Support us on Patreon to keep GamingOnLinux alive. This ensures all of our main content remains free for everyone. Just good, fresh content! Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal. You can also buy games using our partner links for GOG and Humble Store.
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

Looking for an MMO to play on Linux? Well, Tibia [Official Site] has a Linux version and it's been around for quite a long time. They did drop Linux support at one time, but they revived it after community requests.

This year, the game actually turned 20 years old! Over that time, they've seen 30 million accounts created to play.

YouTube Thumbnail
YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view. View cookie preferences.
Accept Cookies & Show   Direct Link

The Linux version has an "Unsupported" status, meaning they don't make any Linux-specific fixes right now, but it's updated along side the Windows version. It requires a little tinkering to get it working on Ubuntu 17.10, with it requiring "libpcre16.so.0". I managed to solve it by installing the latest available version:

sudo apt install libpcre16-3

Then, I made a link to it inside the "bin" folder where I extracted the Tibia download like so:

ln -s "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpcre16.so.3" "/your download/tibia-11.49.6030/bin/libpcre16.so.0"

Once that was done, it was smooth sailing from there.

As for the game itself, it does still have a pretty active community. Checking on it again earlier, over six thousand people were logged on playing the game. If you're after an MMO that's a little on the slower side, a little retro in the graphics and UI then it might be a nice choice for you.

While the basic game is free to play, if you enjoy it they do have a premium account option which includes accessing more areas, rentable houses, brand new spells and more.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Free Game, HOWTO, MMO
5 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. You can also follow my personal adventures on Bluesky.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
All posts need to follow our rules. For users logged in: please hit the Report Flag icon on any post that breaks the rules or contains illegal / harmful content. Guest readers can email us for any issues.
17 comments

WorMzy Dec 1, 2017
Normally masquerading sonames as other versions is a Very Bad Idea™ (due to API changes), but in this case Debian arbitrarilly changes the soname version from 0 to 3 for no discernable reason.

(from http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/p/pcre3/pcre3_8.39-3.debian.tar.gz
Upstream's library version is much lower than Debian's - PCRE_LIB_VERSION=0:1:0
instead of 13:0:10 (soname libpcre.so.0 instead of libpcre.so.3)

Debian even use the upstream sources, they just patch the version numbers:
From: Mark Baker <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 21:20:13 +0100
Subject: soname

===================================================================
---
configure.ac | 8 ++++----
1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 3cefaf1..6077ad5 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -17,10 +17,10 @@ m4_define(pcre_date, [2016-06-14])
# 50 lines of this file. Please update that if the variables above are moved.

# Libtool shared library interface versions (current:revision:age)
-m4_define(libpcre_version, [3:7:2])
-m4_define(libpcre16_version, [2:7:2])
-m4_define(libpcre32_version, [0:7:0])
-m4_define(libpcreposix_version, [0:4:0])
+m4_define(libpcre_version, [16:3:13])
+m4_define(libpcre16_version, [16:3:13])
+m4_define(libpcre32_version, [16:3:13])
+m4_define(libpcreposix_version, [16:3:13])
m4_define(libpcrecpp_version, [0:1:0])

AC_PREREQ(2.57)

So linking libpcre16.so.3 to libpcre16.so.0 in this instance should be fine.


Last edited by WorMzy on 1 December 2017 at 4:52 pm UTC
razing32 Dec 1, 2017
Has a very Ultima vibe to it.
greasedkeen Dec 1, 2017
New client and still unplayable on a modern monitor, only way to play it is to lower the resolution.
Text is too small to be readable otherwise.
hardpenguin Dec 1, 2017
I played tons of it when I was in high school. It was very popular in Poland! It's still a good game, just quite specific. Recommended!
shigutso Dec 1, 2017
Has a very Ultima vibe to it.
Because it is an Ultima clone :P
slaapliedje Dec 1, 2017
Has a very Ultima vibe to it.
Because it is an Ultima clone :P

True story: Two friends and myself set up a UOX server (Ultima Online server emulator) and played for 34 hours straight. Okay, A friend and I an someone I no longer associate with. This person kept having really slow performance and his computer kept crashing.

He had worked at Packard Bell, whom taught all of their employees that if they had slow performance, they should defrag their hard drive. He defragged his hard drive FOURTEEN times that night...

It was a JTS one (hysterically the company that Atari merged with when they 'died'.) Only JTS hard drive I'd ever seen, but it died on him a week later.

The actual issue with his computer (and it was at every LAN party we'd have), he kept disabling Plug and Play in Windows for some odd reason, so his cards would all have IRQ conflicts. His slow performance was most likely due to his network card sharing IRQs and making the system choke and unstable. My friend told me about this afterward, he said he'd been sick of every LAN party fixing it for him, only to have it broken the next time around. I had refused to help him because he'd been a douche to me about something not too long before...

Anyhow, I thought that w as hilarious, and yeah Tibia was always a UO clone.
Ludacross Dec 1, 2017
Has a very Ultima vibe to it.
Because it is an Ultima clone :P
Anyhow, I thought that w as hilarious, and yeah Tibia was always a UO clone.

Well, according to Wikipedia, Tibia was released in January 1997, while Ultima Online was released in September 1997:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibia_%28video_game%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_Online

Which would make Ultima Online a Tibia Clone ;)

According to the website, copyright for Tibia was already registered in 1996:
http://www.tibia.com/abouttibia/?subtopic=aboutcipsoft
Tibia® - a massively multiplayer online role-playing game.
Copyright © 1996-2017 CipSoft GmbH. All rights reserved.
Tibia is a registered trademark of CipSoft GmbH.


