Guild Wars 2

Please. Even in the thread where a Dev made a statement it came out vague. In that thread, and others, people are insisting that his first statement means that AFK farming is not only legal, but “as intended”. They ignore the second statement.

People are insisting it is legal. Word is getting around I guess, I am now seeing groups of them in Frostgorge in certain spots. Immobile for hours, heal on the cooldown timer (enemy around or not), killing and mastery looting.

Please make a CLEAR statement. Please, and not hide this in a merged thread.

In the arctodus area by the Claw event. All over, some in the open, the groups generally hide down by the Den Mother Vet. They avoid the Grawl patrol area and Troll area. I’m assuming they want Blood and mastery EXP.

I think the problem is if they made a statement then they would actually have to look into cases that people report which means less people to make gem store stuff to make them money. So it could be however much they are making =/= worth the effort into investigating each report.

The staff that checks support tickets isn’t the same staff who develops the game. Or at least it shouldn’t be!

Okay, first of all I would like it if people making these kinds of “requests” would stop using that term.

Of course it is “legal” for them to be AFK farming, because if it were in fact illegal for them to do so then that would mean that there is a real penalty consisting of a fine and/or imprisonment by their local or federal law enforcement agency. Are you implying that you think these people should be arrested and face a fine or jail time? Are you saying that they do in whatever government jurisdiction you reside in?

Seriously, please stop using it as a way to describe action within the environment of a video game that you feel is a violation of the acceptable way of playing said game.

They also shouldn’t promise content that they can’t deliver but that’s a different subject all together. Maybe they have some dedicated support and then some that bounce between support and game development time. Then they can pay 1 person to do 2 jobs which may appeal to a company that doesn’t have enough people.

Necrotic.7820:

Okay, first of all I would like it if people making these kinds of “requests” would stop using that term.

Of course it is “legal” for them to be AFK farming, because if it were in fact illegal for them to do so then that would mean that there is a real penalty consisting of a fine and/or imprisonment by their local or federal law enforcement agency. Are you implying that you think these people should be arrested and face a fine or jail time? Are you saying that they do in whatever government jurisdiction you reside in?

Seriously, please stop using it as a way to describe action within the environment of a video game that you feel is a violation of the acceptable way of playing said game.

Fun Fact: The license to use the game’s software is contingent on your following the Acceptable Use Policy, in other words ‘the rules’. If you play the game in violation of the rules you violate the game’s license. If you play the game in violation of the license you are breaking copyright law. That means it is, in fact, illegal to break the rules in the game.

Necrotic.7820:

Okay, first of all I would like it if people making these kinds of “requests” would stop using that term.

Of course it is “legal” for them to be AFK farming, because if it were in fact illegal for them to do so then that would mean that there is a real penalty consisting of a fine and/or imprisonment by their local or federal law enforcement agency. Are you implying that you think these people should be arrested and face a fine or jail time? Are you saying that they do in whatever government jurisdiction you reside in?

Seriously, please stop using it as a way to describe action within the environment of a video game that you feel is a violation of the acceptable way of playing said game.

Break a TOS and the real life consequence is denied access to service. It is a form of “Legal” agreement, but I am sorry I so obviously triggered you by using the word.

Where did you get the outlandish opinion that I am advocating for arrest/jail time?

And FYI, since I can be “Legally” denied service by over-reporting people I would like to know if this is indeed “allowable” under the TOS and not simply a form of Botting. Is that ok with you? I would feel bad if I somehow triggered you again.

Also, I want to know “exactly” how ANET feels about it, since it isn’t my call to define the TOS or “an acceptable way of playing”. Or yours.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Please. Even in the thread where a Dev made a statement it came out vague. In that thread, and others, people are insisting that his first statement means that AFK farming is not only legal, but “as intended”. They ignore the second statement.

People are insisting it is legal. Word is getting around I guess, I am now seeing groups of them in Frostgorge in certain spots. Immobile for hours, heal on the cooldown timer (enemy around or not), killing and mastery looting.

Please make a CLEAR statement. Please, and not hide this in a merged thread.

They made a clear statement. People will misinterpret any- and everything ANet says to suit their agenda. If you see people AFK farming, report them and let ANet sort it out. If they see an epidemic, they’ll take further action, like creating a blog post.

