Inactive players

[JKnapp]

So last night I spent 2+ hours trying to get into the server we game on. Then a little later the servers went down for maintenance. (The server was still packed.) after the update there was about 20 slots open the rest of the night. 

Im thinking there needs to be something done to counter people staying logged in. I know there is on some servers. Or used to be. But this is kinda ridiculous they stay logged in and people have a hard time getting in server. Prolly a reason why so many people are complaining about the servers being full. 

( capn I proof read it. No foul language here.  )

[Arkasaurio]

The reason people do it is so they don't lose their slot (mostly). If you've managed to get into a server that normally runs at cap, and you're going to AFK for an hour, it makes a lot of sense to stay logged in. I agree that it would be nice to have a system that would boot truly inactive players, but it seems hard to do without false positives (which could really raptor people) and is treating the symptom of a larger problem anyway - not enough total slots to play in.

WC can't even get the most basic thing in to help with this, a queue! I'd be deeply suspicious of a change to auto log inactive players.

[AngrySaltire]

10 minutes ago, Arkasaurio said:

 

WC can't even get the most basic thing in to help with this, a queue! I'd be deeply suspicious of a change to auto log inactive players.

Am not sure if its a new thing, but we deffinatly appear to have a que system on xbox. We have the option to auto join a server when a space becomes available which I assume takes the form of a que, no way of knowing if people in front of the 'que' actually get in first. Am amazed this isnt a thing on ps4 or pc, judging by recent comments on thw forum. 

[Jamagh]

8 minutes ago, AngrySaltire said:

Am not sure if its a new thing, but we deffinatly appear to have a que system on xbox. We have the option to auto join a server when a space becomes available which I assume takes the form of a que, no way of knowing if people in front of the 'que' actually get in first. Am amazed this isnt a thing on ps4 or pc, judging by recent comments on thw forum. 

I wish PC had that option. If we do I can't find it.

[AngrySaltire]

9 minutes ago, Jamagh said:

I wish PC had that option. If we do I can't find it.

Yeah, it should automatically pop up an option to do it automatically, which probably means pc probably doesnt have an option for it. Tried screenshotting my telly to show the option but file size too big

[SmokeyB]

The que is terrible it was way better to just spam A now it takes forever,  it makes me give up.

As for the auto logging out of inactive players I'm against it due to long tame and breeding times meaning it is often required to go afk on this game.

If you sit on a chair you can stay logged in forever and not lose food or water.

[JKnapp]

1 hour ago, SmokeyB said:

The que is terrible it was way better to just spam A now it takes forever,  it makes me give up.

As for the auto logging out of inactive players I'm against it due to long tame and breeding times meaning it is often required to go afk on this game.

If you sit on a chair you can stay logged in forever and not lose food or water.

I've done lots of long tames and breeding and not been disconnected due to inactivity on servers that had it enabled. Theriz on crops takes forever btw.  

But what I'm talking about is the people that do sit on chairs for hours on end. Just so they don't have to log in again. Personally I don't like the idea of leaving my pc on and running all the time so I won't do it. But these are the people that need the auto boot. If they were not logged in all day, people could actually get in and play. And maybe not have to try for 2 hours. A guy from my tribe was trying to get on server for over 4 hours the other day. He's way more determined than I ever would be. 

[JKnapp]

And yes I wish they would implement a que system for pc. There was times I checked the server list and seen people joining before I could due to slow pc and long load times. But how many of them had just hopped on without much trouble. 

[Avaraxius]

Auto log out is not an option as you know this game has a terrible breed and tame system  that stil is not  changed, so often players need to stay in game because of a non kibble tame so instead of kibble a bery tame can take 2 h longer.

[JKnapp]

Auto logout is an option. It was in use on center 577. My wife got booted a coulpe times from it since she gets sidetracked on doing other things. 

Thats fine if people need to stay in for a tame. That's one thing. There's plenty to keep you busy when taming. ( watching for dangers.)  but I don't know about you. I don't sit in a chair for hours without moving or opening and closing a menu when I'm taming. Playing pvp you gotta keep watch. Even pve you should. Never know when a compy or dilo or even the occasional allo can wreck your tame. Had a allo walk over spike walls to get me once when trying to tame a145 allo. 

[Avaraxius]

I am for a login que but totaly against auto logout, if they add should be an hour  atleast.

But would say get more servers open i am sure this wil be over within few months. The game is new you see this kind of problem with mmo's they add dozens of servers and after few months they merge them again but those are not 70 max servers. We need to wait until wc finishes server deployment.. 

for auto logout again there are alot of tools that do the clicks so this wil be no solution. So anyone that wants to stay loged in this wil be the way for them to stay online.

[Askew]

2 hours ago, Arkasaurio said:

The reason people do it is so they don't lose their slot

 

 

holy sheeat

[Arkasaurio]

2 minutes ago, Askew said:

 

 

holy sheeat

Lol, was that necessary?

It's the internet, reasoning ability doesn't run high on average. Generally better to over explain than under explain and be misunderstood.

