Game news The biggest mystery of this MMORPG lay behind this door, it took almost 10 years to unlock its secret
In 2005, developers decided to integrate an almost impassable door into their MMORPG because you had to be level 999 to pass through it. And yet, that was without taking into account the determination of the players who sought for years to discover what was hidden behind what was initially just a joke.
Among the oldest MMORPGs still active, Tibia is surely one of the most popular. Released in 1997, this German massively multiplayer online role-playing game with pixel graphics and top-down view has made its reputation over the years for its hardcore experience. For example, in the event of death, players can go down in level while losing experience and even have their equipment stolen from their corpse. The game is sometimes sadistic because it is possible to kill a player in a loop in order to lower their level. So in this context, imagine all the mystery surrounding a door that can only be opened by players who have reached level… 999.
A mysterious door in one of the oldest MMORPGs
In 2005, eight years after the release of the game, the developers of CipSoft decided to integrate it into the basements of the city of Banuta a mysterious door that says when clicked on it ““You see a gate of expertise for level 999′. Only the worthy can pass.“, that is to say, it can only be crossed by players who have reached level 999. The community quickly renamed it Banuta Gate of Expertise. In Tibia, it is common to find doors that can only be passed from a certain level, this is a way for the game to indicate the path to new players so that they do not end up in areas where they are not supposed to go. If in Tibia there is no level limit, in 2005, the best players are around level 200, even for those who have been playing since the beginning. As soon as this door is integrated, players quickly understand that it is a joke by the developers, as Knightmare, a player who has since been employed by CipSoft, explains:
Actually the first version of this level door was kind of a joke, level doors were still new and I was having fun with them many years ago. At the time, lvl 999 seemed completely out of reach.
However, the developers were caught in their own game because of certain points that they had not taken into account at all. First of all, in 2005, they certainly did not imagine that Tibia would continue to remain online for years, even decades since the title will celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2027. And then, they certainly did not consider that players would play so much to the point of optimizing ways to obtain experience in the most efficient way possible. It was therefore in the 2010s that players began to organize themselves to achieve this objective, which forced the developers to create a reward behind this door commensurate with their efforts.. Unfortunately, everything far from went as planned.
Years of effort for an unexpected twist
Determined to achieve this goal, Kharsek is one of the most serious players to challenge himself to reach level 999 in order to cross this door. And the least we can say is that he is determined. According to Steven Messner, journalist at PC Gaming who has looked into this matter a lot, the CipSoft teams told him that it would have taken Kharsek nine years to reach level 999 and his journey was far from easy since he sometimes lost 13 days of progress due to a single death. And yet, thanks to unfailing determination, he manages to reach level 999 and decides to cross the door in stream on August 1, 2016, a decade after the introduction of the door and almost as many years of work. This date will mark the Tibia community, unfortunately not for the right reasons.
In front of more than 5000 people in front of his Twitch live, Kharsek turns up the pressure and explains that he doesn’t want to pass the gate, preferring to reach level 1000 to do so. Faced with such disappointment, Tibia players are expressing their dissatisfaction on Reddit and the forums. However, Kharsek did not keep his promise for long and finally walked through the door the next day, but out of sight. However, the players still knew this thanks to the “exiva” spell which allows you to track someone’s position. Thus, we discover that behind the door is a teleporter that leads to an island that players had already spotted in 2015, before being removed by the developers. If Internet users thought at first that it was a test island, it was in fact the mystery behind this famous door. However, no one knows exactly what is there for a simple reason: Kharsek refuses to speak and no one knows why.
On the internet, rumors are flying in all directions, some suggesting for example that Kharsek works for CipSoft to promote the game. But in reality, one of the explanations for the player’s behavior may be found in his journey. To achieve his goal, Kharsek had the support of many other players who helped him level up by optimizing his progress by healing him and applying buffs to him.. But conversely, other people tried to put obstacles in his way, by trying to kill him or finish off certain monsters for him to steal the experience. So, after years of harassment, Kharsek could have decided that the community of Tibia was not worthy of knowing the secret of the level 999 door out of a spirit of vengeance. Conversely, maybe he’s just a troll? Or does he want to retain the allure of mystery? Impossible to know and we will have to wait years to discover the truth about what this door really hides.
A secret finally revealed! But at what cost ?
After this major frustration, all the hopes of the Tibia community fell on Dev Onica, the second highest level player in the game with a level of 940. With the help of some of the players, the latter eventually reached level 999 in eight months in April 2017. But while Dev Onica has everything it takes to get through the door, he refuses to spend it for two months by asking for donations from these viewers on Twitch before doing so. At one point, he even demanded more than $5,000 before revealing the mystery. Over time, objectives vary and in total it is difficult to determine how much money the player has actually made at that time. But when he realizes that this pattern can no longer continue, he finally decides to stream his passage through the door on June 23… without forgetting to put as many advertisements as possible beforehand. Thus, it is in front of 15,000 viewers that the mystery of the level 999 door is finally revealed.
We therefore discover that behind this door hides an island on which we are welcomed by a congratulatory message. In this small tropical space, a few NPCs wait in front of a counter wondering what they will be able to recover. Apart from that, we find a seller who sells ordinary products, available anywhere, like bananas for example. Further on, an altar to obtain a trophy engraved with the player’s name is also available… and that’s it. Suffice to say that the disappointment is great for a mystery which lasted more than ten years and which required so much work to reach it. It must be said that after so much time, the imagination of the players in the face of this mystery had far exceeded the reality of what the developers had created.
Faced with such disappointment, many players are convinced that the island contains other mysteries. For them, it is not possible that after so many years of effort, the reward will be just that. The community therefore asked Dev Onica to try different things on the island to check, but he only trolled them by doing anything, all obviously on stream. But in reality, after this discovery, the enthusiasm of the players was no longer there. In 2018, a player named Itexo managed to go to the island and took a detailed tour of the island which can be found on YouTube. Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be any more secrets than that. By the developers’ own admission, when this door was introduced, there was nothing behind this door and it was over time that they had to create something, as players continued to play and gain in levels. If in this situation we can say that the journey was better than the destination, it is above all the mysterious aura around this door which made it so interestingmore than what she hid.