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

[Welsper59]

I'm with the OP. We should be given the option to AFK and manually un-AFK ourselves at the right time of our choosing, but the new patch takes that freedom from us.

There are situations we just wanna drop in quick to check the time, weather, friends online, and the AFK goes off by itself. Argh!

That actually sounds like something that you could use /busy for. Yeah, you won't get any /tell messages in the process, but it seems like that's not of concern in your case.

[Nestama]

I say keep it as is, let's you notice the bots much easier. Saw a Lalafell running (faster than one should be) with the AFK status. As this thread has confirmed it is impossible to keep AFK up when pushing buttons or even moving a mouse... yeah.

[DracotheDragon]

Greetings,

There are no plans at the moment to disable this feature, however, should that change we’ll be sure to let you know.

but wait.. didn't you say this

Greetings,
As a follow-up to this, in patch 2.28 we will be making adjustments to the “Away” status so that when you do not operate the game for a certain amount of time, your online status will automatically be set to “Away.” You’ll be able to select from four different time settings (5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, and 60 minutes) or you can also choose not to use this feature. The “Away” status will automatically be removed once you operate the game in some way.

did they choose to not implement a way to turn it off, or dely it,
especially knowing that people will complain about a automatic feature that dose basically nothing if they are actively playing


see i don't mind the auto away because when i get it it means i was stood doing bugger all in the game, which means not even talking for about 15 mins, so i do not know how someone could be annoyed with a feature that basically dose nothing IF your actually playing, to be fair its good because if i see people AFK it means they are AFK, since talking to people turns it off.

the OP is asking for a way to disable the Auto-UN-AFK system

ahh i seem to of misunderstood this,

[Bladeglory]

did they choose to not implement a way to turn it off, or dely it,

Camate's original post about choosing not to use the feature refers to the option to set the Auto-AFK system to kick in at 5, 10, 30, 60, or Never minutes.
However, the OP is asking for a way to disable the Auto-UN-AFK system, which is sort of an unintended side-effect of the Auto-AFK system, for which there is no option.

I can see both sides of the issue... It's nice that the AFK symbol actually means you're AFK at the moment, but annoying that you can't state you're not interested in playing without blocking tells (via the Busy status).
Maybe get an option that allows /busy to not block tells?

[Lemuria]

I say keep it. Makes bots easier to spot, and only annoys a small vocal minority. If you're just 'checking the time' then you're not really 'away' and, last I checked, you didn't need to move to look at the on-screen clock. Does the 'away' status incur some magical bonuses that I was unaware of? If you stay 'away' for an hour, do you find true enlightenment?

The busy status exists for a reason... why do people always want to overcomplicate simple issues? After all, if you're 'busy' you won't be replying to tells anyway, and it doesn't prevent FC or linkshell chatter.

[Anapingofness]

I actually like the auto afk change.
However, I do wish that there was a manual setting option also.
So, if I manually set myself as afk then I should manually remove away status or some such.
I mean, I'm no too bothered by it but I can see why some people would be? o.o

[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?

[joshsecret]

The busy status exists for a reason... why do people always want to over complicate simple issues? After all, if you're 'busy' you won't be replying to tells anyway, and it doesn't prevent FC or linkshell chatter.

this. i feel like sometimes the dev teams are at work, get an update from the forums, look at each other and ask one another if they can do anything right.

[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.