afk/idling, pros n cons

Rillian

I've come over from another mud wanting a fresh experience after a hiatus in mudding. Impy is dfelivering exactly that and i'm loving it so far apart from one thing. Afking. Where I was before it was highly frowned upon, but i see a lot of it going on here and it does bug me, i guess cos i'm used to it not being allowed.

I understand that sometimes something comes up and you have to dash away for a moment, or maybe a handfull of moments. and i understand when people are say, logged in at work and their response time might be a bit slow when sent a tell or spoken to on a channel. But from where i came from if you were logged in you were expected to respond eventually.

the afking i'm seeing here is a case of people being on -all the time- and -never- seeming to respond to me. Multiple times I've tried to speak to people via tells or whatever and just been blanked. Multiple times i've thrown emotes around a room with people in to no avail.

is the stance on it here more lax, or have i just been unlucky? I find it kind of damaging to have people like that in a guild. Yes it is better to have someone logged in and really delayed than no-one on at all, but to have people logged in that never respond is something else. It makes me frustrated when i think "oh good, there are people on, maybe i can feed my rp addiction" only to have said people just stand around applying defences when they run out with a glazed over look in their eyes.

Sarrius

People idle/AFK here by habit because they are waiting for something to do, namely shardfalls, monolith battles, FFAs, or cult/sect RP events. They usually have written a simple script to play a tone/text their phone/e-mail themselves/maximize the mud screen when a shardfall happens, for instance. If I need to run AFK (say, to cook dinner), I flick on a switch that reacts to most form of interaction with me, especially tells or says, in a way that pings my phone. It sends me what was said so I can decide if it is worth walking back to the keyboard immediately.

Just keep trying to engage people like you did with me and others. You will find that many people are not AFK, they are merely lost in some task that is not easily evident to you. A lot of people 'AFK' at the Shuk, for instance, are shooting the **** on our ringtell discussing PK and RP.

Eusto

Rillian said:

I've come over from another mud wanting a fresh experience after a hiatus in mudding. Impy is dfelivering exactly that and i'm loving it so far apart from one thing. Afking. Where I was before it was highly frowned upon, but i see a lot of it going on here and it does bug me, i guess cos i'm used to it not being allowed.

I understand that sometimes something comes up and you have to dash away for a moment, or maybe a handfull of moments. and i understand when people are say, logged in at work and their response time might be a bit slow when sent a tell or spoken to on a channel. But from where i came from if you were logged in you were expected to respond eventually.

the afking i'm seeing here is a case of people being on -all the time- and -never- seeming to respond to me. Multiple times I've tried to speak to people via tells or whatever and just been blanked. Multiple times i've thrown emotes around a room with people in to no avail.

is the stance on it here more lax, or have i just been unlucky? I find it kind of damaging to have people like that in a guild. Yes it is better to have someone logged in and really delayed than no-one on at all, but to have people logged in that never respond is something else. It makes me frustrated when i think "oh good, there are people on, maybe i can feed my rp addiction" only to have said people just stand around applying defences when they run out with a glazed over look in their eyes.

For quite some time (and still in Achaea), theft was something to worry about. For that reason, AFKing was very much a "do at your own risk" activity. With the removal of theft in Imperian and the variety of ways for one to stay safe in his or her city, it's become viable for players to idle perpetually. I have to agree that it's off-putting. Maybe it's worth brewing up some ideas for making that experience less jarring to our new players, like you.

How's everything else so far?

Gurn

There's no policy on AFKing here, and so many people do. A lot of people also have the problem of not caring-- That is to say, they pretend to be super AFK until something that they want to happen happens(shardfalls, fights), rather than respond.

Unfortunately, everyday RP is rather non-existent in Imperian. Throwing emotes around the room is something rare(but keep doing it! Keep the dying breed alive), and there is a focus with conflict as roleplay and large events rather than the day-to-day RP you'll find in other MUDs or MUSHes.

It is still there if you look for it, but it's very hard to find.

Rillian

i do really appreciate that wee interaction i got from you there, but sadly it's been one of the few that's come to something from many attempts. I guess it's cos im a totally new player to this mud, but not to muds in general. I have expectations, i know the rp is there just not the common places to find it. That and it's hard to "make friends" as a new player in a basically dead guild. I think a lot of people who are not afk are simply not taking the bite as they don't know my character.

it's nice to find some though, i was beginning to wonder if i'd joined the "wrong city" if you know what i mean. 

