36 replies to this topic

[Gaddy]

Alright, I am reposting this with a poll.
If people start talking about others being alt mongers or whatever, I will probably be annoied with whoever goes on with it. This is not about alt usage.
It is a suggestion about a toggle.


I think 5 mins of inactivity afk should be toggle-able.
I don't get why this isn't an option; it gives me hassle pretty often, and I know it does the same to others, especially while in parites with friends.



As a note if it is confusing to anyone-
This is ONLY for the automatic afk that comes up when a player hasn't entered anything for 5 minutes.
You would still be able to use the /afk command to let other players know you are not available.

Edited by Gaddy, 07 December 2005 - 04:50 AM.

[JLH]

because it lets others' know if you are AFK or not.
other people do not know if it is an alt or not if they are somewhere else on the map and trying to page the person for a response.

[Gaddy]

What if you do not want other people to know that you're not at your computer?
And since it is a toggle--people who want the auto 5 inactive to still come on can do so...

Everyone I've spoken to on FL and in clan has said that the afk poping up has caused them lag problems, and I know for a fact it causes me huge lag when it happens.

[deadman]

I agree with Gaddy. Supported.

[Gaddy]

Note added to first post.

Edited by Gaddy, 07 December 2005 - 04:49 AM.

[snizzlesnaps]

ive noticed this has also been a problem especially when im running to a boss or something andfinally arrive a few crits end up going 5 mins of inactive and w/o realizing it i start hitting the boss and thus resulting in a few of my crits getting lagged out...supported the toggle

[dillinger]

supported..yo

[MysticStorm]

Supported 100 percent!

[Gaddy]

When you vote, please leave a short post if you do not mind.
I'd like to avoid people with 3 or so forum accounts piling votes.

I'd also like to know what the downside to the option being toggled is...
Aside from other players not knowing that you are afk unless you type the afk yourself...which makes sense to me.

[Matty]

Good idea. Supported.

[Prophet]

I voted yes, lags me up bad to the point where if I'm on alts someone can lag me out to disconnecting just by turning afk/unafk really fast if they wanted to(only when im on alts)

[Boys Night Out]

I voted yes. When i'm on alts and they turn afk then my screen goes white for a few moments until it passes, and then i hve to slowly un afk them. Tis not happy playing. Quite annoying.

[Gaddy]

Did anyone have a reason for it not to be added?
I saw JLH's reason, but I thought the idea of it being toggle had already fixed that because players could choose to keep the action if they have people contact them fairly often.

[JLH]

I have yet to see a good reason for making it toggleable, lol
The reason "it lags me out" doesn't make sense to me, we're talking a line of text and the pictures refreshing. unless you are playing on a p200 with 32mb ram and trying to run 100 alts, i can't see how your computer can be crashing itself.
Every alt needs at least 16mb of ram to run properly, and i'd say about 100mhz of cpu power to run fast.
unless you are running win98, in which case more than 3 alts is not supported.

[«¤ºxXl3úÐXxº¤»]

its don't lag you out but it slows me down a bunch

[MysticStorm]

Yeah same here.. doesn't lag me out, but when going to attack with a crit that was previously afk due to inactivity, it does lag to the point that it takes 40-50 seconds before the crit's attack even shows up. All in which time, some monsters that attack pretty frequently, would have hit that crit once or twice before the crit can even attack the monster. In some instances, the crit even gets killed.

I have resorted to doing /afk on all my crits to keep the issue at hand, but it sucks! I want to see pictures and it makes the game dull. Not to mention the pictures help me more telling who passes me by and such.

[Snoopy]

Jlh try it get on an average pc and log on 15 crits and run about till they all go afk.

Like yesterday i was on alot of crits soloing imhotep, i was collecting keys from a mini boss and just as i went onto its sqaure (i had been chatting before moving) most of my crits went afk and my whole party white screened and 6 crashed out. This happens all the time, and im running a 2.6gig pc 512 ram, i mean its not super shiney but its not a crud buket. (also its not internet power im using 2meg broadband)

This is somthing that really does make a difference, it may be 1 line of text, but its the changing of pictures that happens on all of your crits that really does the damage. Instant white screen that dont clear for at least a few seconds and in hard areas that means death.

Edited by Snoopy, 08 December 2005 - 02:36 PM.

[JLH]

then surely the same thing happens if someone walks on to the square you are on, or you even move your party!
since the top left of the screen refreshes every time you move, or even look around

[Emo]

It's annoying, toggle it please.

[Gaddy]

then surely the same thing happens if someone walks on to the square you are on, or you even move your party!
since the top left of the screen refreshes every time you move, or even look around

No, it is different some how.
When you walk onto a square with a lot of people, it hardly causes a problem...unless you're running too many for your computer.
When you are running a large party and they all go AFK or if you are around a large party that goes AFK with your party, it lags a lot. A lot.
Then they lag the entire time they come back from the AFK---one at a time and they still stick and lag.

I cannot justify it computer-wise, but it is exactly what happens.


My suggested reason for it being added was simply that it would be nice because I know it is a problem for many players, myself included.
It would be for player convenience.
That's usually what my suggestions for commands are for, such as allowing /load to load more than one crit, and a few other things that have begun to slip from my mind. Usually the fact that many players say that it would be nice for them is what gets the suggestion added.

