About Ankrahmun and the rework
As the game administrators we stand against a great challenge to keep the game fresh and thrilling for you yet without stripping it off its original vibe. Our goal was never to cut the roots or plant a new tree but to grow the good old one another branch. We recognize both the players who always look forward to the new updates and those who appreciate the nostalgy of the original game. It is, therefore, always amongst our priorities to find the golden mean.

In the past two years, many questions, doubts, and myths have arisen around the subject of Ankrahmun. We decided that the second anniversary is a perfect occasion to gather the answers to all issues in one place and hereby make an official statement: yes, the Ankrahmun update will be reworked. When? The works are coming to an end, but the exact date will be announced with a two weeks' notice. We are releasing this post with the hopes of dispelling your doubts or at least allowing you to view the matter from a different perspective. Be advised that this text is quite long, for we wanted to properly address all the issues that have been raised.

Let's start from the beginning.

Why is Ankrahmun a custom area?
The answer to this question is complex. The first factor that made us reflect upon the matter of customising Ankrahmun was the fact that in its original form it was not very well balanced in terms of grinding opportunities - the Ankrahmun Tombs offered too easy access to quick exp, and there were too many hunting grounds in the area. In fact, there was hardly any reason to ever leave the Tombs, since it was indisputably the best grinding spot for a character of any level. This, in turn, (alongside other issues - we'll get there soon enough) focused the whole game on all other OT Servers almost exclusively around Ankrahmun, unlike in the times of 7.4 when the Tombs had already existed but the deeper floors were just added. Therefore the exping tactics so widespread these days were not common yet, and the impact they had on the gameplay - which took place mostly on the Mainland - was incomparably smaller. We wanted to bring back the true playstyle of those times instead of just replicating the one known from the modern OT Servers. And we think we did so quite successfully as we watch the players revive the old hunting methods or show creativity in inventing new ones.

Furthermore, as we already mentioned, the original Ankrahmun was flawed in other ways as well, i.e. in terms of protection zones. Initially, the pyramids, for example, were not a protection zone. This allowed player killers to stairhop all around the area with full freedom and impunity, and that, in turn, made killing such characters nearly impossible. This issue was addressed in later versions. We're purposefully avoiding the word "resolved" to draw your attention to the fact that eventually the whole city was made one huge protection zone. One could travel from the depo to the ship without hindrance even when chased by a whole enemy army. Moreover, the ubiquitous protection zones, along with no possibility of luring in anything stronger than a rat, made Ankrahmun a perfect spot for runemakers.

On the OT Servers, the abovementioned issues contributed greatly to concentrating a large majority of the population in the city of Ankrahmun, unlike during 7.4 when that city was only one of many and a cool addition. Some people suggested that it would take but removing/nerfing the Peninusla Tomb but there were too many other tombs that offered quick exp for any level. Besides, as already mentioned, the problem of imbalance was much larger than just grinding spots. All this made us consider this area very carefully, especially that the game also needs something new and fresh to maintain the players' interest and curiosity and to always have the capacity to offer something new to explore. This very often requires adding new areas and, when making plans for the next few years, we did not want to expand the map too much too early - we imagine this could quickly result in a feeling of emptiness. A larger map with the same population would reduce the number of interactions. Some of the most nostalgic memories are cities teeming with people, adventures with strangers met on the road, fights for resps, or search for less visited spots - they all made the game "alive", and one of our goals was to bring it back to life today.



As we drifted in the sea of uncertainty and doubts, swayed by the waves of nostalgy, navigating between the sharp rocks of imbalance, we finally saw the answer clearly: all of our goals could be realised in making Ankrahmun a custom area with new content to be discovered. This allowed us not to expand the map just yet. We could finally break the pattern reused on all OT Servers, revive the playstyle known from the good old times, and resolve the balance issues - and we did so successfully. The custom content though was the only thing that did not work as expected, and now we'd like to analyse the reasons.


Why is access to Ankrahmun restricted to the quest participants?
This is a question that probably many of you are asking yourselves right now. Custom content, fine, but why is it not open to all? The answer is quite simple: we wanted it to be discovered gradually, bit by bit, and not fully explored in 2 days. Preparing a good, interesting, and balanced update takes a lot of time - much more than it takes to explore all the new content when it's made available all at once. As you realise that you've seen all there is, the hype subsides and the curiosity gives way to routine - and this is exactly what we want to avoid. We want you to always have something to discover, so that you don't feel the emptiness of purposelessness, and never reach that spot where you can't go any further because there's nowhere else to go. This is why we need to slow down the progress of exploring new content.

