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AFK Merc killing

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Crowbeard, May 31, 2014.

  1. iniari-TR Augur

    please lock this thread.

    this is an old issue that has been addressed.

    soe has stated that afk xping is ok as long as 3 rd party programs arnt used. and zone isn't being disrupted..

    personally, I've only come across afk folks rarely and for the most part they are in some corner out of the way.

    any method used to prohibit afk xping would cause other issues making the game more difficult / impossible as well as cause a lot of canceled accounts.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  2. Sinhika Lorekeeper

    Last time this thread was about people AFK merc killing in The Hole. Now it's moved on? Eh, someone AFK killing in the Hole just meant I could pick up all the loot they were letting rot on my circuits around the zone looking for that damn Ancient Gargoyle...

    Seriously, they are giving you free loot for hours. How can you not like this? ;-)
  3. Saave Augur

    Interesting.
  4. Saave Augur

    Good point.
    It is hard for those trying to get some old Epic pieces to drop as they are consistently being farmed.

    AFK Merc killing: I did this 3 times now. In the years I played EQ.
    Recently, after reading this thread, I did this with my alt and some friends.. I'm level 100. Grouped with 2 85's and one 86..
    100 Cleric
    100 Wiz Merc ( Cleric's )
    86 Mage
    86 Merc Cleric ( Mage's)
    85 lvl toon no merc.
    85 lvl toon no merc.

    Parked far away from everyone in the zone ( which hardly anyone goes into )
    23 hours later, light blue / dark blue mobs .. ( no zone mentioned ) Spawns every 30 seconds after death.
    86 Mage got 1/2 a level.
    100 Cleric: not one full AA. 100% AA on.. " you gain experience " on every kill. ( I belong to a fellowship but no one in that fellowship was there, no campfire up.)
    Mercs cost plat to run. Not one AA.
    For a rounded group of players .. ( everyone being around 85-86.. ) slower kills.. less exp..

    I don't know.

    It has its plus and minus. At the same time, I have friends that chew me out to build up my main instead of wasting time on this camp :)

    Grinding the old school way was a drag.. but it was the old mechanics of the game. It was scary .. no maps.. no clue what is around the corner.. can't see far... boat rides.. faction..Corpse runs. All scary times that made the game fun :)
    EverQuest is a lot easier now then what it used to be. Even hailing an NPC now you see (text) you simply click to answer or activate the next text from the NPC. Back in the day you had to guess what the right word is to go further.. ( Epics 1.0 for example ).
    As time has passed, new EverQuest players have thought EQ to be hard to play... Easier to play X game or Y game. ::)
    Short term fun.
    As an old player, I remember seeing AFK pet class's killing in Sol A.
    Adding a Merc.. what is the difference. It just allows none pet classes to do what Mages used to do anyway. No pun on Mages :p
    For or against, I won't chose.
  5. Pelrond Elder

    I tested this with a group of high 40ish level chars. 3 toons, 3 mercs. I let it run overnight and they all leveled into the mid 50s. I could have done the same playing them in an hour or two probably. I guess if it is toons you don't really want to play and just want to use them as buff bots or something, you could park them in a mostly non-played zone and just move them when things grey out. Eventually you would have buff bots. Takes the fun out of it though. I'm an alt junkie and right now the 50s through the 80s are my favorite levels.
    Aanuvane likes this.
  6. Darken Rahl New Member

    Like Sinhika says, it's free loot for other people. If they are on AFK, the loot is yours to claim.

    Why SOE won't do a thing:

    - It is withing mercs' capability to do so.
    - Someone 3 boxing can do it vs. poor 1 account player and why would SOE not care about the 1 account player's complaints? The answer is simple, because a 3 box player is paying for 3 games, meaning they have purchased all expansions for each account and paid 3 times more than the single player. And the biggest difference is that someone with 3 accounts who is NOT a gold member, can simply not kill anything like that since apprentice mercs are pretty much useless. Those who can do so not only have 3 accounts, but they pay EVERY MONTH for gold accounts.

