AFK Rare Gathering Not Era-Accurate

[Light Shade]

While I agree that this is an issue we should be working on mainly for mechanical accuracy reasons, I would like to note that collecting rares is not defined as AFK resource gathering. They cannot be sold to a vendor, nor can they be crafted once gathered and sold in the same way. The only thing that these items enable is the transfer of wealth between players, which is strictly controlled by the desire and willingness of players to pay for such items.

Simpley put, if you can make millions while you are sleeping and some other player sat there and camped that spot and lost to an AFK BOT, something is wrong.

Regardless of this shard's policy decision that is inconsistent with Era Accuracy on several levels, this is simply pathetic and wrong.

You are quite literally punishing people for actually playing the game.

Poor Form.

[Stranger]

No offense but, never saw you complain about it until your guide on how to do it was made public, and you no longer had all the spoils to yourself. It would have been in the best interest of the shard for you not to have farmed those massive amounts of rares using said methods. I find it a bit ironic that you have exploited this method for quite sometime, but now that its out for everyone to use you no longer want it to be allowed.

If you knew better, you would know that I stopped going for the rares well over a month before that guide was leaked.

After it was leaked, I did hope that people would see how broken the system was and it would get fixed. Unfortunately, people saw how broken the system was and hoped to exploit it.

As many can attest to, I continually hand out these rares at events for prizes.

Let's keep this thread on track, though, as this has nothing to do with the actual policy decisions and era accuracy.

-L/S

I disagree, I believe it has a lot to do with actual policy decisions and era accuracy. I am not accusing you of doing this but lets say perhaps a less savory character were in your position, and had a massive stash of these rares, and in the best interest of only himself, were trying to persuade policy and era accuracy so that his massive stash of easily obtained rares would once more become rare and he wouldnt have just a huge hoard of worthless pixles. Not accusing you of this, simply stating that there are people who would do this. So questioning motives has a huge place in this discussion in my opinion.

[Light Shade]

I disagree, I believe it has a lot to do with actual policy decisions and era accuracy. I am not accusing you of doing this but lets say perhaps a less savory character were in your position, and had a massive stash of these rares, and in the best interest of only himself, were trying to persuade policy and era accuracy so that his massive stash of easily obtained rares would once more become rare and he wouldnt have just a huge hoard of worthless pixles. Not accusing you of this, simply stating that there are people who would do this. So questioning motives has a huge place in this discussion in my opinion.

This has happened countless times on this server. In the end, is it accurate and good for the server overall?

[Stranger]

I disagree, I believe it has a lot to do with actual policy decisions and era accuracy. I am not accusing you of doing this but lets say perhaps a less savory character were in your position, and had a massive stash of these rares, and in the best interest of only himself, were trying to persuade policy and era accuracy so that his massive stash of easily obtained rares would once more become rare and he wouldnt have just a huge hoard of worthless pixles. Not accusing you of this, simply stating that there are people who would do this. So questioning motives has a huge place in this discussion in my opinion.

This has happened countless times on this server. In the end, is it accurate and good for the server overall?

I do agree with you that this is definatly bad for business. However, I also think there are other things that are worse for the shard, such as the current stable situation. But that is for another topic I suspose.

[Kaivan]

Regardless of this shard's policy decision that is inconsistent with Era Accuracy on several levels, this is simply pathetic and wrong.

I am unsure why the discussion includes accuracy to era policy. We don't adhere to era policy for just about anything.

[GleepGlop]

This thread is a joke, it's amazing the lengths players will go to get what they want

[Light Shade]

This thread is a joke, it's amazing the lengths players will go to get what they want

You paged GM's daily about people doing this, but now that you know how to do it you're okay with it? Interesting change of heart.

I see what you truly care about.

[Light Shade]

Regardless of this shard's policy decision that is inconsistent with Era Accuracy on several levels, this is simply pathetic and wrong.

I am unsure why the discussion includes accuracy to era policy. We don't adhere to era policy for just about anything.

This was not able to be done in Era. Therefore, people doing it is not Era Accurate. The shard has made a Policy Decision, that is contrary to the Era Accuracy. A simple policy decision could make this Era-Accurate as much as possible. It is a choice to not be Era Accurate in this regard.

When this Choice allows people to reap benefits by not actually playing the game, its a serious issue. It is not fair to those that actually play the game. To say that it is an item and not a resource is simply a cop out and is splitting hairs. People can continue to take that stance, but it is a weak argument at best.

It certainly reflects poorly on the shard to have a STATED POLICY that it is okay to AFK the game and make millions. Nevermind that you could not do this in Era, therefore making it not era accurate.

-L/S

[Kaivan]

Regardless of this shard's policy decision that is inconsistent with Era Accuracy on several levels, this is simply pathetic and wrong.

