Auto-attack. Why?

[bilbous]

Before I get a little off topic I'd like to respond to something posted while i crafted this post:

The problem we are actually running into is one of players being selfish and camping spawn for hours and hours and not giving other players a chance.

Right now you can have either a non-aggressive MOB, or an agressive MOB. There are no other options that I can see. Dynamic spawns will fix the problem, great so there is no reason for me to go about insulting other players or flaming them in game or on the board for this.

If someone is stand there waiting for auto-attack to kick in not watching what is happening you always have the opportunity to manually attack the monster before it engages its target. I for one have no qualms about killing something that someone is just standing and waiting for. If they complain I may stop for a bit but if they go back to zombie mode that is their problem

Well I do have one more thing to say about this. I was doing this one time on the bluffs I mentioned while mining with a character on another account in a different window, switching back and forth to loot the bandit or move if I got some iron. Then I got paged by a GM who was trying to find out if I was actually monitoring my fighting character because he saw, somehow, from out of visual range that my attacks were pretty regularly timed. I informed him that yes I was indeed there and that I was mining with another character. He informed me that it is against the rules to control 2  or more characters at the same time and as well that he would have kicked me from the server if I had not responded to his tell. So this post is in the way of saying that the GM's are aware of this and will take action when they see it.

A corrollory to this post is that from what I can tell there are a large number long time experienced players who continuously cheat by running multiple characters simultaneously. Some do it by having a mining character that go out and comes back to supply their crafting character, some do it by camping one or more monster spawns and it wouldn't suprise me to discover that some do it to fill out their Role Play because they can't find enough real people interested in their stories.

I do try to abide by the rules and haven't been playing much lately ... although last night when I was trying to stack with another kran, I had a second character to look to see that they lined up. It is pretty hard to stack characters as the Kran I was trying to stack with was a half step out of sync with me. I got left-right ok but could not get forward-back to line up. Perhaps this could be a challenge to people: How many characters can you stack in such a way as they look like one character, aside from the name banner of course. I suppose that would be too OOC to be an officially acceptable passtime.

[eldoth_terevan]

Thanks, Bilbous for bringing up those points about attack. The MOBs are for all all nobody owns them. If you see another player hogging a MOB and they are away: Take it and keep taking it. Ah, but now another can of worms has been opened. *smile* And before everyone starts going off about multiple clients, I just want to put my two cents in and say that disallowing multiple instances of a client from the same IP should be easy to do by tweaking the server, and is another thing that does not require hours of lengthy posting. But the really important thing here is... what does the 'encrusted Ulbernaut' bit on your description (just PM me) mean?

[neko kyouran]

Preventing one account per log in to one IP address doesn't work though.  I can say first hand that I know quite a few people that they and say thier duaghter or hubby, or brother, etc, also play PS.  It wouldn't be right to only allow one person to use an IP adress at a time.  Then the brother/sister that wants to play together never would be able to, unless one moved out, or at least went to a differnet area. 

[eldoth_terevan]

Exactly, Neko. How about disallowing it based on MAC hardware number on the NIC, then? Is that detectable from the server side? Anyone? (getting a bit OT here, sorry Karyuu)

[bilbous]

But the really important thing here is... what does the 'encrusted Ulbernaut' bit on your description (just PM me) mean?

You will have to ask me next time you see me in game. It has to do with an alternate (read unofficial) theory of the origins of kran that I have developed over the course of my time in PS. Why I was expounding upon it just last night. It is a tall tale that keeps getting taller everytime it is retold. I believe you might even find a short version in the kran origin thread on these forums.

On topic ... regarding the MAC address it doesn't help if there is a hardware firewall with multiple computers behind it. About the only thing you can do is lock some required file so that multiple instances will not run on the same machine. It may not work with all OS though and does nothing about people with morre than one computer
.