Sarrius

Antioch is very active, though you did catch us on a bloody month, and during a time when PKers will be busy thinking of reports for class improvements.

I try my hardest to engage new players. You slipped by my notice because your guild is sort of dead.

Rillian

@ eusto everything else im finding lovely, the mechanics and world itself and what little lore i know of seems right up my street, im just feeling kinda lonely most of the time.

I'm generally a non pk kind of character, mostly cos i suck at coding, though i know the autocurer here is GODLY and that may not be an issue. I've always looked to interactions and rp as what keeps me playing muds, and the fact that the worlds are mostly player driven with player run orgs and such, that's what seems to be lacking, but i've not given up yet

Delrayne

As @Gurn said, it's refreshing to see custom emotes being thrown around, so keep that up. But just because some people don't respond doesn't mean you should lose hope. You are new and just starting out. Many of the people here have been playing together for years, so we know the ins and outs of each others activities. Try and develop a character base with some people before you expect some keen rp, and while it's fine occasionally(for my tastes at least) the day to day lets go get a drink type interactions get old when I could be coding/talking shop with the guys/or whatever else I want to do at the time other than converse menial things while drinking.

Kaveri

Rillian said:

i do really appreciate that wee interaction i got from you there, but sadly it's been one of the few that's come to something from many attempts. I guess it's cos im a totally new player to this mud, but not to muds in general. I have expectations, i know the rp is there just not the common places to find it. That and it's hard to "make friends" as a new player in a basically dead guild. I think a lot of people who are not afk are simply not taking the bite as they don't know my character.

The best way I've found to make friends is to talk to everyone. Someone kills and/or submerges you? Turn it into a conversation! You find something that someone says on market, at the Spring, during a world RP event, et cetera interesting? Tell them so. Even if they're "enemies". Friendly enemies are fun roleplay waiting to happen.

It's almost as if you have to mug people for friendship around here, but it can be pretty rewarding.

Khizan

Rillian said:

I'm generally a non pk kind of character, mostly cos i suck at coding, though i know the autocurer here is GODLY and that may not be an issue.

I just want to say, you should consider giving it a try. The amount of coding required can seem awfully daunting, but the autocuring system here is awesome, and most offenses can be handled with a relatively trivial amount of coding. And the forum crowd here is pretty good about helping out with coding issues.

And it's way, way, way more fun than you think it will be.

Veratyr

hey bro, ill be more straight up to ya-I'm always lookin for a hunting partner. Hit me up in game if you need someone to show you around.

Try to RP it somehow. lol.

Abigail

I've noticed that even if I have my timeout set to 0, the server still drops connection after about an hour of idling.

Dicene

Abigail said:

I've noticed that even if I have my timeout set to 0, the server still drops connection after about an hour of idling.

I tend to have silent disconnects if I don't do something every few minutes, regardless of timeout. I find that alertness and things like that prevent that from happening for me.

Menoch

Or you keep your pipes lit. Always.

Azefel

#regex {^You will TIMEOUT in 1 minute unless you do something\.$} {ql}

is what I use

Aulani

Khizan said:

And it's way, way, way more fun than you think it will be.

As someone who has played Imperian for many years without being able to do more in combat then flail ineffectively and die.(I was so terrible, Khizan will tell you so.)

Khizan is right, it is -amazingly- fun. And taking part in the shardfalls can help you get to know some of the more pvp minded folks who don't typically roleplay in custom emotes. (Balance restriction. )

Sometimes it is hard to break into the cliques, especially if you are roleplaying a shy character, but don't give up. As someone else suggested, for at least a little while, try and turn everything into a conversation.

Delrayne

As far as timeout is concerned, if you use mudlet or anything that communicates with gmcp just set a five minute timer to sendGMCP("core.keepalive") or something to that keepalive effect. On my phone so can't see my actual code. The imperian GMCP doc will show you what you need for it.

Eldreth

Maybe it's worth brewing up some ideas for making that experience less jarring to our new players, like you.

How's everything else so far?

