"Sorry, I have to go afk"

who was your team mate that went afk? It wasn't Luclfer was it?

I feel your pain man, you probably remember me from the other team.  I saw him say AFK and never come back.  Tough break.  First time I have ever seen an AFK that long in-game lol.

Agree with you 100%, its a multiplayer game if you gota go then quit, dont sit there wasting a slot.  Although with the way the AI is, it might have ultimately been for the best at least hes not going on suicide runs.

It happened to me before, me and my teammate were cleaning the other teams clocks, then she went afk, and on domination it isnt exactly swell.

But there isnt really anything that GPG can do about players leaving thier keyboards once a game has started. And sometimes people have a phone call they think will be quick but takes longer, or more than likely have to drop the kids off at the pool. Luck of the draw i suppose.

I think i was on the other team when that happend, i was pissed also haha. Was he a rook player?

I think i was on the other team when that happend, i was pissed also haha. Was he a rook player?

People are jerks. 

Please, if you anticipate that you might not be able to finish a game, don't even bother starting one up.

I had someone drop on me today in the most intense moment of the entire match because apparently "girlfriends > video games."  And yes, girlfriends do trump video games; however, don't bloody join a match if you're on a tight leash and if there is even the slightest chance you might not be able to finish, comprende?

 

 - andpancakes

You are actually saying that you would rather have an AI instead of a player being idle?

The problem is in the game option timeouts are off by default. I don't understand why. Even 1 timeout per player would have been good (1 is not actually and option). The timeout ideally should not be able to be cancelled and a minimum duration of say 30 seconds , then vote is required after that to cancel if the player who went afk haven't come back yet. Luckily this is a rare issue.

Anything under 5-10 minutes I consider fine for going afk, because the AI would usually feed 5+ kills in those five minutes which usually leaves no hope of winning, whereas if he sticks around you instead have a guy  who is just a bit underleveled now, which means you still have a chance to win.

Hey, I wasn't crying that something needs to be fixed.  Players are what they are; nothing can be done about that.  Just some healthy venting...:)  Surely everyone's who's played DG has had games where they want to punch their screen, and that was one of those for me.

I guess if someone said they had to go go afk for 5 minutes, that's probably ok.

Are they recording "ragequits" now?  That might be why.

Here is the main problem i see with recording ragequits now. 

 

Earlier today I had a guy who talked in the lobby, and the game started.... He didnt chat in game, and never moved... WTF am i supposed to do?  I can conceed.  So i can quit, and just take it in my stats..

But what about the other team.  Since we didnt conceed and there is still a technically active player on the other side, the game continues.  Granted it shouldnt take long since its a 3v0 but still.  Its stupid.

In my experience with other multiplayer games, usually this kind of behaviour is to avoid the 'Rage quit' being recorded against them - however, unlike Rage Quitting, there is no real way to prevent someone going AFK. It happens in every multiplayer game, often in Team Fortress 2 there will be 2 or 3 AFKers at one time and it can really hurt. It's usually the other person farming something - such as favour. And adding code that would detect someone not moving won't work; they'll just click randomly to keep their Demigod moving around the Health Crystal rather than actually playing the game.

Once personal Ignore lists are in place, these people will be weeded out of the general population over time. I don't mind if an emergency comes up, however farming going AFK for entire matches is really unacceptable.

Of course there is.  If no mouse or keyboard activity for X amount of time, auto-dc.

They tried it in World of Warcraft, took the AFKers all of 3 seconds to adapt.

Also... my fav thing ever... guy announces to EVERYONE that he's AFK... wow.  I mean, if you had to do it, maybe just tell your teammate... but still lousy. 

Oh... and sadly, I'd take an AFK over the AI anyday (at least with the current ai).  I think its cool that he chose to stick and go AFK instead of dropping, but completely idiotic that he'd announce that to everyone playing. 

Perhaps you don't understand what "AFK" means.

Away From Keyboard. And if you think every person who goes 'AFK' is actually AFK, then you don't understand the mentality of a farmer. If you're after the maximum amount of favour points who can get in the shortest time possible what would you do: play for 10 minutes, without moving, lose the game and get 45 favour or play for an hour, maybe win and maybe get 200 favour.

I'm going to have to disagree with thhose on this thread who feel that once the game starts, everyone must sit down and play for 45 minutes straight. When people play a game, they have every right to get up for a minute to help with an emergency, answer the phone, greet someone at the door, etc. Such tasks take a remarkably short amount of time; if I need to afk for a minute to say hello to a friend whom I haven't seen for years, that's my business.

