Please don't forget that within the past 6 months they've had a plague of server crashing issues that were far more important than addressing AFK griefing.
That being said, I doubt we'd have seen much more than nothing done about it anyway.
Interestingly enough, Neverwinter launched with a kick feature (it was Leader only), which spawned a whole pile of issues over there. So that may have moved everything back to the drawing board.
"Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
A feature where people can kick afkers could easily be used to enforce elitism. Don't have the best setup or ship? Kicked. Have to quickly get up for a second because of real life events? Kicked. Accidentally mind lapse and do the wrong thing? Kicked.
You're missing the point where three out of five team members have to agree to it. If the majority of the group thinks you're doing it wrong, you're going to have to accept the possibility that it's true.
"Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
You're missing the point where three out of five team members have to agree to it. If the majority of the group thinks you're doing it wrong, you're going to have to accept the possibility that it's true.
So players are guilty by ignorance now?
If somebody doesn't have a very good setup, just wait until the end of the game, and tell the while they grab their loot, or send a kindly worded PM. Elitism is not on.
If somebody doesn't have a very good setup, just wait until the end of the game, and tell the while they grab their loot, or send a kindly worded PM. Elitism is not on.
There's a certain level of ignorance that everyone finds unacceptable. Or would you be okay with a player that is continuously in your games, doesn't know how to fire weapons, move or read chat messages?
Once you realize that truth, it's all a measure of degree.
"Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
You're missing the point where three out of five team members have to agree to it. If the majority of the group thinks you're doing it wrong, you're going to have to accept the possibility that it's true.
If the majority of the group gets you kicked, you're going to have to accept that probably one Elitist jerk initiated it, and the rest of the sheeple just quickly clicked 'yes' to get the button out of the way, and not be contrary.
There's a certain level of ignorance that everyone finds unacceptable. Or would you be okay with a player that is continuously in your games, doesn't know how to fire weapons, move or read chat messages?
Once you realize that truth, it's all a measure of degree.
And once you realize 'unacceptable' is all a matter of degree, you realize that one person's rainbow build is another person's Science ship. Meaning: where one will draw the line at a rainbox build, another person will kick you for showing up in a Science vessel.
If the majority of the group gets you kicked, you're going to have to accept that probably one Elitist jerk initiated it, and the rest of the sheeple just quickly clicked 'yes' to get the button out of the way, and not be contrary.
Someone who refers to other players as "sheeple" really has no grounds to be complaining about Elitism. Stones and glass houses, etc...
"Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
Someone who refers to other players as "sheeple" really has no grounds to be complaining about Elitism. Stones and glass houses, etc...
Nice try. But yes, people are followers. That's our social nature. Has nothing to do with Elitism. And when 1 person initiates a vote, fact is many ppl will just click 'yes' (thinking someone probably had a good reason, and they don't want to deal with the interruption any longer than necesary).
this thread just reinforces the fact that Cryptic will never put the power to kick into players' hands....
abuse will run rampant.....
You must have missed the part where they did just that in Neverwinter.
"Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
Where did the idea that it isn't against the Terms of Service come in? Has someone from Cryptic said that? Seems to me that earning marks while causing others to earn fewer marks is against a few sections of the Terms of Service under the 10. User Conduct heading.
(k) Cheat or utilize unauthorized exploits in connection with the Games or the Service;
Not actually playing the game, while earning a reward, sounds like cheating to me. If I show up to work, don't actually work, and then get paid for it, I'd be fired as soon as someone found out.
(l) Using or exploiting any bugs, errors, or design flaws to obtain unauthorized access to the Service or to gain an unfair advantage over other players,
Earning marks for doing nothing other than joining the queue is an advantage over those that actually play the game and try to complete the mission. Considering the leacher takes up a spot that an active player could have had, thus putting more effort toward the objective and increasing the reward, they've got an advantage over that active player they took the spot from. The leacher has earned marks for doing nothing, while the active player that couldn't get into that match earns nothing until the next match.