Furthermore, we cannot release new updates too often. Primarily because we want to keep the original core and not overexpand the map, but also because creating new content from scratch - the whole concept, lore, sprites, NPCs, monsters, areas - and balancing it well is a time-consuming process. It is also worth mentioning here that we made plans for Tibiantis for many years forward, and revealing new content little by little was crucial to keep the players interested. As we could see though, it did not work out very well because players got stuck and could not discover anything new for too long.


Why then did we not spoil or release a few leads or clues?
This question is based on the premise that we didn't, and that is not exactly true. At first we made attempts to help by putting out some pieces of information. They were, however, very often misinterpreted, which only caused unnecessary kerfuffle and confusion. For example, we said that there's no level requirement to gain access. Some players concluded that even a bare 8-level character can complete the quest with no assistance. We were also very direct about searching the desert blindly - it was futile and not what the quest was about. Yet people would not give up their efforts to sweep the whole desert equipped with metal detectors and shovels ;)

Thus, we quickly noticed that it was pointless to release any more tips. Especially that some players tried to extract the information from us from day one before they even had the chance to solve anything by themselves. Even before the first new NPC was found, we had received numerous questions and requests for answers. This made it very hard to accurately assess whether releasing additional information was really necessary. Moreover, publishing one lead only resulted in more questions and requests for even more leads. And as we observed the reactions, we could see that for some people the clues we gave didn't seem helpful, for others they didn't seem like clues at all. We agree that clues are supposed to bring you closer to the final success. But they are designed to give your efforts a certain direction, not to be full simple answers. And since they are not answers, there might still be those who won't be able to solve the quest despite their best efforts. And this is okay because this does not determine any characteristic of the clues (whether they were good or poor) or the people who solve the quest (or not).

Hence, the decision not to give out any more clues - not to this or any other quest. Quests are designed to be completed by solving them, not asking gamemasters for help. Why then wouldn't we just reveal the solution after all this time? Putting aside the aforementioned reason (again, quests are to be solved!), primarily it would be unfair to people who are doing their best to complete the quest by themselves. "Why, there's only a handful of such people!" - one might say. Perhaps, but that is the way it is with quests - some are to be completed by few. If they could be solved by anyone, then - in a game of just a few hundred players - there would be no secrets, no mystery. Very often it is that handful of pioneers that blaze the trail by completing the quest, and only then do the news of their exploration spread amongst others.

Let's take for instance Aruthang. Having failed to extort a trade permit from Gedor, some people already made their mind about the quest - mainly, that it's fucked. Nonetheless, after no more than a week, a few managed to accomplish what many could not, and the solution traveled by word of mouth. The situation was very much alike with further missions - of which hardly anyone knew for quite some time - that are now being slowly discovered by other explorers. If quests were simple and straightforward, and did not pose any challenge, we could not speak of exploration or discovery. Revealing the solution is, therefore, unfair to those who like and appreciate this aspect of the game the most. This is why it does not matter how many percent of the population this group accounts for. Some people wait to be served everything on a silver plate, while others work hard to complete the quests. We respect the effort the latter put into the game and we appreciate the enjoyment they get out of it because for us the level of entertainment we provide is the measure of success and satisfaction. We take pride in the custom content we make, including the quests, and we cannot ignore this group of players, however small, or let their effort go to waste.

Another matter is that many negative emotions have arisen around the subject of Ankrahumn, and it seemed that the best idea was to not stir up the atmosphere, let it all die down, and under no circumstance let the emotions guide our decisions. We focused instead on the new update (Aruthang), new website, and technical improvements.

To conclude by answering the title question: we refused to spoil, despite having received numerous requests from the very beginning, because we abstained from the assumption that nobody was capable of making the discovery by themselves. Releasing any information seemed like stirring up a hornets' nest, and it hardly seemed fair anyway. Only now can we look at the whole matter with a clear mind and from the proper perspective. Now seems to be just the right moment to find the satisfactory solution.


But what actually went wrong?
First of all, it is not a simple task to balance out the quest difficulty. Bearing in mind the issues from the previous section - should the quest be too easy, considering the number of players, it will be discovered and completed in no time. As a result the content will receive poor reviews and will quickly bore the players. On the other hand, if the quest turns out to be too hard, it may happen that it will not be discovered at all, which is way worse. The goal is to let the quest progress slowly, being discovered bit by bit, spread over time, so that e.g. every week or every month a new piece of the puzzle is found. We realise this cannot be planned in such detail, but that is the level of difficulty that we're aiming at. It also has to match the reward, of course. But we feel obliged to always attempt to find the golden mean.