[eldoth_terevan]

You both are absolutely correct about the IP and hardware addresses and multiple computers! So: How do we define this situation as 'cheating' then? And what behavior by the player defines the situation as cheating? (this is really directed at the moderators, thank you if anyone has a moment to post about this)

[Easton]

Sheesh...

@Peacer: i specifically said i do NOT consider it cheating. just a clarification.

I do, however, think it is a flaw in the game mechanic. I agree that dynamic spawns would solve this problem. Are there plans for this in PS's future?

Another point: If people have the definite abiliity to do something that just might be considered cheating by using a game mechanic, then we might as well search for ideas to tweak the game mechanic to prevent cheating, or misuse, or whatever you'd like to call it. Either way its the same thing to me, and i think it has no place in PS.

Easton

[Under the moon]

Hold up, folks. Sorry to go off topic, but where does it say that you can not go online with more than one character at once?

[Robinmagus]

it's not a bug and i find it a quite realistic game mechanic that the character hits back if someone hits them, unless you are a ghandi type

That's gold. I don't see how clicking like a bot is any better than just lettin the creature do it for you. But I guess it is an exploit...

[eldoth_terevan]

Actually, UtM there is nothing posted in the Cheating section of the players guide that lists it specifically. However, other characters have told me recently that GMs have been saying this is cheating. And in some cases, just bringing this up in conversation causes everybody to start yelling about cheating. The only reason that I bring it up here is because I dislike knee-jerk responses that involve unfounded allegations, not that I have ever seen any evidence of the team being unreasonable about issues like this. So it came up here, and I wished to post something hoping that the issue would be clarified further. Under the law, silence is equal to consent.

[Karyuu]

"Cheating" can be too strong of a word sometimes. If you have two characters for example and are helping one "level" the other, we're going to ask you to quit doing that. If you have two of your characters standing at one spawn, with one killing and the other for storing loot, we're going to ask you to get rid of one of them, unless you're actively roleplaying with both and we see that very clearly. Your characters are characters and not tools.

[eldoth_terevan]

Thank you Karyuu for a charming response. That is what I expected. And it is reasonable to ask for that. I personally have other characters who are friends in game that are dependable for holding items. I think that friends would be the best way to do this. And I shall. Ohh, but the roleplay possibilities with two clients are neat, aren't they? My computer does not handle it well anyway, and I think this is a burden on most people's machines which is why most players would call this cheating and get kinda angry.

[Under the moon]

It is not a burden with your settings set just right, and you know how to do it.

And I beg to differ about characters not being tools. To me, the life you create for them is the sculpture, and they are the impliments to carve it. In that way, they are tools. If you use them for anything other than that, like the helping to level example, then you are missusing your tools.

It is commonly known that I play with at least two characters at once on a regular basis. Sometimes I do it just to fill the tavern on a quiet night.

But this is getting off topic. Perhaps someone should start a thread on muti-clienting?

[Croconil]

I agree with UTM. You characters in PS ARE your tools. And missusing them only gives you unsatisfactory results, ie. Being kicked from the server etc.

But this is getting off topic. Perhaps someone should start a thread on muti-clienting?

http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=25815.new#new

[Shangreloo]

Not all GM's are calling it cheating when a player sits at an NPC while AFK.. sometmes for hours.

I recently asked a GM about this and was told that I can "compete" with the other player since NPC's are not owned.  While I agree that NPC's are not owned, I will argue that it is difficult, if not impossible, to compete with an AFK player who is camped in the NPC's "sweet spot".

eldoth_terevan, you say, "The MOBs are for all all nobody owns them. If you see another player hogging a MOB and they are away: Take it and keep taking it."  It's not always that simple, though I wish it were.  It's been my experience that an NPC will always go after the character in the sweet spot regardless of efforts to try to lure it away from a player camped in the sweet spot. This brings up an interesting topic related to camping by players who are sleeping, at lunch, school, etc: Why have a "sweet spot" at all?

Eliminating the "sweet spots" would elminate much of the problems associated with AFK campers.