Firelizard do you have case law to support your claim? Breaking the rules is not breaking the law. Do you honestly believe you can be prosecuted for violation of a TOS in a game by not playing it properly? What sort of penalty do you expect? Would this go on your record? Can you be denied employment over this? Heck they don’t even permanently ban botters, what makes you think this would result in legal action? By legal action I mean you receiving a summons or being arrested.

Tsavo I understand you are just wanting clarification on it and I am all for that but I am just trying to encourage people to stop over dramatizing things that are …“play how you want” issues.

Also I kinda feel that if you are worried about “abusing” the reporting system then maybe it’s not really as big an issue as you are trying to make it out to be.

Edit: Just to help make my point, this link: http://www.techspot.com/news/48161-violating-a-terms-of-service-agreement-is-not-criminal-federal-court-says.html

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

They made a clear statement. People will misinterpret any- and everything ANet says to suit their agenda. If you see people AFK farming, report them and let ANet sort it out. If they see an epidemic, they’ll take further action, like creating a blog post.

If they had made a clear statement people would not disagree about the legality of the farm.
When many people ( not only one or two) read the same official answer and they understand something opposite, then there is a problem with the official answer.

Robles.7458:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

They made a clear statement. People will misinterpret any- and everything ANet says to suit their agenda. If you see people AFK farming, report them and let ANet sort it out. If they see an epidemic, they’ll take further action, like creating a blog post.

If they had made a clear statement people would not disagree about the legality of the farm.
When many people ( not only one or two) read the same official answer and they understand something opposite, then there is a problem with the official answer.

I dunno, it seems to me that they are waiting to see if it becomes a problem before deciding that action needs to be taken. That seems reasonable to me. Kinda like the Queensdale champ train.

Screenshots or it did not happen. thanks

Robles.7458:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

They made a clear statement. People will misinterpret any- and everything ANet says to suit their agenda. If you see people AFK farming, report them and let ANet sort it out. If they see an epidemic, they’ll take further action, like creating a blog post.

If they had made a clear statement people would not disagree about the legality of the farm.
When many people ( not only one or two) read the same official answer and they understand something opposite, then there is a problem with the official answer.

Or there’s a reason that people are choosing to believe otherwise. When my sibling tells their child, “you can’t use your phone during dinner,” the kid will text … explaining, “buh buh I’m not using the phone, I’m using the text program.”

Adults do the same thing. We believe what we like to believe and use other people’s words to justify that belief. When confronted with evidence that we’re wrong, we double down and make further justifications, based on misinterpretations, both deliberate and accidental.

ANet has said time & again: it’s not okay to exploit game mechanics, it’s not okay to play AFK. People don’t like that and look to comments by ANet staff that could be re-interpreted to offer exceptions.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter — ANet is never going to punish folks for every single breach of the TOS — it’s just too time consuming and not going to change human nature. Instead, they will go after egregious offenders (perhaps because they are blatant, because they do it for so many hours, and/or they brag about it) and occasionally after a bunch of people at once, to set an example.

I find that I personally have much more fun if I choose to not worry about all the people taking advantage of the game’s mechanics. I’ll /report those who are spoiling it for others and let ANet sort out what happens next.

tl;dr ANet will never be able to make it so clear that people won’t find a language loophole. They’ve made it as clear as needed for the majority of us to understand appropriate gaming. It’s up to us individually to decide how to behave (and how much we concern ourselves with those who choose to do otherwise).

Necrotic.7820:

Okay, first of all I would like it if people making these kinds of “requests” would stop using that term.

Of course it is “legal” for them to be AFK farming, because if it were in fact illegal for them to do so then that would mean that there is a real penalty consisting of a fine and/or imprisonment by their local or federal law enforcement agency. Are you implying that you think these people should be arrested and face a fine or jail time? Are you saying that they do in whatever government jurisdiction you reside in?

Seriously, please stop using it as a way to describe action within the environment of a video game that you feel is a violation of the acceptable way of playing said game.

Why are you asking people to stop using a word correctly?

Among the dictionary definitions of the word illegal are:

in violation of an official rule.
breaking the rules of a game.

Among the dictionary definitions of law is:

A binding custom or practice of a community.

So, breaking Anet’s rules (binding practice here, official, are the rules of a game) is illegal.

Being pedantic is one thing, being incorrect in one’s pedantry is something else entirely.

