Click A Journey Through Time to read the history:

{more-A Journey Through Time-1}

It all began with a simple idea - a fun side project born out of a desire to learn frontend coding. The Tibia community was missing a tool to search through NPC transcripts, and with tibiasecrets.com hosting numerous transcripts, it felt like a worthwhile endeavor.

Over the course of a few weeks, I gathered transcripts from various sources: Tibia Wiki, BR, and tibiasecrets.com. With some rudimentary frontend skills, I cobbled together a basic working prototype. Soon after, talesoftibia.com went live, featuring a simple yet functional NPC search engine.

The project quickly gained momentum. VictorAlvarado stepped in to help with some basic fixes, while Alire added a much-appreciated dark mode. Then GABRO reached out, wanting to help make a better tool.

Our collaboration proved to great. We spent several weeks, even months brainstorming ideas, implementing features, testing rigorously, and iterating on our work. The result was a significantly improved version that we were proud to release to the community.

While GABRO primarily worked on the frontend and the search engine, behind the scenes, I set up a robust infrastructure on GitHub. Automated jobs were created to process NPC transcript .txt files, transforming them into a searchable database. This setup allowed for easy collaboration through pull requests, with changes reviewable and deployable within minutes.

As we released updates and new features, the community’s positive feedback fueled our motivation. The success of the NPC search tool inspired us to create another tool. Libsearch, a book search feature, was a natural next step, as we could repurpose about 80% of the existing code.

While GABRO continued refining the tool, I dedicated over a month to manually curating the book database. The result was impressive - libsearch launched with more unique books than you’d find by combining the English and BR Tibia wikis.
Additionally it includes creature descriptions and spell descriptions taken from Tibia.com

Although development on the site began to slow down, my work on the databases continued tirelessly. Over the course of a year, I manually collected hundreds of additional transcripts.

In 2024, I decided to take the project to the next level. I began a complete rebuild of the site, focusing on improving the user experience and adding new features. The project was a massive undertaking, but the end result was well worth the effort.

From its beginnings as a simple search tool, Tales of Tibia has evolved into a something I’m proud of, not only that, it’s also well liked and actually useful.

A hobby project turned into a passion project, and I’m excited to see where it goes next.

{/more-A Journey Through Time-1}

Changelog

While there are several hundred more updates and changes found as pull-requests in the Tibia GitHub repository, here are some of the more significant updates and milestones I found worth mentioning, and the list will be updated as new updates are made, big or small.

Note: This list has been gathered retroactively from reddit, discord and GitHub since 2024-06-25.

2024

2024-09-09:

• Metadata for (almost) all NPC coordinates have been corrected, along with addition of few missing NPCs.
• Shoutout to BrunoBrockAlves for help with inserting Kingsday keywords and other corrections. See github issues: 1, 2

2024-08-03:

• Reader and contributor BrunoBrockAlves made a BR Lore YouTube channel, check it out!

2024-07-05:

• Summer Update NPCs now documented and searchable!
• Missing Coco, Toffee and Sprout Sentinel due to difficuly, bounty will be created.

2024-07-04:

• Automated workflows for adding NPCs
• Automated workflows for allowing forked pull requests
• Automated workflows for optimizing icon images
• See them on GitHub

2024-06-27: Major Release:

• New article: Captain Iglue
• New projects
• Bounties
• Project Overview
• Changelog depicting the latest changes to the site, and lots of older ones.
• Updated README on Github and a complete overhaul of the folder structure, script names etc.

2024-06-20:

• Joined Tibiasecrets.com team. Tibiasecrets

2024-06-14:

• Added info-sections to home-page.
• Completely reworked tutorial with two tiny, interactive mysteries: Getting Started

2024-06-09: Major Release:

• Completely overhauled website with new reworked articles and introduced new blog section. Release Notes

2024-05-01:

• Migrated resources to resources.talesoftibia.com, hosted on Cloudflare R2 bucket. Includes JSON data for NPCs, books, and images Endpoints:

2024-04-30:

• Published long article: “The Sound of Silence” Reddit Post

2024-04-20:

• Magic web map now has Cyclopedia map. GitHub

2024-04-19:

• Discovered secret area visible from Cyclopedia Map Reddit Post

2024-02-17:

• Started with the complete rebuild of the site.

2024-01-31:

• Post on Cipsofts fix to Explorer Society, Yalahari artefacts bug Reddit Post

2024-01-29:

• Published article on Jekhr (Deepling Language) outside of Fiehonja, Gray Island Reddit Post

2024-01-25:

• Published “Secrets of the Goblin Gods - A venture into Krailos” (Parts 1 and 2) Reddit Posts

2024-01-23:

• Even more refactoring of npsearch/libsearch query parameters to considerably shorten the shareable URLs. GitHub

2024-01-19:

• Refactor of npsearch/libsearch query parameters.

2024-01-15:

• Published transcripts for WotE: A Sleeping Dragon and Awareness of the Emperor Reddit Post

2023-01-12:

• Published article on various curiosities in Tibia Reddit Post

2024-01-02:

• Discovered funny NPC in Svargrond with obscure keywords Reddit Post

2023

2023-12-16:

• Added NPCs, book, and creature data up to Tibia version 13.30 to the project database Link

2023-12-12:

• Expanded README with detailed guide on implementing NPC spam hotkeys for easier data collection Link

2023-12-01

• Created chatbot GPTs, ‘NPChat’, ‘LIBChat’, and ‘Loremaster’ (consolidated), to assist with NPC and book queries Link

2023-08-15: Major Release:

• libsearch was released along with several new improvements, such as property mode, all NPC icons and more. Release Notes
• GABRO went on to pursue other projects.

