Need ideas for places to AFK level lvl 75+...

What is the difference between going afk with a merc up and someone PLing you?

I think enough "clever" pseudo-political statements have been made on the subject. Any chance we can get this thread closed?

Somebody is playing is the difference.

PLing is insanely faster?

Still have no clue why people are so upset about afkers. I have never had an issue with them in 11 years of playing. They most often afk in a spot that isn't in the way or camping a named and you even get to loot the corpses. Seems most of the people against it have no real argument other than they don't like it so it's wrong? Or they probably aren't able to afk farm and are jealous? Cause I see no reason people can be that upset over something so trivial.

So no effective difference to you, which again brings up the question: Why is it your concern?

Lol youre very strange, why do you care what i think?

Why do you care what the player is doing behind the computer? It makes no difference to what the toon is doing whether they're afk or if they just don't want to group.

Smart AFKers would do it in an instance where nobody could see them and/or train them, deliberate or not. Dumb AFKers are forced to check every couple hours to avoid having unrezzable deaths.

It is amusing, however, to just take a camp away from an afk group sitting on a popular spot. They aren't actually there, so have no basis to complain about you killing the mobs first.

Depending on the location, I will just fight mobs near them and then also loot all their mobs. =D

I think youre fixated with me so i'll serious post. I dont like the concept of afk xping, i think its lame. I've never seen anybody afk xping, because I figure most of them have sense not to afk xp in an obvious spot. If i did see people afk xping I probably didnt know, i generally find my own spot and if something is camped I move along. Would I really train an afk xper? probably not unless he was being a bag and camping some place that obviously in peoples way.

Oh and I dont fear retribution from sony about training. If you were around back in the pre instance days, people would pull horrific trains to f you over and sony didnt do a gd thing. Because they do nothing I now train people who train me, but I havent trained any one in at least 5 years, Chinese pp farmers trying to kill me at the evolving sword camp in undershore iirc, I got some hilarious tells in Chinese that day. But i'd probably would train you if youre afk xping for the lols, If youre on luclin hope to see you soon...=)

This is why I love afk'ers. I go to Paw, find the nearest one, and he's got a treasure-trove lying at his feet. They're like a very inattentive Santa Claus that you can rob.

I can totally understand that. Hell, I have no problem with that. Afk'ers are just pieces of scenery soaking up the local mob population. And if they're planted where you want to be, it can get annoying, just like real players stubbornly taking up a valued camp spot without regards to others.

It's when people start going on generalizations about how afk'ers are the scourge of EQ, the venemous cancer that is eating it from the inside out, and how they shall uphold their noble duty as the great White Knights of Proper EQ Playing Styles, enforcing against those vicious, afk ruffians, I have to laugh, question, and mock the weird obsession people have with these unresponsive pieces of scenery.

Different folk have different experiences. Every time I've sent a petition, I've had it answered and the situation resolved. Once for training, a few times for random douches habitually kill-stealing and becoming verbally abusive in /tell when I ask them to stop. More often than not the GM's have been on the ball for my few complaints.

I'm not on Luclin, but if I find evidence that I am deliberately trained, either repeated trains from the same person, or messages in the chat log from that person implying it's deliberate, I report them each and every time, and spread awareness over general chat, advising other people to keep an eye on said person and report them.

And for the record, I don't even afk-camp. Occasionally I'll grind stuff that's so easy it basically involves me letting the merc loose and pulling up other windows until the fight's over, but the humourous part about that is that to the outside observer, it's indistinguishable from afk-camping. Which ties back to my original point about why the irrational hatred of afk'ers is so amusing: It's people getting enraged over something as ridiculous and disconnected as the fact that the toon itself is not doing anything offensive, disruptive, or otherwise, in chat or in the game, it's the person behind the toon daring to not play (or even maybe possibly appearing to not play) in a way the offended party deems 'appropriate'.

...meanwhile, I got a warning from a GM one day when I left my toon spinning in one spot to aggro some grays for slayer achievements. Just standing there, letting them proxy aggro and die on riposted swings, not even using a merc.

Apparently pushing enter while turning to make your character spin is considered remote play? So stupid...

This is the real problem, regardless of what SOE thinks, there is no difference between AFKing with mercs or not. One is legal to them the other is not, but there is literally no difference other than you aren't automating a button push with one. I find it ridiculous that you could get banned for afk foraging, but not using your merc to exp for you.

There is no difference really between using an illegal program to automate something in the game for you if you aren't interfering with gameplay of others but it's okay to use EQ's system. It is an imaginary line drawn that really has no difference other than SOE feels it's different.

A lot of GMs don't know that AFK exping is allowed, so I just report them and let them handle it.

I can understand the reasoning behind that actually. As said in another thread: Mercs are a 'program' provided by SoE, so they don't have an issue with using them in game. Outside programs, they're well within their rights to establish a zero-tolerance policy. The line between 'outside program that helps out without providing an unfair advantage' and 'outside program that is effectively cheating' can get blurry, so in the long run it's better just to ban them all rather than have fifty million threads of rules-lawyering.

So as I said it is a made up line in the sand that has no real value.

Again, foraging all night is less intrusive than AFK leveling and it's still something you can get banned or suspended for. Keyboard macroing programs aren't illegal either, but you can get suspended for letting them run all night. They also suspend and ban, and always have, people who would afk with their pets aggroing and killing stuff. My pet is a program supplied by SOE as well.

I hope Sony starts selling plat directly and current gear soon. If they do it, you won't get banned for it either and all the complaints about it can go ignored as well.

Look at it from SoE's point of view: They know their own programming (I hope), so even if people start using it for exploits and the like, fixing it is just a matter of digging in and tweaking things they at least had a hand in creating.

With outside programs, it's an unknown. For each and every case they witness, or they receive a petition over, they have to go in and thoroughly examine an outsider's program to see if it can be used for exploits. From SoE's perspective, which is more cost-effective? Devoting time and resources to examining each and every outside program that gets used in the game for potential abuse, then balancing the game not only around how people use what SoE has programmed, but also around programs that are developed completely outside their control and supervision... or just blanket-banning them all and paying enough attention to consumer demands to appropriate the most popular outside aids and putting them more directly under SoE control and supervision?

And yet they ban and suspend people for using their own programs as well. Using your pet in this way was deemed an exploit, where using your merc is fine.

If I'm in a zone trying to accomplish something and you are blocking my progress whilst afk, your going to "loading please wait..." The end.
Im from the school of UO. I don't mind soe's policy on it. But if I'm ingame and it becomes an annoyance, martial law is in affect.
I'm not saying all afkers are annoyances or blocking my progress, but if you are one of them, the above applies.

Funny thing...this thread is in the newbie zone...

I don't care about AFKers at all other than the stupidity behind the double standards. If they remove the double standards I would have no issue.

I don't even have to train an AFKer if they are in the way of my progress, there is no such thing as KSing a merc so I will just take the mobs I need or stand between the mobs and the AFKers and move on when I'm done.

Technically if a person is blocking progress in any form they are a disruption so you could petition them and it's a completely different story. No need to train them.