AFK Checks

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by jack of all trades, Feb 16, 2021.

  1. Machen New Member


    There isn't more outrage because people like you immediately reject accounts such as this as automatically untrue, because you can't imagine the GM's would be this unjust.

    These things are happening. The GM's have no clue about this game and don't even understand how ridiculous their policies are.
    Leerah and Zinth like this.
  2. Lejaun Augur

    That part right there is what I suspect is a major part of what is actually happening.
  3. Lejaun Augur

    I'm not, but you keep believing all of these people are getting banned for being innocent.
  4. murray321 New Member

    I was suspended this morning when I was in an AE group in the deep. I was active at my computer when I got disconnected/suspended and was in the middle of tells with someone who had just used OOC to ask if any shards were rotting. I petitioned and am awaiting a response. I wasn't active in the group as my class can't help with AE's, but it seems like these kind of groups are a common thing and I didn't know you were required to participate in a group to be playing this game. I don't even know if there was a challenge by a GM, I didn't receive any tells and I have tell windows set up, if it was in say then that is all mixed in with my loots/rolls because its mostly just NPCs that spam in say.

    I know probably most of you will dismiss this, but it's what happened to me.
    Leerah likes this.
  5. Accipiter Old Timer


    Aren't they frequently invisible when they pull this crap?
    Zinth likes this.
  6. Zinth Augur

    yes
  7. Accipiter Old Timer


    Keep beating that horse, buddy.
  8. Machen New Member


    When people send me logs, sometimes within minutes of their being banned, I tend to believe they didn't doctor the logs and are telling the truth about what happened.

    When people I know don't ever afk exp because they always respond immediately to my tells no matter what time of day it is.... When people like that get suspended for AFK exping, yes, I tend to believe their account.

    When it's people I've played with for many years, and have never had reason to question their honesty or integrity, yes I tend to believe them. (And certainly not every eq player falls into this category.)

    When other guild leaders are reporting the exact same things from their members, and a massive pattern emerges, maybe, just maybe, there is some honest truth here and not just a bunch of cheaters trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes.
    Genoane, RaynTheLion and Niskin like this.
  9. Niskin Clockwork Arguer


    I can imagine a lot of things, but it comes down to probability and previous experience. I did say the number of people who were unfairly suspended was greater than zero, or something to that effect. I do believe it happens. Whether it happens widely or is being abused to grief players is another question.

    I've been around a long time, I've seen a lot of "I was treated unfairly" situations, which almost always turn out to be "I'm lying about what happened." So the bias will always be towards the player lying to cover their butt. That doesn't mean they always are, but it always seems to be a small minority that aren't lying. We're talking years of "I don't use S E Q" or "I don't use M Q" followed by people who know them coming along and saying "yes they do" or describing situations that show they clearly do.

    What I am willing to believe is that the current GM's are likely the least familiar with the game that we've had over the years. And not just the game, but the metas of the game that we are all steeped in. This means they likely have a limited ability to make judgments that will match our perceptions. They are also probably overwhelmed with tasks to perform, and under payed and so forth. That combination can lead to snap judgments that are problematic. If those judgments aren't being questioned from above then they will continue to make them in a similar fashion. The entire situation could be as simple as that, or I could be way off.

    Maybe there is sufficient outrage, I mean we are on page six, but that's mostly due to repeated opposition on the same points. In the end, this thread isn't going to fix anything. Those who were unfairly suspended have to escalate their cases in whatever manner possible if they want to have a chance at dealing with the issue. In the past this is where the honest and the liars parted ways. It's really easy to tell your friends you were unfairly suspended, it's much harder to appeal to authority when you know your case is smoke and mirrors.

    To be clear, I'm not specifically calling anybody a liar, even if I'm implying that statistically, some certainly will be.
  10. Machen New Member


    This is not the only place the outrage is blowing up. Rizlona discord has had these discussions every few days for months now. Same with Aradune discord. As I indicated earlier, months ago a coalition of guild leaders on Rizlona reached out to Dreamweaver on this issue. It's been simmering along for quite a while. But there's been a huge wave of suspensions since Luclin launched, and so the concern level has increased.
  11. Lejaun Augur

    I'll be happy to send you a log of your friend cheating, if you like. What is their name? Pretty easy to forge a log or cut things out. It's a simple text file.
  12. Lejaun Augur

    We can dance around the subject all day long, rehashing the same points, but there still remains one single truth: Pay attention to your screen and go AFK in a safe spot / camp out if you can't control your pet/bard song/automation. Do that, and you won't get banned.

