Disconnect AFK'ers

Wow....I never thought of it that way But, this can be avoidable by playing when you know you wont be interupted.

The main problem I have is AFKers sitting in the active districts of towns, meaning the active players are scattered over multiple districts (especially TA). So I proppose this instead:

If an entire party has been idle for 20 mins (that way you can AFK while someone else keeps forming the party), then that party is shifted to districts marked as AFK districts, and shifted back when one of them does something.

Guild halls and explorable/mission areas will remain unaffected.

And for those of you watching the chat, I find that pressing ~ and scrolling back only shows some of the text before your chat buffer becomes too large and starts removing the eariler lines. Also, the auction house will remove the need for you to stand around watching the trade chat (If we get it). So the only chat left to worry about will be your guild chat, so just ask them if you missed anything.

/signed

I didnt say 2 minutes now, did I? Literacy ftw.

This argument makes no sense at all. So you took 30-60 minutes to buy something. And you couldn't touch a god damn key 2-3 times in that time period. Done salvaging? Idea of pure greed? Do you even know what AFK means? Can you please rephrase that argument so its actually understandable?

/signed for missions only if you are playing with less than 2 npc.....

so you would be still able to eat while you are playing mission with henchies

Quoted for truth.

Anyone is welcome to try and find a reason why this isn't true. (keep the 'what if my grandma suddenly dies?' reasons to yourself)

I think the idea is a good one so I give it my /stamp of approval (/soa).

Ok, so have it to where only towns/outposts have the auto 30min boot feature. Really if you're going to be gone longer than 30 minutes, then you might as well just exit and log back in later. It takes, what, maybe 10 or fewer seconds to load the game and login. Is 10 seconds going to kill you. No.

Yes, it's a small inconvenience, but it will mean less lag and a better playing experience. And if this will fix it, I'm all for it.

I was going to say something about the people who have other stuff like videos and other chat running, but I decided not to rant. It's not the right place for it as it's a totally different subject.

First, Away From Keyboard. Pure greed=You want the server to devote more resources to you so you do not lag. But you do not understand that the server will give you the same resources, including the same lag, if we start having AFKs booted.

Second, please do not call me or the keys on my keyboard "god damn". I don't appreciate it, you don't appreciate, it starts a flame war. Why would I touch a key? 2-3 times even? I don't want to worry about being booted.

First, 20 minutes is way too short. IF I EVER agreed to an AFK boot, it would be an hour, minimum.
Second, you want a reason, but you exclude a common one among teenagers.
Third, this game is rated T. T is usually known as Teen. Teenagers have so many life issues, anything could distract you for 20 minutes. You close the Guild Wars window, chat with AIM to your buddy for about 5 minutes, he leaves. You see another friend is on. Have a conversation. Rinse and Repeat. You come to find you've been booted. You lose all your chat data and whispers when you disconnect. What if you miss your guild's GvG and get kicked out of there? Now, I know some of this may be highly improbable, but the idea is one thing leads to another, and we fall down the hill of pain. Also, don't even begin to suggest that Guild Wars moniters key input when it is minimized.

One thing I would like to see is instead of insulting my reasons, give me a reason for the AFK boot. One I have seen is, less lag. A-net has NOT confirmed that lag is from too many users. Wait for the server move. If lag disappears after that, try to defend yourself.

I never intended to insult anyone's reasoning thank you very much.

The main reason *coughaspenwoodcough* why people want an AFK boot to be put into place is the simply that if you're not playing, you're just slowing down the servers for everyone else. That seems like a valid reason for me.

Fort Aspenwood. I recall that much earlier in this thread I supported a boot of AFK for this mission, but one mission does not constitute a general AFK boot.
EDIT: I didn't mean to select you as the insulter of reason. I mean previous points.

Wanting less lag is selfish? I dont see any connection but ok. I'd still say AFK'ing through missions and alliance battles is a little bit more selfish, but that just my opinion.

An hour is way too long. No alliance battle takes an hour. And only about 2-3missions in the game can take an hour. (in Prophecies anyway, im not sure about all of Factions yet).