I’d say just start afk farming yourself until everyone is afking and nobody gets anything done then either the afkers will start playing again or everyone has determined that there’s no meaning to this game and leaves and then maybe anet will start caring

Ashen.2907:

Necrotic.7820:

Okay, first of all I would like it if people making these kinds of “requests” would stop using that term.

Of course it is “legal” for them to be AFK farming, because if it were in fact illegal for them to do so then that would mean that there is a real penalty consisting of a fine and/or imprisonment by their local or federal law enforcement agency. Are you implying that you think these people should be arrested and face a fine or jail time? Are you saying that they do in whatever government jurisdiction you reside in?

Seriously, please stop using it as a way to describe action within the environment of a video game that you feel is a violation of the acceptable way of playing said game.

Why are you asking people to stop using a word correctly?

Among the dictionary definitions of the word illegal are:

in violation of an official rule.
breaking the rules of a game.

---

Among the dictionary definitions of law is:

A binding custom or practice of a community.

---

So, breaking Anet’s rules (binding practice here, official, are the rules of a game) is illegal.

Being pedantic is one thing, being incorrect in one’s pedantry is something else entirely.

He’s just trying to drive the thread off topic.

As for the AFK farming issue, I would like it if Anet stepped in and made some changes, as it is getting out of hand, and, in the long run, having an effect on the economy.

I asked about this in my guild chat after spotting two MM necros in the Not So Secret JP that had been there for over 12 hours (I was struggling with the dive goggles so I had to come back the next day).

The response I got was mixed. One person told me to train mobs on them, another said there’s nothing wrong with it. A small argument ensued with no clear winner so it is indeed a controversial grey area.

I am personally against it. I think it’s currently allowed because it’s entirely handled by the mechanics the game provides.

They just need to change ONE thing to stop it, make the autocast skills not break the afk-timer. Then they can’t stay in game without a third party program, which would be cheating.

Easy fix tbh.

Esquilax.3491:

I asked about this in my guild chat after spotting two MM necros in the Not So Secret JP that had been there for over 12 hours (I was struggling with the dive goggles so I had to come back the next day).

The response I got was mixed. One person told me to train mobs on them, another said there’s nothing wrong with it. A small argument ensued with no clear winner so it is indeed a controversial grey area.

I am personally against it. I think it’s currently allowed because it’s entirely handled by the mechanics the game provides.

They just need to change ONE thing to stop it, make the autocast skills not break the afk-timer. Then they can’t stay in game without a third party program, which would be cheating.

Easy fix tbh.

It’s not only auto-cast, it’s the auto-loot mastery that is an issue, too, but how will that be handled? Will they remove it from the mastery line? We’ve already got a defunct legendary line (for the foreseeable future at least). That’s not gonna sit well.

Anyway, I agree with the OP, a clear statement is required, because we’re getting an influx of questions about the issue on a regular basis and the ANet posts on the issue here and here are not necessarily as clear as perhaps they were meant to be given the results:

This thread about 5 hours ago (which I posted in also asking for clarification and a sticky and/or merge).

This thread about 24 hours ago.

This thread about 3 days ago.

This thread about 12 days ago.

This thread about 23 days ago..

• edit- A new thread with a video included has been added to the forums (Wed. May 12th).

And… yet another thread added May 14th, asking for clarification after someone gets a suspension for AFK’ing, thinking it’s been okayed.

These threads are getting out of hand. The devs have already made a statement on this. Basically if it’s using the ingame system and nothing else then there’s not much they can do. That’s not a, yea ok go forth and afk farm quote by them. But more of a, we don’t agree with it, but we can’t penalise someone for using what we gave them in the game.

If every passive kill by a pet was punishable then we would have no Rangers around ever. These people don’t even make as much money than if you’re actually playing so I dunno why everyone is so up in arms about it. Play the game, have fun, make more than them by actually playing and occasionally draw mobs by them if they are bothering you that much ;3.

How can you call it afk farming when you don’t know if they are really afk? Just report them and move on.

Shinjiko.1352:

These threads are getting out of hand. The devs have already made a statement on this. Basically if it’s using the ingame system and nothing else then there’s not much they can do. That’s not a, yea ok go forth and afk farm quote by them. But more of a, we don’t agree with it, but we can’t penalise someone for using what we gave them in the game.

