Do you think implementing a AFK Kick outside of Expansion Releases would do anything?

[Kaurhz]

I don't think it will matter, nope.

It might decrease the waiting time a little but you're never going to permanently remove that because it is to my knowledge a permanent buffer that exists regardless of the actual population already on the world. Happy to be wrong but I am fairly certain it's always going to exist.

[DendrielConcade]

Various Good Points Potentially Too Long To List Here

Like I said, my issue isn't the personal edge of logging in but it feels like a product of it, but as others have stated it could be as a sort of "Batch Login" process. I also didn't entirely stand with the idea and was open to see how actual people would feel about this which I appreciate since you can only go so far with your own thought you know?

If the issues for other world travelers was due to a limited amount of slots for specific people to be in other DCs, then for sure measures to prevent someone from AFKing and idling to take up slots in other DCs could actually be something to implement than a blanket thing over everyone. I don't particularly see an issue with re-entering your password and 2FA though, that's quite a simple process in the grand scheme of things via copying your password if really needed due to password complexity, and 2FA is never too long for a string of numbers.

Either way, I appreciate the discussion and some diverse takes and things I haven't pondered before here, which just makes me shift my opinion of it all a bit more reasonably.

[Jojoya]

I don't think it's going to serve any purpose. I doubt very much that Aether's lockdown during prime time has anything to do with AFK players creating congestions. I think it's SE's way of getting prime time players to stick to other data centers for group content.

If you have friends that can't get to Aether, there's nothing to stop you from going to them. You're guaranteed a return to Aether when you're done.

[Jeeqbit]

While I think it might help a bit, ultimately it would still be a problem. More people would get on in place of the AFKers, but then the limits would be reached and the problem of people getting to Aether would remain.

[Musashidon]

the problem isn't the afk players its the way the congested system works, and the fact that SE doesn't want people to all congregate on aether so it will forever be locked down til we get regional DF/PF.

[Espon]

The problem isn't really people AFKing, it's that SE deliberately set it up to lock down congested servers during peak times. This was to help speed up logging in to your home world during expansion launch and savage progression, but we're far past that and servers are nowhere close to maximum capacity.

As for why you get login queues now, it's because the servers are designed to log in batches of players at a time to help with server stress, it has nothing to do with congestion.

[Gurgeh]

Ah, good old DC-travel.
Good feature in theory but once again nobody thought about the potential consequences, certainly not the devs.

Yeah. These things happen. And DC is still a 'great' idea. I want region travel. (ignore xenophobes and their culture shock)

But, when you have a problem this bad you have to 'address' it. ASAP. Either your committed to this business or your not.
Delay a whole EXPANSION if you have to to move it up the list. But 'address' it ASAP.

And its 'not hard' to improve massively on what we have with nothing more than stitching togehter the code already in the game. in the interim while you code a proper solution.

[Gurgeh]

The truth is they are being really pathetic about this problem.
CROSS DC PF. JUST USE THE TRAVEL YOU ALREADY HAVE. FORGET ABOUT CHAT FOR NOW.
My gods anyone would think the database and transistor hadn't been invented yet, and everything was still stored on punch cards.
It's just pathetic.
_
Or at this stage explain in some detail, why your game can't cope with the one real obstacle, which is increased needed character travel bandwidth.

[Gurgeh]

The problem isn't really people AFKing, it's that SE deliberately set it up to lock down congested servers during peak times. This was to help speed up logging in to your home world during expansion launch and savage progression, but we're far past that and servers are nowhere close to maximum capacity.

As for why you get login queues now, it's because the servers are designed to log in batches of players at a time to help with server stress, it has nothing to do with congestion.

Yeah I don't like the 'queue' business. Its 'this game is in high demand' snake oil.

This game's sense of 'ethics' is still absolutely fantastic given commercial pressures. I worry for when Yoshi-P says, I've given my bit. I need a break. But that queuing business is a bit- wrong.

[Bonoki]

People just find ways to bypass it anyway, the ones it would need to kick wouldn't get kicked so it wouldn't help.

There's a "Plugin" that already prevents the afk kick, and many people I know use it every expansion.