Banned for being AFK?

Friend of mine was banned today for 14 days for unattended gameplay. Her toons were AFK in Sarith while she was at work. Invisible. No mercs up. She has no clue how to play unattended.. I know for fact.

Just warning ya'll to beware where you go AFK. Pretty disappointing.

She have pets up killing while afk? Or mercs?

This is idiotic. Have my toons also up all the time because of this instable AB server to avoid the hazzle of getting twice these stupid error messages but they are only sitting around without any mercs and at a place with no accidental mobs coming by.

If that would be a reason for banning than surely that would be my last penny I spent on this company and they would earn to get bankrupt. While in FM farmers have their mercs up and botting like hell DGB should care about the real botters instead of afk people who are meanwhile sick of the server instability...

Suspended is not banned.

Her being at work leaves her toons unattended. PERIOD. You don't have to do anything wrong or know how to play while unattended. Its against the EULA to be unattended. Which means you have to be at the keyboard. They could suspend all those folks in the lobby or swimming in POK pond if they wanted to be real grumps.

What a BS.
Everybody is in the guildhall UNATTENDED. If you read properly they talk about unattended GAME PLAY not game "stay". If there should be a difference between guild hall or any other relatively safe place then something is wrong.

... oh folks..

P.S.: thanks for that info Mediik.

If they would ban the giant pile of AFK people soaking up buffs in PoK, that would be sweeeet. Unfortunately, having zero interaction with NPCs while AFK is perfectly acceptable.

I have never heard of anyone banned for just being afk without something else going on.

No, that's not what it says or means.

This policy quote disputes your position. They imply that if you are afk you may move to an area where you are no longer interacting with mobs

Now if he/she was in a place where mobs were auto-agroing and he/she was autolooting then Id agree.

I didnt realize this was a bad thing, kinda thought it was a nice thing people did for each other to kinda hang out and get buffed up before going out for the grind in the interest of sharing buffs.

This is 100% true, you can't even go afk to drop a deuce while logged in...and it was then that poop sock was born.

It doesn't matter what interpretation we choose to put on what "unattended gameplay" means because that player was suspended for being "unattended" in DBG eyes.

There have been cases of people being AFK with aggressive mercs/pets near those fast respawning alaran quest mobs (sergeant something), most likely for tear progression.

That said, being afk in an empty place away from mobs is generally ok. But if you want to be sure, you can gate into non-combat zones for extended afk-sessions(pok, nexus, potranq, lobby, etc), this has the advantage of preserving your buffs too.

Which is why I highly suspect there is more to the story than is being told.

Its good and bad. I dont understand why they had to make the lag pile be right outside the damn guild lobby entrance. FFS move somewhere people usually dont spawn or move through. Personally I liked it better when the buffers hawked their wares by the nexus stone or the bank.

Yes. For safety you can do that. Or you make an appropriate AFK-Text for information. But if somebody uses tools he should not do than this is obvious and this could be a reason for banning if somebody complains about that. And "Catspaws": we don't know anything and the guy who wrote that post only HEARD and believed it (sorry that has to be said if seeing it neutral). That is something I heared too often too. Out of believes and religion wars are fought even if both parties lack on brain and usefulness, like always.

Like always in laws or rules the common sense seems to fail sometimes. Rules and laws are there to grant a crowd of people working/living together. They have a use. If rules/laws itself are outdated or prevent exactly that then they are useless. And there are always some people who are sticking perfectly to it even if they are simply not useful anymore or complete ridiculous. These Dogmas prevent development and sometimes are simply stupid.

Use your brains...

That is the reason why some countries (I think on some US states) have really sick laws. Dogmas, stubborness and the believe that a law cannot be changed. Here in our country we changed an old law because it didn't fit into modern times - the "majesty insult law". Why? Because an turkish "dictator" wanted to abuse it in our country. And at court it has been interpreted by lawyers in a way so that the guy who has been accused has been sentenced free and only the part being guilty for insult has been used. In the juristictive this is partly standard if laws are stupid or useless.