I am unsure why the discussion includes accuracy to era policy. We don't adhere to era policy for just about anything.

This was not able to be done in Era. Therefore, people doing it is not Era Accurate. The shard has made a Policy Decision, that is contrary to the Era Accuracy. A simple policy decision could make this Era-Accurate as much as possible. It is a choice to not be Era Accurate in this regard.

First, the entire reason this could not be done in era was due to mechanical reasons, not policy reasons. Secondly, there are a number of things that you can do on UOSA that were not allowed on OSI servers due to policy, or were not possible due to some other reason (faster computers, competently running more than one account, high speed internet for 95% of users, very complex macros, etc.).

When this Choice allows people to reap benefits by not actually playing the game, its a serious issue. It is not fair to those that actually play the game.

This argument could be made for anyone who doesn't macro their characters skills as well, or those who don't write the complex macros that some players write, yet we do not have policy against these actions.

To say that it is an item and not a resource is simply a cop out and is splitting hairs. People can continue to take that stance, but it is a weak argument at best.

I'm sorry that you feel this way, but there is no way of looking at these rares that would qualify them as resources. They do nothing except act as a means for players to exchange wealth, and that is purely based on player demand.

It certainly reflects poorly on the shard to have a STATED POLICY that it is okay to AFK the game and make millions. Nevermind that you could not do this in Era, therefore making it not era accurate.

See the responses above. There are many things that were not possible during the era that can occur now, and many of them allow you to make significant amounts of money that were not possible during the era.

[Light Shade]

This argument could be made for anyone who doesn't macro their characters skills as well, or those who don't write the complex macros that some players write, yet we do not have policy against these actions.

The shard chooses to not have this policy. As such, they are choosing to allow people to AFK a large portion of the game. Some of these choices are detrimental to players that actually play the game. The shard can choose to not allow this for everything except skill working and thereby get rid of this issue altogether. Setting AFK gathering of items that are in popular demand equal skill building is not a good analogy to begin with. You can't sell your 7x GM character.

I'm sorry that you feel this way, but there is no way of looking at these rares that would qualify them as resources. They do nothing except act as a means for players to exchange wealth, and that is purely based on player demand.

Whether they are resources or not is actually irrelevant, Kaivan. Its a broken policy that rewards players for AFK'ing the game. This is not good for the shard regardless of whether it is a resource or not. I understand that you are quoting back to me the policies of this shard. I understand perfectly well what the policy is. I'm saying that the policy is a bad decision on the shard's part and should be changed.

To say that it is simply an exchange of wealth is misleading. Sure, it passes money around, but it exchanges money from someone who actually worked for it to someone who did not. This is completely not an equitable comparison. Therein lies the problem. This policy decision on the shard's part rewards players for AFK'ing the game. This is just absurd. This policy needs to be changed.

See the responses above. There are many things that were not possible during the era that can occur now, and many of them allow you to make significant amounts of money that were not possible during the era.

The shard owners, through their own policies, allow this to be possible.

It is a choice on their part.

It is a poor choice.

-L/S

[Kaivan]

This argument could be made for anyone who doesn't macro their characters skills as well, or those who don't write the complex macros that some players write, yet we do not have policy against these actions.

The shard chooses to not have this policy. As such, they are choosing to allow people to AFK a large portion of the game. Some of these choices are detrimental to players that actually play the game. The shard can choose to not allow this for everything except skill working and thereby get rid of this issue altogether.

Why make an exception for players working their skills? The same argument holds as much water for player skills as it does for rares, which leads us to...

Setting AFK gathering of items that are in popular demand equal skill building is not a good analogy to begin with. You can't sell your 7x GM character.

You're right, but those rares can't PvM, they can't PvP, they can't PK, they can't craft, they can't (largely) enable you to build extra characters. These are all things that macroing a character AFK can do, which has a much larger effect on the game than rares.

I'm sorry that you feel this way, but there is no way of looking at these rares that would qualify them as resources. They do nothing except act as a means for players to exchange wealth, and that is purely based on player demand.

Whether they are resources or not is actually irrelevant, Kaivan. Its a broken policy that rewards players for AFK'ing the game. This is not good for the shard regardless of whether it is a resource or not. I understand that you are quoting back to me the policies of this shard. I understand perfectly well what the policy is. I'm saying that the policy is a bad decision on the shard's part and should be changed.

To say that it is simply an exchange of wealth is misleading. Sure, it passes money around, but it exchanges money from someone who actually worked for it to someone who did not. This is completely not an equitable comparison. Therein lies the problem. This policy decision on the shard's part rewards players for AFK'ing the game. This is just absurd. This policy needs to be changed.

There are numerous examples of players acquiring wealth as an exchange from other players, where the work of one player is far less than the work of the other (take the AFK macroed PK as a good example, or IDOC hunting using precise timing methods, or scamming, etc). You cannot argue one point without arguing the other.

