Is it my understanding that REPORTing the individual is the best response? Should I REPORT all characters involved if they all appear to be under the same AFK player's guidance? Will a reasonable hammer come down? Should I just kill or interfere with their script?(within policy obviously).

Thanks.

Could you elaborate on the "get you in trouble instead"? I typically don't interfere, but sometimes an unresponsive(ableit not necessarily afk) person enters my hunting room and starts to hunt without responding.
If I handle things My Way, can that get me in trouble?

>>If I handle things My Way, can that get me in trouble?

If you stop someone from AFK scripting you're helping them evade being caught AFK scripting.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

Thanks. That's what I thought/already knew. Sometimes delaying the inevitable is acceptable to me. For instance when they start hunting in my room without any visible response whatsoever. I'll catch them on a script-check next time, I just want my room now. But that being said, is that within policy? Does taking my treasure give consent? IDK

Just to touch on this.

If you see someone, REPORT. Don't just say "Someone in this room is maybe afk." Give us a name (or, unfortunately names). Don't move, touch, hand things to, or otherwise interfere with someone you suspect of AFK scripting (even if you haven't REPORTed) because you never know when or if we ARE testing someone. If we are testing someone and you do something to interfere with their "routine" and suddenly they aren't AFK scripting anymore, just you know sitting there with lumps of grass in their hands, well -- then that ruins our test, AND can get you a WARNING. <<<<-- THIS IS IMPORTANT

When you REPORT, also keep in mind that someone may or may not send you a THANK YOU blurb. It doesn't mean we aren't there, it doesn't mean we ARE there -- sometimes we forget (bad gm, bad bad).

Another caveat because I see this a lot -- sometimes people ARE just genuinely ignoring you. I can't speak for all cases, but often its because of the way the purported AFK scripter is approached. Sometimes people just ignore you regardless, though. Not to discourage anyone to NOT report AFK scripters.

We honestly do make an effort to watch and monitor everyone that is brought to our attention.

ETA: I know sometimes in hunting you want the room they are in. This is a double edged sword, because if you stay in the room (because hey! They didn't object when you asked!) you also risk killing all the things and then rendering any check we may do kinda useless. It's best to move on and try to find another hunting room, though I know that isn't IDEAL.

~Evike

Thanks for the info. I wanted to help enforce policy and not violate it. So thanks for the conversation. I know noone has to respond, but when I meet obviously afk folks and it's good to know that REPORTing them is still the best course of action. And thanks Evike for the helpful insight into the GM perspective(aka the afk hunter mind(amongst many other important things)).

When you report you will sometimes get a reply of 'no GMs are online right now' (paraphrase). That doesn't mean no one got your report, it means no GMs are 'officially' toggled to be 'online'. They can be online and set to invisible, basically, but they'll still see a report.

And even if there really isn't anyone online, I think reports go into a queue, don't they?

How are players like Fahijeck allowed to be online in Prime 24/7 without any consequence? It's physically impossible for a one person to be in front of the keyboard ALL the time, yet they're still around... can someone please explain to me how this is still allowed in Prime?

What I'm about to say is not official staff policy or anything, but it's some hard facts about how the sausage is made:

When I first joined staff I was one of the people who relentlessly script checked people and I caught some fairly flagrant AFK scripters.

I rarely script check people anymore. Most script checks come about because someone is reported for AFK scripting or a script fails in some what that is disruptive enough that we notice (For example: during the Magic 3.2 rollout we got a fairly good idea which people were AFK scripting because they wouldn't stop causing errors because they weren't reacting to magic being turned off).

So why don't I script check people on my own initiative anymore?

Firstly - I just don't have time. Between the actual testing criteria and the follow up paperwork etc you're talking a 10-20 minutes invested per person. Multiply that vs our fairly small staff and you could literally have everyone on staff doing AFK checks with all of our available time and we wouldn't catch them all and we'd get nothing else done.

Secondly - Script checks don't work. This is true. With script checks we catch people running very basic scripts, sometimes those running moderately complex scripts but we don't catch the power scripters. The people we ALL know script (And trust me, if you all know someone scripts all the time - we do too) but we can't prove it because their scripts are complex enough to pass all of our tests (No, they're not Turing compliant - but there are plenty of ways I won't go into here).

Thirdly - Scripting is a failure of design, not the player. This is something Socharis use to talk about a lot and I agree with him - if we've designed a system where the most enticing way to interact with it is to AFK script it, we've designed a bad system. And, yes, there's a lot of systems that fall under this header. It's a reason you hear me talk about natural learning a lot and systems I write then to have large chunks of EXP with reasonable timers; the goal is to create a system you want to interact with in a useful way and you'll naturally progress your skills as you do this.

-Raesh

"It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to BE itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true." ― The Slow Regard of Silent Things

That was amazingly insightful, thank you Raesh.

My sour cynicism aside I see where you're coming from. I still avoid just going AFK because it's not 'fun'.

If someone is in hiding, and you call out and no one responds, then you use an area wide spell that winds up revealing and injuring someone who was afk, are you responsible for that or is it justified because someone was afk in an active hunting room?