Recent change to killing things while afk, specifically mercs and pets

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by froakakhan, Aug 22, 2015.

  1. Matari Augur

    Sorry dude, but this is a zero tolerance policy. They are NOT tolerating people going AFK with pets, mercs, or whatever else engaged in combat. If you cannot see what is wrong with this policy I do not know what to tell you. Also, you cannot consider if they can enforce the policy or not to determine what type of policy it is.
  2. resullus New Member

    Can someone do tradeskills for gain while afk for more than a few seconds? What if someone in your group is afk? Do you need to stop pulling until they return?
  3. Motherlee Augur

    Many many more stories abound! (FoB was her origin.)
  4. Motherlee Augur

    Question for Community Moderators. Would we be allowed to have a thread with stories of corrupt GMs and auto-detection program fails?
  5. Iila Augur

    No.

    Real stories and fake stories all look the same. It's not something that would be allowed on official boards because it invites people to make up any story they want to about GM/devs/guides. Try the rerolled EQ threads if you want to read about stuff like that.

    One of the major rules of cheating detection software is to not talk about how cheats are being detected. Ban waves had hit innocents before, but we're never going to hear anything useful about that from soe/dbg.
  6. froakakhan New Member

    I never said being banned anywhere, putting words into peoples mouths will not further your argument, in fact they will do the opposite. Yes I did infer. I never stated anywhere that what I was saying is the law of the land, I was stating my concern of the exact wording of this update to the rule. I used logic based on the definition of words and how the english language works. They would not have included a time measurement of how long you have been afk in a rule about doing an action while afk, without it having some relation to the rule.

    Tell me something, say for whatever reason a guide/GM does show up in that small time frame and they see you killing something and yet you are not responding to them. How can they determine how long you have been afk? How can they tell you have been afk for a few seconds, a few minutes, or a few days? They cannot tell the difference. To them it makes no difference how long you have been afk, they only see you doing it right now. If you are caught killing things while afk you will be punished the exact same as anyone else caught killing things afk. Can you honestly tell me with a straight face that the person afk for a very short period would not get punished while the person that was afk for days would?

    The rule says nothing about actually killing something, it says performing actions. If you are fighting something and not responding you would be breaking this rule.
  7. Ghubuk Augur

    Froakakhan, what wording do you think would work?
  8. froakakhan New Member

    An extended period? A few minutes? A minute? Five minutes? Any of these would be better than a few seconds. Or just remove the specific time frame so the GM/Guide can decide on these things like they have been for years.

    If you need to go away from keys please move your character to an empty part of the zone or log out completely.
  9. Ghubuk Augur

    I agree with you that 5 mins would probably be a good time as well.
  10. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    They have not given a specific time frame for you to be AFK fighting before you may suffer disciplinary action. They have said that if you plan on being afk for more then a few seconds you should move to a safe place to ensure you will not be found afk fighting.
    Yara_AB likes this.
  11. Iila Augur

    Extended period = long enough for someone to notice you, petition, and actually have a guide or GM show up to do an AFK check.
  12. Ghubuk Augur

    It needs to be a set time otherwise people just argue what is "extended", same as arguing what is a "few seconds". That is why I liked Froak's idea of 5 mins.
  13. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

  14. Badname3245 Lorekeeper

    Today I accidentally make de poopy in me pants while trophy skilling. I excuse self to wipey up de shapoopy while leaving me mage auto combining stuff. I comes back to find myself moved to new spot with message from derv saying no ok to clean up shapoopy while using auto trade skilling. Please soe no frownie face me for this poor choice of lunchy.

    Mage looking for raid guild.
  15. Darkark Augur

    Roll a troll on another server, apply for a guide position, make them guide events interesting* for some lucky server :)

    *No offence to existing guides intended!
  16. Jetboy Lorekeeper

    Guides themselves actually stopped having anything to do with enforcing rules about a decade ago, and don't even see or have access to the newer web-based petition system. I'm not sure if the mechanics still exists to use the old petition system which in-house Customer Service abandoned to ask the guides for help on an event like a Wedding or something. It used to work this way a few years ago but may have been removed.

    Of course, I forgot the in-game command if it's still there!
  17. Iila Augur

    https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...ng-guide-support-for-ragefire-lockjaw.224919/
  18. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    Like Lila pointed out there are experimenting with guides assisting in some GM duties... senior guides only atm.
  19. Pizzicato New Member

    First off I would like to say that I agree with this rule change. I can see many good reasons why this rule would be implemented and as an older player it fits with the ethos in the game when I started playing way back when.

    What I do disagree with is how this change has been communicated (or basically not) to the players. I know someone that this rule directly affects and when I mentioned to him about this rule change and linked him to this thread he was completely clueless about this change. I don't know how many players this rule will be going to affect but when adding a new rule (or reinforcing an old one) that if not adhered to can lead to the banning of accounts, sneaking it into the ToS (which as a player who has played since 2001 I may have read maybe twice in its entirety at best) doesn't seem like the best way to go about things. To give this a 'real world' comparison it would be similar to the government changing the penalty for a parking offence from a parking ticket to having your car crushed without informing anyone but the enforcement teams.

    As for the 'allowed time limit' I personally think that is fine. If anything longer than 'a few seconds' was 'permitted' then room for manoeuvre would be seen to be created which people would then attempt to abuse. What the few seconds rule does is make sure people understand that it is not permitted. I severely doubt that anyone will have action taken against their accounts if they afk while killing a mob due to rl interruptions. If you think anyone (let alone GM's) has the time to police every person who stops casting spells/abilities mid fight then you obviously have WAY more time than the rest of us. Yes I am aware that they could have thrown a few tens of hours at creating an automated alert system for themselves that would help them to do this but really...Really?

    Nobody is interested in punishing anyone for legitimate rl interruptions. That doesn't mean though that DBG doesn't want a watertight clause in the ToS for people that can clearly be seen to abusing the system.
    Ghubuk likes this.
  20. Reval Augur

    Not so fast, pizza cat! I agree with everything you said, but something could still be afoot. Plus you have to put pizza cats in their place.
    Corwyhn Lionheart likes this.