Curse

Sythion · Jun 27, 2005, 03:31 AM // 03:31

I'm surprised I haven't seen this brought up before. While in town, or looking for a group in Tomb, I often find the area is FULL but only 10 people are not AFK. This makes it very difficult to find groups, as there is a limit to the amount of people per district. If there was an idle time out (of say a half hour) in towns and hubs only, where an afk character would be disconnected from the server it would save bandwidth, and make it so much easier to find a group. Please tell me if you agree with this, or if there is any reason not to implement this change.

DrSLUGFly · Jun 27, 2005, 03:37 AM // 03:37

on one hand I agree... on the other, I like the look of a full town...

I guess over all I'd have to say I support the idea since saving bandwidth and having active people present is much more important than the appearance of a crowd.

However:
1-what if we're grouped and the group knows we're afk
answer: partied-members are not considered afk by the "timer"
2-what if we have to go afk during missions for a significant chunk of time.
answer: "timer" only works in towns and outposts

generally a good idea

Principa Discordia · Jun 27, 2005, 03:39 AM // 03:39

I also like the look of a full town, but I'd have to say that if AFK people got booted then towns would still look full due to the fact that there would be less districts. There would also be much less load on the server is AFK players were booted after a specific time, which I'd definitely be in favour of.

johnnylange · Jun 27, 2005, 04:05 AM // 04:05

Something like after 30 mins of idle time you're disconnected. If ANet thinks this will help them on their end then I don't see why not

EmperorTippy · Jun 27, 2005, 05:07 AM // 05:07

I like the idea but it better not apply to the guild hall. I go AFG (away from game) and if anyone on at the time needs anything they can whisper me and I hear it andd can come help em. For just in towns though I totally agree.

DrSLUGFly · Jun 27, 2005, 06:30 AM // 06:30

agreed... no afk timer for guild halls or instances, 30 minutes in town (this might even be generous here)

theclam · Jun 27, 2005, 07:06 AM // 07:06

I don't see any reason why there shouldn't be a 30m timeout. It would make it easier to find groups in towns with lots of districts.

mylilpony · Jun 27, 2005, 07:08 AM // 07:08

how about outside of towns? so those stupid losers who go afk waiting for you to finish the miissions can get kicked.

Tactical-Dillusions · Jun 27, 2005, 07:14 AM // 07:14

I disagree. Not because i want to be different, but because that's my opinion.

Aaaaagh · Jun 27, 2005, 07:22 AM // 07:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tactical-Dillusions

I disagree. Not because i want to be different, but because that's my opinion.

Alright, and you have every right to it, but I am curious to your reasoning. If you would be so good as to enlighten us.

I really think this is a good idea, actually, it seems like a no-brainer. Obviously its not, since Sythions post was the first I have ever seen about this.

DrSLUGFly · Jun 27, 2005, 07:30 AM // 07:30

as for the in instance afk, there's already loads of people fighting for a votekick and/or instance splitting, and Anet is working on a solution so we don't really need to worry about it. The problem here is 15 districts each with a 25% afk population...

No afk timer for those in a team, no afk timer for guild halls or instances. 30 minutes for those in a town.

Tactical-Dillusions · Jun 27, 2005, 07:36 AM // 07:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aaaaagh

Alright, and you have every right to it, but I am curious to your reasoning. If you would be so good as to enlighten us.

I really think this is a good idea, actually, it seems like a no-brainer. Obviously its not, since Sythions post was the first I have ever seen about this.

I would prefer to stick around in town while having lunch rather than relogging.

I could be waiting for someone to finish a mission and expect them to whisper me when they are done.

I could be monitoring the trade channel for a few hours to pick up a bargain.

I could be standing around in ToA waiting for favor (the other day i stood there for six hours +) with just occasional trips outside to stretch my legs.

There are times when i fall asleep listening to the icy winds of the shiverpeaks and the cool music that's comes with it (insomnia is not nice!).

I often minimze the game to check something on the forum and get caught up in an interesting topic.

It's the small things in online gaming that make a big difference for me. Project Entropia started playing with things such as timeouts and i took my money and left.

Aaaaagh · Jun 27, 2005, 07:38 AM // 07:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tactical-Dillusions

I would prefer to stick around in town while having lunch rather than relogging.

I could be waiting for someone to finish a mission and expect them to whisper me when they are done.

I could be monitoring the trade channel for a few hours to pick up a bargain.

I could be standing around in ToA waiting for favor (the other day i stood there for six hours +) with just occasional trips outside to stretch my legs.

There are times when i fall asleep listening to the icy winds of the shiverpeaks and the cool music that's comes with it (insomnia is not nice!).

I often minimze the game to check something on the forum and get caught up in an interesting topic.

It's the small things in online gaming that make a big difference for me. Project Entropia started playing with things such as timeouts and i took my money and left.

Mkay den!

Shadow_Avenger · Jun 27, 2005, 09:20 AM // 09:20

Simple solution, if you go AFK for 15mins you get booted to AFK zone, a generic / maybe guild hall that only players AFK goto. Then you are not booted from game, but sent to a waiting area, once you return you can then pick your zone.

Myself, I never go AFK in towns, but do in the instances if I'm with henchies, and try to aviod afk in missions player groups as much as humanly possibly.