    It's like going to the restaurant and ordering 1 burger and then whining the person at the next table has 3 burgers. Is anyone preventing you from buying three burgers or playing 3 accounts? No. If you don't have the money, then that's not really anybody's problem but yours. And for those who will say "oh, so you can cheat by paying"? It is within the game capabilities since mercs are programmed to be able to do so, however the only way they can do so is if the person has gold accounts on them. And if they pay for it, then they can do as they please no matter how we may think it sucks.

    Are they killing nameds? No, no mercs can do that on their own, at least not on any nameds that are worth a thing at the level the players are at. Even if they did, they can't loot them since they are AFK. When I see them, I will actually send a tell and ask if there is anyone there and if I don't hear a reply, I tell them I am going to wait 20 seconds and loot the mobs. No response comes, and I go ahead and loot the mobs, period.

    If they are killing ALL mobs that are required for a quest or for dailies, you can complain to a GM by submitting a petition, and they will most likely come and verify your claim, and if it is true, they will log those people out or move them to a safe spot.

    If you need items for epics, quests, etc... the AFK players, as the name suggests, are AWAY from the keyboard, meaning they can't loot what they kill, so go ahead and loot whatever you need to loot. The chances are that if you can't kill a quest mob by yourself, then you shouldn't be in that zone anyway so if you really NEED the kill, then engage the mob yourself before the AFK players can since in order for their mercs to start fighting, one of the players have to be PHYSICALLY HIT firsts; otherwise the mercs will not aggro. Wait where the quest mob spawns and engage it right away, thus initiating first aggro and they will not go and hit the AFK player's toons, therefore the mercs will not even be engaging them.

    There are many adverse factors as well. They may end up getting trained intentionally or accidentally. The merc may aggro a multitude of mobs and a small lag spine in the zone may cause them to get a massive train. What happens when that is the case? The 3 boxer dies. And if they don't check the account periodically (which they most certainly don't late at night since they are likely to be asleep), they wake up with their whole xp lost since the res timer no longer allows them to regain the xp. So they end up spending hours to get back the xp that they have lost, meaning they won't be 3 boxing anytime soon until they at least get their xp back.

    And unless SOE changes the rules, people will continue to do so. And if you were to train them, SOE will punish you since they rather lose 1 person with one account than 1 person with 3 accounts and who pays for gold accounts on a monthly basis. Fair or not is not the issue, the fact is that like everything else, this game exists to make its owners money and s/he who pays the money gets to blow the whistle...

    It's not like servers are packed with people and there is a shortness of mobs. There are plenty of zones with plenty of mobs and even in the zones like the Grounds, which seems to be the zone given in most examples in this thread, 25-30 or 50 people are not going to make others run out of mobs; the examples state there are 12-15 AFK people and that only equates to 3-4 persons on AFK with 3 accounts each. Even if there were 30 ppl (which seems to be about a quite high number and only occurs during weekends and some evenings), that would make 10 people with 3 accounts if they were all 3 boxers, which would mean that 10 spots are camped. Are there no other areas in the Grounds that can be camped or that has mobs? Of course there are, the zone can handle 100 ppl without a shortness of mobs.

    And no matter what people who complain can claim is the case, most of the people complaining can not afford to pay for 3 accounts that are all gold. It is envy and jealousy and if they had the opportunity to do so, they would be doing it themselves but obviously they can't. Well, life is unfair and just get over it. Just because I drive a 1991 pickup truck doesn't mean that I can simply go to my next door neighbor who has 3 cars (of which 1 is a Corvette) and beat them to a pulp with a sledgehammer. The fact is that he has the money to afford it and I don't. If you aren't willing to accept that you are mad because you are envious, and claim that it ruins your "fun" in the game, then you may want to try another game. If someone with the ability to get aa's while AFK annoys you and spoils your fun in the game, then you may have some serious issues...
  7. Questoften32 Augur

    No, people will abuse anything. Its good if you have to awnser the door or have call of nature while playing your druid alt. Or that thorn in the side freind calls. Do you really want to die and what that means in eq, just because you dont have time to shut the game down down because your away for 5-15 min? Some times your in gregs end and something suddenly comes up, it happens...just dont tell marcia. In any case, most players dont do this. Many dont even box. In fact most have only one account. That would be like doing away with fire works because a few people thought by holding them in therwe hands it would be a really good way to get rid of those embarssing hang nails.