When we were creating the Ankrahmun content, we did not have any data to base our estimates off of. We also did not have the experience that we have now after Ankrahmun and Aruthang. We obviously underestimated the difficulty of some steps - not in Aruthang, but in Ankrahmun. In Aruthang the first tasks were completed almost right away, the trade and steamboat travel was unlocked after a week, and additional missions were discovered after almost a month. The progress was well spread over time, and the difficulty increased as the quest progressed (and this is good!). It was supposed to be like that with Ankrahmun too but well... our estimates were mostly based on a gut feeling and they turned out wrong. Quests are the most difficult aspect of the game to balance out properly, because the success is very often determined by the creativity of those few pioneers, and sometimes it takes an unusual concatenation of coincidences for someone to come up with the right idea. Regarding the Ankrahmun content, the ideas were there, we saw them in forum dicussions and discord chats. Some people successfully predicted the course of the quest and the next stage. Things got stuck, however, due to technical issues and here, as we think, is the heart of the problem. Perhaps, some elements needed more work and focus than we could afford due to the great pressure on launching the server soon and the lack of time. That is why we always say that it's better to release high-quality content later than underdeveloped content sooner.


How can we avoid similar issues in the future?
As already mentioned, we have a much bigger perspective. While we worked pretty much blindly on the custom Ankrahmun, we now have a lot of data to analyse. We have some level of experience to base on, which, in turn, has already proven very useful in improving the design of the quests for the new update. Furthermore, in the upcoming updates we will not restrict access at an early stage, but rather at a further point. In that case, should anything go wrong, only a small part of the content would remain undiscovered - a story, a quest, a spot - not the whole area. And it would not be such a large issue, for it is acceptable for some secrets to wait years to be discovered. We already applied these measures in the Aruthang update - the main area available to all, with stories and quests hidden. Everyone is free to discover them (or not). Also, in line with your suggestions, we hired a language expert to copyedit and correct the dialogues, books, and other texts, so that typos or grammatical errors do not hinder your progress. These are the three main changes introduced since the Ankrahmun update that are going to help us improve the quality of the custom content.


If we refused to spoil, then why did we decide to rework the content?
Simply because it's already been more than 2 years and there's no point for such a large portion of content to remain undiscovered. Especially that it's been more than a year since the latest update, and - as mentioned before - the game needs freshness and novelty.

The Ankrahmun thread has been dead for quite some time now, with no prospect of change. And if it were but one quest or spot, it could wait indefinitely. But we're talking here about a large amount of content, which is even bigger than the Aruthang update. Should anyone make a breakthrough though and find their way across, we would be facing other issues. Primarily that would mean a truly huge amount of new content, because if we were to keep the Ankrahmun as it is, we'd focus our efforts on releasing another update - hence, there'd be the content from the new update AND the old but newly discovered Ankrahmun content - see previous sections about portioning the new content and adapting the map size to the population if you still need an explanation why this is bad. We'd also be risking that the pioneer who makes it to the Ankrahmun first would not share the solution with anyone and would have the whole area to themselves. We do not deny that this risk is always an issue, albeit hardly siginificant when it regards just one minor location. In case of Ankrahmun, we fear it would be game breaking if someone gained exclusive access to that area.

Why did we not consider this risk earlier, you might ask. Well, as we already admitted, restricting the access on such an early stage was a mistake. We also could not have expected for the new content to be so hard to reach. We estimated that after a short time at least some of it would be common knowledge. Additionally, the server has already reached that stage when djinns (as NPC traders) are crucial for maintaining the value of certain items. Even though this process was delayed by adjusting the quest rewards, we knew from the beginning that the economy would eventually require them. Of course, we prefer to support player-to-player barter, and we'll continue working on improvements in this area, because it fosters interactions and does not result in bringing in more money to the server (which, in turn, causes inflation). Make no mistake, though, there are no miracles. Low value of items is not favourable, and that is why we need to keep searching for the golden mean.



Let's not, however, turn this into an argument on the game economy. We'd like to conclude with the information that the Djinn Quest does indeed exist and (among other benefits) it unlocks trade with that particular race. Both the quest and the trade are custom, which means that the prices, items or means of trade might differ from the original.


