Anti-"Freeloader" Extremists?

I'm not being funny, but I love how since my points were good you suddenly increase the amount of time involved from "an hour in FoW and my dinner is ready" to two and even four hours. Stop moving the goalposts, thanks. This is the point where I stop replying to you if you're just going to do this all afternoon.

EDIT : sigh seems im offtopic, so just preventing more flames.

Concerning a trip to the loo - yes thats expected. Can happen anytime. So a 2 minute potty break is acceptable - After all, its only 2 minutes?

If ur going to eat, plan ahead. I always do. I know my mother makes my food (i cannot cook - even at the age of 20 :P - or so i say) at 9:30pm. Therefore if its 9, then i KNOW NOT TO ENTER A MISSION.
Last time i played, someone says "Brb going to eat". He arrives 10 minutes later and we are far ahead, he arrives back at our location like 3 minutes later (He cannot find the way >.< )

So yes - plan ahead. And yes if you goto eat- your a freeloader (since your just wasting the team's time), just don't bother to enter a mission.

from reading the 1st post, Sagious didnt intentionally freeload

he took an extended AFK in Mineral Springs without telling people when he would be back
(beyond saying that he was eating)

Why should anyone enter into a mission expecting that others should have to work around their schedules? Gosh people are so self-centered. Like others have said...get a henchie if you don't like it. Otherwise if you're doing a mission with me don't go afk for more than 5 minutes.

Personally, I don't have a problem with "brb in a minute, gotta hit the toilet". Usually waiting a minute is fine, plus it lets the casters regen their energy. I do have a problem with people who just disappear for 30 minutes and then suddenly show up again. Had that happen to me last night. I was doing the Ice Caves of Sorrow with a PUG, one warrior monk whose name I shall not mention here, decided to go afk without warning right after we unleashed the yaks. We waited a couple minutes for him to return but he didn't so we said screw him and carried on. Then we got to the point in the cave where you cave where you have to kill the jades to do the bonus. Having a couple of inexperienced people in the group, they charged in and promptly got owned, having not yet gotten their armor infused. Of course others charged in to help them and that left our party with me and one other person still alive. We waited a minute for the jades to go back to their corner and then we started ressing. Of course by now, two of the dead had said screw it and quit. Leaving us down yet another 2 people. 8 man party down to 5 functioning. We carried on and managed to complete the mission. Mr AFK showed up shortly after the rescue cutscene and promptly started acting like an ass when we expressed our displeasure with him. I waqs incredibly tempted to quit at that point and leave him to kill the remaining groups on his own, but we had worked long and hard to get their and I didn't want to have that go to waste, so mr leech got lucky and got the mission without doing much work himself.

Just to restate the topic for those getting confused:

The OP was 30 minutes into a journey of several zones, he said "brb" and went afk (in the first post he says 'to the bathroom', but then it seems to turn into 'to go eat'). He asks whether it was right that the team booted him out some time while he was away.

I will accept wasting some of my time for that kind of person in a random group. I would have guessed he was running to the bathroom. After a couple of minutes I would also have thought that I guessed wrongly, labelled him 'freeloader' and booted him.

It is simple common courtesy. Talk to your team mates. Saying "brb" gives your team no more information than them just seeing you not moving for a while.

"afk 2 mins loo run", "afk phone sry", "brb door" are all perfectly acceptable things to type in sudden RL situations and will surely result in any team waiting for you.
[Personally I've had a few years practice at spotting when I need to go to the toilet before it actually becomes an emergency. "I could do with a quick toilet break some time in the next few minutes guys" seems to work perfectly for me - I've never been booted from a team nor wet myself, so far...]

What if any of these things happened during a game of chess or monopoly or anything else when you can <b>physically</b> see the people you're playing with?
You just get up from the board and walk off.
You say "back in a bit" and walk away, not coming back for 1/10/20 minutes.
You play for half an hour with 7 other guys, say "be right back", go to another room to eat without letting them know what's going on.
You say "just nipping to the toilet" and leave the room for a moment.
What would you think if you were left at the board in each of these situations?

The fact that you can't see the people you're playing with doesn't make them any less real!

Say hello when you join a group of people. Tell them what's happening where you are so they don't have to try and read your mind. If the doorbell rings, simply tell them or they won't know!

Just think of things from anyone else's point of view for one moment!

If I'm in a PUG and someone needs to go get a drink or something I don't have a problem wasting a little bit of my time.

Why?

Because PUGs in themselves are wastes of my time.

Problem solved then . If i missed any, moderate thanks.

That's correct - that's just what I was saying. There's a difference between needing a minute for potty break and going afk for going shopping at the mall. My point just was that I find it pretty silly to expect people to plan their bio breaks two hours in advance. Yes, I sometimes stop working for potty breaks, too - that's what those wo/men's rooms in office buildings are there for.

But yes, "brb, potty break" is a lot more informative for the other players than "brb". Nothing to argue there.

Only one thing I have to say. It's a game!

At the end of the day if I need the toilet, I'll go, if I need to eat I'll eat. I'm not gonna make myself ill at the expense of a game.

