"How the botters began, how all you know began, how all of it slowly died."
by Dreek
Dear players, to introduce myself, im Dreek, ive been playing since Closed Beta, when only Xian Server existed, ive lived all the transitions this game has been through in the international version, so therefore, id like to tell everyone what ive seen, how botters started, how pvp was lived, how it all began...
November, first week: At this time, all players started from nothing, all were level 1, EVERYONE was KSing mangyangs and one eyed ghosts, many ignore the tombs in Jangan map, as now everyone, rather jump directly to chi'in tomb, or botted their way out to 60's, but those Tombs are an amazing place, where the sky turns dark, and the design of the place is just awesome, you can feel like in any anime's crucial scene, or in a tenchu's stage.
December, third week: Everyone was at 30's, no real bots registered yet, i was lvl 36, i can remember as i was wishing to reach that black armor chest to look awesome with my black pvp cape, just had obtained my phantom walk skill, i felt awesome! The oasis on Donwang's desert, where the devil flowers rely, was the meeting place of everyone lvling in the surroundings, everyone used to be kind to eachother, ksing was ok ONLY when you were in "draft mode", thats how we called berzerk.
Then it happened... we thought the Server Admins spilled ramen over the servers or something, as we got a ONE WEEK ROLLBACK, dragging me back into level 31, everyone was pissed off, noone could believe it, noone was above lvl 38-40 now, the game was about to lose all of its players, and surely die without noone remembering it, but the Admins decided to mount a compensation event, ONE MONTH with double EXP, DROP and GOLD rates. Players were atonished! noone believed it, and with this, all you all love appeared, the Christmas Event, the first snow SRO ever tasted, the So-Ok, which many Anime Pervs loved, the Global Chats, which were free and could be dropped, and the great Seals too, noone really knew what this ones were, until a short time, when they became the top of the weapons, as of they are now.
No seal of sun had appeared yet, not even many seal of stars around, so people decided to grind big time, as they could redo their characters in no time, and have them be even richer than ever!! Globals started crossing all over, and society was at its most. Then a global appeared "THE RATES ARE x2 NOW!! BOT THIS SERVER TO DEATH!!" Thats when it all began, botters were now present, but not as you know them now, they were hunted, murdered, judged, blamed, if any player was surprised botting, he better quit, as noone would even talk to him again, hunting botters became a profession, great guild started to grow large and wealthy, max level was 4 in that time, i was the leader of the Meiyo Empire back then, beeing it part of the strong guilds aside GoD, theEMPIRE, MaSsAcRaTiOn, oWn, and many more, which represented Xian in that time...
January, second week: The event ended, the first lvl 50+ appeared, and one 60, "liner" a korean who made a pure STR Archer, society barely could kill urechi, a +3 weapon was rare and appreciated, valued for many, and then we saw many times "liner has killed Isyutaru from Karakoram". We were amazed" Someone could kill the boss we had not even saw!
At this time, the Yetis were the top monster, hard to kill and tough to fight, the "Builds" started to get famous, the INT, the STR, and the Hybrid, giving step to the Perfect Hybrid and Max INT/STR builds, which were not very spoken about, as they were rare.
March-April: My guild waged war against theEmpire, many were lost, many betrayed both bands, one of the best clan wars ever in Xian, all players were legit, but many things changed... the lvl 60 gap was just raised to lvl 70, the new suits and weapons were rare and admired, the strongest players "Impulse" and "Poltergeist, who were admired, as at their level they could take about 5 players of their own level, and fight bewteen eachother for ages, splitted their fame, ad Impulse left the game, and Poltergeist got the first +7 lvl 64 Glaive which was something rare and amazing, as he got it just by elixiring randomly, it was unique...
After joining the GoD alliance, my guild got betrayed by one of the most trustable members, drawning the guild into confusion and depression, causing many newly obtained members to leave, and inminently, the old ones left too, leaving me totally alone with my guild, becoming nothing else, but an spectator of Xian's history.
Strong guilds became corrupted, many guilds claimed to be "scammer" guilds, as Avalon and many more, who started appearing after the Seals were a treasure, and you could easily drop items to the ground in trade windows.
At this time, the grand Item Mall appeared, the items could be sold to anyone, the EXP tickets were wirth 10 millions, and went down to almost 2 millions... god i wish i had bought around 10.
The Admins noticed this, as a big money leak, and restricted items to the owner.
April-July: The botters started to overwhelm players, they could not be hunted anymore, Snow, and the rest of the playrs who used to hunted them ceased their attempts, the GMs who used to come down to our realm and judge bots stopped doing it, the Game Master Assistants (a Player Division who was supposed to aid Game Masters on catching bots) were bots themselves, i wish i could murder them now... they could had made a difference.
I had finally reached lvl 60 on my own effort, i was slow for my belief, but i enjoyed everyday with my guild, so it was well worth it. Jangan was the PvP capitol, every respectable player would be there to fight equals on honorable matches, losers would use it to become stronger, no mean players around, no botters that barely speak english, who picked their name by smashing their face against the keyboard, to kill you 1 hit KO with a +10 SoSun. This is a ridiculous fact, but indeed true.
Time passed and they added the alchemy system, the INT hybrids became the strongest build in the game, Isyutaru started dying endlessly by anyone who wanted her, even lvl 52's could get her!
