Jailed for the first time since 2009

[Dementika]

I find it rather amusing, 90% of the complaints about afk are always by the same 2 type of players, they are either :

1. leveling weapons with scripts
2. farming gold with recall scripts

Truth to the matter is, both of those are insanely boring to most players, and yes the vast majority of players who do that will try to have a way to automate it. There's so many script around for that, by so many talented scripters. Some will auto attack, some will also move specific destinations, some will give various warnings and beeps, some will target specific mobs while ignoring others, some will even give answers to prewritten questions. Sky is the limit in UO.

That being said, with all the scripts available, or your personnal knowledge to create more, the choice is always yours on how you end up playing the game, so i really have no sympathy for players jailed for failed check, you were not actively playing, end of story. Personally, i'm known by most as a big doom farmer around since 2014, i use a few script like everyone, yet when i have to go to the bathroom, answer the door, or whatever else, ill simply either log off or run to the hidden vendor, even if it mean i may loose the boss to another player walking in and seeing no one is there. I've never failed a check where i was actually in front of my pc, usually you only need around 5 seconds for the questions, most of the time i'll even have a chat with said GM after the check just for fun, because i appreciate that they care about checking on 200 + players and keep my gameplay interesting.

Anyway, you shouldn't hit on people enforcing the rules, they are trying to keep the content interesting by forcing players to work a little instead of automating everything 24 hours a day. If anything, you should be grateful that unlike alot of other shards, we are allowed to use steam, razor, easyuo, sikuli, axife, and god knows what else.

[SunBG]

Happened to me aswell.How is to be jailed while fighting a boss in doom.missed up an afk check ( i didnt see) and got 10tasks+1 week of my weapon suspended.thats just ... unbelievable.also month or two ago they've disabled shadow strike at certain places.ITS AN UO ABILITY I DO NOT CHEAT/EXPLOIT.AFK check should be in GUMP Form instead of random letter spamming above my head.what do u think i always look at journal or all messages ?this story made me disappointed from the staff.


P.S - Ive played here 5-6 years ago and i have to say Nyx's attitude is been changed not in the good way.i am a guy telling the things straight.

[+Requiem]

Happened to me aswell.How is to be jailed while fighting a boss in doom.missed up an afk check ( i didnt see) and got 10tasks+1 week of my weapon suspended.thats just ... unbelievable.also month or two ago they've disabled shadow strike at certain places.ITS AN UO ABILITY I DO NOT CHEAT/EXPLOIT.AFK check should be in GUMP Form instead of random letter spamming above my head.what do u think i always look at journal or all messages ?this story made me disappointed from the staff.


P.S - Ive played here 5-6 years ago and i have to say Nyx's attitude is been changed not in the good way.i am a guy telling the things straight.

There are scripts available to alert people to the gump check. I don't know of any currently that alert people to these new checks, but they may exist. If/when we find them, we will change the way the afk check works again. It's a never-ending battle like radar detectors and radar guns. People feel they need to cheat to get ahead.

Rock jail is also a bigger deterrant to AFK'ing than normal jail since you have to actually do something to get out. You can't just walk away for a while and come back and be done with your "punishment". If you are actively watching your screen, there really is almost no way to miss the afk check with bright objects randomly appearing and disappearing all around you. The moral of the story is pay attention to the game, and you'll be fine. Watch movies on another screen, and increase your likelihood of failing the afk check and trying to blame us for your lack of attention.

Secondly, using shadow strike to hide in an area where hiding was intentionally disabled IS AN EXPLOIT. You were knowingly using a mechanic in a way that was not intended (since hiding was intentionally disabled there). So now, if hiding is disabled in certain places, all abilities that let you hide should also be disabled. If you find another one, i suggest reporting it as exploiting can result in a heavy punishment up to and including a ban.

[+Nyx]

P.S - Ive played here 5-6 years ago and i have to say Nyx's attitude is been changed not in the good way.i am a guy telling the things straight.

Yes, my overall attitude towards players like yourself has changed over the years. I have become increasingly sick of dealing with players who have such attitudes. Players who, in a situation like yours, instead of realizing we are just doing our jobs and not out to get anybody; instead of learning from the experience - i.e. learning that yes, you need to watch your screen for an afk check and reply to it - rather opt to wail and whine that we're bullies picking on you because you're somehow just so special. People who then bash us at every opportunity, and who then proudly brag that they plan to exploit everything they can to profit from bugs, instead of reporting them.

If you'd like to see the positive-fun-silly side of me, try being a player who treats the staff with respect, instead of using us as your personal punching bag when something doesn't go your way.