For those who equate gaming to playing a sport, come off of it. Unless you're playing a tournament (where no one goes afk because it's 'serious' gaming), you're effectively in a scrimmage, and in scrimmages, people come and go, get distracted, etc. The world isn't about demigod, and sometimes people need to leave for a minute. We'll be back. The computer's not going anywhere.

Who gives a crap about favor points?  I have over 2k; I can buy whatever item I want whenever I want.  Most people are in the same boat, and if they're not it doesn't take claiming to be AFK to get there.

Life happens.  Maybe in your mind AFK means some weird trick they're trying to pull to eek out extra favor, but to the rest of the world it means your kid is crying, your girlfriend is calling, someone is knocking on the door, whatever.  They are away from the keyboard, which is why they let you know they are going away from the keyboard, and if you think that idle kicks aren't the way to keep afk players from ruining games for longer than their timeouts I don't know what to say to you that wouldn't be insulting.

Ok, you seem to think that I'm one of the people who believe when you play a game of Demigod you don't get out of your computer chair until the game is done. Not so, and sorry if I've come across that way. I have no problems with people having a life, I'd much rather they tend to their child or speak with their friend or partner than continue to play the game - and as is bleedingly obvious, everyone at some point is probably going to have to do this. I've done it myself. Nothing wrong there.

My complaints are with the people abusing the system - who go AFK to avoid having to use the concede option, or who go AFK merely to gain more favour points (any system where you earn something merely from being in a game is going to be abused in this way). As Frogboy pointed out, they won't be resetting the favour points again, so they're probably going to correct the bug at some point, meaning all of those favour points are going to be needed again. And, of course it doesn't make sense - thats part of the reason I hate the people who do it. They ruin the game for their team members. If you're not coming back, just leave - I'd rather a rage quit than an AFKer who leaves without the intention of coming back. The number of times in Counter-Strike the last remaining player who is AFK, still sitting at base and still equipped with just their pistol, magically springs to life the moment the enemy are close to them for a few last second kills. Annoying as hell.

Things do happen, but I agree, 90% of afks have nothing to do with any type of important issue comming up (unless most Demigod players are firemen or on their laptops while working in the emergency room). 

If or when they implement the "AI replacement gives 50% less xp/gold, or none" that would make most AFKers far more likely to let the AI take over rather than just sit there.  And I agree with Zeh, the personal ban list will fix this a lot.  I have a ban list of sorts, but only has 3 names on it, and 2 of the names on it are because those people went AFK in two seperate games.  If your life is really THAT busy, you should not join a team oriented game; do a solo vs the AI so you don't ruin the game for the other 3-9 people.

You don't seem to understand griefers...

Working around an auto-kick mechanic is no problem at all for those kinds of people.

If you're referring to me, then no, I didn't think you were one of them. In fact, a bravo for you and others who do not fall into the clutches of leetspeak/netspeak in an online discussion.

Wow... you people seriously think there are that many griefers in this game... seems pretty cynical.

The only time I've seen anyone really go afk was before concede was implemented so that we could destroy their base more quickly when we had clearly won. Seemed fair enough to me.  The problem with doing this is, unlike concede, you can go afk even if you're teammate isn't on-board that you've lost for sure yet.  But meh; if one person on your team is basically going to concede, you've probably lost anyway.  It's been argued there is little hope for a comeback in this kind of game.  It reminds me of chess when you're down a queen, two rooks, and two bishops.... yeah it's possible you could get a freak checkmate, but most likely you're a goner.

I don't get this at all.  Why would someone go AFK to avoid having to use the concede option?  The only thing I can think of is that they don't know about concede, but you're arguing that they're really still at their keyboard, so when the other team is in a bad situation I remind them that F10 is concede.  Going AFK to earn more favor points?  Again, 1.) Favor points don't matter for shit and 2.) don't you get just as many favor points from conceding as losing?  This line of reasoning really makes no sense to me.

Now, some people have mentioned going pseudo-AFK is really for griefing. Seems pretty meh to me.  If they're still at the keyboard (so my idle-kick wouldn't kick in) a far better way to grief would be to continually suicide to the other team.  Or they could still just rage quit; many would argue the AI-feeding would be worse than being AFK at the crystal anyway.  So not really sure I buy the griefing argument anyway, but bans and kick-votes could help out there.