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

If TLP is any indication.....first you have to be reported. Then a few hours to a few days later, eventually someone will read the report. A GM will eventually send you a tell, and if you don't respond, your char will be moved to a safe evac point in the zone

That's how it has been happening on TLP. The sky is not falling

Agreed. The introduction of /advloot changed the dynamics of unattended play completely. I think this rule change is for the best and long overdue.

^
This is a lie. Completely made up. Hundreds of accounts were suspended on TLP for a raid rotation infraction, then immediately restored

Back in 2001, my second son played a necro, Zampus. He would FD in Crushbone and let his pet kill while he was at school. Not sure if it were for faction or xp. I guess now he wouldn't get agro while FDed. I started in 2002.

Holy crap! I didn't know about this. That's hundreds of pissed-off people. It's like pounding a nail in a fence every time you're angry. You can pull out the nails but the holes will always remain.

Most people prefer to actively play to get exp. If you want afk progress maybe try the phone game Clash of Clans?

The guild Modest Man? All hundreds of them aren't pissed, and are currently playing. Anything else?

This change does end up killing Mage and Beastlord f2p afk plat farming (capable of plat equiv of ~2 krono per month per acct). I guess you can still do it, until someone tells on you

Did they at least get an apology? Those are rare enough.

I personally don't care so long as they are not impacting my play. I just find it comical that people want to pretend it's because they have life matters to attend to or are somehow above other people so they must be allowed to gain experience by using mercs and pets while they go do more important things.

I say other players should be able to issue a /follow command to whome they suspect is doing unattended play. If it is not clicked "No" in say...15 minutes, than their character will now /follow that person so they can be lead to a safe area of the zone till their return. Or if they don't click "NO" they will be ported to a safe area of the zone where there is no chance of any mob agro'ing on them.

Oh yes, that would be awesome. So, those of us who do afk in the safe part of the zone can be dragged to the unsafe part. It'll be like reverse training. lol

It is hilarious how the people that exploit by afk farming come here and post all these silly reasons why this would be a bad idea. It is so easy to see through the excuses. I think it's awesome that they are finally making it against the rules.

I was going to edit to reflect that.

No /follow, too many things can go wrong with that, but some could be pretty funny no doubt .

Just the /port you to a safe area. And of course this can only be done if you have agro on a mob. Cause if you're fighting a mob, you're playing right? Not just afk in a safe area. And if you are AFK while you have agro, of course that was unintended and you're rushing your kid to the emergency room or something so of course you didn't have time to properly run to a safe area or log off and you would be appreciative of someone getting you to safety while you attend to more important things.

So you have agro, another player /lookingOut4U and you don't respond within 15 minutes and get ported to a safe area where your character will not die....or continue gaining exp. while your pet kills easy light/blues and merc healer heals. No need to even get the limited DB customer service involved. Players can police themselves for unattended gameplay.

What's the real motivation here? Jealousy. This is like peeping in your neighbor's window and calling the cops because you saw them nude.

In fact, if a player posted this suggestion, it would be an illegal nerf call. Since a dev did it, it's legal, but it's still a nerf. "Our way or the highway." Well, you can't nerf *me* anymore. I gave up doing anything in game last year. I just stand around and forage and chat and help newbies. /rude you, DBG.

Not like that at all. Like I said, I personally don't care unless it directly impacts me.

But it is against the rules and all the excuses presented are just rationalizations why they're not really cheating, but have "life" matters outside of their control to worry about.

Cheat away, I don't care, but call it what it is.

After I rolled a mage heroic, I tried this afk killing with the pet thing. At that time, it was not against the rules. The exp was so bad I never tried it again. Maybe I did it wrong, but it was really bad, lol.

But, that being said, it is getting tiring that (to paraphrase Sheex) everything is coming up TLP. TLP is effecting the live servers too much, imho. I also don't spend my time worrying about what other people are doing, which is another reason I don't care if people afk-kill with their mercs/pets. If they want that bad exp, well, more power to them.

The use of 3rd party software is cheating.

Sitting in game AFK using legitimate *in game* mechanics is not. How is it that after 6 years or however long mercs have been out now that it is suddenly "cheating"? Did it take them that long to figure out people were doing this? If the reason is Advlooting you're basically saying that they introduced the cheat into the game.

Regardless, the implementation is horrible. Who reads the "Help/Questions" database regularly? Yeah, not many people. If this is new policy across ALL servers then there should be an in game MOTD or a post on these forums. If they uphold this policy I'm sure lots of people will get suspended for no reason whatsoever in their mind and it will be a CS nightmare. If it's one thing DBG is good at it's implementing policy without telling anyone. It's pretty much the equivalent of HR updating their insurance handbook saying you had to update your coverage... a week ago, without giving you the new handbook or any other communication.

ps. And before you use the excuse I'm against it is because I do this- I don't.

AFK killing isn't really about speed or anything, it's that your toon is gaining exp (or money now with advloot) during the like 16+ hrs of the day you aren't / can't play EQ, each day, every day.

^ this times a thousand.
I just had some dude train me on the TLP/Ragefire because I was watching tv while killing some skeletons and because *I* did not respond to his hail he brought like a bunch of undead on me just as my skel spawned.
The dude was real righteous when I called him out on training too, because of all this.