(n) Take any action that disrupts the Service or that negatively affects or may prohibit other users from enjoying the Website, the Games or any other aspect of the Service.
Mine Trap is designed to require 20 people to achieve maximum results, when teams are crippled because of inactive players, the chance for maximum results is reduced. It used to be possible to get 72 Romulan Marks from Mine Trap, now I'm lucky if it tops 40. That definitely qualifies as someone taking an action that negatively affects my enjoyment of the game.
Blizzard already got the courts to confirm that bot software is a violation of the DMCA (MDY Indus. LLC v. Blizzard Entm't, Inc.), Leechers, Cryptic and Perfect World just need to 'man up'. It's a video game, if it's too difficult to play properly, go play something else.
Where did the idea that it isn't against the Terms of Service come in? Has someone from Cryptic said that? Seems to me that earning marks while causing others to earn fewer marks is against a few sections of the Terms of Service under the 10. User Conduct heading.
Whether Cryptic considers against their TOS is irrelevant. What is relevant is how Cryptic handles user generated reports. Based upon the evidence, we can only conclude that while Cryptic may consider AFKing a TOS violation in certain instances, they have no interest in paying their moderators to deal with the situation on a case-by-case basis. They have expressed interest in creating some form of game mechanism to deal with the problem, hopefully one that will not create many additional issues.
if you harass the GMs about it, you could be banned..
i noticed that cryptic or pwe got enough money to hire some lifeforms as GMs ,thing is I see way to many people getting warns and bans for all kinds of stupid reasons (getting a ban for saying/joking in zone chat "Im gonna sell my account" ).Hope in the future will have more money to hire proper humans ,not all kinds of cheap workforce who TRIBBLE with people's accounts just because they have the allmighty TOS to interpret how they want.
You should make 1000000 FREE TO PLAY accounts to do exactly that.Its the only way to show these "people" that is stupid to random ban people just because you have real life frustrations.Im sure they will start banning IPs or entire classes of IPs .
Whether Cryptic considers against their TOS is irrelevant. What is relevant is how Cryptic handles user generated reports. Based upon the evidence, we can only conclude that while Cryptic may consider AFKing a TOS violation in certain instances, they have no interest in paying their moderators to deal with the situation on a case-by-case basis. They have expressed interest in creating some form of game mechanism to deal with the problem, hopefully one that will not create many additional issues.
Reported the same guy 1000000 times for afking and he still does that.One day not only he was afk but he mocked me and my team so I said in zone chat (not pm nor his name) "stop f...n leeching" .....1 hour later got a warn.Next day I got a ban for posting doffs in opvp (player made channel) .These idiots think the F word is probably against the costitution of great China.
when you get warns and bans they dont tell you what you did wrong they just link the stupid TOS .The only thing you can do is to stop spending money in the game and tell your friends to do the same thing.In time they will have to notice the serial idiots they hired as GMs to do parenting when their role is not that.
Said by someone who clearly never pugs and only ever does premades, like myself.
But, I hear people ******** about it day-in day-out on the forums, in zone chat and in fleet chat.
If we're getting a new one of these threads every other day, I think it's a fair enough assumption that it's a pretty big problem for a lot of people. A lot of these people have very low post counts and it looks like some of them even actively make a forum account just so they can talk about this issue.
I'd say that's pretty important!
EDIT: apparently I can't use that word haha. Lets go with "moaning" instead.
There is no way this is as big a problem as some people are making it out to be. I've been playing the game for about a year now, and I always pug. I've never once used a private cue. In that time, based on what's being said on here I should have been beating off leachers with a stick.
I have NEVER encountered a single player afking an entire match. Maybe I'm a walking rabbit's foot. but it seems to me that maybe this might just be a little bit of a molehill situation.
Or not. Maybe I should play the lottery more often. I'm clearly lucky as hell.
It's not myfault ifyoufeel trolledbymyDisco ball...Sorry'boutit.
Just curious about something. I have a lot of major problems with disconnects and the like, server not responding issiues. Is it possible for players to see whether a player in a STF has gone linkdead or just AFK?