DrSLUGFly · Jun 27, 2005, 09:25 AM // 09:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tactical-Dillusions

I could be waiting for someone to finish a mission and expect them to whisper me when they are done.

I could be monitoring the trade channel for a few hours to pick up a bargain.

I could be standing around in ToA waiting for favor (the other day i stood there for six hours +) with just occasional trips outside to stretch my legs.

There are times when i fall asleep listening to the icy winds of the shiverpeaks and the cool music that's comes with it (insomnia is not nice!).

I often minimze the game to check something on the forum and get caught up in an interesting topic.

It's the small things in online gaming that make a big difference for me. Project Entropia started playing with things such as timeouts and i took my money and left.

I have to agree, these are all good points. Perhaps people who are afk for more than 30 minutes could be rezoned to the highest available district. This would keep people from getting disconnected and take care of zombie overpopulation.

Schorny · Jun 27, 2005, 09:35 AM // 09:35

Are you sure all these people are AFK?

Most of the time, when I'm not responding I'm chatting.
But on the other hand, I'm also often standing in a town waiting for my guildmates and talking to them over TS.

So I'm not AFK, allthough I don't respond to whispers or group invites.

Maybe I'm just selling/buying things, so I'm blind to your none trade-whispers and group invites.

Of course, you can say: someone is AFK if he hasn't used mouse or keyboard for 30 minutes - but what about TS?

No, it's just not possible to tell if someone is AFK. And even if someone is not AFK, there is a good chance that he won't respond to you.

As you can see "AFK" isn't really important. "not responding" would be the term you are looking for, but this is really impossible to know.

And a group can always switch district while looking for members.

Shadow_Avenger · Jun 27, 2005, 10:05 AM // 10:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schorny

Are you sure all these people are AFK?

Most of the time, when I'm not responding I'm chatting.
But on the other hand, I'm also often standing in a town waiting for my guildmates and talking to them over TS.

So I'm not AFK, allthough I don't respond to whispers or group invites.

Maybe I'm just selling/buying things, so I'm blind to your none trade-whispers and group invites.

Of course, you can say: someone is AFK if he hasn't used mouse or keyboard for 30 minutes - but what about TS?

No, it's just not possible to tell if someone is AFK. And even if someone is not AFK, there is a good chance that he won't respond to you.

As you can see "AFK" isn't really important. "not responding" would be the term you are looking for, but this is really impossible to know.

And a group can always switch district while looking for members.

Good points, but people do go AFK in the towns and if they introduce a system that moved the AFK people to a waiting zone, district 99 or something then atleast you would know with relative certainty that the people not responding are either doing something else, or just don't want to play ball.

Silmor · Jun 27, 2005, 10:26 AM // 10:26

I can imagine people leave their client on so they don't miss guild chat or ingame messages, but this timeout would force them to wait outside in an instance. This still means the bandwidth overhead they caused by leaving their character in an outpost gets reduced significantly, since their position doesn't need to be sent to any other players, so everybody wins.

Mr. Matt · Jun 27, 2005, 10:36 AM // 10:36

I agree with Tactical-Dillusions, for all the points they listed.

And I disagree strongly with the idea that there should be AFK timers outside of outposts. To start with, supposing the team you're with has discussed it with you and is OK with you going AFK for some reason? You're half-way through a mission, so zoning out wouldn't exactly be convenient for anybody, and you've promised to be back in a short while. Perhaps the team members all have things to do AFK as well, but no-one wants to quit the mission? Not everybody is unreasonable and dedicated to finishing everything in record-time, so this is not an impossible scenario by any stretch of the imagination.
Not just that, but I very often go out with henchmen and then leave my character and the henchmen in a safe spot while I go off and do something, such as eat, or watch a TV program that I wanted to see, or go out for a short time. I don't want to erase all the progress I've made, so I leave them where they are. That's not inconveniencing anybody, yet your plan would force me to lose all my progress anyway.

Shadow_Avenger · Jun 27, 2005, 10:49 AM // 10:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Matt

I agree with Tactical-Dillusions, for all the points they listed.

And I disagree strongly with the idea that there should be AFK timers outside of outposts. To start with, supposing the team you're with has discussed it with you and is OK with you going AFK for some reason? You're half-way through a mission, so zoning out wouldn't exactly be convenient for anybody, and you've promised to be back in a short while. Perhaps the team members all have things to do AFK as well, but no-one wants to quit the mission? Not everybody is unreasonable and dedicated to finishing everything in record-time, so this is not an impossible scenario by any stretch of the imagination.
Not just that, but I very often go out with henchmen and then leave my character and the henchmen in a safe spot while I go off and do something, such as eat, or watch a TV program that I wanted to see, or go out for a short time. I don't want to erase all the progress I've made, so I leave them where they are. That's not inconveniencing anybody, yet your plan would force me to lose all my progress anyway.

Actually no it wouldn't. The main thrust of the post if you read again is to send AFK players in towns to 'waiting area, disused district' and nothing to do with instances when you are outside of town. ( outside of town it doesn't matter as you are in a seperate solo gameworld.)
The AFK for people on missions debate is a totally seperate post and has more to do with the ability to boot players from group rather than auto sending AFK players to limbo.