Fine, lets go into technicalities. Even if a server isnt full, a player siting AFK on a server for 2 hours means the server worked harder for 2 hours longer than it needed to. This means more CPU was used, and more BANDWIDTH was used (<liberal>Think of the environment!</liberal>) Even if your specific server isn't full -- There are other servers and processes running on the servers than your single server, processes that could use that additional CPU instead. AFK'ing on SMP2 could be depriving SMP1 of CPU it needs. All for a player who isn't even playing the game. What part of that makes sense? Even if the server isn't full, lets look at what a single AFK player does to the server for 1 hour: 200 * 20 = 4000 ticks a second 4000 * 60 = 240,000 ticks a minute 240000 * 60 = 14,400,000 ticks an hour that's 14.4 million ticks to process data for a player who is not even at the game... All this time, the CPU is busier than it NEEDS to be, making the hardware less efficient. At the same time, spending billions of packets to the client, eating up countless bandwidth -- because farms? They are SPAMMING move packets due collision, water flow, AI behavior, etc, at a much higher rate than typical game play. If we allowed everyone to just sit AFK at farms 14 hours a day, what do we do when our server CPUs are all pegged out from AFK players on servers, do you expect us to buy more servers to accommodate more AFK'ers? EMC's policies towards entities are some of the friendliest ones you will find in Minecraft Servers. Other servers will butcher your farms/entities every 15 minutes.... I think the limits and expectations I've put in place, everyone can agree too, is the best of both worlds. Players get to use their entities when they want without threat of them being deleted, and they don't destroy the servers performance. Your crop growth statement is not factual. Crop growth has been changed for near 8 months now -- no-one has said a thing. Ive even improved crop growth recently so there's no issues. Minecraft was not built for multiplayer. You can not expect every single player mechanic to stay true in multiplayer unless your on a 5 man server. This isn't creating a problem. It's preventing them. People not sharing grinders isnt the reason i've mentioned tweaking AFK kicking... It's as I described above. Your problem of sharing has no relation to AFK kicking, as you can still hog a grinder while not being AFK, two seperate problems. But anyways, I understand how the servers work, and that entities are the problem. I also know where EMC is going in the upcoming months, the growth we will achieve. There has to be some regulation to prevent single players being able to bring down entire servers.. We can not have another Utopia Iron Farm Incident (2 players was able to destroy utopia just by running 2 iron farms). When a change I make drastically impacts gameplay like the entity collision change did - it was fixed instantly. My goal is if your playing normal, you shouldn't experience much differences, but if your not using something, then it shouldn't be impacting server performance.
FUN FACT: Did you know an item drop uses as much CPU as 1 mob! They use as much CPU as 1 mob because they're still accounted as entities. AIKAR I think we should ban ITEM DROPS TOO!!! Cause I think they ruin the economy and cause too much laaaaag. (Obviously sarcasm, bazinga!)
Since a PLAYER is an ENTITY we should BAN PLAYERS Too! And just have the forums! Because without players theres no economy to be ruined and a lot of players can cause lag!!!!!
So you are harming the playing experience for single players - so you can get as many players to join emc as possible? This is very flawed logic. First off, people are not going to want to join a server that just gets more and more restrictive about how you can play. Secondly - instead of working on the servers (in this restrictive manor) So that we can support hundreds of new players (quantity over quality) why don't we make the server the best it can be for fewer players. (gain quality over quantity) Why is it the goal of EMC to be as big as possible, instead of as amazing as possible? Big is not better. EMC was GREAT when there were 4 or 5 servers. After server after server were added things went down hill. We lost a lot of players. Yes, there is nothing wrong with growth as long as it is not at the expense of the product. If you create a great product you will gain a following naturally. These things CAN NOT be forced. If you build your following back up slowly - you gain more supporters = more money = upgrading servers to fit more people. Expecting a huge influx because you are releasing one cool new feature is going to cause a lot of problems. Sure, you might have a temporary influx of players - however they will realize how restricted the game play is and will loose interest and be just that - temporary. I agree that there does have to be restrictions. The entcount limiter was a great idea and is implemented without much harm to players. I'm ok with the idea people should not be afked for hours on hours. There is a difference between restricting a few things, and cutting things off entirely or restricting so many small things that it becomes more difficult to play the game. In minecraft there is quite a bit or "work" involved in order to do the more fun things. Its a common game mechanic in a lot of games that helps kill time and keep people involved longer. There is a balance though as to how much "work" people are willing to do before it become actual work and takes away from the game. The harder you make it for people to gain materials - the more time we are "working" instead of doing what we enjoy. Whatever that may be - playing the economy, building, going on wild adventured, etc... Its a good goal to have, but ask yourself.. Are you meeting it?
Just curious, but how long do you (as an individual, not your whole group) AFK for? If i am under the correct assumption, they are only going to limit excessive AFKing.
In terms of AFK kicks, I think they're pretty generous. I occasionally play on another server which takes a much more "evil" approach. Instead of kicking you, at a randomly selected time that seems to be around every 15 minutes, a zombie (and/or other reasonably safe mob) will spawn on top of you without warning (and I mean literally, on top of). It stops afking, obviously, as it kills anyone that tries to do it. In fact, it's one of the most effective systems I've ever seen. Then again, it's extremely annoying when you're trying to mine. Maybe an automated AFK kick isn't so bad? Or would you prefer death?
I actually don't do a whole lot of AFKing. But lets throw this out there. I know someone who afks during his/her work day. They come on to clear out mobs as they find the time What harm is this doing? Other than making it easier for him/her to play during his/her off work hours, instead of doing the in game "work" during his/her free time. What purpose does it server that he/she is getting kicked (unless of course the server is full and the spot is needed for another player) because he/she happens to not be able to get back to the game for 20 minutes instead of 15?
I chocked on my donette xD The funny thing is that right now I came in search of item drop issues because it keeps happening to me. This kind of reminds me the Blizzard forums for some reason... EDIT: Chascarrillo xDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD *drops dead*
So all day? I call excessive on that one. Breeding two red coloured sheep will get you a red baby. Screw logic.
Should we allow people to automate mining? Same thing as farms Automate building? What is so different about allowing players to collect resources from a farm while AFK than letting people spend resources while afk? The point is your suppose to PLAY the game, siting AFK for 3 hours is not playing the game. Where do we draw the line? do you really want to see EMC full of drones AFK mining and building for 15 minutes, come back, says hi, then AFK's again? EMC's service is for people to play on, not AFK on. And per your person who farms while at work. this "game work" is part of the game. By doing it while hes not active in game while at work is no different than mining afk, or building AFK. Go try some other MMO's, and see how the economy is impacted by asian sweat shops and automated bots that automate the game 24/7 to collect as much resources as possible... It's not healthy for the game or the community. building a machine to simplify resource collection is fine, excessive AFK is not.
By getting more and more restrictive on what most people consider perfectly acceptable game mechanics - you are only shooting yourself in your own foot. That is all I really have to say about it. Edit : ok maybe not - Lets not forget that EMC itself actually promoted mass amounts of afk grinding through texp boards. Ok .. now that it all I have to say about it.
I do always enjoy your "reality check" posts. Don't kill me folks, but perhaps it is time to make AFKing a supporter perk. 2 hrs per lvl of supportership, say. More supporters make more system resources available no?
