Let's go orange when away.

[Vakachehk]

In you're buddy list, I think we should go Orange (instead of staying Green) when we do the /away [message] command.

To add to this what about automatically going 'away' or 'orange' when you have not moved or done any commands?

I also dunno if this has already been discussed 

[novacadian]

The /away command can be used for other reasons than being away from the screen. For a long while my character would respond to tells with the /away message "For more game immersion tells are ignored unless used as whispers when in the same proximity of the character."

Used in this way having the character shown as orange would give the wrong impression.

- Nova

Edit : Changed red to orange.

[potare]

 I thought he said that it should be orange not red

[Vakachehk]

The /away command can be used for other reasons than being away from the screen. For a long while my character would respond to tells with the /away message "For more game immersion tells are ignored unless used as whispers when in the same proximity of the character."

Used in this way having the character shown as red would give the wrong impression.

- Nova

Interesting... I haven't came across someone who wouldn't use whispers for OOC use, I do know a few who use brackets though, but not to the point of setting themselves as 'away'. But that to me sounds a bit ridiculous.

[novacadian]

 Yes, no question that PS has more player to player OOC socializing going on than RPing. It was, perhaps, more than a bit ridiculous for me to see it otherwise for so long.

- Nova

[Sangwa]

It's healthy for a RP game to have more player to player interaction than RPed script. A socialize-able community is a happy community and it assures everyone that the players do not live in the fairy world.

The topic's idea is pretty good. I'd extend it to changing the label or tag or whatever you call the words above the characters. I'd also add an option to make it so characters who do not move or interact for 5 minutes are automatically set as afk, so other players don't waste time (emphasis on being optional).

[Earowo]

the automatic afk, wouldnt be the best thing, some people stand around for good reasons...a merchant stands or sits in one spot, waiting for people wanting his merchandise, others might be roleplaying sleeping or injury...point is, make automatic afk, disableable.

[neko kyouran]

automatic afk takes more into consideration than just movement.  clicks of the gui, the mouse moving around, typing in a chat frame, etc., etc.

if the client determines that there is no one at the computer for an X amount of time, it should auto make them AFK, and anyone that messages them should get some type of automatic response back if the user did not set one manually as well as indication on their buddy list that they are afk atm as well.

these are standards put in place by the past leading MMO projects, and just about everyone playing MMOs nowadays expects this functionality in any MMO developed henceforth.

[Sangwa]

I wrote "emphasis on being optional" and I wrote "move or interact". So I guess we all agree!

[verden]

There is also the consideration that this status data is not pushed to the client right now. You have to ping someone to get the response that they are AFK. There isn't any data that gets sent back other than the text AFK message. So I'm guessing that the client would have to ping all online friends on the list, and get some sort of response back to tell it to then change the color to orange. I'll take a long shot here and bet that this functionality wasn't added for considerations of load and bandwidth.

[RlyDontKnow]

not exactly true, anyway, there's no such thing as a OOC state atm - i.e. as you did outline: the server doesn't know whether a client is afk at all.

what does this mean? to get this done there'd be the need to first add all the infrastructure needed to keep track of some sort of client status (away being an example here, others could include "looking for rp", "busy", ... - sorta like an IM status) with everything that is needed for such a thing. i.e. some way for the client to set it's status, telling the server about it, keeping track of it on the server side, notfying others if required, ...

[Vakachehk]

what does this mean? to get this done there'd be the need to first add all the infrastructure needed to keep track of some sort of client status (away being an example here, others could include "looking for rp", "busy", ... - sorta like an IM status)

I like the "looking for RP" and "Busy". Different colours would mean different things. To make it easier for players to understand what the different colours means, when you place the mouse over top of the player name in buddy list it won't show the player's name but what the status means.

@Verden - Other way around, the client realises nothing is happening with the mouse being moved, or anything with the GUI or probably even when PS is minus down for a minute. When that happens it will send an automatic AFK/Away to the server changing the status of that player on the buddy list

[verden]

In any case, I'm all for it. But it needs to be engineered into the code. It probably should be.

[Tessra]

I really like this idea.  Like, really, really like this idea.

[novacadian]

if the client determines that there is no one at the computer for an X amount of time, it should auto make them AFK, and anyone that messages them should get some type of automatic response back if the user did not set one manually as well as indication on their buddy list that they are afk atm as well.

That sounds a lot more robust than just turning them orange on the buddy list if they happen to be using the /away feature. It seems much less trivial, though, to put into place.

- Nova