fixing the idle problem! swords have killed TU!

flametard · Post by **flametard** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 2:23 pm

Unfortunately, it looks like swords have scared a lot of players into logging off when they go afk. TU is usually a afk friendly game, but now, people are afraid they might return to having been challenged while they were away. The problem is that the numbers are dropping (afk players make up a large percentage of TU players

) and the game looks DEAD again.

possible fixes:

***safe zone???:
sure, everyone would be gathered round the fire pit again, but think of the circling cavies.. just waiting for a bite. seems a bit... scarey.

***challenge alert sound:
this would only help if the players were in the room, had the computer sound on, and had the freedom to return to a challenge. and only if the challenge sound could not be spammed by players in any way. it would help, but not be a total fix, players would still log off instead of wait around afk.

***away mode:
Imagine that, instead of setting yourself "away" the script does it for you after you havent had any activity for a minute or so? while in away mode, you cant challenge or be challenged. :\

anyway, just trying to help.

flametard · Post by **flametard** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 2:28 pm

probably too much work, but if all 3 could be implemented, I bet people would start standing around again.

flametard · Post by **flametard** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 2:47 pm

it was the same type of risk in space, say if you were asteroid mining and had a faction banner, and your faction had power, you'd be more likely to log off instead of leaving yourself online.

morbydvisns · Post by **morbydvisns** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 3:23 pm

lol@complaints that there are not enough people standing around idly afk.

zaroba · Post by **zaroba** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 7:46 pm

i vote for idea #1.

As long as entering a safe zone will not stop the battle script once the challenge has been placed. Otherwise somebody could run into the safe zone before responding to the initial challenge as a way to get out of it.

Another thought:
What if typing .away meant you couldn't be attacked?
-Mit would also need to make it so moving would automatically disable it, otherwise people would run around with .away set.
-Maybe when somebody types .away, they should have their chat locked and enter a cutscene with a message saying "type .away to return and play". If your wondering why I say lock the players chat, its because if you are able to chat, there is no reason that you can't fight as well because your obviously at the game and not really away. It would stop people from typing it to just avoid fighting when they go into small mode and and just chat.

flametard · Post by **flametard** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 8:09 pm

when an MMO has no people, I'd say its a big complaint.

I personally think that idle players should go into a type of safe mode. It'd be cool if in space, when they hit idle mode, their spaceship would be invisible, but their name would still be in the system list. kinda like a cloaking device.

to remain in idle mode, there must not be any activity, movement, chatting.. etc etc.

this is the least exploitable, and most effective of all the options imo.

flametard · Post by **flametard** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 10:12 pm

right now we are trying a different option, chivalry. but you never know... never know.

agweber · Post by **agweber** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 11:59 pm

The fact that challenging an afk person will automatically go into a fight is intended coding. I go afk for the few hours I'm on once in a while with no real worry in regards to others attacking me. If there were really aggressive people that I knew of I would be much more wary of being afk. I would say the numbers are dwindling more because of being tired of the current status of the game. There's just not much to do.

Omni · Post by **Omni** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 9:43 am

agweber wrote:The fact that challenging an afk person will automatically go into a fight is intended coding. I go afk for the few hours I'm on once in a while with no real worry in regards to others attacking me. If there were really aggressive people that I knew of I would be much more wary of being afk. I would say the numbers are dwindling more because of being tired of the current status of the game. There's just not much to do.

It's a mix of both terms agweber. Yes there isn't much to do and that contributes, but Stim is completely right. We rather log off now before actualy getting captured by someone.

About a solution, maybe the away mode could be a solution. But perhaps it shouldn't be triggered by players after all. It should be completely automatic. Say, if there's no movement of your character or chat interaction for say...10 minutes, the game will automatically put you in an away "safe" status. Better just think of this measure for Revelations only for now, because space will be something completely different.