Suggestion. AFK Guard spamming = illegal. Thoughts?

[Hoots]

What do you think constitutes spamming "guards"? Once every second, every 2 seconds, ever 3 seconds? If your only saying "guards" once every 5 seconds or so, is that spamming? Or how about this, what if the macroer puts in a couple random phrases in between. Is that spamming?

If your chief complaint is simply so you can go kill AFK macroer's, in this case you are no better than the spammer. Why don't you go find a more challenging opponent.

Next thing you know someone is going to start complaining about players using hiding to avoid thieves. Why all of the sudden are these threads coming out of the woodwork anyway? Did someone suddenly become "holier than thou" or something?

I love how hypocritical people are. The very people who are concerned about these so called "should be illegal" activities, once have, or will do something questionable themselves. I promise it, whether you realize it or not.

I think Duke did a good job of summing up my thoughts. Incase you want to re-read my posts... i mention many times that I dont think it is a big deal, have macro'd in town myself and dont feel stronlgy about it... I just thought it would be worth discussing. I have NEVER been affected by AFK'ers except for people blocking town recall spots (love those afk'ers at the glow mage shop...)

When people start trying to find ways to abuse game mechanics under the flag of guard protection (especially while AFK) there is a problem IMHO.

OSI may not have been running macro code or sending the macro police out, but if people were able to effect other peoples game play while macroing afk im pretty sure GM's would respond to those pages.

[Mikel123]

WTF?! Look... towns are protected by guards; they keep people pretty safe. Game mechanic. Other places in the game (locked houses, etc) are pretty safe as well.

If you want to find a way to kill someone in town, THE BURDEN IS ON YOU. Good grief. I never thought I'd see the day when someone would whine that an AFK player was too hard to kill. I don't even know what to say here.

[Kabal]

It DOES say "No Spamming" on the sign on the bank wall, is saying guards over and over again not spamming?. AFKers around the bank are so annoying, I have never macroed anything at the bank, ever, there is really no reason. Go to some random place where people don't go and macro, like Lord British's castle.

[Duke Jones]

WTF?! Look... towns are protected by guards; they keep people pretty safe. Game mechanic. Other places in the game (locked houses, etc) are pretty safe as well.

If you want to find a way to kill someone in town, THE BURDEN IS ON YOU. Good grief. I never thought I'd see the day when someone would whine that an AFK player was too hard to kill. I don't even know what to say here.

The focus isn't about whining about who can kill who. Its about players abusing guard protection and spamming Guards.

[orionsune]

Next thing you know someone is going to start complaining about players using hiding to avoid thieves. Why all of the sudden are these threads coming out of the woodwork anyway? Did someone suddenly become "holier than thou" or something?

I love how hypocritical people are. The very people who are concerned about these so called "should be illegal" activities, once have, or will do something questionable themselves. I promise it, whether you realize it or not.

I have to stop you right there.

The difference is major. Hiding and afk spamming guards... Nothing alike.

Hiding is a working as intended skill. The other is abusing a system/mechanic in order to prevent risk from not being by the computer. It's bad enough players are too lazy to work on skills themselves, but they also want no risk associated with not being by the computer while they do it.

I say if your not going to be at the computer, either log out, lock yourself in the middle your house, or take the risk. That's how it works.

You obviously didn't get it. Doesn't surprise me either. I was simply making a reference to how ignorant people are getting on whining about how they want rules to change to meet their personal whims.

[orionsune]

When people start trying to find ways to abuse game mechanics under the flag of guard protection (especially while AFK) there is a problem IMHO.

Give me one good reason how that is abuse and i'll change my opinion.

[Duke Jones]

Next thing you know someone is going to start complaining about players using hiding to avoid thieves. Why all of the sudden are these threads coming out of the woodwork anyway? Did someone suddenly become "holier than thou" or something?

I love how hypocritical people are. The very people who are concerned about these so called "should be illegal" activities, once have, or will do something questionable themselves. I promise it, whether you realize it or not.

I have to stop you right there.

The difference is major. Hiding and afk spamming guards... Nothing alike.