If every passive kill by a pet was punishable then we would have no Rangers around ever. These people don’t even make as much money than if you’re actually playing so I dunno why everyone is so up on arms about it. Play the game, have fun, make more than them by actually playing and occasionally draw mobs by them if they are bothering you that much ;3.

Then explain punishments for exploits? Just because the game lets you, doesn’t make it legal.

Whether ANet will do anything about it or not is the question for AFK farming.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

I am now seeing groups of them in Frostgorge in certain spots. Immobile for hours, heal on the cooldown timer (enemy around or not), killing and mastery looting.

How do you know they are there for hours? Did you stay with them for hours too ?

Seera.5916:

Then explain punishments for exploits? Just because the game lets you, doesn’t make it legal.

Whether ANet will do anything about it or not is the question for AFK farming.

Punishment for exploits is for people doing something like glitching etc to give them an unfair advantage or breaking mechanics. e.g Teleport hacking to win in a pvp match etc. These “afk” people are not breaking any game mechanics. Nor are they gaining any advantage because as I stated earlier you can make far more money actively playing the game than afking.

What has been said is that yes the current system allows this type of game play as an unintended side effect. Yes they are aware of it and they do disagree with it. But they also said that to fix this would require a design change on their end to the game. So take that as, for now they can’t stop people because there’s no way to tell who is afk and who isn’t. Because as it stands people are just using basic features such as auto cast and the auto loot mastery which are available to everyone, not by exploiting, just by owning the game. So they don’t want to punish innocent people in the process.

Please merge all the afk threads into one because anet have already addressed this issue and people seem unwilling to search for the other threads.

I put my previous point back on the table. Why does this bother so many people? Just ignore them and play the game/ have more fun than someone who is afking and not playing the game to its fullest.

Please let this topic just die already z-z.

The advantage that they are getting is making gold (through drops) while not being at their computer. Whether or not there are better ways to make gold while actively playing is irrelavent.

Nika.3946:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

I am now seeing groups of them in Frostgorge in certain spots. Immobile for hours, heal on the cooldown timer (enemy around or not), killing and mastery looting.

How do you know they are there for hours? Did you stay with them for hours too ?

Yes. I rotate harvesting on 15 characters in Frostgorge. I alternate atk farming bears and champ troll with harvesting to break DR and reset common nodes. They were there, unmoving, overnight. Several times.

I don’t report them unless they haven’t moved for at least an hour.

I don’t think this is all about gold, but more about earning Tyrian Mastery Exp while working, sleeping and doing other activities afk.

EQ2 had a major problem with AFK mercenary leveling, they finally addressed it by drastically reducing Exp from pet only kills. You actively had to damage things with your character for full exp, so paltry EXP unless you used a 3rd party program. They killed the AFK exp gain done by misusing in game mechanics.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Nika.3946:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

I am now seeing groups of them in Frostgorge in certain spots. Immobile for hours, heal on the cooldown timer (enemy around or not), killing and mastery looting.

How do you know they are there for hours? Did you stay with them for hours too ?

Yes. I rotate harvesting on 15 characters in Frostgorge. I alternate atk farming bears and champ troll with harvesting to break DR and reset common nodes. They were there, unmoving, overnight. Several times.

I don’t report them unless they haven’t moved for at least an hour.

I don’t think this is all about gold, but more about earning Tyrian Mastery Exp while working, sleeping and doing other activities afk.

EQ2 had a major problem with AFK mercenary leveling, they finally addressed it by drastically reducing Exp from pet only kills. You actively had to damage things with your character for full exp, so paltry EXP unless you used a 3rd party program. They killed the AFK exp gain done by misusing in game mechanics.

They should address it by doing away with ranger pets. hint

wry smile

Oh, minions and such too. >_>

If in real life Im a very rich person who doesnt need to work so I can play GW2 all day and at the same time spend loads of money on gems , dont I then have an advantage over anyone else who isnt as fortunate as me?
Point being that the argument that someone is gaining an advantage over someone else ignores reality.
Anyone who can play the game more than someone else, is gaining an advantage.

Lambent.6375:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Nika.3946:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

I am now seeing groups of them in Frostgorge in certain spots. Immobile for hours, heal on the cooldown timer (enemy around or not), killing and mastery looting.

How do you know they are there for hours? Did you stay with them for hours too ?

Yes. I rotate harvesting on 15 characters in Frostgorge. I alternate atk farming bears and champ troll with harvesting to break DR and reset common nodes. They were there, unmoving, overnight. Several times.