[Trevayne]

Supported.

The lag that happens when a group of characters goes AFK is significantly more than when you are moving. My guess is that there is slightly more network traffic involved when you time-out to 5 minutes AFK, so the effect will be more noticable depending on how far from England you are. This is complete guess work on my part, but it would explain why it seems to be less of a problem for some (and would be difficult for JLH to notice).

/t JLH Does the 5-minute timeout initiate from the client? Does it require one more loop of server communication than other commands (like moving)?

This problem seems to have gotten worse since the introduction of the /load command, as it is now easier to bring a team of characters on line with one quick command (such that they will all time-out at roughly the same time).

Edited by Trevayne, 08 December 2005 - 10:04 PM.

[Perfection]

I have yet to see a good reason for making it toggleable, lol
The reason "it lags me out" doesn't make sense to me, we're talking a line of text and the pictures refreshing. unless you are playing on a p200 with 32mb ram and trying to run 100 alts, i can't see how your computer can be crashing itself.
Every alt needs at least 16mb of ram to run properly, and i'd say about 100mhz of cpu power to run fast.
unless you are running win98, in which case more than 3 alts is not supported.

You have a ping of 482ms to the server.
this is about the best i can get living so far away from the server and in the middle of no where, i'd say again "it lags me" most of the time like u say the game runs fine but the change of pictue to afk DOES create lag it's pretty clear from everyones responces

and yeah odd how it's not the same thing when others come onto the same square but if the change of pic etc does not create lag then why have people been banned for *making lag* by rapidly going from /afk to /dnd

[MessiahX]

Supported. I /afk all my crits before running around just so this doesn't happen. Then again..I do have a not so good computer and dial-up. Like Gaddy said, this would be for player convenience.

[MysticStorm]

If not toggle the /afk.. at least prolong the amount of time it takes for a crit to go afk when inactive. Instead of 5 minutes.. maybe give 30 minutes before the crit goes inactive? There is no reason why a crit should be inactive for more than 30 minutes. If it is.. then obviously the person doesn't need that crit online period. When I use more than 1 alt.. every single alt is used. The longest that my crits are inactive is about 20-30 minutes and that's usually trying to prepare a clan trip or a party trip with other people if I happen to be lucky to get anyone that is on during my time. I honestly think that the whole inactive to afk needs to be taken off all together. I mean, we do have the manual afk feature. If people don't want other people to know they are afk or not, then they should be able to just manually put their crits afk.

Honestly JLH, it's not a hard request and it's not just 1 person complaining about it. There are multiple people here complaining all about the same thing. I run on broad band myself and it still lags me a bit. I don't have the problem with other people coming onto my screen who have inactive crits at afk but it does affect me. Only benefit to the current afk system is that it more than likely does lag the other person too causing them not to be able to pk me as fast.

[Tyler]

Supported.

I don't have the fastest computer ever, but I do notice it lags while running alts, and being able to toggle the AFK message would most likely help.

As far as paging one of your alts, I am sure others can type /redirect (main) so they get all pages, but the AFK thing would help, even though when I am going to train for hours, I /afk my crits anyway, but not by force.

Good Idea, Gaddy.

[Prophet]

If I go to some place with someone else the following happens:


As we run there for 5mins without using the attackers all the crits go afk, which in itself causes lag, but normally not enough to have me dced. Then when you come out of afk my crits whitescreen and I dc after about 30seconds presumably because my client hasn't responded.

[Wolfgang]

Not supported.

I don't run many alts, and if/when I do, I have little to no trouble. I run a crap connection, and am located quite far from the server, on a crap computer. So its got nothing to do do with that.

Edited by Wolfgang, 20 December 2005 - 09:03 AM.

[Thunderja]

Not supported.

I don't run many alts, and if/when I do, I have little to no trouble. I run a crap connection, and am located quite far from the server, on a crap computer. So its got nothing to do do with that.

This game revolves around me not you, Jesus.

Supported, it has a habbit of white screening me just at the wrong time.

[Prophet]

Not supported.

I don't run many alts, and if/when I do, I have little to no trouble. I run a crap connection, and am located quite far from the server, on a crap computer. So its got nothing to do do with that.

It clearly does, the white screen is an indicator of the screen not being able to update fast enough, all it means is that your crap computer has a decent graphics card.

However, my superior onboard 64mb Intel Extreme Graphics card has more of a problem with it

Edit: I forgot to mention that when it whitescreens it means the processor is doing other things and doesn't have time to send information to the server telling it its still there and as such I get dced after about 30 seconds.

Edited by Prophet, 20 December 2005 - 11:06 AM.

[Wolfgang]

I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't a problem with your computer. I was just saying in my case, my lack of lag isn't in any way attributed to the quality of my computer.

My graphics card is second hand discarded by the Computer Repair course that I was taking. Its far from decent

Oh. And by the way, the world does revolve around me.
Because, ya know... I am the sun.
And you...
Baby you are my shining star

edit:Shortened the post significantly

Edited by Wolfgang, 20 December 2005 - 12:17 PM.