[Wil]

There are scripts available to alert people to the gump check. I don't know of any currently that alert people to these new checks, but they may exist. If/when we find them, we will change the way the afk check works again. It's a never-ending battle like radar detectors and radar guns. People feel they need to cheat to get ahead.

Can I ask a stupid question? Whose fun is improved by this rigorous AFK-check process?

[+Nyx]

There are scripts available to alert people to the gump check. I don't know of any currently that alert people to these new checks, but they may exist. If/when we find them, we will change the way the afk check works again. It's a never-ending battle like radar detectors and radar guns. People feel they need to cheat to get ahead.

Can I ask a stupid question? Whose fun is improved by this rigorous AFK-check process?

All of you who play on a shard where the economy hasn't been completely destroyed by people who afk everything and then devalue the market for anything and everything they've afk'd for. There was a time several years ago, before we were active with afk checks, that leveled weapons, GOC items (before they were account bound), and so on were all flooded and far less valuable - because those who farmed that stuff afk didn't have any real investment, and therefore didn't really value the items. They sold crazy cheap, and it caused a noticeable dip in the shard economy. Since it has always been against the codex- there's also the aspect that most people who play here and love uoex do so because the staff actively enforce the rules. People who find a home here don't prefer the shards where all the most desirable spawns are locked down by bots and there's no staff anywhere to stop it.

Also, labeling the afk checks rigorous is a bit of an overstatement. Before Thursday, I hadn't run a single afk check in 3 months. Requiem runs them a few times a week. Coli and mocha run them more infrequently than that (and nobody can even remember V ever bothering to do rounds ). They aren't constantly being run, or to any level that qualifies as rigorous; they're closer to languorous all told

[Maze Scarlethart]

I've played on a shard where all macroing outside of the ingame macros and UOloop was illegal. Also, you couldn't afk macro anything at all... not even silly things like arms lore AND the kicker was that other players could afk check you. So even if you thought you were safe because no GMs were online you really weren't because any player could come up and drop a AFK stone on you. So please, stop complaining and play by the rules before the GMs say screw it and ban macroing and afking all together.

+N, you are a lovely lady and have a wonderful attitude... Chin up! Most of the players adore you. <3

[Miranda Ventrata]

I personally would like to see increased afk checks and harsher punishments. I know there are many afkers out there, and It's unfair to us that do follow the rules. Mostly for Weapon leveling, as that is the biggest money maker, the gump checks for resources are fine, as it's automated.

[Wil]

All of you who play on a shard where the economy hasn't been completely destroyed by people who afk everything and then devalue the market for anything and everything they've afk'd for.

Sure, I understand why there are AFK checks here and on every other UO Freeshard I've played. Damage to game economy. Server load. Spoils activities for other players. Got it.

If you'll pardon the observation, the AFK checks which happen here cover more activities with exceptional attention to countermeasures compared to what I've seen on the typical shard. That additional activity does not increase my fun at all, rather the opposite. Is there anyone out there whose joy it does enhance?

even if you thought you were safe because no GMs were online you really weren't because any player could come up and drop a AFK stone on you.

That is an awesome idea. If your bot bothers anyone, let the person bothered cause an afk-check. The bot pages them back to the PC for the AFK check? Fine. Let them get tired of being paged back to the PC every 15 minutes. Best of all, no GM need do this boring job because players annoyed by the bad bots will take care of it.

[+Nyx]

All of you who play on a shard where the economy hasn't been completely destroyed by people who afk everything and then devalue the market for anything and everything they've afk'd for.

Sure, I understand why there are AFK checks here and on every other UO Freeshard I've played. Damage to game economy. Server load. Spoils activities for other players. Got it.

If you'll pardon the observation, the AFK checks which happen here cover more activities with exceptional attention to countermeasures compared to what I've seen on the typical shard. That additional activity does not increase my fun at all, rather the opposite. Is there anyone out there whose joy it does enhance?

Yes, they cover more activities and we pay attention to enforcing those rules that other shards don't. That's a part of playing here, if someone needs an even more laid back rule set to abide by, or even less staff interaction, there are plenty of other shards that provide it. We shouldn't be trying to cater to the minority and rewrite the codex or how we enforce the rules, or over time that makes the shard into something none of the staff want it to be.

That is an awesome idea. If your bot bothers anyone, let the person bothered cause an afk-check. The bot pages them back to the PC for the AFK check? Fine. Let them get tired of being paged back to the PC every 15 minutes. Best of all, no GM need do this boring job because players annoyed by the bad bots will take care of it.

