Was it possible in old times to stay on mainland without vocation?

Question

I heard a story about people without vocation on mainland. Was it possible in the past to come from Rookgaard to mainland without selecting any vocation? Anyone knows something more about this history? How and when was it possible?

Answer 1

On January 7th, 1997, Tibia was born. My assumption is somewhere in between November 2001-December 2002 is when you had to pick a vocation before leaving Rookgaard. My heart is leaning towards when they introduced the Oracle in December 2002 where you HAD to pick a vocation and location. I do not have experience during this time line so I cannot say this 100% certainty.  But there was a time where Tibia had no Rookgaard or vocations. I wish I could provide you more but this is what I came up with based on my research:

In the first quarter of Tibia's second year, the magic system was created and characters received skills and vocations. Also the mail system and depots were implemented, just to name a few things. In May 1998, Tibia Beta 4.0 went online.

During the first 5 years of Tibia, the map was extended greatly. In the beginning, Tibia had not been much larger than Thais. When Tibia 6.4 went live in November 2001, the newbie island Rookgaard had already been added, and the mainland had been extended immensely. It already included Kazordoon, the Green Claw Swamp, the Jakundaf Desert, Femor Hills, the Orc Fortress, Ab'Dendriel, the Ice Islands, and the Fields of Glory, for example. And with this 6.4 update, Edron became a part of Tibia.

Source: https://www.tibia.com/news/?subtopic=newsarchive&id=3777&fbegind=1&fbeginm=1&fbeginy=2000&fendd=9&fendm=2&fendy=2020&flist=11111111

They introduced The Oracle in December 2002:

Leaving Rookgaard now means talking to an oracle which asks you for your desired profession and the town you want to go to. This should help distributing players evenly among the towns.

Source: https://www.tibia.com/news/?subtopic=newsarchive&id=173&fbegind=1&fbeginm=1&fbeginy=2000&fendd=9&fendm=2&fendy=2020&flist=11111111

Answer 2

While talking to the 'Angel' on Rookgaard you were supposed to chose vocation - otherwise you would not leave. So I am quite sure the answer is no! However, I am not sure what happened if someone got killed a lot of times and went down to level 5 - maybe that is when they had no more vocation but the system didn't push them back to Rookgaard so they remained on mainland with no vocation, gaining their levels back. Oh, and there was no NPC to give them the vocation back, lol.

Answer 3

Before rookgaard you got your vocation from the guildhalls in Thais.

They were available at different levels, with paladin being available at level 4 for a price of 800 gp.

Knight was available at level 5 for 500 gp.

At level 6 you could become a Druid for 1000 gp, and lastly Sorcerer at level 7 at a staggering 2000 gp.

When rookgaard was made, some remained on mainland without a vocation.

At first in rookgaard, you selected your vocation by stepping through a teleporter with brought you to thais, this was later replaced with the Oracle as many players stepped through the wrong teleporter and is the reasons why the oracle is so insistent you confirm your choice.

Comments

This is so good to know. Do you have any source for this or your just an old timer?

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I've played on and off since 99/00, so I have some vague memories of the old times.

Whenever my memory fails me, Karr Chaos has done a wonderful job documenting a bunch of stuff.
Check it out https://www.nightmareknights.com/index.html