A Plea to the Community: Long Queues

[FrogDog]

Did you ever entertain even the slightest possibility that maybe there's just that many people online and playing and not logging off---not due to afk exploits---but because they're actually playing?

At non-peak times, the queue drops SIGNIFICANTLY. At around 6am, 7am eastern for instance, there isn't even a queue at all.

If people were really afk exploiting around the clock, there'd be queues around the clock.

The server is just that crowded. Get over it. If you won't move because of your friends and family, then get your friends and family to move with you, I'm sure they're as fed up with the queue times as you are.

Many are playing, sure, and many others are crowded around summoning bells or idling in crafting. Let's not pretend that this isn't a thing that's making queue times significantly longer.

I also don't get the mentality of leaving your character on overnight or throughout the day. What a waste of electricity if nothing else.

[Seoulstar]

Did you ever entertain even the slightest possibility that maybe there's just that many people online and playing and not logging off---not due to afk exploits---but because they're actually playing?

At non-peak times, the queue drops SIGNIFICANTLY. At around 6am, 7am eastern for instance, there isn't even a queue at all.

If people were really afk exploiting around the clock, there'd be queues around the clock.

The server is just that crowded. Get over it. If you won't move because of your friends and family, then get your friends and family to move with you, I'm sure they're as fed up with the queue times as you are.

You can literally walk around and see a lot of people afking on a crafting class, staring at a npc or whatever. Yes, there are a lot of people playing, but don't be so ignorant to ignore the fact you don't even have to walk far and already see plenty of afkers idling for hours on end.

[Rktsci]

Hello everyone!

<snip>

The problem with this is that while you go off to work or go to bed and your character is comfy and cozy in the game, either set to running in circles or the other methods that are employed, other people are unable to get on. Since people are not logging off indefinitely, there is no room for the next person to get on.

This means that it takes 3 1/2 - 4 hours to login.

"Clever me" one might think.

It's not. If people quit doing this, the queue would move quicker, and it wouldn't be as big of a problem.

Please stop spreading your exploits, and for those doing them, please stop.

Are you familiar with the Tragedy of the Commons?

That's what we have here.

The only solution is for Square to close these loopholes that circumvent the logout timer.

[Kerwin]

This will make people quit paying their subs or transfer. It's awful.

Fix the AFK exploit avoiders and this problem wouldn't be so bad.

Kick the AFK crafters.

Kick the AFK Aetheryte users.

Kick the AFK cut scene users.

Kick the AFK retainer users.

[Gyson]

This is not a problem Square is going to fix. SE wants their underpopulated servers boosted, and right now those population boosts are coming from frustrated players leaving heavily populated servers like Balmung. This is a winning scenario for SE, so if we're waiting for them to "fix" this.. we're going to be waiting a long time.

The current queue madness on Balmung seems to be almost entirely player-created at this point. Yes, Square played its part in overpopulating the server with hypocritical actions like continuing to allow paid transfers into Balmung, but at this moment we're the ones shooting ourselves in the foot. People are remaining logged in while AFK for extended periods - and while they're relieved to have instant access to the game when they return to it, whenever they crash or are momentarily disconnected they turn around and curse the very same queue they helped create.

Most people won't stop abusing the AFK timer until they see significant improvements in the queues, and yet the queues can't really improve as long as most people continue to abuse the AFK timer. Essentially, outside of a fluke event we're screwed - because the solution here is for all the players to do the right thing at the same time, and that would take something akin to a miracle.

[Thortok2000]

The game's designed to not even have an afk timer in the first place. They only turned it on because of the congestion, and the plan is to turn it back off again when it's no longer needed.

In my opinion they should do 2 things:

1 - Turn off the afk timer
2 - Make it so you don't have to be able to log in in order to transfer to a different world.

Problem will fix itself.

Of course, fixing the afk timer so it can't be circumvented also works. Splitting Balmung works. Force-moving people off of it works. There's lots of options here.

My point is that the afkers aren't the problem...the system is.

[Gyson]

The game's designed to not even have an afk timer in the first place. They only turned it on because of the congestion, and the plan is to turn it back off again when it's no longer needed.

In my opinion they should do 2 things:

1 - Turn off the afk timer
2 - Make it so you don't have to be able to log in in order to transfer to a different world.

Problem will fix itself.

Of course, fixing the afk timer so it can't be circumvented also works. Splitting Balmung works. Force-moving people off of it works. There's lots of options here.

My point is that the afkers aren't the problem...the system is.

First of all, players are going to find a way around almost any system SE puts in place to stop abuse of the AFK-timer. Only extremely intrusive setups (like throwing a captcha puzzle up in the player's face every 30 minutes) would deter the current abuse, and that's likely not a route SE will ever go.

Second, turning off the AFK timer accomplishes nothing - people will still go AFK for extended periods of time and prevent others from logging in. You can only move through the queue at this point if players are logging out of the game, but if they're not leaving (and remaining AFK-idle instead), then the queue moves much more slowly. Sure, we can argue that (due to player abuse) in its current form the AFK timer is doing little to alleviate that problem, but you seem to be implying that removing the timer will magically solve the problem and that's just not true.

So, I obviously disagree. At this point the players abusing the AFK timer are the primary cause of the problem.

[Thortok2000]

First of all, an automatic afk kicker is not a new thing or a hard thing. It is easy to block all in-game methods.

If the player bots or constructs some physical thing in real life to periodically press keys on a keyboard, not much you can do about that other than pattern detection, but as far as some of the more basic stuff, like won't kick during crafting or npc interaction or cutscene or any of the other hundred of no-hack-needed methods currently available, those ARE easy to fix...if kicking afk people was ever meant to be a priority in the first place, which it wasn't.

Somehow you stopped reading at #1 and didn't read #2, or fully grasp why #2 was relevant.

If you turn off the afk timer, you'd probably see 10, 11, 12 hour long queues. Or longer. And if you make it so you don't have to log in to world transfer, people would have the choice...transfer off Balmung, or never play that character. Given that hard choice, I'm pretty sure people would transfer off.

[Hrafe]

First of all, an automatic afk kicker is not a new thing or a hard thing. It is easy to block all in-game methods.

Somehow you stopped reading at #1 and didn't read #2, or fully grasp why #2 was relevant.

If you turn off the afk timer, you'd probably see 10, 11, 12 hour long queues. Or longer. And if you make it so you don't have to log in to world transfer, people would have the choice...transfer off Balmung, or never play that character. Given that hard choice, I'm pretty sure people would transfer off.

Somehow you seem to have stopped reading at the first post even though you've replied now two or three times. The appeal was made to the players asking that we rethink our choice circumvent the queue by remaining online, not to ask SE for programmatic alterations.

As it stands Balmung is the community recognized RP server which is one reason it is so populous and the reason many will not leave.

[AscendantManes]

Best thing to do to stop the bleeding is to cover up the wound.

That is to say, don't ask don't tell.