Automatic afk-kick?

[Motte]

Hi there,
After some recent things Ive seen on different servers, various reports about afk-ing people on servers and recalling some other online games, I thought I'd propose/ask for something like an automatic kicking from servers due to inactivity. In another game I have played long ago, you would just get kicked out of the game for not doing anything else than standing somewhere for 30 minutes. Of course, NI is a way more fast-paced game, so 30 minutes would be quite a lot, rather too much time to give. Main motivation: Everybody hates leeches, and players who go afk for a longer period of time are taking a slot in the game, that could have been used by an active player - and be it a level 52 with a barrel or a tome, that character is worth nothing when noone is actually controlling it, so Id even prefer a redshirt in the game on hardmode over a statue.

Anyway, what about something like this: Someone leaves his/her character, not doing anything but hiding behind a heavy cade or just standing in the open field would be automatically kicked off the server after 3 minutes time. I think 3 minutes are enough time to handle little urgent tasks (fetching another bottle of water, answering a short phone call, getting your clothes out of the washing machine.. stuff like that), but anything other than that (things I have heared so far, so dont blame me for irrealistic suggestions ;-) ) suprise visitors, emergency within the family, longer and important phone call would not let you join the game after 3 minutes time, anyway. And I cannot imagine that someone would (be allowed to) be mad when his/her character would be kicked, after leaving the house.

Only problem I - with my absolutelly limited knowledge and skill about/in programming and the like - stumbled upon is the difference between alive players and dead ones or even specators. Could a programm tell them from each other so that this "rule" would only apply to alive players?

[Kwal]

I love leeches :O they do miracles in medical care

Anyway I highly doubt this would be moddable, but if it is, it could cause a problem with shielders. Best option is to alt-tab, jump on IRC and ask an admin to kick them. I rarely see people doing this but it is easy and there's usually an (un)willing admin available.

[Senni]

This is why we recently got 4 more EU admins .

[clickeverywhere]

At the very least, I think there should be an automatic spectator kick.

[Bas]

it could cause a problem with shielders

Are there Shielders, who go afk for 3 whole minutes  :o.
I mean the shield can break.

[clickeverywhere]

Not when you're using royal shields on the first 4 waves of hard mode on Outskirts.

[Gashy]

This is why we recently got 4 more EU admins .

The problem is also quite prominent on the NA servers too.

Also to Motte, you can contact your friendly neighborhood admins using the IRC freenode.net
The on-duty staff members should be able to be reached easily through these means 

[Motte]

I am not saying nor do I want to imply that all our admins are incompetent with the following, but they are only humans after all, with all strenghts and weaknesses. And sometimes humans tend to prefer people they like share things with, like a house. Best example: Reports of well known players or players in well respected houses. If you see a usual player, like f.e. brutus getting reported, even without pictures, they player gets warned in the end and also can completelly forget about his reputation, as everyone will consider him an evil afker. CC_Clair_Grube has been reported of lately, with a picture of being afk and what happens? "Well, she's in the open field, easy to hit. Closed" (a bit shorter than the original statement, I have to admit that), without further ado. Well, it might be true that afk-ing without a shield and without hiding is a bit unsafe and does not help leeching all that much, on the other hand it is still a person that takes up a slot that could have been taken by an active player, who fulfills a role and helps the team.
Yet another case I have seen was some player (DP_Gerhard) admitting that he was doing nothing but only waiting for jotnes and his chance of looting some scales (yes, I have a screen of that, but I dont know if posting it will do any good..). To my knowledge an admin (dont recall exactly who it was, should have taken a screen of that, too, you might say; true..) was online by that time, but nothing happened. Anyway, human beings tend to fail duty when it comes to some kind of affection involved in the case. Please note, I am not here to blame you for human behavior, after all these were some cases out of many, also none of you are being paid for helping organize servers, doing it all due to kindness and not selfish motivation or something like that. I am just saying that there might be a better way to deal with it. Or are you happy with "unpopular" players being punished the way every player should be punished and "popular" players getting away alot of stuff? Reminds me of the animal farm saying that starts with "All animals are equal, but some.....".

But as Tarimoth said on the report I was talking about in the upper part: We need to define a line to where it is ok to afk, as people going afk are an issue on almost every server. Once you define a line/rule, you also have to see to people following it (why else would you put a rule?!), so you need a motivation for people to abide the rule or a punishment for people bending/breaking it. Usually last mentioned will end up in reports, in which well known and friends-to-admin-people have an unfair advantage compared to people like brutus, who - and that was not only my impression - seems to be incapable of speaking or understanding english to full extent. Maybe he was not even afk all the time, just did wait for someone to tell him what to do in a way he understands rather than doing something wrong (and you all know that some people tend to rip people apart for smallest mistakes..).
An auto-kick-function would solve that problem: No more reports necessary, no more human failure possible. No feelings, no preferation, but cold facts - f.e. 3 minutes not chatting, moving, fighting and youre out. No more severe punishment for afking, no more fully crowded servers, where only half of the players fulfill active roles, no more frustrated people waiting for their chance to join a good fight on mountain pass or the like and no more idiots saying "Afk for 10 minutes" right before Thor-wave (happens more often than you might think..).
Of course, this would not solve the leeching-problem as long as they move their mouse a bit any 179 seconds, but as you already said: We got admins for that kind of stuff, whereas issues where objective data is at hand, could just as well be processed by a machine.

@Kwal: I dont see any problems when it comes to shielders. Ive been shielder for quite a while before I switched my main char with an alt and in my oppinion a shielder that just stands there, is doing something wrong. Given the fact that youre not really moving, attacking, healing etc., you got lots of time to type messages, thus being abled to coordinate the team, tell them about flanking enemies, adjust slashers and the like. Also - again, personal oppinion - a GOOD shielder would never leave his character just standing there, thinking "I got a royal shield, what is gonna happen to me?!". As soon as your shield breaks, the whole team is likely to be killed which is why you should always have an eye on the situation at hand so you can react.

[_Sophie_]

I give you a phew reasons why I do not support it.

1. People will rage on that system after a while.
2. Script (=More work for Dev's (= Dev's are busy in real life))

That aren't a lot reasons but that the most common reasons.

[Motte]

1. People should not play when theyre up to other stuff then and should see that the only entity they should be angry at are themselves, for going afk in the first place. You do not HAVE to go afk, you know? Its all your own fault when you do and people have to face their own responsibilities, not go and blame it on a system, admins or other players. Ive got no compassion at all for people who - as in the example - say "Afk for 10 minutes." when facing a pretty tough boss and are being kicked, causing them to be angry. Let the dimwits rage, I say..
2. Well, ANYTHING posted in here as a feature request or proposal is more possible work for the devs, duh. I have not seen you going into other proposal quests saying "No, bad idea, it means more work for devs.", sorry. Moreover, Id like to emphasize the part in my first post where I said that Ive got no clue about programming, so if a dev told me "Sorry, this idea would blow all other scripts up/means so much programming that we could hardly do anything else anymore" Id be completelly fine with that; this is just an idea to take into consideration, not an order.
On the other hand, just something to think about for a while: Handling afk-reports does also consume time off our devs in their role as people who uphold the rules here. Comparing the possible amount of afk reports (->infinite) with the time it may take to write a script as proposed (-> maybe alot of time, maybe little time) actually leaves you with the impression, that the script may take future work off them, because they had one problem less to care about.