    If there is so much outrage, knowledge of GMs banning people, you'd think people would start paying more attention to the game when they are logged on.
  13. Discord Ocean of Tears Conservationist

    I can confirm 100% this happens. July last year I was in a DZ paying a few krono to a guy PLing me. We were both actively at our computers talking and playing then randomly ate a suprise 7 day suspension. I had to go back and search my logs just to see what happened when I found Woebot performing an AFK check on us in say. My bard also ate the ban, he had ran a horn out to the other dudes bard and was sitting afk at the zoneline ungrouped, unraided. I submitted logs and screenshots of everything with timestamps to include us actively having a conversation at the time Woebot pulled the plug on us and asked for a simple verification they were legit to show weren't actually afk. The petition was elevated to the "Head of CS" and I was informed he felt "the suspension was not distributed in error".
  14. Questjunkie New Member

    Yes, RaynTheLion, it is sad people are stressing about this. I certainly am. I play to chill, like you. EQ is a often a grind game Lejaun. Expecting someone to stare at their screen for hours on end so they don't miss a msg in /say is ridiculous. Yet, that's exactly what I do now. I'm playing a game I really enjoy and stressing at the same time. I've set up a mini kitchen in my bedroom FFS so I can make a drink and prepare simple food while I glance repeatedly at the damn screen. Why? Because I would be soooooo damn upset if I got a suspension or ban b/c I missed an afk check. What other game makes people do this? It's almost unbelievable. I play EQ for fun? Maybe I need help!

    Regarding people saying they don't watch /say because of all the NPC spam. You can make /say a different colour in the options ->chat window, and npcs using /say will stay at whatever colour it currently is for you. PC /say is bright fluro pink on all my chars now. Whenever I run back to camp with a bunch of mobs I immediately jump to my warriors screen to make sure I haven't missed an AFK check. Easy not to miss /say now that it's bright pink.
    RaynTheLion likes this.
  15. AoEBox Elder

    I humbly ask you to sit in Ssra pulling Floor 1 / 2 and say you can honestly track the gibberish that comes through that "say" filter while boxing multiple characters.
    Even while only having 2 characters in it is incredibly hard with all of the chat spam from the NPC's in say to recognize a GM's message.

    I hope the company goes through the report files and starts to address the individuals who are blanket reporting anyone they do not like or agree with.
  16. AoEBox Elder


    Sadly, I am color blind and this does nothing for myself.
    Hopefully it helps those others who are not.
  17. Tweakfour17 Augur

    There needs to be 3 filters for /say, /playersay, /questnpcsay and /hostilemobsay. No one cares what the mobs you are killing have to say, let me hide that stuff. The only NPC I want to see text from are the ones giving me quests/tasks.
  18. Accipiter Old Timer

    You clearly play a single character, if you play at all. I 5 box and the amount of spam that flies by is impossible to keep up with. There's no way I'm seeing anything in /say. I shouldn't have to filter /say to a different window in the off chance a GM having a bad day wants to challenge me.
  19. yerm Augur

    I'd say PC and NPC is enough, as I cannot think of situations where you'd be receiving a wall of text from both a quest or hail/teleport mob AND from a pack. I assume having to go through and flag which NPC is a quest and which is a hostile is a massive undertaking.

    Frankly I don't even mind the way it currently is EXCEPT FOR THE AFK CHECKS BY GMS! If someone needs to communicate with me they can and should use some other channel if there's noisy NPCs around. No problem. I really don't think this should even go to devs as it's not REALLY a broken mechanic. The problem here is exclusively with GMs using a channel.


    If I were checking for AFK, I'd literally use OOC and shout. Let the whole zone know I'm there! Most traffic stops are done deliberately because 99% of drivers aren't being pulled over, they're slowing the hell down because someone else was. You march into a zone and shout at someone to answer if they're here and you best believe every other person there is gonna be all "I better not get caught doing that myself!" which I'd hope is the goal.
  20. code-zero Augur

    I'm not sure but on earlier servers the SG groups are all sweatshop workers who have a different non-english speaker on each character.