Ive been a long time player and recently came back last year and i find it ridiculous how scripting has gotten outta hand. I still have fun with the game and do my thing without it gettin to me too much, but reading about how theres people that are known to be scripting 24/7 but you cant do nothing due to lack of proof? I personally have noticed many people always on like this surely there is something yall can come up with to battle this. I know theres more things to worry about and much is goin on with the game but its kinda hard to swallow that nothing can be done about extreme 24/7 scripters.

>>Having said that, since coming back I have seen a couple people in the same hunting room for 6-8 hours straight, so...yeah.

Definitely not a good sign of whether or not someone is AFK. Making assumptions on little or no information does nothing but get innocent players harassed. My characters are combat heavy, and I spend a lot of time hunting at a clip. 6-8 hours ins't at all uncommon, especially as you progress higher up the chain.

You specifically mention that you cannot be sure they are afk without talking to them, and even then it isn't a true litmus, because they have no obligation to reply to you. But right before saying that you seem to hint directly at that long of a stretch meaning someone is afk. Unless you are in there the entire 6-8 hours with them, how can you even be sure they didn't step out to take a few minute break while they grabbed some food, used the restroom, anything?

Your post screams waffling, with "I don't like scripters, but they might not be scripting. But look at this, these people could be scripting. But they might not be scripting!"

Leave the afk policing to the GMs and go on about your way unless somehow they are directly impacting you. There is always going to be someone higher, and there are characters out there with capped ranks in some skills, so the experience of this assumed 'scripter' has zero impact on your life, nor does the money they gain with plat sales being a thing, and how completely screwed the economy is.

All this being said: I've seen people reported afk as simply a means of harassing them, and people definitely assume and report people afk without even interacting with them. I am not sure if it is the case, already, but I feel we should be notified if someone reports us AFK, and who it is.

<Having said that, since coming back I have seen a couple people in the same hunting room for 6-8 hours straight, so...yeah.

<Definitely not a good sign of whether or not someone is AFK. Making assumptions on little or no information does nothing but get innocent players harassed. My characters are combat heavy, and I spend a lot of time hunting at a clip. 6-8 hours ins't at all uncommon, especially as you progress higher up the chain.

<You specifically mention that you cannot be sure they are afk without talking to them, and even then it isn't a true litmus, because they have no obligation to reply to you. But right before saying that you seem to hint directly at that long of a stretch meaning someone is afk. Unless you are in there the entire 6-8 hours with them, how can you even be sure they didn't step out to take a few minute break while they grabbed some food, used the restroom, anything?

<Your post screams waffling, with "I don't like scripters, but they might not be scripting. But look at this, these people could be scripting. But they might not be scripting!"

<Leave the afk policing to the GMs and go on about your way unless somehow they are directly impacting you. There is always going to be someone higher, and there are characters out there with capped ranks in some skills, so the experience of this assumed 'scripter' has zero impact on your life, nor does the money they gain with plat sales being a thing, and how completely screwed the economy is.

<All this being said: I've seen people reported afk as simply a means of harassing them, and people definitely assume and report people afk without even interacting with them. I am not sure if it is the case, already, but I feel we should be notified if someone reports us AFK, and who it is.>

Wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, did we?

>>Spaceunicorn: There is always going to be someone higher, and there are characters out there with capped ranks in some skills, so the experience of this assumed 'scripter' has zero impact on your life, nor does the money they gain with plat sales being a thing, and how completely screwed the economy is.

The effects of AFK scripting are not limited to the players who are AFK scripting. Some examples: http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/Discussions%20with%20DragonRealms%20Staff%20and%20Players/Complaints/view/5309


>>Ahatfieldblake: Ive been a long time player and recently came back last year and i find it ridiculous how scripting has gotten outta hand. I still have fun with the game and do my thing without it gettin to me too much, but reading about how theres people that are known to be scripting 24/7 but you cant do nothing due to lack of proof?

Unfortunately, there isn't much you can do about it as a player except report it and move on. (Do not try to interfere with a player's script, as it may disrupt an ongoing script check and may result in a warning being issued to you.) Keep in mind that GMs will never tell you the result of someone else's script check, so just because you see the character continuing to script doesn't mean that nothing was done about it. It's also worth noting that, for the purpose of scripting policy, the mere fact that a player is ignoring you doesn't constitute "being unresponsive to the gaming environment."

For more information, see http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/DragonRealms%20Policy%20Discussions/Scripting%20policy/view/1342


Last month, GM Raesh wrote an interesting post on AFK scripting: why it occurs and why it's hard to effectively police.

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http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/DragonRealms%20Policy%20Discussions/Scripting%20policy/view/1350

Re: AFK zombies on 07/29/2016 02:36 PM EDT

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.

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