AFK in THF hub zone.

[peterigz]

I agree with Ydiss.

Another idea might be to just make them completely invisible and untargetable after 10 minutes or so until they start moving again, upon which the timer is reset. I don't know if that's possible or not.

It would also be cool to have them turn into tiny gnomes and then have them start wandering about randomly like the little mushroom npcs you see about the place. That's prolly encourage AFKing though

[cbarrett]

Alternatively, what if you could "attune" or swap your charm to get a different gate effect like THF THV or GH? Another idea along this same line would be a quest for a clickable Guild Hall gate - something with no stats that is about tier 1 in difficulty so it is attainable for people just getting into the server who choose to box.

This. Nearly 100% of the time I'll zone each and every one of my bot army to my guild hall but there are times when I just can't. If my daughter needs my help I simply gate everyone and leave the pc. Also usually if I wipe to Redfang yet again, I simply walk away from my pc in disgust and leave my toons to rot.

Having an option to change the port on the charm to the guild hall would simply rock.

[Nilbus]

Changing the port or adding a GH port similar in ease to get as the charm would make the rare drop (or bought with plat) GH porter (I'm ignorign the donor one cause it's instant cast which is > the drop/bought one) useless.

[Alulien]

Woops! I didn't realize there was a GH port outside of the donor clicky. If there's one that can be purchased with plat, what's the info? Perhaps it could serve two purposes by being changed to an item with charges: 10 charges for 1kpp (or something) as it would allow folks to port to another "home" location while creating an outlet/need for plat.

[Nilbus]

Lucky Charm of Travel - drop from Sa'moi in Stillmoon or bought in Chardok from Haggle Baron for 150k. (clone says 15k, not sure why)

[Safiya]

Yeah, it's a great idea. Getting to GH has to be one of the biggest hassles no matter how you go about it.....unless you shell out loot for the donor item.

@ Alulien
the item is from Stillmoon, 10 sec cast and ports only one person. Think you can also buy it from Haggle Baron for an absurdly high price. Lucky Charm of Travel iirc.

EDIT: Nilbus was faster

[Alulien]

I can see how another charm would be an issue as that charm isn't an upgrade for... anyone.

150k seems pretty steep for such a limited use item, though it certainly takes plat out of the economy. What if it cost to reattune your Adrianne's Charm? Or maybe there's a quest line that could be put in so you could either pay or do the quest (repeatable)? But idk, these ideas place the burden of using a zone other than THF as a "home" on the player rather than providing a quick/easy alternative.

[Ydiss]

Even if we did get a GH port item that was easier to obtain, it wouldn't necessarily fix this problem. As I suggested above, a lot of players like to AFK almost as a demonstration of their group/guild/armour/shiny weapons. So they'd probably still want to AFK in the forest. Whilst I'm sure that one of the causes for multiple AFK characters in the forest is because they don't want to spend the time moving to the GH and prefer to fire and forget, most of these players will be AFK in the cave or at the re-spawn point, causing little-to-no disruption for anyone else. Furthermore, these players opt to gate to the forest because it's the fastest gate option, so adding a GH port would need to match the same ease of use (something that isn't likely to occur as already mentioned above).

Either offer a bonus for AFKing in the GH for players who simply must remain in the game, as mentioned above, or just add a timer script to remove players to the GH automatically; or both. It's a given that not everyone is in a guild, but what percentage of characters AFK in the forest do these consist of? To do anything past Tier 1/2 you need to be guilded. For the small percentage who aren't guilded, they can be ported to the bazaar.

It doesn't need to be fancy; a shorter timer (10 minutes, or so) for characters in close proximity to any NPC and a longer timer (up to 1 hour) for characters who aren't (both scripts would be excluding players who have engaged the dummies). A warning at 1-5 minutes will allow players who (in very rare cases) weren't actually AFK for an hour.

For players simply too close to an NPC, moving away will cancel the script. For players who have been in the zone for almost an hour, they can cancel the port by engaging a dummy or getting on with the game elsewhere. There really isn't any legitimate requirement, excluding AFK skill ups, to remain in the forest for that length of time.

In simpler terms, I don't think a solution along these lines would punish anyone or cause them any disruption.

[nobus]

Yeah I think what Ydiss said is true, some people AFK in Forest to off show off their stuff but it's also a way to let newbies see them and maybe ask for help / buffs.

Allot of the AFKers pop back and check chat now and then to see if any help is wanted or anything fun to do from what I've seen.

It's a pain when an army is blocking things and the lag don't help but I'm guessing that most don't do it to upset others.

[Blacula]

I play on the technical equivalent of a shoebox through a VPN from China, so my connection can sometimes be fragile. The graphic lag is one manageable issue, but when there are large groups of players all huddled close together, it's my ping that spikes (up to 14000), effectively disabling me and trapping me in the zone. It took me a couple hours to evacuate to the guild hall last time. So not sure if making the players invis or moving them to a corner of the zone would be effective for the latency issues the overcrowding can create.