun update, the map of Tibia had a design that included very random tunnels and places without clear purposes, spawns on odd locations and surprising changes of environment. That was cool and very nice to explore. From Ankrahmun onward, the expansions were always strictly themed. Moreover, everything designed has a purpose. Why is that? I like natural randomness of mainland, and dislike the "themepark" feeling.

Knightmare: That is not just a matter of design philosophy but also a matter of resources. In the past we had neither quests nor new graphics at disposal. An update of any sort was a pure map update where mostly old graphics were used. Therefore one could say the old areas had the "mud and grass theme", they often included already existing parts of the map. In newer updates we could graphically display what we wanted to instead of having to draw on heavy improvisation. And there was no need to cramp something into existing areas. Someone who remembers the old Ab'Dendriel will for sure understand what I am talking about.
On the other hand it is understandable that small additions here and there could improve the impact of an area to the player. Old areas were improved in the past and of course not all future updates will focus on map enlargements. Some will for sure revisit older areas and add new content where it is needed most. I think the impression that this has changed is just being mislead by the enormous new content that is added with each update. It is easy to overlook the small things if you are distracted by the more prominent parts of "modern" updates.

Q: Does the content team play Tibia regularly on secret characters and figure out what needs to be balanced by actual experience? Or is it more of a read forums and listen to community approach? And if you do have secret characters is it hard not to be biased to certain things?

Chayenne: We actually do both, and I think both parts are equally important because they give us completely different sorts of insight. The community managers regularily forward feedback summaries and proposals which helps us to identify and remove design problems. On the public test server board we also discuss balancing issues of new items or monsters with the testers and adjust a lot according to their input. Different large groups of players also act differently in certain situations and thus reveal problems to us which we might not have thought of ourselves - even if we have developed a "okay, quest is finished, now let's try to completely ruin and abuse it and create a worst-case scenario ;)" attitude over the years.
In addition to that we also do play the game ourselves, not each day, but regularily. It's a lot different to do a quest on the actual servers than just testing it on our internal servers, because you're suddenly facing problems which you just do not have on test servers, for example the dungeon you need to enter to retrieve a quest item is blocked by a high level player hunting there who will just not let you pass - which is really frustrating, I KNOW, and sometimes I'd love to scream "I BUILT THIS THING so let me be in MY dungeon!!" - but of course, I don't and just have to mop it up like everybody else. (But I then consider redesigning either that part of the dungeon or of the quest.) Playing yourself is also very helpful for balancing issues, for example it happened to me a few times that I played a quest which was supposed to be for a certain level range and found myself stuck in the middle because I was just too weak to retrieve the needed item, and so on. I often end up changing things if I really dislike them during my playing experience.
I wouldn't say I'm "biased", but of course I do have a lot of knowledge about where to go and what to do, so the "thrill" of jumping down a hole and not knowing what awaits me there is long gone. Sadly also the excitement of trying to solve Tibia's riddles and not knowing where the solution lies - playing is a lot more fun when certain things are still clouded by mystery, so seriously, enjoy the fact that you do not know EVERYTHING. ;)

To be continued next Friday...

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