Rules changing: away-from-keyboard rule specifics

[Charon]

This might be a little too simple,
If someone is teleporting, auto killing auto-looting, maybe they could be ported into a room or castle that does not allow teleportation. There they will stay until they manually walk out of the building.
Same goes for anyone not responding to an AFK that is gathering resources.

That's brilliant! If you're legitimately there, you walk out and go back to what you were doing. No harm no foul. And it works for afk weapon leveling too. It'd take a little tuning to make it hard to automate the walking out part but still very clever. It could even be integrated in to the game... it's not a gonna-get-you AFK check: your transport spell simply goes awry once in a while and you end up in the ethereal void. And the transport spells are just unreliable enough to make it impractical to use them in genuine AFK gathering.

A true penalty for auto gathering resources, could be using up the tool that they were AFK gathering. For example, if I am mining, and I don't respond to a AFK, then I get ported to a room or castle (that I cannot teleport out of) and get placed in front of a rock that I will keep mining, but never gather any resources, all the while using up my tool's uses.

Even better.

You think it's brilliant because there is literally no down side.
Oh no I have to walk out of a building with my zillions of whatever I looted for the past 2 hrs.

Afk hunters rejoice!!!

[Charon]

I like the fact we are discussing this issue as it needs a resolution.
I believe harsher penalties are in order, ensuring that it is fair and a players previous history is taken into account. Each time the consequences get more severe, but they need to start much harsher than they are now.
No excuses, your afk you do the time. Period.

[Muolke]

I like the fact we are discussing this issue as it needs a resolution.
I believe harsher penalties are in order, ensuring that it is fair and a players previous history is taken into account. Each time the consequences get more severe, but they need to start much harsher than they are now.
No excuses, your afk you do the time. Period.

How about revamping the penalty based on how long you've been AFK?

So you get an AFK check and don't respond...the AFK check keeps running for along as you don't respond, Then, when you finally respond your time is recorded.

Anything under 1 minute = Pass AFK check
1-5 minutes = Warning if it's the first offense (for all the "i have to go pee" people) - 5 tasks and 50k gold fine if it's not the first.
5-15 minutes = 10 tasks + 250k gold fine
15-30 minutes = 20 tasks + 1 million gold fine
30-60 minutes = 30 tasks + 1 million gold fine + if you were leveling a weapon it goes back to 0 experience
60+ minutes = 30 tasks + 2 million gold fine + if you were leveling a weapon you lose it and it gets auctioned off the following auction

For each time you are caught AFK over 30 minutes the above "fine" doubles.

What do you guys think?

[Charon]

I like the fact we are discussing this issue as it needs a resolution.
I believe harsher penalties are in order, ensuring that it is fair and a players previous history is taken into account. Each time the consequences get more severe, but they need to start much harsher than they are now.
No excuses, your afk you do the time. Period.

How about revamping the penalty based on how long you've been AFK?

So you get an AFK check and don't respond...the AFK check keeps running for along as you don't respond, Then, when you finally respond your time is recorded.

Anything under 1 minute = Pass AFK check
1-5 minutes = Warning if it's the first offense (for all the "i have to go pee" people) - 5 tasks and 50k gold fine if it's not the first.
5-15 minutes = 10 tasks + 250k gold fine
15-30 minutes = 20 tasks + 1 million gold fine
30-60 minutes = 30 tasks + 1 million gold fine + if you were leveling a weapon it goes back to 0 experience
60+ minutes = 30 tasks + 2 million gold fine + if you were leveling a weapon you lose it and it gets auctioned off the following auction

For each time you are caught AFK over 30 minutes the above "fine" doubles.

What do you guys think?

Not sure we need to re-invent the wheel, but maybe we do.
Time afk as a factor is a nice idea but how do you track it?
It cant be from the time the person responds while in jail as some people may come back to pc see player n jail
and think well screw this and log out or walk away from pc again and finish what they were doing.

I don't think removing an item from a player is a hot idea (unless as rules now state) that person is a repeat offender.
Not a fan of a free pass, afk is afk, current rules says response back under 5 mins penalty is halved.