See the responses above. There are many things that were not possible during the era that can occur now, and many of them allow you to make significant amounts of money that were not possible during the era.

The shard owners, through their own policies, allow this to be possible.

It is a choice on their part.

It is a poor choice.

We choose not to step into and police player interactions, regardless of how detrimental the action might seem for one party compared to the other (scamming, PKing, stealing, etc.). This creates several scenarios where players who are unwilling to play in the same way as another person will not reap the same rewards as that player, and that action is solely because of their own decisions. Rares are no different, as a rare is meaningless without another player to interact with. And before the argument is made, no, this does not include AFK resource gathering, as this produces an avenue whereby players can acquire money in an entirely non-interactive, automated, way via NPC vendors.

Finally, I find it somewhat silly that my comment that we are working on rares from an accuracy standpoint has been completely ignored. The fact is, we're working on this in some way, it just may not be to your liking.

[Light Shade]

You commented on me leaving out skill building. I left it out because its muckery at best and is drawing people away from the central premise of this topic. It is also the extreme end of the spectrum on the AFK topic. Furthermore, it is something that many people would rail against as it IS a different issue. The idea that it has to be an all or nothing blanket policy certainly isn't necessary at all. You keep trying to combine all these issues together and there's no need to. Doing so is just another choice.

Again, I understand that you're defending the shard's policy, Kaivan. It does not make the policy any less misguided.

It is not Era-Accurate to AFK Bot Rares.

Saying that, because we choose to let players AFK skill building, that its okay to AFK everything else is not a good argument and never has been...ever.

If it was, this discussion would not pop up routinely and it would just go away. Alas, this issue has been brought up several times over the years.

Simply put, the policy of AFK'ing everything in the game is a bad policy. A lot of the AFK'ing of everything in this game needs to be done away with. Rares is a very obvious one.

[kuki]

You keep trying to combine all these issues together and there's no need to.

I think the fact that staff are trying to be conceptually consistent when they make policy is a good thing. When they consider making a rule, they often weight it against other rules, to see if they all make sense together, or if they contradict each other in principle. We do need that, don't we?

[Stranger]

Lightshade the fact that you are fighting this so hard, rather then championing many other more worthy causes leads me more believe the motives I stated in my first posts. The entire reason that we are in this mess is because of a guide YOU wrote that leaked. Before then you had the monopoly on rares. If in fact you believed this harmed the shard then you showed that you really didnt care as long as YOU profited from that harm. Then when this method became public and everyone was able to do this you became the man to champion this cause. That still does not sit right with me at all. Personally, I would rather the market become saturated to the point that these rares are nearly worthless so that you may no longer profit from whatever stockpile you may have, then see them rise in value after this method is made illegal.

[Light Shade]

Lightshade the fact that you are fighting this so hard, rather then championing many other more worthy causes leads me more believe the motives I stated in my first posts. The entire reason that we are in this mess is because of a guide YOU wrote that leaked. Before then you had the monopoly on rares. If in fact you believed this harmed the shard then you showed that you really didnt care as long as YOU profited from that harm. Then when this method became public and everyone was able to do this you became the man to champion this cause. That still does not sit right with me at all. Personally, I would rather the market become saturated to the point that these rares are nearly worthless so that you may no longer profit from whatever stockpile you may have, then see them rise in value after this method is made illegal.

This is simply not true. There are several other things i've been going after such as stables, AFK in general, and De-Syncing to name a few...

Example: AFK Reagent Buying

Not only did I inform you of this via a PM that you responded to before you made this post, but there are countles posts throughout the discussion forums that completely debunk what you just said. The fact that you still made this post after I was polite enough to PM you and explain it to you tells me that you've got your own agenda. Please do your homework before making assumptions.

I give most of what I have away to new players, events, setting up public rune libraries, and to help out with guilds... If you're going to attack me, at least have the smallest modicom of knowledge or fact to back it up instead of making these assumptions. Just last week I donated a bag of nice rares for the events and many of the people in the smaller events will tell you that I gave them something, too. Shortly before that I sold some rares so that I could afford to place a tower for the guild of the Dungeon Guards (because I don't actually have millions laying around like some think). Before that I sold a couple rares so that I could afford to help setup the Dungeon Guards with their own Rune Library...not to mention donating several for their library. Before I ever even hunted a single rare, I spent every last penny I had buying a keep and a tower on the Vesper Beach, and helping to buy the other keep, for the guild C^V...the same buildings that were used to host a Week of Events this past week. I'm sorry, Sir, but you have no idea what you're talking about.

Regardless, your comments are completely irrelevant to the issue. Era Accuracy is the issue. This is not Era Accurate.