But since we're reworking anyway, why not spoil instead of wasting everyone's time?!
We're reworking to fix the mistakes and miscalculations found when analysing what went wrong with the Ankrahmun update. Why not spoil and just publish the answers? - this has already been covered in the previous sections of this post. Some may still disagree with our assessment so we'd suggest considering the following: in recent times, crossing the certain fence has become sort of a Tibiantis Graal, while it was (and still is!) supposed to be just the beginning of a whole big adventure. Let's assume that we release the solution to this stage of the quest, without changing a thing. What if, having crossed that fence, players would face the exact same types of problems? Would we then be expected to reveal the solutions again and again? As we already said, doing so would be pointless and against our goals. Instead, we believe that it is better to perform a full review of the whole Ankrahmun content, double-check respawns, loots, NPCs, and fix any possible bugs. Especially that right now we have a lot more data to help us balance out these aspects of the game.

We also want to avoid the situation where players finally make it to the other side only to be greatly disappointed. That is why a rework is definitely a much better solution here, because it will give us an opportunity not only to fix any bugs found during the review but also to make some improvements and iron out the details. Furthermore, we expressed our appreciation for the effort of the true pioneers and we would hate for that effort to go to waste - which would definitely happen, were we to reveal the solutions. Instead, we want to design the improvements in such a way that all previous attempts and the knowledge gained during thereof will still be very much useful in the following stages, at least to some extent, so that nobody is at a loss. We believe that the solution that we're proposing will satisfactorily address all the issues that we're mentioning here.


What will be changed?
We're keeping all the lore but we're going to improve the way it's conveyed. All errors will be fixed, dialogues made more detailed, story better told, and some clues made more evident. The clues will receive special attention, particularly the ones from the early stages, since it is understandable for the difficulty to increase along with the quest's progress, but we cannot allow for such a large area to remain inaccessible due to quest difficulty. As for the issue that probably interests you the most right now - the means of getting over the barricade guarded by Abbas will also remain unchanged, but the clues will be more apparent and the reasons for why things are the way they are should become clear. On this stage there will also be one technical change that players will catch on quickly. Furthermore, there might be some tweaks in balancing the resps and mobs, and changes regarding the NPCs from the yet unexplored part of the content. We will not dwell on those though for obvious reasons.


Will we reveal the solutions to the previous version of the content after the rework?
No, because the solutions will not change. However, as soon as the players progress in the quest and explore the content - which we believe should not take very long - we can put out the information regarding technical changes and improvements on the original version.


About the "Ankrahmun effect"
We often face allegations that we were blind to the fact that the Ankrahmun affair convinced many players to abandon Tibiantis. We would like to address this issue now. We are of the opinion that the significance and influence of the Ankrahmun update is much overrated. It might have contributed to some people abandoning the game, granted. So many players, so many opinions. There's no doubt, however, that Ankrahmun was just a convenient excuse or very often the main allegation made by people who hardly had any real interest in the subject. We can also observe similar notions on other OT Servers, where many players, whatever their real reasons, find excuses for taking vacation from the game. Completely unnecessarily, since it is only natural that, as one game becomes boring, we look for another only to come back after a certain time. We witnessed such behaviours among people who claimed that they quit playing because of the Ankrahmun situation and returned after a few months, even though nothing has changed regarding the Ankrahmun content. Furthermore, fluctuations in population numbers are also natural and to be expected in online games. Similarly to the differences in online population between different times of day, we can observe changes and patterns on a macro scale.

There is a number of significant factors that affect the overall population of online games, e.g. political situation in the community (wars and other events), ban waves, the situation on the market (launches of other OT Servers, big premieres of other games, our own campaign), the current situation in the world (COVID restrictions), season and weather. All these factors (and many more) independently influence the number of people playing the game, and simplifying the matter to put the blame on one update is just causal reductionism. We were conscious of such fluctuations from the beginning. The highest number of online players was reached nearly 2 years after the server had been launched, which is many months after the thesis about the "Ankrahmun effect" was even formulated. There is no data to corroborate the significance of Ankrahmun's alleged influence on the population. Especially, that the history has seen many an example of a server that included the original Ankrahmun yet was not teeming with players, and the "Ankrahmun effect" was replaced by some other homogenous thesis with fallacious argumentation. Nonetheless, this is hardly a place for a demographic analysis. Undoubtedly, the game needs its updates and freshness. And in the end, everyone is entitled to their own opinions.


