Script checks, as pointed out, start small and become extreme. And the time it takes to sooth a child with a skinned knee then get back to it you should still have time to respond. It's not a one shot and you are caught situation. It's at least 20 minutes of nudges and pokes and prods that get more and more insistent. There are plenty of occasions where people have walked off to pour a drink, make a sandwich, and then come back to realize they were being checked and responded.

AFK scripting has always been against policy. When it has or not been enforced doesn't matter. They may have slacked off and given people the rope. But the hanging of oneself is the same. Just don't be AFK.

~~If you can't live without me why aren't you dead yet?~~

>>Simutronics does not condone harassment in any form and may suspend or terminate the account of any User who harasses others. <<

They do not condone it, but no promise is made that they can or will suspend or terminate. The word "may" is the clue. This isn't to say that they do not care, because they obviously do. It is to say that many of the times this "harassment" has OOC origins. Or has spilled into that. People fish with bait then get a bite. It's such a back and forth effort (in most cases). They can pull people up into consults all day long. Bottom line is is that as soon as it leaves the realm of DragonRealms and goes OOC they have no ground to stand on. This includes Elanthipedia where even people that have no interest in our little online world can view it, create a login, and change it.

~~If you can't live without me why aren't you dead yet?~~

Harassment discussions are important, but really don't belong in this thread or folder.

Please move further discussion regarding anything not related specifically to scripting policy over to its appropriate policy folder, or, in the case of harassment and other things that don't have a separate folder, over to the general policy folder, which is here: http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/DragonRealms%20Policy%20Discussions/General%20Discussions%20on%20Policy/view

I've made a thread there for the discussion of possible Elanthipedia harassment. You can find it via my OP here: http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/DragonRealms%20Policy%20Discussions/General%20Discussions%20on%20Policy/view/1709

-Persida

And here it is. The AFK checks shouldn't be considered harassment. And clearly in what was said is that the ONLY thing other players should do is report and move on. No one front end is getting a free pass on this. If you are AFK scripting no matter what FE you use you've violated policy. Caught or not.

~~If you can't live without me why aren't you dead yet?~~

The injured child scenario was simply to display how backwards the policy expects the player bases life priorities to be, although the situation really is all too real for me, my 4 year old can't run down a clean hallway without running into 4 walls sometimes.

If this old text game is anything more than a nostalgic pastime or simple on demand enjoyment or even a way to learn scripting which many enjoy more than the game mechanics than you have very real priority issues that may come crashing down when the game inevitably dies one day. None of this is real, none of this is permanent and none of this really matters. It's a low population game in 2017.

>>lol. I agree with the spirit of what you are saying, but you are wearing your DR plat blinders if you think there arent people blatently afk scripting and already ruined the economy several times over and simu has ignored it. Most people who have been in the game for even a year or two can tell any GM where the AFK scripters are but the fact is they know where they are already. They dont bust the big whales because they bring money to the game, a game which needs money desperately. People need to face facts, while afk scripting might be unhealthy for the game, the game being shut down because it doesnt make enough money because they locked out 10% of their subscribers isnt healthy for the game neither. Its a catch 22.

Ok, ok - what about this: Maybe the official policy should be changed so that Platinum players can script freely, while warnings & punishments continue as usual for other tiers of players? I feel like that solution would incentivize all of the right sorts of things.

Let's think about what seem to be the true problems with afk scripters: they break immersion (because they're totally unresponsive bots) and they disrupt the economy (by grinding beyond what is humanly possible). But if the GMs gave Premium accounts a free pass, they would create a privileged tier of players (nobles in game, if you will) who would be more inclined to report non-Premium afk scripters (because it encroaches on the privilege they pay for). This may reduce the number of obvious afk scripters milling all over Elanthia, which, like drugs in sports, make other players feel less like they need to afk script in order to keep up, and makes the overall experience of playing DR for new players more immersive, which in turn makes it more likely that they will stay around and either enliven the world through RP, or pay to script like a demon.

I say this with a great deal of levity since I'm new, and I still have much to learn about DR. I also don't really understand how much revenue the Fallen takes in, and whether it's enough to dissuade Simu from changing the policy in the way I've suggested (though maybe they could allow a one character transfer to the main instance, or maybe the Fallen is different enough to remain a draw on its own). In any case, I make the suggestion because it would solve the problem of the perception of unjust enforcement of a universal policy, encourage the most hardcore afk scripters to further support Simu and make the game more fun for everyone by reducing the overall number of unresponsive scripters.