I have NEVER encountered a single player afking an entire match. Maybe I'm a walking rabbit's foot. but it seems to me that maybe this might just be a little bit of a molehill situation.
It depends on when and what you play. You get quite a lot of it in Ground STFs, where certain people from certain fleets like to boast about the sudden arrival of the pizza guy at crucial moments of gameplay and then suddenly quit when the rest of the team decides not to carry them through.
Maybe you are lucky. What are the lottery numbers for this week anyway?
Just curious about something. I have a lot of major problems with disconnects and the like, server not responding issiues. Is it possible for players to see whether a player in a STF has gone linkdead or just AFK?
Yes, enable system chat or the flying notifications about loot rolls. Then watch the AFK leechers physically click need on every drop (default is pass) if they click need, they are physically there but choosing not to play. Lagging players also tend to physically freeze when running or banking their ships and or suddenly appear somewhere else.
Players with real lag/connection issues also tend to apologise to the team for being so due to x or y of emergency. Leechers just drop the ball and do whatever and expect the team to pick up the slack.
Now I don't know if the daily's changed in PvP but back when the game first launched there were PvP daily's that only required a players participate in a number of matches to complete the mission so people would grief the PvP queue by trying to die as fast as possible to speed thru the daily mission requirements and get the reward.
This is still the case and still goes on. Though it's much more common with ground maps, you also see it a lot in Capture and Hold.
You do your three, you get your dil and marks whether you win, lose or do nothing at all.
Oh and you might not disappear straight away. Oftentimes if you have the people in your friends list you'll see them sign out, but remain physically there in some (usually awkward) freeze frame moment for a couple of minutes and then they disappear and leave the team.
People that warp out or beam out on the other hand have usually done that deliberately.
This has kind of (ok, drastically) gotten off point of what I was wondering.
Couple of things that I want to mention:
1) topset: thanks for clarifying the TOS rules and pointing out the way it can be construed as against TOS.
2) Solution: in public PvE's the server records who sits there for say 5 minutes doing nothing. After 5 minutes of doing nothing in a public pve you get booted offline for inactivity like the game does for players on an hour or longer of being inactive.
had a severe bowel movement due to chili, sorry to hear that, hope you got it all out, que up a new que and have fun earning your marks with no penalty other than you have to sign in again.
doing this way is simple, the power stays with the devs / game / scripters, and it's effective at getting rid of the leechers!
3) I created this thread to see if anyone has heard of / seen any actions against AFK'ers because I've seen none. I see people say "What? Going AFK a whole match isn't against TOS" and I think to myself "Yep, there's an AFK'er there."
3) I created this thread to see if anyone has heard of / seen any actions against AFK'ers because I've seen none. I see people say "What? Going AFK a whole match isn't against TOS" and I think to myself "Yep, there's an AFK'er there."
Feel free to stalk me from now till the world ends (or I die, whatever comes first)... You won't find me AFK'ing. Get spies to look for me, or even monitor my internet connection... I don't care cause you will never get anything on me that would indicate me to being a AFK'er.
I maintain that the ToS, allows for people to be AKF/Leeching, since it is not specified within the ToS.
And Cryptic agrees with me, since they aren't taking action... You are just reading the rules wrong.
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
I maintain that the ToS, allows for people to be AKF/Leeching, since it is not specified within the ToS.
if the guy with no real job aka GM thinks thats against TOS what you , me and everyone says is not important.People are at the mercy of some guy who can ban anyone just because his mom refused to buy him cookies and milk.
There is no way this is as big a problem as some people are making it out to be. I've been playing the game for about a year now, and I always pug. I've never once used a private cue. In that time, based on what's being said on here I should have been beating off leachers with a stick.
I have NEVER encountered a single player afking an entire match. Maybe I'm a walking rabbit's foot. but it seems to me that maybe this might just be a little bit of a molehill situation.
Or not. Maybe I should play the lottery more often. I'm clearly lucky as hell.