I don’t report them unless they haven’t moved for at least an hour.

I don’t think this is all about gold, but more about earning Tyrian Mastery Exp while working, sleeping and doing other activities afk.

EQ2 had a major problem with AFK mercenary leveling, they finally addressed it by drastically reducing Exp from pet only kills. You actively had to damage things with your character for full exp, so paltry EXP unless you used a 3rd party program. They killed the AFK exp gain done by misusing in game mechanics.

They should address it by doing away with ranger pets. hint

wry smile

Oh, minions and such too. >_>

I would love that. Just give my ranger the pet DPS.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

They made a clear statement. People will misinterpret any- and everything ANet says to suit their agenda.

Or maybe anet’s diverse customer base of players from all over the world, from different countries, speaking different languages – sometimes where english isn’t their first language, might just not understand the same english text the same way, with no agenda intended. A clarification wouldn’t hurt. A different phrasing could help a different segment of the audience understand it.

Shinjiko.1352:

Seera.5916:

Then explain punishments for exploits? Just because the game lets you, doesn’t make it legal.

Whether ANet will do anything about it or not is the question for AFK farming.

Punishment for exploits is for people doing something like glitching etc to give them an unfair advantage or breaking mechanics. e.g Teleport hacking to win in a pvp match etc. These “afk” people are not breaking any game mechanics. Nor are they gaining any advantage because as I stated earlier you can make far more money actively playing the game than afking.

What has been said is that yes the current system allows this type of game play as an unintended side effect. Yes they are aware of it and they do disagree with it. But they also said that to fix this would require a design change on their end to the game. So take that as, for now they can’t stop people because there’s no way to tell who is afk and who isn’t. Because as it stands people are just using basic features such as auto cast and the auto loot mastery which are available to everyone, not by exploiting, just by owning the game. So they don’t want to punish innocent people in the process.

Please merge all the afk threads into one because anet have already addressed this issue and people seem unwilling to search for the other threads.

I put my previous point back on the table. Why does this bother so many people? Just ignore them and play the game/ have more fun than someone who is afking and not playing the game to its fullest.

Please let this topic just die already z-z.

Like I said, just because the game lets you do it, doesn’t make it legal. And the question isn’t is it legal as ANet’s pretty clear that it’s not intended gameplay and therefore technically an exploit; the question is will ANet do anything. AKA does the risk of just letting it continue outweigh the work it would take to fix it or not.

Remember they have considered it exploits when people abuse the fact that sometimes they make errors in numbers on costs of items and how many things are salvaged from items. Things that don’t require glitching the game out to do.

I personally don’t have a huge issue with it. If you think a person is AFK farming, report and move on. Give ANet more numbers to judge if it’s necessary to put in the hours to fix the problem at the current time.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

They made a clear statement. People will misinterpret any- and everything ANet says to suit their agenda.

Or maybe anet’s diverse customer base of players from all over the world, from different countries, speaking different languages – sometimes where english isn’t their first language, might just not understand the same english text the same way, with no agenda intended. A clarification wouldn’t hurt. A different phrasing could help a different segment of the audience understand it.

• No matter what ANet says, some people will look for loopholes to justify their behavior.
• More importantly, most people are already behaving within the guidelines and don’t need any further clarification.

There just aren’t that many people who are going to do something different, as a result of ANet spending time and energy to come up with different phrasing. And there just simply is no perfect phrasing; there are always some who misunderstand (sometimes intentionally, mostly not).

So again, yes, ANet could rephrase; it’s not going to end the practice. The best thing for us to do as players is: report players when we think they are crossing the line and otherwise, enjoy the game without worrying to too much about how others enjoy it.

mauried.5608:

If in real life Im a very rich person who doesnt need to work so I can play GW2 all day and at the same time spend loads of money on gems , dont I then have an advantage over anyone else who isnt as fortunate as me?
Point being that the argument that someone is gaining an advantage over someone else ignores reality.
Anyone who can play the game more than someone else, is gaining an advantage.

You’re still giving something to the game in exchange for what the game gives back. If you are actively playing, you are giving time and effort. If you are buying gems, you are giving money.

If you are AFK farming, you are getting rewarded for doing nothing.

Also, an active player (typically) isn’t a burden on other players. AFK farmers in certain places, like the Silverwastes, can cause events to scale up and sometimes fail, which makes things harder on the players who are actually present and making an effort.

