Idle Status

[Kieve]

(If this has been asked previously, I apologize - ran several searches based on "idle" and associated keywords, and came up dry)

...So, after playing for a couple hours, who suddenly finds they need to run to the bathroom? Get a sandwich, or beverage? Let a pet in/outside...? And then comes back to find a list of messages from someone who came up to your character, tried to interact, and didn't know you were afk? Or a bunch of /tells from friends who missed your [brb]?

Wouldn't it be nice to have something like an /idle function?
A little command to tie into your shortcuts - tap a key, your char is suddenly AFK. Possibly an /idlemessage ["...."] to auto-reply when you're off doing real-life stuff? Perhaps a small indicator in the char description ("User is Away/Idle" or for a more IC approach "[Name] does not seem to be paying attention to anything at the moment.") and/or an icon over the character (a little clock symbol? - I like the idea of an indicator, but this one might be obtrusive, especially in public areas).

To sum up:
-function to toggle "idle" status on/off
-ability to set idle message/autoresponse
-indicator in desc (IC or OOC?)
-visual indicator over character...?

Just something to tell the active players from those who said "BRB" ten, fifteen, or thirty minutes ago... 

[Farren Kutter]

I like this idea, maybe something small that can be seen without player interaction as many people will forget to look and such. But I go afk a lot when no one is around me and I come back and see people having tried to Rp with me (mostly Kaerli's usual seeking me out and trying to converse with me...) and I miss it and it makes me sad sometimes, especially if they've left.

[Kieve]

Hm... well, the system currently detects your name being spoken (makes the message change color and the tab flash differently)... it should be possible to use that to auto-reply with a /tell message. Obviously, you wouldn't want an auto-reply on the main channel - that's just clutter.

But yeah, I'm sad when I miss people too. Or when they miss me, which is more often.

[neko kyouran]

last I checked, /away did mostly what you describe oter than put a notifying "away" above your char's head signaling to other players that you were away.

[Farren Kutter]

Yeah, but half the time nobody /tells you I put an /away message and most times I come back and see tons fo blue in main and got nothing in tells.

[neko kyouran]

hence the reason why it would be nice that /away did put an "away" sign above ones head.  visuals are nice

[Why Not?]

And why not just logging off? Since the game take 10 sec to be launched.
And this way ppl know your away ...

[Farren Kutter]

Well then you REALLY miss stuff, and it takes more than ten seconds :/

[bilbous]

Perhaps better would be sleeping animations so you could just lie down and be obviously unaware. The death poses could be pressed into double duty. Something like /sleep zzzZZZzzz would enable snoring chat bubbles. Stat recovery could be enhanced further from sitting while asleep.

[Kieve]

Why Not: Because not everyone loads as rapidly as you, because you might be waiting for someone to come online (and wouldn't it bite if you happened to be logged off at the time?), and mostly because closing and reopening is a huge inconvinience ESPECIALLY when the psclient has a tendancy to lurk around in your processes until you manually open the task manager to shut it down. If it works for you, great, but simply closing the client is not what I'd call an acceptable alternative for a five-minute run to the latrine.

Neko: I must've overlooked the /away function - I was looking for something that specifically said 'idle' when I scanned the commands list..
...Still, that doesn't mean it can't be improved upon, right?

bilbous: That would be FANTASTIC. And not just for idle purposes.

[Marqsaynt]

I'm more with Why Not? on this one. If you're going to be away 20 or 30+ minutes just log the heck off. I cringe when I picture a game where people just keep their characters logged on 24/7 just so they don't "really" miss anything that's going on. Actually if you think about it, you're still missing the stuff that goes on when you are AFK... it just seems worse because you know what or who you are missing.

Plus, in a weird way I think having some kind of auto AFK message appear visually after 10 or 15 minutes of seeming inactivity could in fact hinder RP. Just because my character is sitting in a chair for 10 minutes and hasn't said a word doesn't mean I'm AFK, In fact 9 times out of 10 it just means I'm writing/reading an IG book or still there but just using the lull in RP to multi-task, or in some (in Marq's case rare) moments, my characters just don't have anything to say.

Now, if someone walked into the tavern, saw my character sitting in a chair with some big glowing AFK symbol, then that other person is most likely not going to interact with my character at all which, means a perfectly good RP opportunity was missed.

I say, leave the auto AFK visuals in the WoW auction houses... use /away for short periods of AFK-ness and just log off for the longer ones... You can always log back on when you come back you know.

(heh, more posts while I was typing)

I do like Bilbous' idea a lot though, just as long as nothing is automatically deciding I'm not there and sleep animations could be used to enhance RP a good amount... Though I get the feeling that if/when that feature is added Yliakum will look like it's inhabited by a bunch of narcoleptic citizens.

[Kieve]

Heh, Marqsaynt, under those circumstances I agree with you. Half-hour or more? By all means, shut it down. I'm saying for a five-minute hop or a ten-minute food break, or some other small task, it's more trouble than it's worth to kill the client and relog.

And no, what I'm suggesting is NOT a timer for inactivity. I'm sure some people might like such a feature, but I'm not one of them. My proposal here is to set an /away manually (toggle on/off), being able to set an away message via tell to anyone who /tells you (or, potentially, anyone who speaks your name in Main), and as an indicator in your personal description, probably just above "You estimate [name]'s strength..."
You'll note I was already iffy about a visual AFK, but I do think it'd be good for players who take the time to read about you to know you're not currently operating your character.

[Marqsaynt]

You can actually have an away message sent to anyone that sends you a /tell already. For example, can do something like "/away [AFK a few, back in 5]" or something and anyone that sends you a tell before you turn off the away feature will get what you set as an auto reply.

I'm really liking the idea you mentioned about having the /away feature maybe adding a line to your character's description window. So, lets say you type "/away [Back in 10 minutes]" that same message could appear at the bottom of your description window when someone clicks on it. I for one wouldn't mind seeing something like that added. 

[Kieve]

Hrm, /away does that now? ...did not know that.
If there's a way to toggle it on/off (like /sit - /stand is tied to the z key), that would be even better.

[Marqsaynt]

hehe, as long as I can remember /away has always worked like that.

As far as having it tied to a key, seems to me a person could probably already just create a custom shortcut with "/away [brb]" and assign it to a whatever key they wanted. Would have to try it out but, pretty sure /away typed a second time, regardless of any message after it will still turn off/on the /away feature. Worth a shot at least.

Edit: I was wrong, if there is anything typed after the /away command it treats it only as a setting to "on." So, would have to be mapped to two keys, one for turning it on with a message and one for turning it back off.