And DISCORDIA I have a point to make in your general direction. Not everybody is super organised and able to fit everything around playing a game (I'm dyslexic myself and my organisational skills are not great, should I stop playing the game?). Fortunately for me my life revloves things other than Guild Wars. So if a friend rings me impromptu up and says "You fancy going out to the pub, I'll meet you in 30 mins" and I'm playing the game. Then game goes off and I go out. I apologise etc. But to be fair the goals in the game are only for fun and have no actual bearing on my life, where as ignoring friends, not eating and forcing myself not to go to toilet do. They have real consequences.

I am one of the most disorganised people you will ever meet, but I know how to spare a couple of hours for a game.

I said that RL (phone/door) takes precedence over the game a number of times, read my posts before you call me out. Thanks, bye.

Sometimes going afk can't be helped, but most of the time it can be helped (as it's been mentioned already). Lets say you have a party of 6 and you are the only one who planned ahead and set aside 40 minutes to complete this mission. Everyone else will have to randomly go afk for 2-10 minutes throughout the mission. Well, that's anywhere from 10-50 minutes of my time that has been wasted because of inconsiderate people.

In the Fissure it should be agreed to take a 5-10 minute break every hour. I was in a FoW group where half the group were often going afk. One of them was packing . . packing? Geez, if you know you're having to pack for a trip or something don't join FoW. I have better things to do with my time than to sit around waiting for you. It took us 3 hours to accomplish what I previously accomplished in 1.5 hours in another group. I would have left that group after the first hour, but I was their only healing monk and didn't want to screw them over. Luckily for them I am more considerate than they are.

have you read the earlier posts?

its nice to communicate *how long is your AFK*

To sum up the thread:

1. Going AFK is OK for a short time, say less than 5 minutes.

2. Going AFK for 30 minutes to eat dinner is NOT all right without "permission". If this is going to happen, use simple courtesy and inform the party you are trying to join. Let THEM decide if it's acceptible for you to be gone that long. Generally speaking, breaks of more than 5 minutes are "avoidable" or "planned".

While AFKs come up from time to time for all of us, it is wise to simply use basic manners if it happens. Don't just type "AFK" and disappear for 30 minutes.

The most basic thing to avoid hundred and fifteen response threads is: USE COMMON SENSE AND DECENCY. Talk to your group BEFORE you head out the gates. If you -do- have to leave for a few minutes, wait for a safe spot then tell your group you'll be right back.

IMO, if you end up going AFK because of something unexpected as a rare event (like a phone call) that's OK. Or if it something unavoidable and expected to happen to everybody(IE a mission ends up taking 4 hours and you need to use the bathroom), that's OK too. But if the OP has had this happen enough for it to be worth posting about then that's showing a great deal of inconsideration on his part. You can't just think "oh, it's only 2 mins, what's the big deal?" because you are forcing that delay to seven other people.

It's the same asshole mentality that leads to the spam problem. "Hey, it's only one more email in their inbox, what's the big deal?" Except that when you do it to lots of people, then it becomes a problem. Do you think you're special or something? What if everybody in the party except one guy had to take a 2 min break at different times according to their own little errands? Then the one guy that didn't would have wasted 14 mins just sitting their waiting around because everybody was only thinking about themselves. So given that the party wants to avoid the problem, what makes you think you are special and should get to take your random 2 min break when everybody else is being considerate and taking the time to plan these things out in advance?

If you were partnered with someone, would you think it ok to make him sit around for 14 minutes? No? Then you shouldn't feel it's ok to make seven people wait for 2 mins for your own individual needs. Generally, a mission is short enough that either you could have gone to the bathroom beforehand, or you can wait until the end.

I don't agree with the bathroom break thing. Your body happens, and ppl need to be willing to let you go get relief when you need to--hopefully you wait for a lull in the action to do so and don't stay gone for a real good #2

No one believes the game is more important than picking up the kids. But the problem is that the T-ball practice was a known event and the player should have planned around it and warned the party that he would have to leave in XX minutes to go pickup the kids. It was very thoughtless of him not to inform the other players so they could decide ahead of time if they wanted to be stuck out in the wilderness without his help. Afterall, they have invested the 30 minutes or whatever also. And if this player was integral to the party then they are basically hosed and must start over.

Most selfish people would say they don't care about what others think.

No one is asking you to starve. They are just asking that you eat on your own time and not on theirs. What happens if when you finish eating (lets say it takes 10 minutes), another player then says hold on his food is ready. And when he finishes, the next player does it. Next thing you know, it is 1.5 hours later and no gaming as been done. It is better for everyone to eat before you start a mission/quest with others, or to have the courtesy to wait and eat afterwards.

I agree with that.

Dinner is another story. If you know dinner is going to be served in 30 minutes, then either don't play the game until you eat, or do some solo'ing or do a small quest/mission so that you can finish before your dinner gets cold and eat without forcing the other players to wait on you to eat. Don't sign up for a long venture with others if you do not plan on giving it your full attention and seeing it through to completion.

To restate the obvious, see above.

Hmm. Let me think. WWJD? Well, I am not sure, but I know what I do in this situation. I ask my wife what's for dinner and when will we be eating. It's not like she is in some top secret lab and only pops out when the food is ready. Dinner is a daily occurrence and it is easy to plan. If you know dinner time is approaching, Fissure is definately not the place to go, since it takes forever to go through.

*applauds loudly* Well said!

*wants to be Dazzler's friend*