Last edited by Ludacross on 1 December 2017 at 8:05 pm UTC
shigutso Dec 1, 2017
Which would make Ultima Online the Tibia Clone ;)

Ultima and Ultima Online are quite different.
Search for images of "Ultima VI" and you'll see that Tibia is pretty much a clone of it.

Ultima Online, on the other hand, is a completely different (and superior) game :D
Ludacross Dec 1, 2017
Ultima and Ultima Online are quite different.
Search for images of "Ultima VI" and you'll see that Tibia is pretty much a clone of it.


Ok, Ultima VI and Tibia look "similar", but so do basically all top-view games from the ninties and some of the eighties, at least the ones that tried to add some kind of perspective to the otherwise straight top down view.
slaapliedje Dec 1, 2017
I still maintain Ultima VI was the best game (engine wise, story line it's hard to decide, the whole series from U4-9 was pretty good, with 8 being the weakest.)

Ultima 7 was awesome, though I never completed it (got really far, then lost my save game).
razing32 Dec 1, 2017
I still maintain Ultima VI was the best game (engine wise, story line it's hard to decide, the whole series from U4-9 was pretty good, with 8 being the weakest.)

Ultima 7 was awesome, though I never completed it (got really far, then lost my save game).

Hmm was thinking to try the Ultima games.
Back when i was in college and my windows PC was virused i had to make due with a potato laptop.
A game I played was called Dark Disciples which is somewhat inspired by Ultima and that's where the interest arose in the series.
I did torrent Ultima 9 and played it a bit since I liked 3rd person RPGs like Gothic at the time.

I want to give a few Ultima games a go , just not sure which to try.
The first few ones look a bit bland.
I normally don;t care for graphics much , but even I have my limits ...
stretch611 Dec 1, 2017
I want to give a few Ultima games a go , just not sure which to try.
The first few ones look a bit bland.
I normally don;t care for graphics much , but even I have my limits ...
I have played the first 6 ultimas... I don't think that I ever finished the 6th one, but I did finish the others.

I think at least through Ultima 7, they are all DOS games... not sure about later titles. So they work through DOSbox. (I actually own 1-7 on Gog... in addition to buying the first 6 originally.) I think GOG discounts the series regularly so you may want to check every few days during the holiday season.

Storyline... I started with 3, 4, then 5, before getting 1 & 2. No real loss. The first 3 are pretty separate in the fact that the story really does not add much to sequels... Essentially you killed the evil wizard in the last one and now a new evil wizard is back.

Ultima IV was the quest of the avatar... V and VI follow up on that. I think VII does as well. IV,V,VI all have the same map too... though admittedly, there are a few changes due to storyline. (at least the overland map is the same... even though things like old dungeons are blocked, cities are in the same location.) Ultima I II and III all had unique maps... even if the city names were reused.

As for the graphics... they're rocking... At least they were 20+ years ago when I first play them ;)
In all seriousness, they are all a bit dated now... Remember that that the first 5 were all 8bit titles. I first saw ultima 1-3 on an Apple II computer back in the 80s. The first one I played was Ultima III on a Commodore 64 followed by V and VI on a Commodore as well. They actually were decent graphics at the time. I and II were a bit dated when I first played them and I remember the stick figure I would control in the town.

If you can get past the graphics... they did have some good stories.
slaapliedje Dec 2, 2017
To add to that. Ultima 1-3 do have a story line that matters at least in giving some background to the later Ultima games. For example, in the first game, you have to defeat the evil wizard Mondain. Then in Ultima 4, you find Mondain's Skull...

Without giving any spoilers, 1st is killing Mondain, 2nd is The Enchantress, which apparently was hooking up with Mondain and wants revenge. 3rd is Exodus, which I think was revealed to be the 'son' of Mondain and The Enchantress. (I never really played the second one).

Then starts the next trilogy, 4-6. Quest of the Avatar, which is the first CRPG I've seen where your choices affect the outcome. Well okay, it's the first game where you morally had to be perfect. Like the shop where you buy spell components all have blind shopkeepers, and you have the option to only pay them 1 gold instead of the correct price. 5th game is Warriors of Destiny (I never completed this either, as I think the pirated copy my friend had was broken after you got to a certain point in the game). This was the hunt for Lord British. Then the 6th one is my favorite... False Prophet.

Then is the 'Guardian' Trilogy, 7-9.

All very good, well except 8 which for some UNKNOWN reason, they decided to make it a isometric platformer, and it was BUGGY as hell. Not sure how anyone could tolerate it long enough to complete the game.... 9 had it's share of bugs, and apparently there were some large chunks of the story cut out due to massive delays because they started out isometric, then went full on third person.

Of note, Ultima 9 is one of those games that initially was released with software rendering and 3dfx, then later on managed to get directX support.

I think U9 was the first game I ever actually registered, and I think I still have the Patch CD they sent me in the mail!
slaapliedje Dec 2, 2017
Also, Ultima IV was given away a LONG time ago for free, and you can get the updated / modified graphics for it too.
Asu Dec 2, 2017
heh didn't know they have a linux client...
it's now in my queue to check out.
bubexel Dec 2, 2017
I have been playing this game on linux since 2004. We had linux support without any interruption all this years. Well.. we had a interruption around 2005 of few months. Now they launch the new client Tibia 11 and linux is not supported anymore. When it was all those years. Really bad decision.

About who talk about ultima. Tibia was a student project when startef and they used ultima vi graphic set. They redraw all items and graphics. But if you play tibia and ultima vi you will see that almost all ultima vi items are in tibia.

This game for me is one of the best game i ever played. But as like all mmorpg and old players i dont like to much last updates. And this new client is worst on performance on linux than the lastest we had.
vescape Oct 18, 2018
Hey! Any update to this? Doesn't seem to work anymore :/

Anyone have a clue what might have changed?
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.