I had one yesterday in a pug, and two last week in a pug.... mind you, this is running about 7-8 pugs a day, and more on my days off work..... but yes, it's a far cry from beating off afk's with a stick as the complaints attempt to paint it as.
if the guy with no real job aka GM thinks thats against TOS what you , me and everyone says is not important.People are at the mercy of some guy who can ban anyone just because his mom refused to buy him cookies and milk.
Of course, this is due course in context of using someone elses private server for communications..... they get to decide what the rules are and you get to follow them or suffer the consequences.
If you are prolonging a mission, or trying to get the optional to fail or just not contributing as you are supposed to in match aren't you "purposefully hindering progress in game"?
The same could be argued if you are simply incompetent, but we can't seriously propose to ban people merely for sucking at the game.
Take any action that disrupts the Service or that negatively affects or may prohibit other users from enjoying the Website, the Games or any other aspect of the Service
AFKing certainly negatively affects players and stops them from enjoying the game, there is no way you could argue the opposite.
Loosing in pvp negatively affects our premade team, and we stop enjoying the game, so if you wont break against the rules, stop to win against us. Thank you in advance.
One could ask you the same. Show where it is expressly stated that you may go AFK for the entire duration of queued events on purpose every single time you join one. Again, I doubt Cryptic/PWE will say that this is acceptable behavior and want to encourage it.
Were I to guess, the GMs can't do much about it as they aren't there to witness it themselves. I would near guarantee that they would act on it were they to witness it firsthand.
that's not the way rules work. they express what you can not do . and can be added too or taken away from.
I mean think about it where in the tos does it say you can do daily missions or kill borg tac cubes?
to try and turn that argument around is a bit childish,
Trophies for killing FEDS ahh those were the days.
if the guy with no real job aka GM thinks thats against TOS what you , me and everyone says is not important.People are at the mercy of some guy who can ban anyone just because his mom refused to buy him cookies and milk.
That of cause is true... But again... I still see the same AFK'ing after more than 6 months, so...
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
Sorry, but it seems neither of you people have a background in Law and/or interpreting legal texts, and you're all stretching definitions beyond their possible meaning.
"(n) Take any action that disrupts the Service or that negatively affects or may prohibit other users from enjoying the Website, the Games or any other aspect of the Service."
- AFK-ing is not disrupting the Service;
- AFK-ing is not 'taking an any action that negatively affects the game.' Yes, I know you want it to mean such a thing, but it doesn't. Within the context of the pertinent Article, think of DDOS-ing, or excessive PING-ing, or otherwise making too many queries (to the point where your behavior starts disrupting the Service, or begins to negatively impact the performance of the servers).
As irony would have it, technically, and within the context of the Article in question, 'idling' is rather the exact opposite of 'taking an any action that negatively affects the game.'
Comments
Interestingly enough, Neverwinter launched with a kick feature (it was Leader only), which spawned a whole pile of issues over there. So that may have moved everything back to the drawing board.
You're missing the point where three out of five team members have to agree to it. If the majority of the group thinks you're doing it wrong, you're going to have to accept the possibility that it's true.
So players are guilty by ignorance now?
If somebody doesn't have a very good setup, just wait until the end of the game, and tell the while they grab their loot, or send a kindly worded PM. Elitism is not on.
There's a certain level of ignorance that everyone finds unacceptable. Or would you be okay with a player that is continuously in your games, doesn't know how to fire weapons, move or read chat messages?
Once you realize that truth, it's all a measure of degree.
If the majority of the group gets you kicked, you're going to have to accept that probably one Elitist jerk initiated it, and the rest of the sheeple just quickly clicked 'yes' to get the button out of the way, and not be contrary.
And once you realize 'unacceptable' is all a matter of degree, you realize that one person's rainbow build is another person's Science ship. Meaning: where one will draw the line at a rainbox build, another person will kick you for showing up in a Science vessel.
Ergo, bad idea being bad.
Someone who refers to other players as "sheeple" really has no grounds to be complaining about Elitism. Stones and glass houses, etc...
