Suspended only 33 seconds to respond

Based on...?

There are only 2 people with complete information about this event, the OP and the GM. It seems unlikely the GM has anything to gain by unjustly banning him, so I pretty much think he should get exactly the punishment that he was given by someone with knowledge of the situation.

Also, he's cross-posting this across multiple sites, so he's brigading at the worst and whiney at the least.

Let me help you:

It is pretty much specific about "longer than a few seconds" and "... found performing actions ...".
If you cannot man your PC in a manner to immediately respond - well ...
What I have seen myself is folks training skills "afk" where they have a certain amount of "pause" before reissuing a chain of commands. This usually isn't something possible using the plain client but requires a programmable keyboard or mouse at least.

Still ... < 1 minute or maybe 2 is a bit steep - I can see people hitting an ingame macro and running to the restroom quickly.

Here is the problem...

GMs don't randomly police people. You clearly did something to get their attention, or someone reported you and they went to investigate. I'm not going to instill my opinion about AFK camping, AFK skill ups, etc etc - but the bottom line is, its against the rules. Its considered unintended gameplay, and if you have played this game as long as you proclaim - then you know its against the rules, and will need to deal with the consequence of being caught because of what someone reported.

Unfortunately you're not the first person to get suspended without cause in this type of situation, and it's incredibly frustrating being on the wrong end of it. I was suspended from VG for "botting" when I was alt tabbed developing a tradeskill UI window, it was a similar situation where I had ~30 seconds to respond to a tell before being disconnected/suspended. There was no recourse with CS who were clearly not able or interested in investigating logs etc and after getting nowhere for several weeks I was so disappointed that I stopped subscribing to sony products for a good 7+ years.

That's and EXTREMELY loose view of unattended gameplay there, i mean by that definition people who minimize or alt+tab while autorunning through a zone or using the auto-combine tradeskill feature are doing "unattended gameplay"

I've basically always been told "an action" is something that would require a button press with default software

Dude, 33 seconds or 14 minutes, it doesn't matter. You had your afk tags up, which means that you either had been away long enough that you went auto-afk (which is more than 33 seconds) or you put up the afk tags yourself, which was dumb.

Just own it dude. If you didn't have an automatic afk response, you MIGHT have a leg to stand on. But you really don't.

If the GMs weren't policing this type of thing at all, we'd have afk bots killing in high level zones or farming stuff and upsetting bazaar prices.

I can't believe it. You quoted the exact rule and you are still trying to illustrate a way to circumvent it. Do you truly not understand what not going AFK for more than a few seconds really means!? Well, in plain English: DO NOT GO AWAY FROM THE GAME, WHILE AUTOMATING GAME PLAY, FOR MORE THAN A FEW SECONDS! (and, if you must step away for a moment while doing automated tasks... Either log off or do it out of sight of others!)

Got it? Gud.

Mmm if afking while autoattack is enabled is automation worthy of suspension, then it sorta sets a precedent for reporting people who AFK too much in your XP group. Get your lawyerquest on people!

Better not AFK while in Trader mode in Bazaar. AUTOMATED GAMEPLAY! Lol jk. Hope this guy got unsuspended, any updates from OP?

People actually think this guy deserves suspended because he had his AFK tag up? Some serious hall monitor personality types in here. Get a grip.

Who knows if OP is being 100 percent honest. If he is, then he's right to be flabbergasted by this. If he's not, well, that changes things.

IMHO, if I had to guess, someone PetitionQuested you, just to be a troll. I don't see a GM just happening by.

Agree that DBG enforcement on genuine botters sucks the big one, which makes stories like this (if indeed they are true) doubly infuriating.

If I had to guess the OP is the super sweet PL guy in HS. Just a random guess.
Maybe even likes to use a Necro...

But I'm just guessing

Woot, hopefully more drama inc!

Poor OP (still waiting for good excuse for the 15 secs of not attacking after he sent tell - maybe he summoned you and you ran straight back while you were watching TV)

Next time respond in 32 seconds or less. Problem solved.

I use afk all the time, because you can put messages in your afk so people sending you tells get them. You can type: /afk I'm in the bathroom, brb. And people know you're in the bathroom, also it instantly applies afk. You do not have to be afk 15 min to have an afk on you. Also applying afk that way does not 'auto remove' afk when you are not afk afterwards. So, What Dunbar did is kind of a big deal in a way, because not everyone who wears an afk tag is actually afk, and some of us probably do watch TV while foraging or fishing and might not respond right away, especially since forage takes more than 30 seconds between forages. Also, maybe some of us don't forage every 1 minute and 30 seconds because we're watching tv. I would probably be pretty unhappy to get a suspension while watching tv with an AFK tag and foraging. I mean, I really hope we're not expected to like, watch the fricken screen the whole time.