Hiding is a working as intended skill. The other is abusing a system/mechanic in order to prevent risk from not being by the computer. It's bad enough players are too lazy to work on skills themselves, but they also want no risk associated with not being by the computer while they do it.

I say if your not going to be at the computer, either log out, lock yourself in the middle your house, or take the risk. That's how it works.

You obviously didn't get it. Doesn't surprise me either. I was simply making a reference to how ignorant people are getting on whining about how they want rules to change to meet their personal whims.

These rules wouldn't even be needed if people would just enjoy the game and stop being lazy with their automation and trying to find ways to abuse the system to protect it.

[orionsune]

These rules wouldn't even be needed if people would just enjoy the game and stop being lazy with their automation and trying to find ways to abuse the system to protect it.

While we are going at it, can someone enlighten me and provide a link to the rules detailing spam please?

I have to stop you right there.

The difference is major. Hiding and afk spamming guards... Nothing alike.

Hiding is a working as intended skill. The other is abusing a system/mechanic in order to prevent risk from not being by the computer. It's bad enough players are too lazy to work on skills themselves, but they also want no risk associated with not being by the computer while they do it.

Ok, your right, hiding is a skill... and guards is a game mechanic.

I think the real question here, is "What constitutes spam?" Maybe Derrick can elaborate on the issue.

[Kabal]

If the guards were supposed to get involved every time someone is attacked in town why would it even be necessary for anyone to call the guards, why wouldn't the game just auto-kill you.

"If HPs < 90 say 'GUARDS, suckka!'"

[Duke Jones]

If the guards were supposed to get involved every time someone is attacked in town why would it even be necessary for anyone to call the guards, why wouldn't the game just auto-kill you.

That's exactly my point. It's meant for you to use as needed when you're attacked. Not for you to spam constantly.

[Chaos]

i'm reminded of a thread about some one being disconnect while trying to macro steal a boat .. the problem wasn't the stealing boat .. but the player was spaming somthing like anchor down .. so that the boat could not be moved and i'm guessing at server up person was going to try and dry dock boat when other ghost/players were loged out.

i do think that spamming or looping a say "guards" or "anything else" without a delay or resonable delay should get you disconnected .. how ever a 5sec guards macro .. eh .. seems fine to me .. i loop some macros faster then that ..

[Mikel123]

WTF?! Look... towns are protected by guards; they keep people pretty safe. Game mechanic. Other places in the game (locked houses, etc) are pretty safe as well.

If you want to find a way to kill someone in town, THE BURDEN IS ON YOU. Good grief. I never thought I'd see the day when someone would whine that an AFK player was too hard to kill. I don't even know what to say here.

The focus isn't about whining about who can kill who. Its about players abusing guard protection and spamming Guards.

Define "abusing" please. And define "spamming".

Is someone sitting at a bank and macroing Flamestrike on themselves "spamming"?

Is someone that engages in PvP then runs inside a guard zone "abusing" guard protection?

Are people who have macros that say "vendor buy bank guards" also "abusing" guard protection? Or "spamming"? Or, and I shudder to even type this, but are they abusing AND spamming at once?!?!?!?!

[Kabal]

Spamming is any time you say the same thing over and over again.

Spamming guards = Auto guards which is not cool.

What if someone wants to attack someone else that is right next to you?

[Kraarug]

...And define "spamming".

Here's an attempt:

Spam or Spamming: "The macroing of player speech based upon time elements within a routine."

Examples: "Guards",
"Come to my super cool vendor house, gating opening up now!"

[Kaivan]

Spamming is something that is a rather ambiguous statement when trying to determine what classifies as spamming. However, my personal judgment on the matter is that as long as the macro itself is not too short (under roughly 5 seconds), a single line within the macro that calls for guards is perfectly sufficient and is not something that I would consider spamming. On the flip side, if a player has a 10 second macro and intentionally has a 10 second pause where he purposely places a section within the macro that calls guards once every second while that macro is running, I would classify that as spamming.

You may find that other GM's definition of spamming is different from mine, but I doubt that any GM would consider a delay of 5 seconds between each call to guards as spamming.