afk in tbs

[burntbulb]

i have seen several ppl that appear to be afk in TBS, they have pet classes and mercs. but its more than just having the mobs auto aggro. they actually have the pet activly attack mobs within range and usally they have a cleric that has a tank merc and appears to be running afk macro's. they never seem to loot and to their credit if you send a tell to each of them usally you will get an answer from one of them within relatively short time. but you can see the "afk" ones casting spells.. guess im posting as a warning to those doing it that you have been spotted/suspected not /reported (not by me any way) but as obvious as this is to some one who knows what to look for, it is basicly an out of the way zone and would net ok aa xp over time.

 

[mafiapitbull]

well..

...i have a spot , way out of the way and some what gear'd for specific classes to do very well in, i afk/toggle screens there all the time and get some aa exp, not good but some. well a few days ago as i go back to my spot there is another person there, but they have a lock down on like 4 mobs compared to the 30 i do per cycle, said hello, got no answer. tried again nothing. well a few days go by with this dude sitting there and he send me a msg " man, dont you think you have enough of the mobs here" ..im think'n, wth i could just train them on your ass and have the extra 4 mobs per cycle..but out of kindness i just brushed it off, well yesterday he says "well you want this spot" and has never been back...so maybe the end of my troubles. but man was it obvious that he was afk

 

[lebroba]

AFK with mercs

the last 2 days I have been posting up in a spot with a healer and tank merc. I just let the mobs agro the toons and the mercs kill them and heal each other. Has anyone heard of someone getting banned for this? I've made about 20AA doing it so far which isnt great but better than the AA i would get being logged off.

I dont use any macros to autoloot or /melee so Im wondering if this is against the EULA.

 

[the_great_one]

I read on the eq boards that alot of the "legit" people are upset over this and thusfar, SOE has said that its nothing they can really address since it bordered on what pet classes used to do several expansions ago to gain faction while afk. Usually, the afk w/ merc toons are getting very little overall xp over the course of several hours that I personally dont think it would be watched heavily, if at all, from GM's. If SOE wanted to fix it, they could do something that forces a toon to inflict some damage and not leave it up entirely to the mercs but that would force some healers to melee/nuke instead of heal tank mercs. If my opinion mattered, I personally could care less if people afk'd with their mercs or even afk macro'd xp camps since I can always find somewhere to xp if any of my toons still needed it.

 

[mjtizzle21]

careful u can get in trouble for usin mercs only. gm's aren't "Looking for" it but if your reported by some afk exp hating nazi asshole u will get in trouble. lol luckily the woohoo from homer/gm alert woke me up and i didn't get in trouble =] was like wutup gm. good thing he didn't notice my afk macro /fartaunting non stop lolol

 

[Virtue]

Hear Say

I watched and read a big debate on my server 1 night about this. Some one was doing it with 3 mercs in a certain zone. I even went and checked it out and it was a good set up. No macro required, Just 2 warrior mercs and a cleric merc in the middle with there owners stood on or near to spawn spots of mobs. Aparantly they had been there for days.

Some people who I know to normally be upto date with whats going on was adamant that SoE had said that it's not breaking any rules to do this as your using no third party software and it cost you plat to do it. So if your willing to burn the plat which in turn you have to spend time to get(In theory) it's legal.

This is ment to be posted somewhere, Maybe someone has the link but I dont Im afraid, Just hear say. I personally cant see the problem with it..

 

[Remianen]

I watched and read a big debate on my server 1 night about this. Some one was doing it with 3 mercs in a certain zone. I even went and checked it out and it was a good set up. No macro required, Just 2 warrior mercs and a cleric merc in the middle with there owners stood on or near to spawn spots of mobs. Aparantly they had been there for days.

Some people who I know to normally be upto date with whats going on was adamant that SoE had said that it's not breaking any rules to do this as your using no third party software and it cost you plat to do it. So if your willing to burn the plat which in turn you have to spend time to get(In theory) it's legal.

