Hi Gideon, What abuse? What harm? Let's do a thought experiment here: spin up a scenario for us where a 10 minute timer results in harm to the server and/or the game, but a 1 minute timer does not. If we can come up with a credible scenario where harm ensues, I'll be all for retaining the current timeout. But: no harm, no foul. What bans? Chris has already said that the jail system with automatic enlongating times is the penalty for afk gathering, not bans.
Hah, admittedly I didn't play a great deal of the earlier Ultimas, so I guess I put my foot in my mouth on that one. UVII was real time. Mobs didn't pause game and ask you what you wanted to do....they just attacked you. Point being, real time games require attention to play them and that's enforced rather well here. I would be in favor of more strict punishments and slimmer chances of avoidance. I know I've accidentally wandered off (I have kids and RL is occasionally immediately distracting) and come running back when I remembered I left the macro running, only to find the gump still up. Other times, not so much luck.
Hi Gideon, Agreed. But that doesn't change regardless of where you set the timer. Respectfully, this isn't a major commercial MMORPG. There are no Chinese gold farmers building up assets to sell on eBay. Do you realize how much effort it is to set a timer and religiously break your attention every 8 or 9 minutes and switch through a couple of screens for things you might have to respond to? And you still have to sleep, so you can only do this while you're actually, physically, *at the keys*. But let's suppose for a moment there is someone out there who would do this and wouldn't be bothered by the constant attention transfer. They'd still have to look over every 2 minutes. Because within 2 minutes you've: * exhausted the tree you were chopping and need to move * exhausted the ore vein and need to move * finished shearing the sheep and have nothing to do 'till they regenerate Extending the timer has no impact on this scenario. Let's look at another scenario. Got one? Regards, Wil
Hi Gideon, Actually, this scenario doesn't make sense. If you're actually at the keys (just working in another window) you'd set Razor to take a screenshot every 10 seconds or so. Then you'd run or write a graphics comparison program which pops up an alert any time the box you drew on the screen cap changed. Which it would when the gump pops up. You wouldn't look every two minutes. You wouldn't look every 10. You'd look when the gump pops up and have plenty of time to answer it. Doing it as you described is far too much work for the recall-miner. More, taking a razor screen shot doesn't even break the rules. Thing is, you can only do this when you are, by definition, not "away from the keys." 2 minutes or 10 minutes, if you're asleep in bed it ain't gonna happen. Regards, Wil
With all due respect, it's pretty clear that the ask system is fine, in fact it's probably too lenient because there would be even more complaining otherwise. I'm against automated resource gathering all together. My macro consists of: double click item type (pickaxe or hatchet) target relative location,pause 3 seconds. The rest I do myself. Making it easier to automate resource collection is going to harm the shard by fudging the resource and craft market. You know it, I know it and most importantly (and thankfully) staff know it so I think it's time to wrap this one up.
Now that's not what I asked and you perfectly well know it. What I asked is: suggest a credible scenario in which a 10-minute timer harms the game but a 1-minute timer does not. If the resulting scenario is much harder to pull off than an equivalent scenario that doesn't break the rules at all then I don't think it's credible. Do you disagree? I respectfully suggest that a 2-minute timer is still inside players' pain point. So if collectively we can't think of a scenario in which a 10 minute timer causes harm that a 1-minute timer prevents then I think it would be good to move the timer.
I think this may be the source of some of the disconnect here; I'm not sure you're familiar with how powerful and insane Razor is. It's extremely easy to mine ingots for 16 hours without looking at the monitor once.
Hi Wise, The afk system is excellent. I think it could be better still. I respect your opinion but I don't agree. Automation makes the more tedious parts of UO bearable. But even if I agreed with you completely, that's only at issue for the 2 vs 10 minute question. The gump doesn't pop up when you macro, it pops up with you "gather." For example by typing, "vendor sell." Each of the other three suggestions, second chance, cooldown and big gump, propose to improve the afk gump when no macroing is being performed at all. Regards, Wil
Hi Dalavar, No particular reason. I wanted something long enough for a #2 but too short to watch an episode of the Simpsons. My pain point is the restroom trip: I'd like to be able to do my business without clenching in the middle when I remember I left the macro running. What's your pain point? Regards, Wil
Hi Dalavar, I don't know all the tricks but I know many of them. Are you thinking of the recall-miner or do you have something else in mind? The recall miner will be busted by a 10 minute gump just as surely as a 2 minute gump. And if he's not, it would think it not horribly complicated to have the gump timer accelerate if the character recalls following its appearance. Regards, Wil
Actually, the Gump only comes up when you accept the bod order. Following your logic if there is nothing wrong with 10 minutes let's make it 100 or how about no timer. I mean you're not collecting resources so who cares, right? The reason why anything longer than two minutes is bad because it will encourage being away. The longer the timer, the longer you have to do laundry and wash dishes and whatever it is you do when you're supposed to be playing the game. This game is meant to be hard. Collecting resources is supposed to be tedious, that's the point. If it wasn't then guess what, everyone would have a ton of resources and they would be worthless. Two minutes is already too much. The point of the system is to make sure you're attended. Let's cut to the chase, you want the system looser so you can be less attended when collecting resources, the point of the system is to keep you more attended. Oh and in case you didn't know, the owner of this shard used razor to pretty much win at uo on another shard and proved that without proper safe guards, the economy of any shard can go down the ishter faster than a noob starts crying when things get a little tedious or hard, God forbid we have to put in effort to get something in return.
Wrong. Chris defined accepting a bod as gathering resources. I haven't disputed that. No one else in this thread has disputed that. In fact, no one in the thread has disputed any of the actions that Chris defined as gathering. So why did you even bring it up? Then as someone uniquely well qualified to evaluate the viability of the suggestions I made, he won't need you to speak for him. Will he? Regards, Wil
Alright. Flesh that one out for us. How would you set it up so you can macro-mine all day from work and pull in 70k per hour with the afk timer set to 10 minutes? Why does it need a 10-minute timer to work? I don't want a change to the afk gump timer to make that possible. So, show me how it does and I'll withdraw the suggestion. Regards, Wil
Gideon and I tend to butt heads on a lot of issues, but not this one, the antimacroing system is a good thing, and nothing wrong with the timers. You can't afk macro yourself to riches here and that's how it should be.
