It didn't have to be though, botters definetly did kill it for alot of people. And it's guaranteed to kill a community.
Me and a few buddies all ended up quitting because the upkeep felt completely fruitless when we constantly kept getting outgrinded by robots. Even when some of us played daily for hours on end.
At that point we could either grab our own bots and "play the game" OR grind ourselves to an early grave to even compete on highscores and equipment. We did neither and all left. (This was mainly on launch and when the first fishing nerfs were put in effect, and from what i heard they did manage to restrict bots even more as time went on).
But yeah, we were 5 players who left early because of bots, and i imagine we weren't the only ones.
Which is sad because DeathZot is by far the best custom Tibia server i've ever played on, it's truly an amazing and well rounded experience.
Now, i do realize that bots in general are a common thing in Tibia no matter where you go, but my own opinion (seeing as botting was never against the server rules)- is that on a custom server like DeathZot, there should be HEAVY penalties for botters to encourage people to ACTUALLY PLAY THE GAME, not watch all 30 seasons of the Simpsons and wop, suddenly you're on par with other players who actually put time and effort into levling and gearing their toons.
It should ALWAYS be way more benefitial to level manually.
I imagine even with heavy penalties bots wouldn't go extinct, but hey then at least manual players could outperform them without having to play 10 hours a day.
Bots and laziness aside, what i've read so far sounds very promising. I'll definetly be coming back to try out the new Era!
.
