Away from keyboard (AFK)

Thank you, Ralen.

I can see both sides of this debate. I’ve argued the same points as @Kirash in regards to afk providing the means to stay in the loop about what is going on for people who play off hours or don’t have a lot of play time. Then again I’ve heard good points about the spy who has clan destroying microphones planted on people while he always sits in his clan base with his “invincibility” flag on.

I don’t really think the flag factors that much into PvP, though I do see where the original post was coming from. It is super annoying to get the jump on someone or finally catch up to an elusive target only to see an afk flag shielding them from harm indefinitely. Anyone who has been in the PvP game for awhile is bound to encounter this and I admit it’s frustrating. I’ve snatched a handful of people just by camping them out while they are afk. This isn’t ideal, but if you have the patience for it you can give someone a wonderful surprise when they return.

EDIT: The key is to make sure you don’t tip off the AFK person in the first place, because that’s when you DO run into the problem originally cited where that person will never return from afk. It’s meta gaming, but no one can prove that the afk person saw a threat and decided they were done playing for the day, or they just had to leave and had no idea either way. That’s where the heart of the original post comes from I believe and how afk can rather easily be exploited.

The afk system works mostly well the way it is, but this topic has come up a few times. I’m sure a compromise could be reached to limit the scope and power of afk without entirely ruining the “plugged in” aspect that most people enjoy about having the afk flag. Perhaps masking hatches/doors opening and closing and movement into and out of the room the afk person is sitting in would address the “PvP” concerns without taking away the benefits of remaining in conversation or tuned in to comlinks while stepping way.

I agree with the Kirash idea and if the argument is that people who’re AFK are totally invulnerable and also they should have absolutely everything gagged so I guess you can’t even ping them to be like hey are you still there, really what you’re asking for is the ability to effectively just log out anywhere you stand.

By ping I meant beep.

Hey, I’m all for the AFK flag being removed entirely and people only being safe if they log out. That’s a great idea.

Sweet baby Jawa I just had the mental image of coming back from taking a shit to being instantly PKed by Xavious. I swear dude, that is just mean.

This whole deal would only benefit certain people at the expense of everyone else. Certainly the kind of idea that certain people would jump on the opportunity to take advantage of it. It would do everyone a disservice in the end though.

what if we just had a timer added to the afk command so you type AFK and it says, “You will be safely AFK in X minutes” so people dont just afk as a defense.

Kirash says

This whole deal would only benefit certain people at the expense of everyone else. Certainly the kind of idea that certain people would jump on the opportunity to take advantage of it. It would do everyone a disservice in the end though.

The nature of AFK as it is already benefits certain people at the expense of everyone else. Personally, I’m kind of in agreement with Zeromus. If you want to AFK, take the risk of being taken advantage of while AFK or log out.

I’ve always been very supportive of the AFK flag essentially blinding a player to the game world. That was the original thinking when we made it block look/etc. a few years back but we never went full out with it.

I’ve said my piece.