AFK Resource Gathering, an insider's perspective.

[baddy]

Hail fellow Sosarians,

Baddy here.

Today, I was banned for AFK resource gathering. I will not bother you with excuses about the banishment. I was banned and it was my 2nd offense. Case closed.

With 48hr banishment looming, I decided that this would be a good time to inform the unenlightened about why I think its a terrible idea to do so. I will start with the obvious. First, you cannot party with your friends while banned!! Just think about it for a second. Your boys are all kicking it hard in Doom. Laughs are being had, Dark Fathers are being slain, and you are sitting here writing an essay. You hear your guild discord beep, the hair raises on the back of your neck. "What could they want?, they know I'm not able to party hard in Doom with them." Your fingers begin to shake as you read the following message "HOLY CRAP, @baddy!!! WE JUST LOOTED AN ORNY!!! AND 4 WAS THE HIGHEST ROLL!!!!" You notice your monitor turning a reddish hue, throat begins to feel itchy.....You have just missed out on an easy chance at the coveted Ornament of the Magician. All because you wanted a few extra ingots while you mowed the lawn. Those ill gotten gains are just not worth it, my friends.

Now that was just the selfish reasons not to AFK resource gather. Let's dive deep into the real problem that AFK gathering causes. The deprecation of resources and effort in an in-game economy. This is a problem that affects all players. Say I spend a night mining away with no intervention. I can easily gather 20,000 pieces of ore, if not, more. You gain basically double that in ingots when you smelt them all down. Meanwhile, some poor miner is tolling away manually with his pickaxe, slowly gathering his ore, carefully smelting, and hoping he doesn't destroy much in the process. He goes ahead and lists his ingots on his vendor at 5gp per. And me? Oh well those ingots took me virtually no effort, so I'll let them fly at 3gp. What a nice guy I am right? WRONG! I'm a borderline thief! I am stealing the effort from the hardworking craftsmen of this server. And when the Legendary NPC asks me for 900 Valorite ingots to fulfill a quest, sure no problem!!! Oh great a +60 Ancient Blacksmithing hammer. Cool beans!! Oh, hello fellow crafter, you don't have a +60 blacksmithing hammer? That's a bummer. I'll tell you what you just take mine, I'll have another in no time.

See where I'm going here? AFK Resource gathering, devalues not only the resources themselves, but the upper tier items that make being a craftsmen worth it. Having high end runic kits and 120 blacksmith scrolls should be hard to obtain, not an afterthought after 2 nights of AFKing. It also means that any legitimate crafter's effort is also devalued as he cannot possibly compete with an AFK resource gatherer. Why would they even want to continue their craft when it would be cheaper to buy from the scoundrel AFKer.

Guys and gals, just don't do it . As a new UO server, drawing in new players is a must. Who is going to want to come here with a flooded market place and resources at extreme disposal. As a community, we want this place to prosper. It will most definitley not with a tanked economy brought on by countless resources added to it with little to no effort. AFK resource gathering does nothing but hurt the server. While it may have its own selfish appeal, what good is that when the server is being damaged?

While writing this could potentially taint me in all of your eyes, I'll take it. If my essay prevents one player from thinking twice about it, I'll be the Shamed Baddy, infamous AFK gatherer.

Respectfully yours,
Baddy

 

[tr1age]

I appreciate you writing this as it is hard to own up to things publicly especially when it is part of our very thought out server rules and guidelines to make the server a fun and fair place for everyone.
http://uoalive.com/forum/index.php?threads/server-rules.19/

Macroing

• Unattended macroing is within the rules. It may not include gathering of resources or purchasing of items.
• You may macro within Dungeons, boats and houses at your own risk, with the exception of taming.
• Unattended resource gathering is against the rules with the exception of Fishing.
  • Your first infraction: all resources will be removed from your account as there is no way to distinguish between AFK gathered and normally gathered.
  • Second time you will receive a 48 hour ban and your gathering character will be deleted.
  • Third time a permanent ban.

We take this kind of stuff very seriously and even implemented a new service that allows us to monitor it even closer to make sure nothing slips through the cracks with our latest patch:
http://uoalive.com/forum/index.php?threads/patch-notes-11-27-16.332/#post-706

ANTI AFK GATHERING SYSTEMS:
We have beefed up our ANTI AFK detection systems. Instead of adding an annoying captcha, we will be alerted when a player is macroing specific abilities for a duration of time. It will then keep a textual, action, and screenshot log of that players actions. As well it will alert all available staff members about possible AFK resource gathering. So, for your accounts sake, don't do it. It can result in a ban and will absolutely result in losing your items.

Like it says we don't want to have to put in a captcha, but if we continue to get people who disregard the rules it will be the only choice. Because not only is this bad for players but it is bad for the admins as well as we have to dedicate a lot of time "policing the server". Which is no fun for us and just as little fun for you as it breaks immersion. We all have better things we can be doing.

All that being said, I appreciate your message here and our number one goal is to have everyone in game having fun, playing with their friends.

So as you mentioned in Discord that you would be deleting your gathering character, as a sign of good faith. I believe this is a great addition to the rules for AFK resource gathering. We have added that to our server rules for second time offenses to show that it really is something we do not want to play around with.

Second time you will receive a 48 hour ban and your gathering character will be deleted.

This may seem harsh, but the next step is a permanent ban for all accounts. And the last thing we want is to make it so you can't play UO! But at the same time we have to maintain the server balance and be fair for all players.

Thank you for your message.