Scripting is not the problem, it is the symptom. The problem is the enormous rank disparity and the culture of 'you must be this tall to enter' that pushes people to want to do nothing but script.

If you want scripting to stop, do something to mitigate the massive rank disparity, and/or generate more RP/stories/events that arent behind pay walls.

> they break immersion (because they're totally unresponsive bots)

Treat them like NPCs if they bother you that much, or are you objecting to guild leaders that aren't actively manned by real people?

> they disrupt the economy (by grinding beyond what is humanly possible)

The damage is done. If every AFK scripter suddenly stopped scripting right this moment, you and I would never have enough platinum to compete with their *game breaking* numbers. Yes, I've heard the stories too. Certain players have to spread platinum around characters because it was literally breaking the game. I took a peek over at DR sales. It looks like you can buy about 5000 plat for the same cost as a basic sub. That's way cheaper than the time and effort to actually grind that out yourself, assuming you put in the time and effort to build or buy a character that could reach those numbers. That's not counting whether it's worth your time to do so. The economy is in shambles, future scripting or not.

> I also don't really understand how much revenue the Fallen takes in

Someone in TF can do a who full, but there's probably 20 people who play that instance right now. I'd guess it's more of a clean development environment than anything, and people choose the environment that they have the most time invested into.

> Though maybe they could allow a one character transfer to the main instance

I've asked in the past. Simu said that they had no way to facilitate this kind of change, even if they wanted to. I assume it would be a very manual process and not worth their time to change.

> Ok, ok - what about this: Maybe the official policy should be changed so that Platinum players can script freely

If anything, I would see this as the other way around. Plat would be the clean instance. Maybe mark RP zones for pure RP gatherers and let people do what they want to do outside of them, so long as they aren't hurting anyone else.

> Scripting is not the problem, it is the symptom. The problem is the enormous rank disparity and the culture of 'you must be this tall to enter' that pushes people to want to do nothing but script.

This right here. Think about how much time it would take if you wanted to build up a crafter who could make the best of the best dragonscale armor. That's what you wanted your RP character to be known for. Before you could even start on the RP, you have to first find the character. Your choice is to drop a few thousand dollars to buy your way in, or you have to spend the better part of a decade leveling up that forging. A good part of a decade. All so you can pretend to be a dwarven smith in a text based role playing game built for AOL's hourly charging scheme. Then you're upset that others don't want to spend years of their life watching the same 20 text lines flow across a screen? Come on.

DR isn't boring, afk scripters who don't actually want to be here make DR boring. I cannot fathom why they even subscribe, but it's nice of them to donate their money to the game.

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"Warrior Mages don't bother covering up their disasters.

They're proud of them."
-Raesh

I was thinking about this all day at work. There are a couple of things that I kept going back to in my head. The biggest one is; What exactly is the point of this conversation and feedback? I've read through the wiki discussion page. I've read all the posts here. These are all the same arguments from years and years ago. Is any of this at all helpful to you GMs?

Having this conversation about script policy kind of feels like grasping at shadows. Where do the GMs stand on this? I don't mean specifics. I mean more how much are you willing to change, one way or the other? Are you really looking to revamp the policy top to bottom or is the goal more minor tweaks? Are their GMs with the desire, commitment, and most importantly, ready to dedicate time to making changes to core systems that I'd imagine would be necessary for most major changes?

I'm not the first to say it and I wont be the last. Ideas are cheap. Good ideas are still pretty cheap. Good ideas that are possible to implement with current dev resources, those have a bit of value. I, and several others I'm sure, could write pages upon pages of ideas. Without any framework, without knowing where the lines are, we are just shooting magic missiles into the darkness.

Other random stuff bouncing around in my head. Some of these points would be great to have some GM feedback on.

1. The scripting policy can't just go away without major changes to core systems.
1a. We will not be waking up to an announcement reading "Welcome to TF Prime!"

2. Many/most game systems encourage scripting as opposed to direct input from a player. This is not at all ideal.
2a. Most players just want to lock a skill then move on to something else
2b. The more time it takes to lock a skill or the more commands required to lock a skill the more likely that skill will be scripted.

3. Some game systems encourage unhealthy play patterns. This is very bad and should never happen. Steps need to be taken to prevent or resolve it.

4. Players have little control of the overall game economy.
4a. AFK scripting shines a light on economy problems but is not the direct cause of them.

5. Some systems have built in limited access. A more open AFK scripting policy cause complications with these systems.
5a. Forges are a good example of this.