2023-07-24:

• Published first version article on Warlocks, Draconia, Trolls & The Mysterious Island Dianscher Reddit Post

2023-07-03:

• Published lore article on the Warlord Sword and Ancient, Magic Metals Reddit Post

2023-06-11:

• Published article on “The Weirdest Mystery of the Magic Web” Reddit Post

2023-06-09: Major Release:

• Significant TalesOfTibia.com upgrade: Improved NPSearch with multi-tab functionality, URL sharing, and mobile optimizations Release Notes
• Work on libsearch began.

2023-06-04:

• Introduced Magic Web Explorer Reddit Post

2023-06-01:

• Added known multiword keywords to Hotkey Mania Link

2023-05-28:

• Tree view for tracking unverified and empty NPC transcripts for easier content management Link
• Youtube video on how to use ‘Hotkey Mania’ to find new insights into secrets Reddit Post

2023-05-26:

• Published article on the strongest and mightiest thing in Tibia Reddit Post

2023-05-21:

• Published article on The Serpentine Tower Dream Machine Reddit Post

2023-04-28:

• Discovered a new source of Holy Water Reddit Post

2023-04-25:

• Discovered the true name of “Vengoth Mountains” Reddit Post

2023-04-21:

• Major backend restructure: Implemented new npc_data.json and redesigned conversations.json for improved data organization Link
• Automated workflow upgrade: New file mapping system and dynamic tree generation for better content tracking Link

2023-04-15:

• GABRO began work on improving npsearch into what we know it today.

2023-04-12:

• Open-sourced talesoftibia.com, making the entire project codebase publicly accessible Link

2023-04-11:

• Refined Hotkey Mania hotkeys.json file, removing redundant entries and improving overall structure Link

2023-04-10: Major Release

• Relaunced the site with a new design and improved functionality Link

New Tool

• Released ‘Hotkey Mania’, hotkey preset with a thousand action buttons. A way to collect NPC transcripts faster, and be able to query tens of thousands of different words inside and outside of Tibia. Hotkeys.json

2023-04-07: Major Release:

• Launched NPSearch tool on talesoftibia.com, enabling users to easily search through NPC transcripts Link

2023-04-06:

• Developed and implemented advanced search functionality for NPC transcripts, improving data accessibility Link

2023-04-05:

• First working demo of crude npsearch.

2023-04-04:

• Overhauled NPC folder organization, implementing a more logical and navigable structure Link

2023-04-03:

• Started collecting NPC Transcripts.
• Updated styling of articles on GitHub Link
• Published comprehensive guide “Getting Started with the Lore Mysteries” on both GitHub and Reddit Link

2023-03-31:

• First commit to the talesoftibia.com project.

2023-03-23:

• My Opus Magnum on 469. Published article “Following the leads of 469. My descent into Madness. [Re]” Reddit Post

2023-03-19:

• Created s2ward/tibia repository on GitHub, to host various data jobs and NPC flows Link

2023-02-10:

• Published article “Wyda and the Demoning of the ***” Reddit Post

2022

2022-06-02:

• Published article on “The Story of Chief Grarkharok - New development in an unsolved quest” Reddit Post

2022-05-26:

• Published article on “The weird connections of Alawar, warlock on Senja” Reddit Post

2022-03-22:

• Published article on “469, A language blinked between entities” Reddit Post

2022-03-14:

• Youtube video: “The Basilisk and the Serpentine Tower - The Key to all Mysteries (ft. Skogul)” Reddit Post

2022-02-28:

• Youtube video: “The Basilisk and the Jakundaf Banshee” Reddit Post

2022-02-16:

• Published lore article on “The Warlord Sword and the Dark Cloaked Man” Reddit Post

2022-01-22:

• Creation of Discord server ‘Explorer Society’ for /r/SolvingTibia Reddit Post

2022-01-08:

• Published extensive lore article: “The True Sons of the Desert’s True Secret. Dream Realm explained like never before and how Dragons exist. Secrets of Necromancy” Reddit Post

2021

2021-12-23:

• Shared speculation on “What could’ve happened in Demona” Reddit Post

2021-10-13:

• Published article “The Thin Red Line. My conclusions after ‘solving tibia’ - I think Knightmare is smiling at us, I have proof” Reddit Post

2021-10-04:

• Published article on “Trimegis Disappearance, Alawar, Demon Parchment room - I’ve found something curious with the Strange Carvings! Help wanted!” Reddit Post

2021-09-26:

• Published article “The Thin Red Line, How to connect all mysteriando in Tibia at once” Reddit Post

2021-08-26:

• Published article “The Basilisk, Serpentine Tower, Banuta - Unexpected & Absurd advance in an old mystery” Reddit Post

2021-08-21:

• Published article “The Mad Mage, Answer to Mathmagics, 469, Demona, Talons, A look into an unsolved quest” Reddit Post

2021-08-15:

• Published article “The Serpentine Tower, explaining the XXXXXX spell and the rest of the tower, and how to continue” Reddit Post

2021-08-12:

• Published article “Serpentine tower, Hugo demonbunny, The hyena king - Speculations and observations from Legends of the Kha’labal I” Reddit Post

2021-08-10:

• Published article on potentially connecting the Serpentine Tower to the lore and the Djinn wars Reddit Post

2021-08-10:

• r/SolvingTibia was created Reddit

2021-07-02:

• First article, The dark secret of Ankrahmun, and how to unfold a secret Reddit Post