Nice try.
abuse will run rampant.....
---- FIRE EVERYTHING ! ----
You must have missed the part where they did just that in Neverwinter.
and teams leaders are kicking players right before the boss loot chest... so yeah thats working well....
neverwinter only has a 'few' problems.....lol.
---- FIRE EVERYTHING ! ----
(k) Cheat or utilize unauthorized exploits in connection with the Games or the Service;
Not actually playing the game, while earning a reward, sounds like cheating to me. If I show up to work, don't actually work, and then get paid for it, I'd be fired as soon as someone found out.
(l) Using or exploiting any bugs, errors, or design flaws to obtain unauthorized access to the Service or to gain an unfair advantage over other players,
Earning marks for doing nothing other than joining the queue is an advantage over those that actually play the game and try to complete the mission. Considering the leacher takes up a spot that an active player could have had, thus putting more effort toward the objective and increasing the reward, they've got an advantage over that active player they took the spot from. The leacher has earned marks for doing nothing, while the active player that couldn't get into that match earns nothing until the next match.
(n) Take any action that disrupts the Service or that negatively affects or may prohibit other users from enjoying the Website, the Games or any other aspect of the Service.
Mine Trap is designed to require 20 people to achieve maximum results, when teams are crippled because of inactive players, the chance for maximum results is reduced. It used to be possible to get 72 Romulan Marks from Mine Trap, now I'm lucky if it tops 40. That definitely qualifies as someone taking an action that negatively affects my enjoyment of the game.
Blizzard already got the courts to confirm that bot software is a violation of the DMCA (MDY Indus. LLC v. Blizzard Entm't, Inc.), Leechers, Cryptic and Perfect World just need to 'man up'. It's a video game, if it's too difficult to play properly, go play something else.
Whether Cryptic considers against their TOS is irrelevant. What is relevant is how Cryptic handles user generated reports. Based upon the evidence, we can only conclude that while Cryptic may consider AFKing a TOS violation in certain instances, they have no interest in paying their moderators to deal with the situation on a case-by-case basis. They have expressed interest in creating some form of game mechanism to deal with the problem, hopefully one that will not create many additional issues.
i noticed that cryptic or pwe got enough money to hire some lifeforms as GMs ,thing is I see way to many people getting warns and bans for all kinds of stupid reasons (getting a ban for saying/joking in zone chat "Im gonna sell my account" ).Hope in the future will have more money to hire proper humans ,not all kinds of cheap workforce who TRIBBLE with people's accounts just because they have the allmighty TOS to interpret how they want.
You should make 1000000 FREE TO PLAY accounts to do exactly that.Its the only way to show these "people" that is stupid to random ban people just because you have real life frustrations.Im sure they will start banning IPs or entire classes of IPs .
Reported the same guy 1000000 times for afking and he still does that.One day not only he was afk but he mocked me and my team so I said in zone chat (not pm nor his name) "stop f...n leeching" .....1 hour later got a warn.Next day I got a ban for posting doffs in opvp (player made channel) .These idiots think the F word is probably against the costitution of great China.
when you get warns and bans they dont tell you what you did wrong they just link the stupid TOS .The only thing you can do is to stop spending money in the game and tell your friends to do the same thing.In time they will have to notice the serial idiots they hired as GMs to do parenting when their role is not that.
There is no way this is as big a problem as some people are making it out to be. I've been playing the game for about a year now, and I always pug. I've never once used a private cue. In that time, based on what's being said on here I should have been beating off leachers with a stick.
I have NEVER encountered a single player afking an entire match. Maybe I'm a walking rabbit's foot. but it seems to me that maybe this might just be a little bit of a molehill situation.
Or not. Maybe I should play the lottery more often. I'm clearly lucky as hell.
R.I.P. Leonard Nimoy
It depends on when and what you play. You get quite a lot of it in Ground STFs, where certain people from certain fleets like to boast about the sudden arrival of the pizza guy at crucial moments of gameplay and then suddenly quit when the rest of the team decides not to carry them through.
