Increasing the AFK auto kick time

[Dio Profile]

So after speaking with Curley about the issue, he asked that a forum thread be made to see what everyone thinks about it.

I personally think that 10 minutes is too low to be kicked from the server. I'd like to be able to smelt a large number of items and get up from the computer for more than 10 minutes without being kicked. That is a part of vanilla minecraft anyway

Now, there are reasons for having an AFK timer - you don't want people staying online all night. But I think with our small population, it wouldn't hurt to let people sit for more than 10 minutes.

Here, have a StrawPoll. And feel free to add your opinion in this thread.

[ipodparf Profile]

I'd be fine with the new AFK time being 20 minutes (or higher if people give legitimate reasons why). Can't/Won't speak for the rest of the mods though.

[PosterAnonymous Profile]

10 minutes is plenty of time. The only two reasons I've seen for extending the time are smelting and iron golem farms (or similar systems).

Most of your smelting can be done in this time. Even with a hopper system the player needs to be logged in to keep supplying fuel, keep the chunk loaded, etc.

Iron golem farms or similar systems just encourage the situation I described in a previous thread of massive private farms. Sure, one or two are ok and don't cause any lag problems, but what happens when everyone has their own private farms in various chunks all over the server? Lag. The obvious solution would be to then set a limit on the number of allowed farms, but how fair is it to allow a player that happened to be on the server longer than another to have such a farm but to tell the newbie that they cannot?

Is there a third reason that I am missing?

[thesillychicken Profile]

This topic is in the rundown for Town Hall so we can further discuss this.

[TehRage Profile]

I'm good with it being the way it is. 10 minutes is fine. if it kicks you just log back in. what's the problem with logging back in? is clicking a mouse 4 times really that hard?

[thesillychicken Profile]

^ Really? Really? I would love for the AFK limit to be remove 100% there is no need for especially for a server our size. If we do have an AFK limit it should be 30-60 mins. Some of us have other things to due besides watch the computer. Plus AFK Plugins aren't vanilla.

[PosterAnonymous Profile]

Honest question not directed at anyone specifically: If you have other, "better" things to do why bother playing? Go do those things instead. Lord knows if I had something better to do than drink beer, complain about commies, and help build massive structures under digital water I'd be doing it...

[Timberwolf1777]

Despite his presentation style, chicken has a bit of a point. Personally, I really dont care either way for gameplay. I dont use my iron farm much anymore so although there is some use to extending the kick time for me with long private conversations, its also fun to find inventive ways to defeat the kick system with new afk machines. That said, any plugIin that kicks players at all, isnt vanilla. I understand that lag reduction is important but it seems a more vanilla approach would be stricter rules regarding mob farms and enforcement. Maybe keep the passive farm limit at 100 entities (like sheep pen farms) but reduce the limit of grinders to 50. This wouldnt affect anyone actively using a skele or enderman or blaze grinder. It would, however, force a 3 cell max size on iron farms (16 entities per cell + golems?) and anyone afking at a mob grinder would quickly pass the 50 mark. If the punishment for breaking the 50 mob limit rule was severe (like xraying is), no one would afk in a grinder to let mobs stack up again ... ever. Lag would be reduced serverwide. Iron farms would be smaller and create less lag and be less efficient & therefore less interesting. The kick time could be extended. It seems odd to me to adhere to a very non vanilla plug in like this but have such strong resistance to stuff like a resource /sethome. Just my 2 cents. Thoughts?

[PosterAnonymous Profile]

The Vanilla Argument, as I shall heretofore refer to it, has never been a good leg to stand on in my opinion. One could just as easily say "That isn't vanilla" to argue that we don't need SignShop stores... Or ATMs... Or even coins for that matter... Or the resource world... Or Flatland... Or regioning... You get the idea. If we were trying to be as vanilla as possible, those plugins would all be gone and I suspect we'd have a very bad time.

[nfair Profile]

The Vanilla Argument, as I shall heretofore refer to it, has never been a good leg to stand on in my opinion. One could just as easily say "That isn't vanilla" to argue that we don't need SignShop stores... Or ATMs... Or even coins for that matter... Or the resource world... Or Flatland... Or regioning... You get the idea. If we were trying to be as vanilla as possible, those plugins would all be gone and I suspect we'd have a very bad time.

Yet the "it isn't vanilla" argument is the one we're being told prevents us from having some form of star gates or multiple homes, even a separate home in survival and resource.

[PosterAnonymous Profile]

That's why I'd rather leave The Vanilla Argument off the table and have a reasonable answer for why someone's playing if they feel they have better things to be doing.