6. Skill growth is extremely slow and milestones are very spread out.
6a. Took 6 months to hit 150 during a circle race in TF. That's over 4,000 hours of play time

7. HLC have no real end game. After the massive time sink to get there nothing new to do.
7a. This might seem out of place, but it kind of isn't. A change to scripting policy can be very far reaching. A Dev paradigm shift that pushes everyone to 150+ on a faster time scale makes it necessary for dev resources to be spent creating things to do once there.

>There is zero correlation between "people who script" and "people who RP"

Nobody ought to care if you script, but by definition people afk scripting aren't interacting with anyone, let alone rping.

You don't need to RP to contirbute to a fun and interesting DR, either. It's often a negative...

---

"Warrior Mages don't bother covering up their disasters.

They're proud of them."
-Raesh

>>Additionally, having purchased a 1500+ ranked character and running around curb stomping whoever you want does not make the game fun, it pushes people away from interaction so they can script more. Again, scripting is not the problem, it is the symptom.

You keep saying this, but the only person I know who purchases 1500+ ranked characters just afk scripts them more and doesnt kill anyone. Just because someone is big doesnt mean they were bought.

>>lol. I agree with the spirit of what you are saying, but you are wearing your DR plat blinders if you think there arent people blatently afk scripting

Plat's had two or three AFK script busts (that I'm aware of) since I was in that instance, and the decade where I was in Prime has me well aware of the scripting there, too.

>>>>In terms of "who does it hurt", it hurts the balance of the game. If AFK scripting is allowed, then the game has to assume that people are scripting 24/7. This will result in slower skill gain, NPC stores costing more,

>>None of this is true or has to be true.

It is 100% true. The GMs have brought up, multiple times, their thoughts on what a DR character's "lifespan" should be. That amounts to, "how long should it take for a player who plays X amount a day to reach what is considered an endgame state." If there is an assumption that characters are run AFK 24/7, that would severely adjust how long it takes to reach that endgame state, to prevent players from reaching it way too soon.

>>So instead of rushing to my sons aid I should stop and log out of a 20 year old text game? I just go, if I ended up getting a warning for it I would honestly just quit playing altogether.

This is why, as I said, you don't have scripts/triggers/settings/etc that run on an infinite loop and/or force you to stay in the instance if you're non-responsive.

Similarly, think of quitting the game to respond to an emergency the same way as hanging up the phone to respond to an emergency. It's not like if you're talking on the phone you just chuck it to the floor to respond to a situation. And, if it's severe enough that you would chuck it to the floor to respond to a situation, you probably won't mind the risk of damaging it in relation to the situation you're addressing (similarly, you would't mind getting a slap on the wrist for failing a script check if you are running a script that is non-stop).

On a more general note, I'm surprised at the people who are arguing that AFK scripting is a good thing. The argument that scripting in general is a symptom of a bigger issue with the game (the game never ends and there is currently no real endgame state let alone finalized determination of how long it takes to reach that state), but the solution clearly isn't "24/7 scripting", because that would result in other problems that crop up as a result of that being a thing.

---

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.

<<Agreed the solution is to lower the caps and make ranks beyond an agreed upon number just for show. Or make it so PvP is determined by proportional rank differences. Or make it so everyone can get to cap faster. >>

That is not the solution.

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<<What would fix the issue aside from evening the PvP playing field?>>

Evening the PvP playing field would have no effect on AFK scripting.

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>>Evening the PvP playing field would have no effect on AFK scripting.

It's the main reason that gets brought up in these discussions. I can agree with you that it's not the only reason people AFK script but I can't really follow why you think it wouldn't have any effect on the amount of people who do it.

>>Evening the PvP playing field would have no effect on AFK scripting.

It wouldn't stop AFKing entirely but I can't imagine how you'd think it would have no effect.



Mazrian

>>I don't think things would change as much as you seem to believe. I wouldn't change the way I play at all, I just wouldn't have to worry about repercussions when I play a game. There would still be player and GM events, people would still chat, conflict would still happen. You might point at TF, but that is a server specifically designed and promoted for both PVP and Scripting, prime does not have to be.

I said (and you quoted) that allowing AFK scripting wouldn't change much. We're in agreement here.

>PVP and Scripting

it's amazing how those two things are so tightly hand in hand, isn't it? >>

No, its not and they aren't

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>>I've already heard from a number of people that there is a movement to unsubscribe and speak with wallets<<

LOL

Mazrian