How do you keep /away (AFK) status on all the time?

[Aleczan]

My recruited friend who's playing on trial version now asks a lot of stuff everyday, and today she saw a person who was killing some enemies while /away status icon is shown. She asked me why and I cannot find the answer. Also, it made me curious as well.

I think I might have run into many people that did that, but I am positive that it was back when auto-back (un-AFK) did not affect manual /away status.

I found a thread here asking about disabling the auto un-away system but it was a few months ago and I can't find other related info that's more up-to-date.

I tried in the game and cannot find a way to keep my AFK status. Is there an in-game function to actually disable it?

[Surian]

Well, funny story, away gets canceled if you hit the keyboard or the mouse.

People that are actively fighting while AFK arent hitting the keyboard or the mouse, thus actively botting.

The only way to keep AFK status -now- is to either actually be AFK and not touch anything anymore, or hold down the Alt. Type /afk, hit enter, and while holding down the alt also hit tab and it shouldnt take you off of AFK but still let you tab out.

[Aleczan]

Oh wow, thank you. So there is no way around the auto-back.

[Kyroc]

You used to be able to set your status to AFK in the same section where you can change your status to Requesting Meld, Busy etc. I'm at work so I cant remember off the top of my head how you get there, but its also the same area where you can change your search info message.

Has this changed?

[Seibah]

Nah, you can still manually set your status to AFK, but touching anything will remove it.

[Vespar]

Are you 100% sure it was a red chair icon (/away) because there is also another red icon similar to away that looks like a sad face with tear drop coming off it that means /busy. People often mistake the busy status symbol for the /away or disconnecting symbols.

/busy status will stop all incoming tells, trades, or invites to your character. Many people use it to avoid RMT tells

[Nicobo]

...she saw a person who was killing some enemies while /away status icon is shown...

Wondering would it be the "Busy" icon but not "Away" icon?

[Aleczan]

Yeah I thought the same and was doubting it, so she went back to hunt down the person and sent me a screenshot. Name is blurred out because screenshot was taken without permission and I'm posting it without permission.

[sky_line]

I was wondering about disabling this too. Before patch 2.28 (huge quality of life patch), I use to go to a busy location, put on my afk status and check out sceneries and people while I eat or while watching a movie on my second screen.

[Surian]

Yeah I thought the same and was doubting it, so she went back to hunt down the person and sent me a screenshot. Name is blurred out because screenshot was taken without permission and I'm posting it without permission.

That would be a bot right there.

The way AFK is coded right now, only keyboard or mouse strokes make you go un-AFK. Having a third-party program input commands for you does not remove AFK. So for a change our badly coding overlords are doing us a favor helping us track down bots.