A word on the quests' logic
One of the few pieces of information that we released to the public was that the quest is logical. We'd like to elaborate a bit on what we meant by this. Primarily, logical does not mean easy. There exists an abundance of logic problems and challenges that hardly anyone can solve, and yet... they are very much logical. Regarding the quests, one is logical when each next step can be deduced - either from previous steps or from clues found in the game. The clues can be hidden, they can be vague or indirect about what you need to do next. They are intended and designed to leave some space for interpretation. A quest isn't supposed to be a step-by-step instruction - go there, do that. We think it's only fair to expect the player to put some effort into solving a quest - after all there is a prize for completing it, and a reward by its definition implies effort. However, we can hardly expect a player to solve a quest by standing on two inconspicuous tiles that are not mentioned or referred to anywhere or by anyone and have no connection at all to anything whatsoever - that is definitely not logical, and, frankly, it's ridiculous. We are far from expecting anyone to perform some random actions that make no sense. As for the difficulty, it is not determinant to the quest's logic. There was even one particular allegation that was mentioned in a number of discussions, i.e. that we wrongly qualified the Gamel Quest as logical, because it remained unsolved for years despite there being thousands of players. And had it not been for a certain leak, it might still be waiting for completion. Let us then take a closer look at that quest.

Here and there, around the city, you could hear rumours of a rebellion against the king, whereof the title Gamel was said to be part. We can even question him about this, but in reply he'll only ask who sent us. If you were to ask around about him though, one of the other NPCs in the city would tell you that Gamel recently met with a one-eyed stranger at the tavern. We can then go to the said tavern and inquire about the one-eyed gentleman, whose name the innkeeper will luckily remember and share with us. We now pay Gamel another visit, and when he asks who sent us, we can casually drop the name to mislead him. Gamel will think us fellow rebels and reveal his plans. Having obtained the intel, a good law-abiding citizen will report to the superior of the appropriate services to thwart the plot, and you already know what happens next ;)

What is it about this quest that makes it illogical? The steps that can be inferred from previous ones, or the keywords that are included in the NPCs utterances? Or perhaps the fact that no one tells us directly where to go or whom to talk to. These do not determine the logic of the quest. It is also not determined by the fact that probably nobody had found it before - this might be caused by the quest's difficulty but definitely doesn't prove it's lack of logic.

Let's also remember that not knowing about the quest itself (when it doesn't have a distinct beginning or a clear prospect of a reward), hardly any player would look to obtain this intel. That was probably what contributed the most to the quest's remaining undiscovered. However, the quest's course itself is very much logical and makes sense. By the way, similar threads and flavours were added in Tibiantis. The rest is for the players to explore.


Questions and myths
Let us conclude this analysis with a few clarifications to the most common doubts and myths combined into a concise FAQ.

It was claimed repeatedly that "Ankrahmun doesn't exist because there are no houses, no depo, and you cannot send a parcel". - The city in its original form obviously does not exists. But there are ruins, which was common knowledge already before the rework. Ruins include neither houses nor a depo, but they do exist.

"Tombs do [not] exist" - the original tombs don't. There are other hunting grounds though with undeads and other monsters.

"Djinns do [not] exist" - as already mentioned in this post, djinns do exist - both as monsters and as NPCs open to trade. However, both the quest and the trade are custom. It should not be assumed that the inventory and the prices will be identical to the original.

"HotA does [not] exist" -  since there are no tombs, the original HotA quest does not exist. Not to reveal too much though, there are other plots and quests just waiting to be discovered. Some are small, some are bigger and more complex, and there are also those that match or even surpass the HotA quest ;)

How many custom mobs can be found in Ankrahmun? - There are six mobs to exp on - completely custom and with a regular respawn - not including bosses, raids, special mobs, quest mobs, and exclusive mobs (ones that weren't present anywhere else, e.g. scarabs).

Does Ankrahmun include more or less content than Aruthang? - More, both regarding the hunting grounds and the quests. Bear in mind though that the Aruthang content has not been fully explored yet.

Is the Ankrahmun content intended for low/mid/high levels? - It's quite diverse. When it comes to hunting grounds, they're designed mostly for mid-levels, yet there are a few for low-levels as well - not too many because we feel there's an abundance of those in other areas. There's also some content intended specificaly for high-level characters, and there's definitely more of it than in Aruthang. It does not, however, include grinding spots where 200-level characters will gain 1kk exp per hour, obviously. That type of content neither is included in the Ankrahmun update nor will ever be included in any other of our updates. It does not mean though that the high-levels will not have their hands full with other business ;)

Why did we not prove that Ankrahmun exists to motivate the players and cut off all speculation? - We did. Or at least we tried. At some point we even published screenshots on demand, but it made no difference. There was always someone who would claim that it wasn't proof enough. So we desisted from further actions. The same for clues. Nothing will ever be fully accepted as a clue or proof unless the player finds out for himself that it truly is.

Feel free to join the discussion and share your opinions. Bear in mind though that the decision about the rework is final and the plan is already in motion.