Here for your enjoyment, I found a bot this morning that wasn’t only AFK farming, but as evident was using 3rd party programme to constantly spam skill 1 of it’s longbow as well.

So I popped over with my mesmer (I’m the human, the Sylvari is a guild friend of mine who isn’t a bot!) with the Bouquet of Flowers toy, and tossed a bunch to it. Although it didn’t stop the bot (the Asura) from gaining loot from the constant spawning of a nearby drake, it was fun to watch for a short while!

Of course, I also used the in-game report system first!

Edit: The originally idea behind the flowers was to try and force the bot into costume brawl, so I could then use Mad King Scepter to fear it out of the way. Unfortunately didn’t work since the flowers need to have a charge up to activate costume brawl, but was still fun to watch the little blighter bash the floor with the flowers a few times!

Maybe this is somewhat good news. Somewhat.

penelopehannibal.8947:

Here for your enjoyment, I found a bot this morning that wasn’t only AFK farming, but as evident was using 3rd party programme to constantly spam skill 1 of it’s longbow as well.

So I popped over with my mesmer (I’m the human, the Sylvari is a guild friend of mine who isn’t a bot!) with the Bouquet of Flowers toy, and tossed a bunch to it. Although it didn’t stop the bot (the Asura) from gaining loot from the constant spawning of a nearby drake, it was fun to watch for a short while!

Of course, I also used the in-game report system first!

Edit: The originally idea behind the flowers was to try and force the bot into costume brawl, so I could then use Mad King Scepter to fear it out of the way. Unfortunately didn’t work since the flowers need to have a charge up to activate costume brawl, but was still fun to watch the little blighter bash the floor with the flowers a few times!

This is funny. I miss the days of the old bots who had to spam f, I could do such interesting things with them using Mes Portals.

Ayrilana.1396:

The advantage that they are getting is making gold (through drops) while not being at their computer. Whether or not there are better ways to make gold while actively playing is irrelavent.

If you can make gold while being away from the computer it is the Developers fault not the players.
An AFK player can’t make anywhere near what a person at the computer can make.
That is relevant.
You can’t really punish people for going afk if you don’t know they are really afk or just sitting there watching netflix, can you?
If you don’t like it just drag a mob over to him or forget about it and keep going.

Monk Tank.5897:

Ayrilana.1396:

The advantage that they are getting is making gold (through drops) while not being at their computer. Whether or not there are better ways to make gold while actively playing is irrelavent.

If you can make gold while being away from the computer it is the Developers fault not the players.
An AFK player can’t make anywhere near what a person at the computer can make.
That is relevant.
You can’t really punish people for going afk if you don’t know they are really afk or just sitting there watching netflix, can you?
If you don’t like it just drag a mob over to him or forget about it and keep going.

So all exploits in the game are Anet’s fault and not the players’ who take advantage of them? I guess that karma exploit a few years back was Anet’s and all of those players that took advantage of it making a lot of gold were wrongfully banned.

Sorry but that’s untrue. Based on what Anet has stated in the past, AFK farming is against the user agreement. Whether or not that they indirectly made this possible recently doesn’t change that unless they specfically state that it is okay which they have not.

Whether or not an AFK players can make as much as an active player does not matter.

If they have a skill on auto-cast so that they don’t get disconnected, and that timer would have already elapsed, they are doing an exploit. It’s compounded by them using minions/pets to reap rewards while not being at their computer. There are people that have multiple accounts so while a single account may not make much, all of the accounts could for that person.

The devs have made a clear statement. Your disagreement or refusal to accept it does not somehow render their statement less clear.

They are fine with it. Just accept it and move on.

It baffles me how people get so upset that someone else doing something that has no effect on them makes them so angry lol.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

The devs have made a clear statement. Your disagreement or refusal to accept it does not somehow render their statement less clear.

They are fine with it. Just accept it and move on.

It baffles me how people get so upset that someone else doing something that has no effect on them makes them so angry lol.

No they didn’t. They said that letting your minion/pets kill for you is fine. They said nothing about it being okay to bypass the disconnect timer in order to stay online when away from your computer. That was actually stated as being against the user agreement.

So based on your last statement, if I were to bot by porting across the map to various nodes then people have no reason to be upset because it has no effect on them?