This is ment to be posted somewhere, Maybe someone has the link but I dont Im afraid, Just hear say. I personally cant see the problem with it..

Kinda sorta.

It's not against the rules to have mercs do the killing for you. It IS against the rules to have them do it while you're not at the keyboard. So theoretically, if you're at the keyboard and your mercs are doing all the heavy lifting, it's okay. But if you just let them do it while you're at work or something, they frown on that.

Now, whether they'd do anything about it is a different story.

I don't see what the big deal is though. Past 65 or so, the tank mercs are so horrendously average that the only thing you can really do effectively are areas of little to no challenge (and thus, little to no reward). Actually, that's not quite true. A pair of level 70s in Dranik's Hollows could probably do some pretty decent xp, assuming they found an area of any of the missions with a fairly dense spawn.

Hmm, I should probably check that out

 

[Littleguy]

It IS against the rules to have them do it while you're not at the keyboard.

where you get this from? There is no rule saying you must respond to anyone in game, so there would be no possible way to see if your "at the keyboard" Just wondering where you read it or if just pulling it from the bum?

 

[blablah]

whats a good 75-80ish instance that respawns?

 

[Akkadius]

They only frown at it if you are letting people see you do it, cause then peoples shit starts to stir, SOE hates that

 

[Remianen]

where you get this from? There is no rule saying you must respond to anyone in game, so there would be no possible way to see if your "at the keyboard" Just wondering where you read it or if just pulling it from the bum?

Read the Rules of Conduct, specifically section 1.1 number 6.

GMs are given extremely liberal interpretation rights. If you're running AFK with mercs, and someone comes into the area to hunt the mobs you're killing while AFK, they can, what used to be called, 'PnP you'. If you are not there to respond, do you think the GM will just say 'Oh, no one's there. You'll have to move on, PnPer'? Some GMs might, I'd say most wouldn't.

And before you say GMs wouldn't even intervene, there's a magic phrase that is often used (or was used last week by someone I'm familiar with): I need these mobs for a quest. After 45 mins, the AFKer was booted from the server and the guy took over the camp (with heavy MQ2 use).

Also, your "There is no rule saying you must respond to anyone in game" assertion is, at best, half right. Again, rules of conduct, this time #7:

7. You will follow the instructions of authorized personnel while in EverQuest or on the Official EverQuest Forums.

Thus, if a GM ingame tells you to do something and you do not respond, they're allowed to take action against you (via your account). That's always how I've always understood it. Granted, I haven't personally known a GM since Saviente and Chrol left (and my short stint as a guide made me want to literally kill Michelle Butler...though years later, I got a kick out of the antics that occurred at Sigil that left her devastated) but that was my understanding.

 

[bluntmad]

Yeah there is nothing in the rules that says you need to be at your keyboard to play. The only rule is that you cannot use third party software while playing. The only ones bitching on this post are those that seem to have this magical EULA that nobody has seen but them.

 

[Littleguy]

Yeah all that stuff is bogus really, if you have to follow their instructions they wouldn't have "f10" make it so you cant see any boxes. Ive had gm's pop into zone stand next to me with my mercs killing shit then just leave without a word. If they did do anything to your account would be easy as pie to get it reversed.

 

[TheCompany]

You are paying MERCENARIES to defend you

You are 100% allowed to be afk while your mercenaries defend your characters.

Not only is that working as intended BUT, if you train someone doing this and they petition you, YOU will get marked for training and the GM will specifically tell you, mercenaries are hired to defend the character, and as such are working...as...intended.

 

[unity0110]

Why do new people always bump ancient posts?

 

[fantaman]

ehh he joined in 06 lolz, but his post count is awesome

 

[Blitzkrieg]

I <3 Necros!

 

[Sum1]

Hey now... Don't hate... This is a great thread.

I just recently looked into ack merc killing myself... Very feasible, but damn expensive if you are doing it for long stints.