Display notes of some sort to display how long someone has been idle.

[Zarchery]

I'm constantly going through this maddening process.

/tell Randomfriend >>> Hey you there?

*an hour later*

Randomfriend <<< I was AFK.

It's maddening. Someone's online but not really, so you have to sit there and wonder if that person's there.

Is there any possibility the game could track and report how long someone's been idle? Like just start a counter when someone stops moving for one minute and display that timer. Reset it when the person stops moving.

Personally, it drive me nuts how often this happens. Why do people log on and sit around forever instead of just logging off? Yeah bazaars are a reason, but as often as not the AFK person isn't selling anything. He's just away.

[Karah]

One cannot show off their gear while not logged in. (EliteStatue Go!)

Also, it's really annoying to log in (don't know if I'm the only one annoyed by it etc) going through the 5 screens and the token /ugh.

Though, that'd be a neat idea, if the game had a way to say/tell/know "this guy's been afk for 3 hours".

No idea how this could actually be possible tough.

Though, people can set their status to "away", this will be the only answer you will get, if you actually get one.

[Zarchery]

Also, it's really annoying to log in (don't know if I'm the only one annoyed by it etc) going through the 5 screens and the token /ugh.

When I don't feel like shutting down, I just do /logout and idle at the login screen.

[Dragoy]

Hmmm...

I believe some would feel... odd... about a feature such as what you are suggesting. One would not be able to move around and ignore someone without them knowing they're sort of ignoring them. The other party would feel other things due to knowing they're being ignored. Not that I do that, it's just a crude example (perhaps a silly one at that), but I do believe there are people that would not enjoy this sort of changes.

I can't really relate, either, since if I send a message to another player and they do not reply, I'll simply assume they're away. That, or they simply didn't see me, which is when I start spamming them with tells until they reply. =)

On the other hand, I do sometimes idle on-line myself. I don't do it to bazaar, or to show off my Dream Hat +1. In fact, I'm usually in either a desolate mountain, or in a mog house. One reason for being around is to be able to catch up on what's been going on in a Linkshell, or/and to see if someone was missing me around. Or something. I don't think anyone has been annoyed by me replying late.

I guess I'm just not that needed. ^^;

Either way, I, for one, don't really see a need for such a thing, and could imagine it actually being disliked by many. I actually just remembered one game that did track the idle period of characters. I don't remember if chatting would reset it or not. Probably not... Also, it might have been tracking how long one had /away or /afk or whatever it was set. Meh, I dunno! Either way, it wasn't too annoying to me there, I think.


Anyblue, just some thoughts~

[FaeQueenCory]

It wouldn't be hard to implement.
Just link it to the collision reduction timer. (you know, the timer that makes your character register 0 collision to others if you haven't moved in X time.)
Have a "second tier" to it where if you haven't moved in 2, 3, 4hr you go "afk".
Could even have an autoresponder to any /tells.

[Dreamin]

You know if your 'randomfriend' dont reply to your tells, can just assumed that they're either:

1. Busy and dont feel like answering.
2. AFK.
3. Don't give a f* about your tell and just ignoring you.
4. Wants to be left alone.

Best course of action: if they're a friend, just leave them be. If you were to meet them for something, wait a few min and send a /tell back. If no answer, then just leave it be.

Is it absolutely necessary to be able to keep track of everyone's every single waking (or non-waking) moment (as in non-AFK)? We know back in the old days, we call our friends at a home phone and if no one answer we'll just leave a message. Call back later if it's important if not, just wait to get a call back (or none back and that's a sign that either they're in trouble or they dont wanted to be bother with).

[Zarchery]

You know if your 'randomfriend' dont reply to your tells, can just assumed that they're either:

1. Busy and dont feel like answering.
2. AFK.
3. Don't give a f* about your tell and just ignoring you.
4. Wants to be left alone.

That is what I assume and I stop at one /tell unless they were scheduled to be online.

Is it absolutely necessary to be able to keep track of everyone's every single waking (or non-waking) moment (as in non-AFK)? We know back in the old days, we call our friends at a home phone and if no one answer we'll just leave a message. Call back later if it's important if not, just wait to get a call back (or none back and that's a sign that either they're in trouble or they dont wanted to be bother with).

That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that if someone appears to be online, I'd like to know if they're actually online without having to probe them. The way it is now is analogous to walking into a room and seeing someone there, but that person is actually just a hologram. It gets annoying never being certain if a person who appears to be there is actually there. I'd like some level of certainty here.

When you call someone on the phone, you don't have any indication that they're available or reason to presume they are. If you see someone standing in front of you, it's reasonable to assume that they are actually there. That's what being online is; appearing to be present, but with so many people just going AFK randomly, it's more like people just going to a party, setting up holograms, then going home.

[Dreamin]

right so clearly you understood the culture of ppl just AFK instead of logging off. So just go with that - assumed people are AFK if you didn't get an answer back.

With so many things still wrong with this game, we keep giving SE reasons to not fix the game but rather 'hey, look, we did this little small adj because players wanted them' which really does absolutely nothing to the game play at all.

[Demon6324236]

I like this idea just because even though people are right that its a bit weird, I am sorry to say when my friends are afk when I am trying to ask them something important I don't waste my time writing it down, figuring they will be back soon, and sometimes I end up waiting so long I forget I even sent them a tell, let alone what it was. If nothing else, I wish it was optional, like the spam-blocker, if people feel its an invasion of privacy of some sort, turn it off, or leave it off, if you don't mind people knowing how long you have been away, your fine. I honestly fall asleep while afk often, so people send me tells and sometimes multiple times because they don't know if I am afk, or just not noticing them, I think it would help because of this. I also think it would be nice to add a similar timer to the auto-shutdown feature, where you can set a time till it activates, and starts to tell people how long you have been gone, adding the time it took to activate, to it.