When do you think the inactivity kick from server will be removed?

[Mavrias]

Out of interest. Why so?

A bunch of people AFKing all day long in Limsa increases load times and stresses the systems of those with weaker set ups. Not to mention it heavily influences the log in queue for more highly populated servers. New character creation is also restricted in part by the number of people active (read: logged in) on the server at a given time. Also, the queue for visiting another world is influenced by the amount of people online on that world. When it was first introduced i went to look at marketboards cross world and couldn't actually get back to faerie for several hours, for example.

Maybe you could answer my question now, if you don't mind. Why do so many people feel the need to stay logged in for extended periods they're not playing?

[monk-dps]

A bunch of people AFKing all day long in Limsa increases load times and stresses the systems of those with weaker set ups. Not to mention it heavily influences the log in queue for more highly populated servers. New character creation is also restricted in part by the number of people active (read: logged in) on the server at a given time. Also, the queue for visiting another world is influenced by the amount of people online on that world. When it was first introduced i went to look at marketboards cross world and couldn't actually get back to faerie for several hours, for example.

Maybe you could answer my question now, if you don't mind. Why do so many people feel the need to stay logged in for extended periods they're not playing?

I like being able to leave my system on and go make food or just let my character sleep while I sleep. It's fun and lets me actually live in the game. So it'll be nice when the afk timer is shut off again.

[Mavrias]

I like being able to leave my system on and go make food or just let my character sleep while I sleep. It's fun and lets me actually live in the game. So it'll be nice when the afk timer is shut off again.

Leaving your system on idle for long periods isnt good for it.

Did you know if you log out in an inn room by interacting with a bed you get a cutscene of your character going to sleep and then when you log back in, a cutscene of them waking up?

[TaranTatsuuchi]

Leaving your system on idle for long periods isnt good for it.

Did you know if you log out in an inn room by interacting with a bed you get a cutscene of your character going to sleep and then when you log back in, a cutscene of them waking up?

I don't think it's much of a problem if it's properly cooled and vemtilated.



Also, wish we could get that scene for player housing, but they never fixed logging in outside the map boundries.
They just forced us outside the housing if we disconnect or change zones while in housing.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Leaving your system on idle for long periods isnt good for it.

Did you know if you log out in an inn room by interacting with a bed you get a cutscene of your character going to sleep and then when you log back in, a cutscene of them waking up?

the thousands of servers running 24/7 say otherwise. And I don't just mean game servers.

[Mavrias]

the thousands of servers running 24/7 say otherwise. And I don't just mean game servers.

Servers are managed a tad bit differently than the average gaming PC or PS4.

[TaranTatsuuchi]

You be shocked how little a PS4 pro uses as far as power. My power bill isn't even above 100 bucks. Tho really only one room in my apt is used and that's the bedroom with my PS4 and oled tv which is never off. Only time my system goes off is the forced updates. Tech is really good nowdays. Then again I think I'm just lucky with playstations as my PSX was on nonstop for a year nonstop because I didn't have a memory card. Playing FF7 without a card and beating it back in 98 was hell. I really hate when bosses use final attack because of that year.

...
First time I played ffvii, we rented a ps1 from family video and the game when we went to spend the weekend at grandparents...

Grandpa refused to stop by kb toys so I could buy a memory card.

Played it straight through until I was killed by a worm undrr the gold saucer.
Was something like 2 or 3 in the morning at that point, guess that's bedtime.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Servers are managed a tad bit differently than the average gaming PC or PS4.

The components are mostly the same though.

Server components fail all the time, per 1000 or w/e statistics are relevant. I may be biased on that, as my job is to support and repair several thousand servers used for cloud services.

[Sebazy]

A bunch of people AFKing all day long in Limsa increases load times and stresses the systems of those with weaker set ups. Not to mention it heavily influences the log in queue for more highly populated servers. New character creation is also restricted in part by the number of people active (read: logged in) on the server at a given time. Also, the queue for visiting another world is influenced by the amount of people online on that world. When it was first introduced i went to look at marketboards cross world and couldn't actually get back to faerie for several hours, for example.

Ty for the good response <3

The crowding in social hubs such as Limsa is a fair point and this is imho the biggest sole issue with allowing people to sit logged in for extended periods. I can't really comment on cross world as I never really use it and I've not really observed how times fluctuate with it. As far as the log in queues? I disagree though. I'm firmly of the opinion that the current RMT bot plague should be the focus of your ire here. They place far more load across multiple aspects of SE's server farm. I'll touch on this a bit more as I answer your response.

Maybe you could answer my question now, if you don't mind. Why do so many people feel the need to stay logged in for extended periods they're not playing?

Of course.

It's really quite straight forward, many people use this game as a social hub. Some to the extent where the game is effectively a glorified IRC client to them, this was something that the likes of UO, Everquest and FFXI capitalised on massively back in the day. Say what you will about people that do this, it's far from a rare trait.

It's really important to note that from SE's corner, an idling AFK player is literally free money. Modern online client/server games have been excellent at assuming clients are idle until they are not pretty much as far back as the likes of Quakeworld and you can actually use that game to demonstrate my points made here if you are so inclined.

Basically, an idle character will be sending simple keep alive packets and little to nothing else. Meanwhile, that client will be receiving movement data from other characters in a much simplified 'digest' form every second or so. This is another aspect of the net code that can actually be clearly seen in action by using stock Reshade and it's net code detection on the MXAO filter. Idle in a place where no one is moving and you can actually see the MXAO effect cutting in and out due to the stop start nature of the network traffic this game generates in those situations, Idle in a quiet secluded area and the MXAO will be on almost entirely due to you generating almost zero network traffic. Now, try to use it in a dungeon or boss fight and the MXAO will almost never come on due to the much larger volume of traffic (And thus server load) in these situations. It's not a small difference, rather, it really is night and day. For all of the flaws in this games rather slow net code, it's impressively efficient.

Interestingly, minions generate quite a bit more traffic than their owners in these situations, thus why I guess SE has never been too keen on truly making them persistent.

I'm not going to say that people standing around in Limsa aren't going to tank the frame rates on lower end systems. But it's easily demonstrated that they are not responsible for generating significant loads on the servers. It makes sound sense for SE to embrace these people as they really are literally a free lunch for them. Doubly so if they get hooked on the glamour game.

Leaving your system on idle for long periods isnt good for it.

With a quality PSU, decent cooling and regular cleaning it's really not a problem for modern hardware to run under load 24/7. The electricity bill on the other hand though.....

[monk-dps]

With a quality PSU, decent cooling and regular cleaning it's really not a problem for modern hardware to run under load 24/7. The electricity bill on the other hand though.....

You be shocked how little a PS4 pro uses as far as power. My power bill isn't even above 100 bucks. Tho really only one room in my apt is used and that's the bedroom with my PS4 and oled tv which is never off. Only time my system goes off is the forced updates. Tech is really good nowdays. Then again I think I'm just lucky with playstations as my PSX was on nonstop for a year nonstop because I didn't have a memory card. Playing FF7 without a card and beating it back in 98 was hell. I really hate when bosses use final attack because of that year.