Do you really think this will improve your joy in the game over our current system? Truly? When any player with an axe to grind can afk check you, and get their friends to help keep doing it so your game becomes unplayable? That would be an incredibly poor decision for the staff to make. Not only would it increase the drama between players exponentially, it'd increase the harassment pages, whining, and forum QQ as well as drastically decrease the family-shard environment we strive to maintain. Managing it would be a nightmare - who gets to do afk checks on others? How often? What happens when they abuse it? How do we determine they've abused it, vs genuine concern? No, that would be a crazy mess and the shard wouldn't be the kind of place that draws the population we currently do.

Yes, y'all hate on the staff when you end up on the wrong side of the Codex, but that's part of our job. We are hired by +C, and kept on, because he trusts us and knows us well enough to know that we aren't bloodthirsty drama queens looking to harass people we don't like. He's got easy ways to check up on us, just in case (and does frequently). Staff who do end up doing such things don't last here. And having us do afk checks is still far better than any of the alternatives.

[Wil]

We shouldn't be trying to cater to the minority and rewrite the codex or how we enforce the rules

Well, I have been in the minority often enough. So, when you broke down the issue in to questions like "which AFK activities would you like to be against the rules" and "how long should players have to respond to an AFK check," and polled the players, what advice did the majority of them offer?

[+Nyx]

The shard isn't run by committee, +C makes what changes to the codex he deems fit. Before we began implementing this style of afk check about 4 years ago, players had 30 seconds to reply. Later, +C upped that to one minute. By and large, the majority of players have zero trouble passing an afk check within that time. The only people who ever have any beef with the afk checking system are those who fail, and usually fail for stupid reasons (such as we've heard twice in this thread- "I don't check my journal or look at overhead speech", well, of course you failed your afk check, then...).

Occasionally we get someone else griping about the system, but in those cases it's been a player with an axe to grind against the staff because they're still pissed off about something else that didn't go their way. I've heard maybe a half dozen players give input against the current afk system without it being based on an ulterior motive. Many more players are fine with or actively approve of this system, based on what we've seen in all of these various QQ threads, or when it's come up in world chat/etc. We've received tons of feedback over the years for this system, and mostly it's been positive.

[Adramalech]

How do toy check your journal? What is that?

[Dementika]

I cant believe people havent given up on this thread already. Let me tell you my only story with jail i guess.

Back in 2014, DLG was really active on champs, me greenbar coke culichi zeratul and a few other were doing 8-12 hours run. We all ran druids, obviously, and after a few hours one day doom was up. About 1/3 of the way, the phone rang, i should have logged off but i never saw an afk check in 100+ champs, who really can say they see them often, its once in a blue moon, so i quickly told myself no one is gonna notice that im afk for a few minutes since im druiding. Low and behold, the phonecall took over 20 minutes, it was my job and i completely forgot about the champ. I came back to my computer, in jail, with a message of i believe nyx (or requiem, but im pretty sure it was nyx) telling me about the codex and afking champ and that she removed the powerscroll i received while afk, i had i believe 25 task to do. Strangely, i didnt write a post on the forum, i didnt send a page with a fake reason to get out or to complain, i simply did my tasks and replied to her message saying i was sorry for having tried to get away with it and i was happy i was only given a short jail time instead of a ban, because really they could.

Guess what, now when im playing and i have to leave the screen, i log off, i dont take the chance because now i know better.

Even if 99% of the time youre getting away with it because they dont have the time to babysit you 24/7 doesnt mean that its right to do it, and if you get caught it doesnt make it any less illegal than all the times you didnt get caught.

So for those still arguing about your jail time, why dont you try and grow up like i did, its never too late. Either learn and stop, or keep on doing it and face the consequences without crying, Peace

[+Requiem]

There are scripts available to alert people to the gump check. I don't know of any currently that alert people to these new checks, but they may exist. If/when we find them, we will change the way the afk check works again. It's a never-ending battle like radar detectors and radar guns. People feel they need to cheat to get ahead.

Can I ask a stupid question? Whose fun is improved by this rigorous AFK-check process?

I think you're misunderstanding... Enforcing the rules isn't supposed to be fun, or enhance anybody's fun. I certainly don't like having to babysit because people can't follow the rules. It's even less fun when people whine and complain about it on the forums, and we have to respond here as well as in game.

If nobody broke the rules, then we wouldn't have to enforce them. Let that sink in.

Also, being afk checked semi-regularly shouldn't really bother anyone that much. It takes up literally less than 60-90 seconds of your time if you pass it. While I do afk check multiple times on some days, its not the normal way for me to do it. Gotta keep people on their toes though