
Originally Posted by
Locomoto
That's how it's evolved. But the original concept didn't have the idea of AFK and auto-bot in mind. And I dare say I preferred it that way. A lot of people preferred it that way.
A game is a game primarily because it's played. A game cannot be a game if it's not played. It's something else. In this case MU with AFK characters is not a game. It's a virtual world full of NPCs.
It's a weird phenomenon.
Personally I wouldn't mind at all, these "players" will keep a business running. But for newcomers to the game, there's absolutely no incentive for them to play an "MMO" if all they see are unresponsive-others. And that's where the problem begins, old players remain while there's no new players coming in (because there's no point), resulting death to the game and ultimately the community.