I'm sorry but your "omg, i have a life i talk to lots of people on AIM or whatever" argument is stupid. Miss your guild's gvg from getting disconnected? And you're not gonna miss it by having GW minimized and talking to some stoner the whole time? Lose all your whispers and chat data? Yeah I'm sure you're gonna see them and respond to the PM's you get when you're afk.

If you get disconnected, how long would it take you to log back in? 5-15 seconds? OMG I'm missing some of my guild chat ...

... That is so obvious they dont need to confirm it

And AFK doesn't suck up bandwidth. The pipes going from A-Net to the world are so immense that thousands of AFKs could exist at any time and it still wouldn't matter, the pipes can handle it. Lag comes from whether a router or server can process what needs to be processed. AFKs don't send in too many requests for processing.

The boot program would cause more lag than the afks themselves.

What is being suggested is that a program run by A-Net on ALL of their servers simultaneously 24/7(except maintenance times, or due to acts of an "intelligent designer", obviously). So, you think that wouldn't cause lag? WAIT! THERE'S MORE! Now the program not only runs all the time on all servers, but it contacts the millionS of GW players to see if they are idled at that second(i know, computers think nanoseconds and pecoseconds but to travel it takes milliseconds, and to process that kind of stuff, on both sides, it's about a second). So, now everyone on GW is contacted every second from the servers that are asking "Are you idle, are you idle, are you idle, are you idle, are you idle?" No lag from that yet? Now let's go crazy and assume that there are people on GW actually doing things, missions, arena, etc. They tell the server "I'm casting Fireball at such and such position, now make it happen" and the server goes "Alright here's your darn fireball but you missed your target cuz it was moving n00b" or "I want to put teh gash on that grawl, so do it" and the server says "Lolz you can't cuz you just got shot down stupid lvl 1 warrior"

Point being: The servers are already processing everything everyone does at every time they do SOMETHING. Walking, running, skipping(holding an item), casting a spell, slashing an enemy, firing an arrow, picking up amber, killing a boss, everything. They are lagging with all that they are processing, high graphics, understanding what sounds need to be played and when they need to be played, etc. With another program running constantly asking what a player is doing at xx:xx:xx.xxx and constantly checking to see if it's 00:20:00.000 yet wouldn't help lag.

An AFK sends very little to servers to process, basic sounds are sent, chat is obviously done for them(but it's not much processing), graphics hardly change(chars being the exception), but the camera doesn't move, the person doesn't party, no spells are cast, no adrenaline is used, an afk is not demanding. A boot program forces all terminals accessing the link to communicate constantly, on top of all that is already being processed.

The program would not necessarily have to be run on the server side. In fact it would make MORE sense to run it client side. Therefore there would be no extra lag from the "monitoring" system.

AFK players do cause lag because the information of all the other players in the town has to be sent to them too. The information about THEM has to be sent to the server too. The information going back and forth between server and client doesn't just stop because a player is AFK, the same amount of basic information is STILL sent and received.

/not signed

This isn't even proven to reduce the lag on the servers, it is only a wild theory. I would reconsider if the proposed time limit for being AFK was raised higher however. The OP first proposed it with the mention of it being a solution to players who go AFK during missions but have edited his post to change the proposal to not be included with missions/quests or playing with henchies. If this was a solution, I think Anet would have already done it by now.


Edit: Now wouldn't this also just render the "away' status option of the friends list in-game useless?

/NOTSIGNED

why? since we get favor only in the middl eof the night and i have to leave the PC, i put my wammo or ranger in FOW, sleep, then wake up and do some solo stuff before classes (all start at after noon)

if ANET will start boting all AFKers ill never get to have a decent run in FOW

/but we should defenetly have the /kick emote, set it to 7/8, 5/6, 3/4

/not signed for towns and outposts

i have every right to leave my toons dancing in town as everybody else does and it does not adversely affect anyone doing so.

if you have lag issues, choose an emptier district before zoning into towns or outposts. there is a drop down menu for you to choose a district before mapping into them, in case you haven't figured that out yet.


/signed for missions and quests

a vote to kick system would really solve this, one similar to what you find in Steam servers.