Then, the first BOT PUNISHMENT was on foot, they posted a bigger list than this one, they banned around 15000+ players, and for the first time again, if you spoke to people in a room inside the Donwhang Cave, they would answer! The monster summon scrolls were used to slaughter botters, hell that was big fun!
After 3 months, the bot society came back, but the Europe Expansion, Legend I was on its way! Everyone who had left the game, who had surrendered to botters, came back to see this with their own eyes! Once it was applied, the first lvl 60 europeans, powerleveled by those lvl 80's appeared in within a month, including myself i made a wizard that way, it was amazing, finally i had something pure botters could not have...
Then, in taklamakkan the botters SWARMED the Niya archers with those little europeans following them on horses beeing massively powerleveled by bot parties in the same area, the game got rotten again...
A little bit back i came back into the game, Meiyo Empire is nothing but an empty guild with me in it, almost lvl 5, the thing i love of it is the NPC guards, they are fun when hunting or thieving! Some good old friends are still around, and i still owe one of them 22m for a chest, havent seen him around tho...
Whats the purpose of this story? Well, i have always, and will ever love this game, its just unique in a lot of features, the pvp, the skills, the concept, its just amazing.
We all know the game isnt fully implemented yet, as the Indian/Persian civilization has NOT been implemented yet, and its supposed to be outrageus and amazingly cool, i heard back on my golden days, there was confirmed a "summoner" class for them, if you notice in the game installed, theres some type of wizard, standing on the shoulder of some "Enneth" monster, which seem to be nothing else but a summon, and as a melee class we seem to be able to use claws and dual swords, thats gonna be an amazing race...
Id love to be able to live that race at its fully, of course there will be powerlevelers, but its not the same powerleveling your own character, than powerbotting massively a party of characters, thats just totally outside of the gaming concept, this kills the game's society..
SRO's society is fully broken, the spammers in town make it impossible to communicate in the MAIN ZONE to communicate, guilds are now based on recruting anything! and earning a lot of profit by any means! and players preffer to bot than rather play and live the game, making a real party, killing a giant, exploring the outer zones, hunting uniques, making real guilds, train for a reason...
When i made Meiyo Empire (Meiyo = Honor), i was a lvl 20 Spear-Lightning warrior, who sought for a future, where i would found a guild devoted to beeing hunters, defending those in need, helping merchants do their runs, meeting new people, creating the head of a leading faction, make SRO what its supposed to be, a game that recreates the Silkroad between Europe, Central Asia and China.
Where being a Thief means risking your life for it, planning great ambushes, becoming the best thief, leading the even the faction itself, grow great richness by seeking the convoys, planning strategies and strike, fast, and deadly like a snake.
Where being a Hunter means risking it all for your convoy, the glory of seeking thruth and justice, definding the convoy with your own body, seeking for no reward, but the safety of the convoy itself, fighting hard and furius, always prevailing the honor over all, like a tiger.
Where beeing a Merchant means searching for the best path to follow, to look for the best time to trade, and the best, honorable hunters to aid you, to know you can rely on them in the time of need, how many good will you carry, which cities will you visit, and always share your goods with those who helped you in the road, become the best merchant around, and help people obtain what they need to do their job.
Dear Game Masters and Players, if we do not want this game to fully become nothing but a game of outer merchandise, botters and spammers, we gotta do something toghether, we gotta break that division between Administrators and Users, we have to hook up some agreement, we have to seek up this game again, becaus if we let it be as it is, it might be only another game that disappears, but it can be too, the BEST free MMORPG out there, that can surpass any paid MMORPG, by its community and actual feeling if the very same game, where players answer to your need, where selling means not only profit, but passing your items by, where the Global Chats actually are used for good things, where we can live what we expect from a damn MMORPG that looks gorgeus enough to quit your other games and focus here, develop a character, and reach the glory this game promises by its own nature.
You might say "Its just a game, chill out", "Cmon man botting is t3h pwn4g3", "SDFU u hater" and many more, but i live this game on its real form for a time, and its an amazing game, i lived the society as it should be for a while, and its incredible, if youd like to live something aside fields swarming with botters, cities with trails of bots like ants, and useless NPCs and items, with Admins that preffer to ignore your needs, as most of them come from botters, then do something for it, dont bot, dont scam, train for a reason, and defend your ingame beliefs. Make a guild for real people, have a teamspeak/ventrillo for them, make awesome caravans, reject the botter, judge the exploiter, kill the blamer.
To end this really long text, id like to say, that there are many ways we could stop this, hex searchs, sandboxes, data drilling, logical bombing, and many more to protect the client, but this is useless if we, the players, download things from GZ (a site i personally respect), over other sites, and try to gain power using them here, and in many other games, get a meaning to play the game, i dont blame the botters for botting, i blame them for taking away the meaning of grinding, of making empty chars, for killing the game.
In case you read this entirely, Thank You for taking your time, i hope this helps you understand a little more the stry if Xian, and SRO itself, and if i can get one player to stop botting and start playing, then writing this was well worth it.
If you ever see me in the game, feel free to say hi, i dont bott, so i will respond
Ty Joymax for this awesome game.
Thats not exactly how it all "began", but its pretty close.
sad what the games become
