AFK Protection and Safe4Trash Accidents

[+Veritas]

Hello gang, hope you have been enjoying yourselves here at Excelsior...Couple things…

1.) AFK Macroing/Hanging Out

Recently, there have been some issues with players leaving their characters macroing in houses, only to come back to their character being dead and its corpse decayed. Item's have been lost due to the deaths, since the method used bypasses a safety measure we currently have in place (I have a feeling this will change very shortly) that currently blocks items being dropped when killed by a guildmate. If you macro your non-wealth gaining skills while you are away from your computer, please do any number of the following safety measures.

A.) Do the macroing in a private house with walls blocking you from being spotted by a monster's line of sight. This means an enclosed room with four walls connecting around you. If you do not wish to have a private house, then it would be a good idea to create a small room in your house with a door. Once you create this room, you can single-click the door and set the security to friends only. That way anyone can run around your house, but cannot enter the room you are afk macroing in.

B.) For Razor users, another measure you can take is to add an escape portion to the beginning of your quick-looping macro, or a few escape portions located throughout a longer macro. The following is an example of such a macro addition:

As seen in Notepad…(Double-click the macro in your Razor\Macros folder and open with Notepad)
<TOP OF MACRO WINDOW>
Assistant.Macros.IfAction|0|0|60
Assistant.Macros.HotKeyAction|1107|
Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:00.3330000
Assistant.Macros.SpeechAction|0|101|3|ENU|0|[cs recall
Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|30
Assistant.Macros.AbsoluteTargetAction
Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:03
Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|21
Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:30:00
Assistant.Macros.ElseAction
<START OF THE ORIGINAL MACRO>

If you open the macro you will be running in Wordpad (while Razor is closed), you can copy and paste this portion into your macro. From top to bottom, this part of the macro will trigger when your hitpoints drop below 60. Then this happens, you will execute the hotkey action 1107, which is the “Take Screenshot” function. This way, you will get a view of what caused the macro to trigger. Then, you will cast Recall via the “[cs” command, and then target a recall rune. This will need to be reassigned in-game by right-clicking the “Absolute Target” line and selecting “Re-target”, then clicking on the marked rune you wish to use. Once the macro targets the rune you choose, you will recall to that rune’s location and wait for 3 seconds, followed by the use of the Hiding skill. The macro will then pause for 30 minutes to keep you from revealing yourself. If your hits are not below 60, then the “Else” line will make your macro ignore the entire escape portion and will go on to the rest of your original macro. You can alter the hit point number at the beginning of the macro if you wish, as well as the length of the delay once you recall away. [In reality, you can alter whatever you want, but this is a fairly easy setup and the hitpoints and time PauseAction at the end (30 minutes) will be the most likely to be changed due to player preference]

I HIGHLY suggest you use the Protection spell before using this escape macro with your other macro. Also, do not set your recall point to a heavily populated area where players will get annoyed by you macroing and creating macro sounds. Good locations for refuge that do not attract a lot of attention can include random buildings in towns with little or no regular visitors. Inns can be good locations. The town of Yew has many houses that are accessible and are spread out.
General Recommendations for AFK Macroing:
1.) Macro Naked -> Keep on you only what you need to obtain the goal of the macro. If you are raising your Animal Lore or Evaluate Intelligence skill, you don’t need your primary armor and weapon. Throw them in the bank.
2.) Insure/Bless/Bank -> If it is something that you decide to keep in your pack, take the steps to protect it. Which is worse? Losing 600 gold, or losing your <Insert something with a value over 600 gold here>?
3.) Macro in complete secrecy. Don’t broadcast in global that you’re going to macro all night and not be there…may as well ring the dinner bell. Tell a guildmate or friend that you are going afk, have him jump in from time to time and check on you.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
2.) Trash4Tokens Bag Storage

I am having a sneaking suspicion that there have been a few “missing” items, or items that “poofed” in players bags. Interestingly, most of these players had their trash4tokens bag in their main bag. May I suggest something?…

For 30k tokens, you can buy a Bag/Pouch/Backpack for Blessed Items on the token stone in Trinsic. If you place your trash bag in this bag, you are keeping the trash bag readily available, but also defending yourself from accidental deletion of high value items. Only blessed items can go in it, so many valuable items won’t even go into it. However, any item will go into the trash4tokens bag if you open it and directly click-drag to the bag. Worst case scenario, you drop your blessed level 90 Horselord onto the Bag for Blessed Items, and you open it up and take it out. Much better than accidentally dropping it and hearing the emptying sound…opps. =) Then, you will need to pull out the EDs to recover the item.

30k tokens and losing one item capacity in your main pack….or 100 ED to recover the item? =) Your choice.

[+Veritas]

*Bump* so people who didn't read it before get a chance...

[krystol]

i look forward to the new day!

[Devlin]

I've noticed that trash bags functions have changed. Used to clear only when prompted (click once, clear on bag) or after 3 minutes have passed and you place a new item in there. Trash bags now delete automatically upon recall, world TP, gate, and mostly importantly (and terribly) the trash bag will delete the new item placed into a trash bag immediately, along with the older contents.
What Veritas said is probably the best option for avoiding accidental trashing, yet why has the trash system changed? Trash clearing upon recall, normal backpack opening, etc. is understandable; what isn't is why the first item is deleted along with the old batch. Normally theres an opportunity to go back into the bag and retrieve.. Not anymore.

[Kaiana]

If I recall right people were abusing the trash bag to hold an item in that "temporary" spot. They may have changed it to fix that.

[Ceara]

Yeah someone last week on chat said they accidentally tossed their tailor key ring in token trash. Oops!

Not me, though! I got smart and put it into the blessed bag. But now it's a royal pain to trash stuff so I don't do it as much.

[Devlin]

I can understand the attempt to abolish people using safe 4 trash bags as mini bags of holding; deletion upon recall, logging in and when you use a world TP can generally solve that. The issue is, say I drop an incorrect item into the bag. It's the ONLY item in the bag. If I open the bag to retrieve it, it clears. "Safe" 4 Trash bags? I think not. That's the issue that needs to be looked at. Putting my trash bag into another bag WILL work but thats far from efficient and not a solution; instead, just a means of sweeping the problem under the rug.

[Ceara]

Well the in-house trash barrel ("I wish to place a trash barrel" command) works with this safety limit, as do the trash chests in towns. They do not automatically empty when reopening.