Any way to disable this new smart un-away system?

[Inzoum]

I'd say the "auto out of afk" conditions are too strict. Right now it reacts to mouse movement, key presses, camera movement on gamepad. Anything you touch, basically.

I'd suggest making it so moving your character or using an action or emote cancels AFK, but keyboard/mouse/gamepad inputs don't. This would allow you to look around or type, or alt-tab, or move the mouse without inadvertently canceling AFK, yet still enable the AFK removal on actual in-game activity.

That sounds like a decent compromise, no?

[Souljacker]

That sounds like a decent compromise, no?

What would be an even better "compromise" is putting it back to the way that XI functioned for over a decade (and still does as far as I know), and the way this game functioned for three-ish years, and the way every other mmo in existence functions.

That would be a GREAT compromise.

[Felis]

I'd suggest making it so moving your character or using an action or emote cancels AFK, but keyboard/mouse/gamepad inputs don't.

But then you would not be Away from Keyboard except you would use a bot

[Zozor]

I like the changes, its like a safeguard that if I walk away from my PC and get distracted the system will tell people I'm not around.

They dont need to build in mechanisms because live in an earthquake zone or whatever. It's fine how it is. If for whatever reason you want to be doing stuff in game then you are not away, you are busy.

[Raaz-cc]

I think the auto-un-afk is a bit over the top as it is now. Just accidently pushing a button automatically resets the afk-status, and unless I notice it I'll be "available" for the next 10 mins (that's what I've set auto-away to). Yeah, I can see the argument of using busy-status instead. But even though I'm busy with, let's say, doing beast tribe-stuff (and hence wanne avoid being asked to do stuff) doesn't mean I don't want tells while doing so. LS and FC-chat is not affected by busy-status - true, but I reckon most of us have ppl on our friendslist, and they cannot reach us while being busy. I'd say the best thing is to adjust the busy-status, so that you have the option to recieve tells or not recieve tells. AFK means AFK, so fair enough if they wanne keep it like it is.. BUT one of the options needs adjustment (either make un-afk a manual option again or make it possible to recieve tells while being busy).

And for those of you that claim that busy-status means you'll automatically don't want tells must clearly use busy as afk then.. I cannot see any reason whatsoever why one doesn't want to get tells while being busy. Being busy means you're actually playing the game, but wanne show ppl that you are busy with stuff so you are not available to do other stuff - not unavailable for chats. This unavoidable side-effect of using busy-status is why I've never used it. If it's changed then ppl won't mind the auto-un-afk one bit.

We all have different views on what's needed or not for options in a game, but this is actually an option that would benefit everyone - it's just that since we don't have it atm some ppl might not see the point of it as of yet. That, though, does not mean it's a worthless suggestion. If ppl wanne be available OR unavailable 24/7 while ingame, good for them, but some of us might wanne have the option to be semi-available.

[Bluevann]

This change was implemented because too many players complained coming back from AFK and having forgotten to change their status back to not-afk (it's more common than you think, a lot of players play with their name hidden). To play the game with an unnoticed AFK status can be an inconvenience (I've heard so at least. I've never been on AFK status so far so I don't really know. I assume it blocks something?), while to be AFK while your status is non-afk doesn't really seem to cause any problem. Is there any particular reason to want to be displayed as Away From Keyboard without the minimum 5-minutes timer?

[necrosis]

This change was implemented because too many players complained coming back from AFK and having forgotten to change their status back to not-afk (it's more common than you think, a lot of players play with their name hidden).

Simple fix. Make some kind of on screen icon/message other than the icon next to your name which is off by default.

[Souljacker]

This change was implemented because too many players complained coming back from AFK and having forgotten to change their status back to not-afk

So that's why the rest of us should not be able to use the status at all? It wouldn't even be so bad if you had to perform some amount if actions before the status cancels... but moving the mouse even a micrometer will cancel this status. On high DPI mice, this is extremely easy to do. For those of us who have a keyboard and mouse on a drawer, if I want to use this status I have to push in the drawer, type in the status, then carefully remove my hands from underneath the desk and hope that my cats don't jump up there while I'm gone.

And somehow, this is less inconvenient than someone seeing a chair icon in the middle of their face and realizing "oops, I'm still /away!"

As an aside, there is an /away command in addition to /afk so the idea that this status is only to be used when you are physically away from the keyboard is moot.

Just put the status back the way it was or at least make it so that you have to actually perform an "action" to cancel the status. Just swiping the mouse across the window is ridiculous.

[Richiealvian]

Please don't, I love this system!!!!!!


Edit: I was dumb. OP, I agree! I want people to know if I'm actually AFK.

[Donjo]

I think that many people here are forgetting what AFK means: Away From Keyboard.

Yes, "Keyboard". Not "Away from this window". It signifies "I got up and walked away from my keyboard." This shouldn't care whether your keyboard press or mouse movement registered in the game window or out. It still means you're at your keyboard, regardless of what you're doing. In 99% of cases, walking away from the keyboard will not result in a random earthquake, pet, or act of god magically moving the mouse a millimeter to make people think you actually are at your keyboard for 10 minutes or so.

If you've got the game minimized while you're doing something else entirely on your computer, use Busy. That's what it's for. You're busy either doing something you don't want interrupted within the game or doing something on your computer but outside of the game.

If you're going to stand up and walk away from the computer, use Away. That's what it's for. It'll un-away you when you move something because, hey, you're at your keyboard again.