[Wil]

This might be a little too simple,
If someone is teleporting, auto killing auto-looting, maybe they could be ported into a room or castle that does not allow teleportation. There they will stay until they manually walk out of the building.
Same goes for anyone not responding to an AFK that is gathering resources.

That's brilliant! And the transport spells are just unreliable enough to make it impractical to use them in genuine AFK gathering.

You think it's brilliant because there is literally no down side.

Duh! If we can make afk gathering impractical with no down side, is that not better?

[Charon]

@Wil
"Duh! If we can make afk gathering impractical with no down side, is that not better?"

LOL way to cherry pick a quote.

You can't actually be that s…..... nah never mind you can be.
They do actually port you into a room that you can't port out of when you fail and afk check …… ITS CALLED JAIL!!!

[Iltar]

I think this is very good comment by Devlin:

Iunno, just seems like we would get AFK checks on a lot of silly, little things in order to cover a few larger things. Might be worth broadening the forbidden list and introducing the recall delay before implementing something server wide that could be more of an annoyance to many than a deterrent to a few. Focus on the high-value afk farming that exists (recall hunting/resource gathering, balrons, a few specific spawns, etc.) and egregious repeat offenders.

AFK checks are necessary, but I hope they will be made not very annoying, because UO have lots of micromanagent already, which is one of reasons why people write scripts.
I never liked recall killing,I agree it should be nerfed, as it seems to be one of the main sources of gold here. If we nerf balron killing, then maybe compensate by improving gold in other places where people can really hunt: more gold/faster respawn/world teleporter to fel wrong; better gold reward in umbris and in s'gail vials quest; better gold/spawn in other fel/ilshenar dungeons.

[Silent]

Honest question +C:

Wouldn't it be easier to just spam a gump once someone lands in a bally zone rather than slowing down recall timers?

There are moments in the server were there are so many players farming gold you hardly find a bally with a slower recall it will difficult even more the situation.

[PaPa]

The big point im trying to make is i dont think the player should get a audio warning they have a AFK check to do. If there is a journal entry of any kind that can be scripted to give you a audio beep or warning or what ever. So the AFK'er could be in a different room and because there was a message that popped up the script will read the journal and sound a warning out loud and you can run to your computer ans easily pass the AFK check and then go back to doing what ever you doing were ever. Now if it was totally a visual AFK check big flashing lights or something this would then prove you are at least some what paying attention.

Spawning an item or a monster is also detectable with scripts and will alow you to get a audio warning.

I realy think were all getting a little off what +coli was looking for hes not asking what we think the punishment should be at all. I think hes realy wanting to know how the AFK'ers AFK and what he can do to stop it. and i think if spending 2 min a hour at random times to do a AFK check is so fare compaired to seeing and knowing that others are not AFKing.

I feel that if your against the AFK checks and the strict punishments then your some what guilty of breaking the rules.

I dont think we should ever allow a person (who's probably guilty) to pick there punishment. i dont think the first punishment should NOT be extreme but by the 3rd there should be some real harsh punishment. but again the punishment is 100% up to +coli.


Out of all the rules out there this is the one im most passionate about being a X-AFK scripter in OSI I know how unfair it is.

[Wil]

@Wil
"Duh! If we can make afk gathering impractical with no down side, is that not better?"

LOL way to cherry pick a quote.

You can't actually be that s…..... nah never mind you can be.

Walk with me here.

PK is not a problem on this shard. Not because of some rule or punishment. It just doesn't work. If you try really hard you can drag a mob on to someone but that only ever happens by a accident because even if you do it you can't take the player's stuff.

"PK doesn't work" is a far BETTER solution than "PK is punished." It avoids the hurt feelings, the questions of fairness, all the drama. Unlike punishment which diminishes the shard.

Tiggerjlk offered a glimpse at a solution for "AFK gaining doesn't work." If it can be ironed out, it would mean that while you could start an AFK script, the activity would terminate in half an hour or an hour. Quickly. Without needing any punishment, you wouldn't be able to run a simple gaining script overnight. It would be consistently interrupted needing a human touch to keep going. 'AFK doesn't work well enough to bother trying" is a far better solution than "AFK is punished." It avoids the hurt feelings, the questions of fairness, all the drama. Unlike punishment which diminishes the shard.