[Timberwolf1777]

Then great, I know its off topic but I request a good argument (other than the vanilla argument) of why our mods who, with a couple exceptions, very rarely play, have used the vanilla argument to repeatedly shoot down ideas .... some of which are ideas that would even save on the number of modreqs they get. PA, although I agree with you in theory, the vanilla argument is the one the mods always give us when they decide against something, so with their logic applied, I use it here. The kick timer is non vanilla so it should go away. (As I said earlier, in terms of game experience, I dont really care one way or the other.)

[PosterAnonymous Profile]

:shrugs: I give.

[Dio Profile]

Poster- a third reason for you - My sheep farm is over 4000 blocks away from spawn. If I want wool to regrow on my sheep, I have to sit there and keep that chunk loaded. Now sometimes, I really don't have anything to do out in the middle of nowhere. So I would like to keep my chunk loaded for a little bit of time and step away from the computer to make some food, straighten up the house, change a diaper, ect...

Same with crop growing, animals maturing, ect...

I'm not asking to be able to stay online for hours at a time to sit at a useless iron grinder. There are still ways to do that if anyone wanted to.

Other than not liking the people who want it changed, I really don't understand why you guys are so dead-set against raising the kick time.

[asim0v Profile]

Poster- a third reason for you - My sheep farm is over 4000 blocks away from spawn. If I want wool to regrow on my sheep, I have to sit there and keep that chunk loaded. Now sometimes, I really don't have anything to do out in the middle of nowhere. So I would like to keep my chunk loaded for a little bit of time and step away from the computer to make some food, straighten up the house, change a diaper, ect...

Same with crop growing, animals maturing, ect...

I'm not asking to be able to stay online for hours at a time to sit at a useless iron grinder. There are still ways to do that if anyone wanted to.

Other than not liking the people who want it changed, I really don't understand why you guys are so dead-set against raising the kick time.

And I don't see why you're so dead-set on raising it. It's not like your crops continue to grow in single-player Minecraft if you're a thousand blocks away. Sure, you can absolutely leave SSP Minecraft running and leave, but then you're only tying up resources on your own system. Is it really so important to make sure you don't miss a few minutes of growing crops or wool until you're back?

[LeonimuZ Profile Website]

There main reason the auto kick was set is Mob grinders and people abusing them.
At the begining some people just didn't care, stood there for hours (there was someone who stood in their grinder for 7 hours) and that was using all the memory the server had and causing mayor lag. We had to kick them and then kill the problem mobs.
That and people just standing there doing nothing but using precious memory.

--
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S Captivate using My Hands[TRADE MARK SIGN] (and probably Tapatalk)

[PosterAnonymous Profile]

Hopeful greetings to those coming from the NWS ban thread! I'm not a mod and their definition of AFK may be different so this is 100% Opinionsville, baby! Population: Me!

AFK = Away From Keyboard. If you get up from your computer and no physical contact is being made with your keyboard, being translated into digital information, and then sent out across the Interwebs you are AFK. If you come up with an elaborate contraption on the real world side of your keyboard to keep your character moving while you walk away? You are violating the spirit of the rule, but it is difficult-to-impossible to prove and thus can't be banned. I think if a mod suspects you of this they could ask you to stop doing so and if your "odd" behavior continues they could kick you. If you're taking a 5 hour cart ride in a 3 block circle? Easily proven and thus can be banned.

[Timberwolf1777]

Its funny how perspective works. PA (as stated in the NWS plank post) sees that the current kick time (10 min) is winning in the straw poll by 4 votes whereas I see 22 people voting to make it longer than 10 min winning by 8 votes total. Maybe this poll could be redone? First a poll seeing if it should be longer than 10 min or not. Then if longer wins, a vote on how much longer. Just a thought.

[Dio Profile]

Its funny how perspective works. PA (as stated in the NWS plank post) sees that the current kick time (10 min) is winning in the straw poll by 4 votes whereas I see 22 people voting to make it longer than 10 min winning by 8 votes total. Maybe this poll could be redone? First a poll seeing if it should be longer than 10 min or not. Then if longer wins, a vote on how much longer. Just a thought.

The funny thing is, I have a feeling someone circumvented the multiple vote detector to put the '10 minutes' option in the lead. It only had about 6 votes and about 4 days after I made the poll it magically went up to 14 votes.

[TehRage Profile]

The funny thing is, I have a feeling someone circumvented the multiple vote detector to put the '10 minutes' option in the lead. It only had about 6 votes and about 4 days after I made the poll it magically went up to 14 votes.

Or someone made people aware of the poll who don't troll the forums and asked for us to vote in it. When I voted for 10 minutes, it was the highest one already.