We need more AFK orcs (and let people idle in Dis)

Rillian

the only thing i could suggest about the afk "issue" is somewhere designated for it. i understand people waiting for events to pop up that they can help with when their focus isnt exactly there on the game, like these shardfalls n stuff you all mention. It's good that people wait for them so they are engaging and fun when they happen, as opposed to it only being the active people who are doing something else have to drop everything and go do them.

maybe some kind of "realm" where players could go. let's call it the void, tells could still be sent to them, maybe with some kind of automated response to let the sender know they are in the void. Messages would be sent to the character when in game events were happening/about to happen. on channels like guild and city there could be a little mark beside their name, or have them a different colour to show they are in the void, so other players would know they're not really there but can be contacted for something important. but the void itself would be an isolated place so these people wen't standing about at in game locations, and players who wanted interactions wouldn't be dissapointed by their lack of response. 

i cant even imagine how a game like this is made, i dont know if that would be a huge undertaking, but it's the only thing i can really think of.

Delrayne

It would a lot easier to just be able to flag yourself afk for auto reply tells and such. Another area for it is a bit much in my opinion. Maybe when you flag yourself you character is in a certain pose similar to the blank eyes now.

Rillian

it took me a while before i realised the blank eyes meant afk. (maybe i'm just a bit slow :P probably cos i want used to afking being allowed)

i'm not talking a whole area, i'm talking an out of game place. not a room with a description or anything, just a place where your character is not really in the world, but not logged out so they get no prompts from the game. flagging yourself as afk would be fine if your character was removed from the world, the character wouldnt necessarily have to "go" anywhere, just be invisible

Caelya

I can understand your plight, but the issue with removing characters from the grid is that, if QWHO's relatively small readout weren't bad enough, it would make the game feel even more empty. I agree it can be frustrating and I'm not sure how to advise you other than to stick around, get to know people and their routines, and adapt to our weird, sometimes  'lazy' world.

Rillian

isnt it a bit of a misrepresentation if a large portion of the people on the who list are not actually playing the game though? 

Labil

They are, just not in the way that apparently you wish to.

I play a lot from work. It means I leave the client open and check every while to see if there is a shardfall/something that I should pay attention to.

One reason of why people do that instead of just logging in and out is the part of putting defenses up. It is just simpler to stay connected.

Understand your point of view, but there are few solutions that are worth the effort. Thankfully, at least some of the guilds merged, so people are less bound to end in a guild where everyone is blank-eyed.

Ahkan

Was it Imperian that opened up with the functionality that the who list was sorted by people who had the most time since last command entered? It was something like

Ahkan (Afk:20), Selthis (Afk:19), Khizan (Afk 10), Bathan (afk 5)

the (24) weren't there, it was just to demonstrate the point.

It was an easy way to find people who wouldn't fight back. There were many tears from the Saboteurs and Antioch. Life was hard.

**Not that the saboteurs ever actually did anything outside of OMGTOXINBAN (and 'personal' roleplay)

Lixan

I think Achaea still has it this way.

Ahkan

God, if that's true. I never knew that. Durdur.

Khizan

Ahkan said:

Was it Imperian that opened up with the functionality that the who list was sorted by people who had the most time since last command entered? It was something like

Ahkan (Afk:20), Selthis (Afk:19), Khizan (Afk 10), Bathan (afk 5)

the (24) weren't there, it was just to demonstrate the point.

It was an easy way to find people who wouldn't fight back. There were many tears from the Saboteurs and Antioch. Life was hard.

**Not that the saboteurs ever actually did anything outside of OMGTOXINBAN (and 'personal' roleplay)

Yeah, Imperian used to be this way.

Way back in the day, I used to set my timeout to zero, turn off all my triggers and timers, and then go sit in Caanae and watch while I slowly climbed to the top of the who list. Eventually, somebody would go "Hey, Rumal is at the top of the who list and he's out in Caanae, he's either DCed or AFK, I'm gonna go kill him" and then they'd get an unpleasant surprise.

I learned that from you, btw, back in Achaea. :P

Abigail

TIL idling is valid PK cause?

Khizan

No, they had reason to kill me. Virtually everybody in Stavenn had that, back in those days. I was just baiting them into making an attempt and hoping they'd walk in unprepared cause they thought I was AFK.

Abigail

But what's the point of killing someone who's AFK in the first place? There's no challenge and the XP reward is crap.