[LouSpowells]

This is a no-win scenario for Wildcard. 

If they do nothing, the same people will complain
If they implement an AFK-kick timer, people breeding will complain
If they implement an AFK-kick timer, it will be easily circumvented with a macro ("W" tap every 30-60 seconds) and people who requested an AFK-kick timer will complain due to the circumvention

I've seen this issue arise on every online game I've played where the player can choose the server they want to play on...and the same arguments about AFK-timers have existed on the forum for each of these games. For all of these developers it has been a lose-lose situation.

[vtallbloke]

35 minutes ago, LouSpowells said:

This is a no-win scenario for Wildcard. 

If they do nothing, the same people will complain
If they implement an AFK-kick timer, people breeding will complain
If they implement an AFK-kick timer, it will be easily circumvented with a macro ("W" tap every 30-60 seconds) and people who requested an AFK-kick timer will complain due to the circumvention

I've seen this issue arise on every online game I've played where the player can choose the server they want to play on...and the same arguments about AFK-timers have existed on the forum for each of these games. For all of these developers it has been a lose-lose situation.

there would be a real quick fix, sort the capacity issue out and we wont have people queing - namely more servers

[BlueFox91]

There needs to be more servers. After the next low pop legacy server wipes there may be more servers added.

[JKnapp]

Ya. But i don't think they brought back as many servers as they shut down. It sure doesn't seem that way anyhow. The main server I played throughout my time in early access never was at capacity. Even when cross server raids were happening. We haven't had this problem until they killed the old and brought up some new. (Still don't think they brought back as many as they killed). 

[LouSpowells]

1 hour ago, vtallbloke said:

there would be a real quick fix, sort the capacity issue out and we wont have people queing - namely more servers

If you have an axe to grind about there not being enough servers, I don't blame you, but your suggestion has little relevance to the topic that the OP was addressing in his post. You're talking about overpopulation, which exists and can be mitigated by adding more servers. 

We're talking about players who are established on a server going AFK while logged in, thus preventing other established players on that server from logging in until they are forced to log off. In the OP's example, he spoke of a server where - after a forced server restart - 20 spots were opened up, as the AFK players who did not log out did not log back in after the restart. This problem has some overlap with - but is largely independent of - the issue of there not being enough servers to meet the player demand.

In other words, even if there were enough official servers, this problem (the one the OP illustrated) would still exist, and we'd still being having this conversation. If you're looking for context, this issue is particularly noticeable on PvP servers, wherein many tribes prefer to never log out while AFK, as it lessens the potential for opposition during a raid or while being raided. 

My point in the post that you quoted is that any "solution" to this problem would only serve to piss off more people. Now you're caught up.

 

[cmorris975]

The game doesn't kick you for inactivity?  I always assumed it would.  Regardless, I'm not going to leave my character logged in for hours and deny someone else a spot just so I can play later.  I can usually get onto my server early in the morning EST but the rest of the day it's a no go.  70/70 the entire day into late evening.

 

Another issue is that sometimes, after multiple unsuccessful attempts to log into the server, the game world will start to load but then freeze with "Snapshot_16" displayed on the lower left corner.  I will force the game to exit and then start it up again - the server will then display 69/70 population.  Of course I still usually cannot get in.

[KrakenOverlord]

3 hours ago, Arkasaurio said:

Lol, was that necessary?

It's the internet, reasoning ability doesn't run high on average. Generally better to over explain than under explain and be misunderstood.

come on, you know it was funny.

[Baton]

7 hours ago, AngrySaltire said:

Yeah, it should automatically pop up an option to do it automatically, which probably means pc probably doesnt have an option for it. Tried screenshotting my telly to show the option but file size too big

 

5 hours ago, JKnapp said:

And yes I wish they would implement a que system for pc. There was times I checked the server list and seen people joining before I could due to slow pc and long load times. But how many of them had just hopped on without much trouble. 

Its present on steam...Start game, go to steam View > Servers > Favourites > select server and check its info, if its full it will suggest you to join as soon as slot frees

[Carnage08]

This might be a dumb idea but maybe for those who are afk for long periods a pop up window could appear giving a countdown to show activity of some kind. 

[Boubbin]

When they released we had like 10 hour downtime and you can see from steam charts (http://steamcharts.com/app/346110#1m) that it almost didn't have any effect on the playercount so i guess majority of people plays on dedicated servers/single player? That's atleats what i can figure out from it. So maybe they are not that interested of full server things on official, or people idling.

[Arkasaurio]

Well raptor me:

I'm not much of a redditer but this is legit right?

[TranqRex]

Yeah, it's legit. No idea though why they STILL, 2 years later, post stuff to Reddit and Twitter before their own official forums (and in this case, it seems not at all!). This place is treated like their unwanted child.

It's also quite possibly pretty poorly thought out (disclaimer: I have no idea if it's literally a basic inactivity check or something more advanced) - there are people in that announcement thread posting methods for defeating it so yeah, this might possibly "fix" absolutely nothing.