Dancer Archive

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LyteFoot wrote:
I'm glad you are stubborn Eshi and I hope it works. My concern is the devs have stated that they aren't removing afk instead they are going to make it fun so people WANT to be ATK. I know the devs can't be that niave a set of children can they? If it can be accomplished with no effort people will AFK, it is as simple as that. They HAVE to remove the ability.

Someone will argue that people will just go to 3rd party tools, but that is a cop out arguement. In this and every other game out there the discovery of people using 3rd party tools to automate their game play is an instant ban. Right now they can't enforce that ban because you can't tell if those tools are in use since the macro system is so powerful.

So I hope you win but it sounds like the devs have decided AFK is not a bad thing just something they need to fix by making ATK more fun. That is niave and a dead end.

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QFE.

I guess I just need to steel my resolve again, and just get through this. I realy don't want to give up.

I had hoped that the "make being ATK more fun" thing was in addition to removing recursive macroing. I know killing recursion won't get rid of all AFK but the combination of the two would get rid of most of it, and for heavens' sake the spam. IMO one without the other won't do anything.

I almost forgot the gem of the evening as well: one newbie shouting "how do u get rid of gay things like music and dancing?"

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Chessack wrote:

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Esharra wrote:
I feel like we can go on and on to them forever and maybe one out of twenty will actually listen. The rest of them only want to hear about the easiest path to nothingness.

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This is why this thing has to be stopped at the game design level. "Allow AFK but reward ATK" will not work. The reason is one of Musashi's (Mu for short) fundamental rules of game design: "No matter what system you devise, you can always count on players to find the shortest route to the cheese."

In this case, AFKing is the shortest route, so they take it. Why sit at keyboard for months and months (at keyboard, never AFKing, it took me a solid year of RL time from starting to mastering), when you can AFK macro it in a week?

Of course, nobody stops to ask what the POINT is of mastering a profession you don't even like enough to play... but that's neither here nor there. The devs will never be able to "discourage" AFK play. They have to either stop it, or allow it. And nothing we can do is going to "change the world."

I have had guild mates say things to me like, "You should get out there where the AFKers are and COMPETE with them... FIGHT with them... make the game what YOU want it to be."

Well, I'm sorry, but the key word is it's a game. I do not play to "make" it anything for anyone else. My days of fighting AFK are over. I go to where the people need healing, if anywhere, and heal them if they want. If nobody watches or listens, it's nothing to me -- I have all the skill boxes I need. So, whatever.

But if SOE wants Entertainers to be a viable class, the solution begins, and ends, and is 100% caught up in, the removal of AFK game play.

I know they don't want to remove recursive macros and to be honest I don't want them to because that will probably me the end of my really efficient aliasing system for performances. They don't need to. ALL they have to do is make it so when you go AFK, there's no way to stop the flag from going up, and once it goes up, all XP is set to zero. Do that, and AFK play ends. And it doesn't have to affect any other system in the game.

But they won't listen. They never have, and they never will. So I'm tired of arguing with them. It's been 2 years. I give up.

C

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Don't give up Dej, you are having an impact. I had so many emails after Friday night's Jam session asking how the new players could join it gave me the opportunity to law down the law so to speak.

Perhaps we need to speak more in spatial as opposed to groupchat while in Eisley. I know that there are several of us who go there and set the example of ATK play and while we may not convert everyone I see each player we turn from AFK to ATK as a victory.

What I'm wondering is how these "noobs" know about AFK play when they know so little of any other game mechanic.

Oh I haven't given up dancing.

I've given up trying to have any impact whatsoever on what the devs think, what they do, or how they design. They don't listen, and they have no clue, so I give up. I will just play the game my way until they find a means of making that impossible (I am sure they will some day, but even for these devs that will take some doing so it will be a while) and then I will cancel).

I used to try to END the AFK thing. I'm not any more. That's what I have given up.

C

It's simple to see how players new to the game know about AFKing. Most likely, they have RL friends who play the game and are attempting to drag them into it. These RL friends will of course advertise the easiest ways to get the end result of uberism: "Best of all there are some professions you can master in a week! You just get this simple macro and let your bot play ALL night while you sleep!" AFKing is just like get rich quick schemes, countless people are sucked into them,when really a little hard work would pay off more in the long run.

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MissDrusilla wrote:

you should really just give up, everyone is AFK in cantinas and i dont see it ever changing in the future, I hate to break it to you all but, Entertainer is a Extremely Low Priority, Combant is primary with crafting Secondary, your lucky if you even get a Revamp.

Ents are better off just being thankful to have a profession and join a guild and open up your own Cantina where ATK is mandatory. Whining isnt going to change anything, unless you get jedi on your side, Devs listen to the jedi.

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/pep Fuschia!

Drinky-Drinky

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YuriaTayde wrote:

Of all the people to post a method of afk entertaining publicly, for all to read, and use, you're the last one I'd expect to see it from!

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Please don't tell me you took that seriously!

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YuriaTayde wrote:

Of all the people to post a method of afk entertaining publicly, for all to read, and use, you're the last one I'd expect to see it from!

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Message Edited by Schardour on 06-15-2005 05:33 PM

(Yes Esh, you heard me. An OLD joke. Age-old.)

(....Damnit, I'm trying to say you've been around for too long! )

Just EXACTLY what are you implying about our dear Eshie? Hmmmm?

C