Maybe you are lucky. What are the lottery numbers for this week anyway?
Yes, enable system chat or the flying notifications about loot rolls. Then watch the AFK leechers physically click need on every drop (default is pass) if they click need, they are physically there but choosing not to play. Lagging players also tend to physically freeze when running or banking their ships and or suddenly appear somewhere else.
Players with real lag/connection issues also tend to apologise to the team for being so due to x or y of emergency. Leechers just drop the ball and do whatever and expect the team to pick up the slack.
This is still the case and still goes on. Though it's much more common with ground maps, you also see it a lot in Capture and Hold.
You do your three, you get your dil and marks whether you win, lose or do nothing at all.
Oh and you might not disappear straight away. Oftentimes if you have the people in your friends list you'll see them sign out, but remain physically there in some (usually awkward) freeze frame moment for a couple of minutes and then they disappear and leave the team.
People that warp out or beam out on the other hand have usually done that deliberately.
Couple of things that I want to mention:
1) topset: thanks for clarifying the TOS rules and pointing out the way it can be construed as against TOS.
2) Solution: in public PvE's the server records who sits there for say 5 minutes doing nothing. After 5 minutes of doing nothing in a public pve you get booted offline for inactivity like the game does for players on an hour or longer of being inactive.
had a severe bowel movement due to chili, sorry to hear that, hope you got it all out, que up a new que and have fun earning your marks with no penalty other than you have to sign in again.
doing this way is simple, the power stays with the devs / game / scripters, and it's effective at getting rid of the leechers!
3) I created this thread to see if anyone has heard of / seen any actions against AFK'ers because I've seen none. I see people say "What? Going AFK a whole match isn't against TOS" and I think to myself "Yep, there's an AFK'er there."
4) Sriracha sauce = Epic
That is all.
Feel free to stalk me from now till the world ends (or I die, whatever comes first)... You won't find me AFK'ing. Get spies to look for me, or even monitor my internet connection... I don't care cause you will never get anything on me that would indicate me to being a AFK'er.
I maintain that the ToS, allows for people to be AKF/Leeching, since it is not specified within the ToS.
And Cryptic agrees with me, since they aren't taking action... You are just reading the rules wrong.
if the guy with no real job aka GM thinks thats against TOS what you , me and everyone says is not important.People are at the mercy of some guy who can ban anyone just because his mom refused to buy him cookies and milk.
I had one yesterday in a pug, and two last week in a pug.... mind you, this is running about 7-8 pugs a day, and more on my days off work..... but yes, it's a far cry from beating off afk's with a stick as the complaints attempt to paint it as.
Of course, this is due course in context of using someone elses private server for communications..... they get to decide what the rules are and you get to follow them or suffer the consequences.
Loosing in pvp negatively affects our premade team, and we stop enjoying the game, so if you wont break against the rules, stop to win against us. Thank you in advance.
that's not the way rules work. they express what you can not do . and can be added too or taken away from.
I mean think about it where in the tos does it say you can do daily missions or kill borg tac cubes?
to try and turn that argument around is a bit childish,
That of cause is true... But again... I still see the same AFK'ing after more than 6 months, so...
Sorry, but it seems neither of you people have a background in Law and/or interpreting legal texts, and you're all stretching definitions beyond their possible meaning.
"(n) Take any action that disrupts the Service or that negatively affects or may prohibit other users from enjoying the Website, the Games or any other aspect of the Service."
- AFK-ing is not disrupting the Service;
- AFK-ing is not 'taking an any action that negatively affects the game.' Yes, I know you want it to mean such a thing, but it doesn't. Within the context of the pertinent Article, think of DDOS-ing, or excessive PING-ing, or otherwise making too many queries (to the point where your behavior starts disrupting the Service, or begins to negatively impact the performance of the servers).
As irony would have it, technically, and within the context of the Article in question, 'idling' is rather the exact opposite of 'taking an any action that negatively affects the game.'
TAKE THAT!