[squeaky-clean]

Not OP but for me the appeal would be in botting a game that's made for humans, and not a game made specifically made for botting. Let me use autohotkey, or modify the client, or do any of the things real botters do, don't worry about providing an API. Just let me register a character as a bot and restrict it to a separate server that can't interact with the main game servers/economy, and disable anti-botting protection. Maybe make it require something like CURLing an endpoint so that regular users can't accidentally create a character on the bot world.

But this would probably never fly because it would become a training ground for people who make malicious bots.

[Folcon]

This is interesting, I've been thinking a bit about this question of separating some gameplay areas

There's sort of 5 versions of this in my mind and I've been thinking about each of them and trying to work out which one is a good starting point of to explore :)

I'm going to say your zombies as a shorthand for how you automate stuff, hopefully it creates easier to follow examples :)

1) automation of player spaces where players complete by automating and they can't directly influence each other, so something like a zombie workshop a la zachtronics game with some twists

2) automation of a shared space automation space, so more zombies dueling each other like in robot wars

3) automation in the game world that's multiplayer interactive, so it can influence the game and help you, like factorio, however players can interact with it and say damage or improve the mechanisms of automation

So I can tell my zombies what to do and help them directly and our zombies can fight each other and I can fight your zombies

4) automation in the world that's non-interactive, not sure of any examples of this, but you automate things that manipulate the world for the player in a way that other players can't directly influence, so imagine I set down instructions, stuff happens in the world, but we can affect the world and each other, but not the mechanism by which we automate

So I can tell my zombies what to do and I can't help them directly and our zombies cannot fight each other and I cannot fight your zombies

5) automation in the world that's player controlled, and indirectly interactive, this is basically 2 but it effects the game world, however players can't affect each others mechanisms of automation like in robot wars, but their mechanisms of interaction can affect each other

So I can tell my zombies what to do and I can't help them directly and I can't fight your zombies, however our zombies can fight each other