So yes, Tiggerjlk's idea is brilliant and worthy. And yes, what makes it clever is it could solve the AFK problem without the downsides of punishment.

[Wil]

I feel that if your against the AFK checks and the strict punishments then your some what guilty of breaking the rules.

There are a shocking number of people who think: the law is the law. It should be against the law to be against a law.

I don't get that attitude. Like every human endeavor, the law evolves. With luck and a little care, it changes for the better. More or harsher punishment is generally worse. Better means less need for punishment.

Out of all the rules out there this is the one im most passionate about being a X-AFK scripter in OSI I know how unfair it is.

Then you can step back and understand the root of the problem, right? It's printing money. Like exploiting a dupe bug or a vendor buys for more than he sells bug, it lets you effortlessly gain wealth, fouling the game economy for everybody else.

Nobody cares if you gain 100 platinum ingots while watching TV. Nobody sane anyway. The problem is when you gain 100,000 platinum ingots while sleeping. Large effortless gains. Prevent that and you've solved the problem.

[Charon]

@Wil

My turn to cherry pick a quote form you
"If it can be ironed out, it would mean that while you could start an AFK script, the activity would terminate in half an hour or an hour."
So are you saying that it is ok for someone to camp Gnaw for instance for a half hour to an hour and other players need to stand by and just wait for them to be ported out by an AFK Check? What about Balron spawns where players port in kill port to next kill rince n repeat. We are all supposed to be good with that and just wait? How about events areas? Everyone cool with waiting for AFK players to time out??

2 words... Screw That!

You either sit at computer n play the game as per the rules of you sit your ass in jail and let others play.

[Wil]

@Wil

My turn to cherry pick a quote form you
"If it can be ironed out, it would mean that while you could start an AFK script, the activity would terminate in half an hour or an hour."
So are you saying that it is ok for someone to camp Gnaw for instance for a half hour to an hour and other players need to stand by and just wait for them to be ported out by an AFK Check? What about Balron spawns where players port in kill port to next kill rince n repeat. We are all supposed to be good with that and just wait? How about events areas? Everyone cool with waiting for AFK players to time out??

Is there a big unreported problem with folks porting in and kill-stealing at the Balron and Gnaw spawns? Perhaps some automation is in place to prevent it and you think I'd unwind that automation? No? We don't need to solve problems that don't actually exist.


We do also have a taking turns rule. I don't believe I suggested changing that one, but if you think you saw some words please feel free to quote them.

And you know, if there is somehow a big problem with folks breaking the taking turns rule, that too could fall to non-punitive automation. Make mobs already engaged in combat when you arrive by spell be unattackable just like late arrivals at the champ spawns.

[Wil]

.

[Muolke]

@Wil

My turn to cherry pick a quote form you
"If it can be ironed out, it would mean that while you could start an AFK script, the activity would terminate in half an hour or an hour."
So are you saying that it is ok for someone to camp Gnaw for instance for a half hour to an hour and other players need to stand by and just wait for them to be ported out by an AFK Check? What about Balron spawns where players port in kill port to next kill rince n repeat. We are all supposed to be good with that and just wait? How about events areas? Everyone cool with waiting for AFK players to time out??

Is there a big unreported problem with folks porting in and kill-stealing at the Balron and Gnaw spawns? Perhaps some automation is in place to prevent it and you think I'd unwind that automation? No? We don't need to solve problems that don't actually exist.


We do also have a taking turns rule. I don't believe I suggested changing that one, but if you think you saw some words please feel free to quote them.

And you know, if there is somehow a big problem with folks breaking the taking turns rule, that too could fall to non-punitive automation. Make mobs already engaged in combat when you arrive by spell be unattackable just like late arrivals at the champ spawns.

While everything should be done to make it inconvenient (or not worthwhile) to AFK farm, there still needs to be punitive action if you do AFK farm. If there's absolutely zero punishment for braking the rules then why even have them? Right now the only thing that's keeping people from AFK farming (or that's supposed to prevent them) is the punishment. If you take that away then what's even the point of having a rule?