Using the game mechanics how they were designed to work is not an exploit.

Ayrilana.1396:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

The devs have made a clear statement. Your disagreement or refusal to accept it does not somehow render their statement less clear.

They are fine with it. Just accept it and move on.

It baffles me how people get so upset that someone else doing something that has no effect on them makes them so angry lol.

No they didn’t. They said that letting your minion/pets kill for you is fine. They said nothing about it being okay to bypass the disconnect timer in order to stay online when away from your computer. That was actually stated as being against the user agreement.

So based on your last statement, if I were to bot by porting across the map to various nodes then people have no reason to be upset because it has no effect on them?

See the afk system still kicks you out if you have a skill on autocast afaik. What is causing the bypass is the mastery autoloot which frankly nobody but anet can fix and is not fault of any players.

These farmers are just using the autocast feature which is a feature in game given to everyone. Porting across a map would either involve teleport hacking which is something you can’t do without 3rd party software. Or a macro that performs multiple functions, which if you read the sticky that anet provides at the top about 3rd party stuff, is against the rules. They allow a macro to perform 1 function and one function only. But even said none of these players are using macros. The point i’m trying to make is that you really can’t compare porting about to someone just setting a skill to autocast and only that.

Monk Tank.5897:

Using the game mechanics how they were designed to work is not an exploit.

Using mechanics as designed is definitely not exploiting. However, using them in a way that is unintended is exploiting. Using auto-cast on abilities is fine. Using it to circumvent the auto-disconnect isn’t. Using minions/pets to kill mobs is fine. Using that in conjunction with auto-casting to stay logged on well beyond when you should have been disconnected in order to obtain a benefit is not.

The porting about example was strictly in regards to the posters argument that people shouldn’t get upset about things that do not affect them.

Ayrilana.1396:

Using mechanics as designed is definitely not exploiting. However, using them in a way that is unintended is exploiting. Using auto-cast on abilities is fine. Using it to circumvent the auto-disconnect isn’t. Using minions/pets to kill mobs is fine. Using that in conjunction with auto-casting to stay logged on well beyond when you should have been disconnected in order to obtain a benefit is not.

If y’all read nothing else in this thread, read the above statement. Copy/paste it into your brains and dream about it, because it is the answer to whatever dilemma/question about afk-farming that’s keeping you awake at night.

~EW

Ayrilana.1396:

Using mechanics as designed is definitely not exploiting. However, using them in a way that is unintended is exploiting. Using auto-cast on abilities is fine. Using it to circumvent the auto-disconnect isn’t. Using minions/pets to kill mobs is fine. Using that in conjunction with auto-casting to stay logged on well beyond when you should have been disconnected in order to obtain a benefit is not.

Yup, this. This is exactly what Anet has said (thus far) about AFK farming.

slowly bangs head on desk.

what does =/= mean on your world?

“pets are terrible”, “nobody in their right mind uses an AI pet”, “Ranger shouldn’t exist because pets suck”

(someone figures out how to use pets to farm)

“stop using AI pets”, “AI pets are cheating!”

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

slowly bangs head on desk.

what does =/= mean on your world?

What does it mean on your world?

2 posts where GM’s are saying the ingame mechanics allow for it are intended.

thats all the proof we need here.

If the GM’s and game’s management team cannot be on the same page here, its just going to get worse over time. They have 3-4 VERY CLEAR posts from GM’s saying this behavior is allowed and intended as long as the in game mechanics are used. yet they have a rogue string of GM’s doing whatever they want not following the message that was publicly released. Just goes to show what state Arena Net is STILL in here.

no wonder Anet’s/NC Softs servers are getting DoS attacked, the company is just HORRIBLE.

They say it’s not equal to permission to afk farm. But they also have not said specifically that no you cannot do this.

So right now the guy above has a suspension for using in game mechanics that in the links provided have been said are ok to use. Said mechanics are NOT 3rd party tools.

sirsquishy.8531:

Proof is in the server logs. Auto heal, Pet aggro, auto loot. no keystrokes are being pressed at all. Infact I have 2 of my 3 accounts running in VMware workstation doing this. No macros or botting at all.

Running on an ITX 4570 clocked at 900mhz, it cant do much more then just let the game run.

Proof is in the logs.

Then contest the ban by requesting support investigate further. If you’re innocent, you’ll be all set pretty quickly.