Here in the game some rules are not even laws, they are so badly defined that everybody has a different opinion about it - it is like partly in the usual court cases. And the "mainstream" wants it to have in that or that way instead simply think about its usefulness. But as so often greed, envy and too much Ego suck time from judges and lawyers - they earn the money therefore. Here it sucks time from developers or the ones responsible for selling/marketing EQ. What a useless waste of time only because some Egos are too big, some envy too much or some are too greedy - like the usual children who get some ice and the bunch of kids around the corner want to have that too but are too much cowards to simply ask for it in a nice way...

The game itself and the law/rule is completely besides every logic. The game gives the players possibilities and if you don't read the small letters in the contract somehow at the pages or in the stupid useless disclaimers then you get possibly "prosecuted" (in the believe of the customers and in EQ cases: suspended/banned). In our country this would be an easy letter from the lawyer and 200 Euro minimum cost for the effort with the addition of money got lost through paid time. It seems that in US there is no proper law (we know that all how the state/NSA treats citizens and esp. people outside US). And I would not mention countries like Great Britain. No wonder that the feeling of justice isn't very much present. And because of no prosecution in Internet/Forums every strange opinion is present too. Here they can write anything in their disclaimers but it is simply not legal. If a game offers an obvious gameplay and money gets stolen from a customer in form of suspension or banning (as long as he does not use actively means to get around protection systems with e.g. 3rd party tools -> hacking) then the company works against law (regardsless what they say in their disclaimer or contracts). That is simply law in our country. But US companies will not care as long as nobody with enough money (50000 Euro and about 10 years up to the highest court) will sue them properly.

It is all about money. You don't get a right - you have to fight for it and if you lack on knowledge and money or the usual help you simply don't get your "rights" even there is a "customer protection" by law.

But the worsed are people who insist on stupid and false or even rules which are clearly against the law. If had even students who claimed that it is fully ok if police man make a visit to search for drugs in body holes at an age under 18 or without proper medical assistance. They are simply not allowed to do that and its a usual lawcase. But as long as everybody with ZERO knowledge insists on dogmas which are no real laws but only the believe of some egomanic or brainless people then this gets worse in every country.

To play with mercs afk is something they could normally never forbid. From logic and usefulness this is simply dumb. They offer a tool and forbid flexible usage in a game which has content to use flexibility and ideas to get quests/riddles working. But many don't work with only a merc but with hacking tools and you see that. That would be a reason for a suspension or banning. It is not only against EULA, it is also against law (in our country),. And DGB does this for sure, not simply out of no reason.

1. They risk perhaps on a person who is really angry AND has the money to file a lawsuit
2. They simply loose customers if that are more cases like that

A company who survived 10+ years with a complete outdated system would never be able to last so long if they would really do that regularly!

And as always: money talks.
And what happened REALLY that is only speculation like always.

Like a lawyer said to me: most clients he has simply lie in their cases to him and only in the court we see than that they talk BS even they claimed to be the victim... that is typcial human behavoir...

Use your brains...

EULA is no law. Microsoft tried that with the EULA to force selling their Windows after being used (reselling used goods). They lost the court trial here and had to accept that their software is being sold multple times. Now they had another ideas with windows 10 and their new concept of registration/bundling/binding itto the motherboard/bios or customer to overcome that issue here. Other countries did not have people going against Microsoft or simply having to proper law for customer protection.And most simply believe every and say Amen....

Many forget common sense while the usual Ego is activated...
Sad world...

Daybreak does not have customer support. They are pretty much just customer policing. You are on your own for most in-game problems. I believe on the progression servers they have the ability for the server to boot players that are AFK for a extended period of time. This would fix POK and guild Lobby. Not sure how they would do it if your sitting in a place getting aggro on stuff.

14 days is for sure harsh.