I've read through a healthy amount of the feedback in here, and there are a couple of things:
1) OT Development was always niche, and the forums were always slow-moving, and often had rivalries and petty behaviour in them. OTFans wasn't especially different. Most of the boards were somewhat dead even 10-13 years ago.
2) The most popular band of server development was often mapping, but even mapping has been reduced and boiled down. The maps produced now are often very busy, and worse yet, the demonstrations of such maps are often 'bullshots', using in-game lighting to its fullest effect. Whilst it is interesting to see how something might look in game, it misses the fundamental point of mapping, which is to make something fun to play. Seeing the game view gives you a TINY scope of what is actually being done with the map itself.
3) Tibia has, on the whole, been superseded through and through. It is not the apex of MMOs, it was barely on the head of the spear when MMOs were still a new concept (compared to Ultima, Soma etc.) with incredibly simple mechanics.
4) Tibia was invented as an online multi-user dungeon system (MUD). This artistry has been lost to time. For those of you that aren't necessarily aware, a MUD is essentially the realisation of a DnD style game conducted through computer interfaces, but this one - Tibia - has a GUI on top to show you what is occurring. Sadly, the focus has long stopped being on using this as a story telling medium, and has gone the way of 'big numbers whoa wow look at these runes look at my hunt metrics' - something that sadly, can be done better, and the bar for doing that better is so low it's basically looking up at the soles of peoples' shoes.
5) Tibia, as a game and as an experience, is deeply flawed in the design decisions made by CipSoft that have influenced the way we as an OT community design games. There has always been a fondness for being 'CIP-like', and true to the spirit of Tibia, but that isn't to say that CIP have always made the best choices, akin to Blizzard with WoW. We have still aped their choices in ours, and have built a reflection of the already flawed systems they have designed. The level of flaw becomes apparent if you visit Cip's own forums, which are full of strife, and have been for the last 20 years. The game is a complaint magnet, because it is fundamentally not an astounding game.
I hope you won't mistake my comments for hatred for the game, it comes across very negative, but it comes from a place of admiration for the vision set out by the game. Unfortunately I've also seen the choice to go for an 'ARPG' styled Tibia, moreso than a storytelling Tibia, and I feel the game fell short of that vision as a result. I loved mapping myself, and the intricacies that could be woven together, because it felt like you were 'building' a story, but somewhere we lost the story part of it. Part of the pains are in the ethos behind designing OTs, because they have adopted a 'show don't tell' approach with their game design, but it has ultimately led to bleak more-of-the-same locations to run around, with great thought behind them but none of it given to the players. In combination with ARPG ideas of 'gotta push levels' instead of 'gotta explore this unique and interesting quest...' have led to stagnation.
CIP are just as guilty of this, and are arguably the progenitors of this trend.