AFK Farming, Forgetting to Sign Out, and Other Confusions

[Lineere.8042]

So I stumbled upon a forum post that said that AFK Farming, is against the rules and you can get banned for it. Most games I've played have anti-botting measures, which is completely normal. Thus this confuses me. So a few questions to clarify.

 

Questions:

 

1) AFK Farming, i.e. leaving your character online without doing anything, and having minions, turrets, or pets kill things, is against the rules correct?

 

2) If so, what is the time in which you are considered afk?

 

3) What are the punishments for doing so?

 

I've seen someone say if you don't respond to a GM message you get banned or the like, but that doesn't seem right as I never notice half the messages anyways so I doubt that's how Anet does things.

 

I tend to have to get up and do things that require immediate attention when gaming. Normally it's along the lines of kids arguing and I have to step in, etc. I'll leave for 5-30 minutes only to come back and realize I was in combat and my minions kill a lot of stuff. That said, is this AFK farming, and where does Anet draw the line? The intent is not to farm, but it ends up with the same results, a lot of experience from masteries comes from my minions killing stuff when I step away as my life interrupts gaming a lot.

 

Yes, I realize that if Anet believe this is against the rules I can get banned. To be honest though, I have enough faith that Anet isn't trying to prevent players from living there lives and cares more about maintaining a positive player base and monetary flow.

 

To clarify, I have never used any sort of automation using third-party programs nor have I attempted to gain experience through AFKing (like I need more Tyria Mastery exp). The main issue is the game itself creates a system in which it's hard not to do similar things.

 

Anyways, the only reason I ask this is because I don't want to be banned for focusing on things other than the game. Life happens, and sometimes you don't have time to log out or you need to react quickly to something else. I love this game and don't want to have to leave it just because of a silly rule that hurts more than it helps.

 

Thanks you so much for reading through this,

 

Lineere

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

It is true that if you do not respond to a GM, your account may be actioned.

You can read the Dev posts about this in the archived old GW2 official forums.

 

Good luck.

[Lineere.8042]

Ouch. So how much time do they give you to respond?

[Lineere.8042]

Also where can I find this archive?

[Lanhelin.3480]

You can only be afk when you use forbidden programs that automatize some of your actions to actually prevent your character from getting into afk-status. Because once the game considers your status to be afk you'll automatically become logged out after a few minutes (40?) which is counterproductive for afk-farming. Pets/turrets/minions' actions alone won't prevent the afk-status from the character. If you just stand somewhere and let your minions/pets/turrets kill mobs, you're not afk although other players might get this impression. You don't need to worry. You only should worry if your character stands there 24/7, sooner or later you'll be cought and probably banned 4ever.

[Lineere.8042]

Oh ok. Thank god. I've only been gone for around 30 minutes at a time so far, but if that's the case then I feel a lot better.

[Shikigami.4013]

Every single thing/answer so far were at least partly wrong.

 

This has debated over and over again, and it has been made clear over and over again, yet each time the topic arises there will be people (often long-time players) who have no idea and write false things.

 

1. Leaving your character online WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING is not afk-farming. It is being afk. It is not against the rules. You will be timed out and logged off from the game after a while. Nothing will ever happen to you for doing this, even when pets/minions kill mobs.

 

2. The time for the real afk-farming (I will come to this in a moment) has never been and will likely never be disclosed by ArenaNet. It has been labled as generous, that is pretty much all we know.

 

3. This varies and also has never been and likely will never be disclosed. It probably is a case-by-case decision. You will also not find a definite answer to "what exactly will be the punishment" for ANY other rulebreaking players may do, be it botting, account-sharing, harrassing players or whatever is against the TOS.

 

Now to the point of "What IS actually this afk-farming that people talk about".

a) You need to be afk. Being afk is defined by ArenaNet as being unresponsive to interaction with a GM. They do not disclose how exactly this "interaction" happens. You can be sure though that it will not just be a gm sending you a message that you can overlook in your chatbox while playing the game.

 

b) Your character needs to perform an action. Your character. Not your pets/minions/turrets. It does not matter if the action your character does is triggered by an illegal bot program, your mouse software, an auto-clicker, or the built-in game function of autocast. If your character uses a skill/spell, point b is fulfilled. i will repeat this again, as this is a huge thing that people get wrong again and again. You do NOT need to use anything illegal to fulfil point b. Using the ingame function of CTRL-rightclick a skill/spell counts as your character performing an action. Although afk-farmers should be reported as "botting" in the ingame report function, most of them probably are not using an illegal bot program.

 

c) You have to be in a position where it is beneficial for you to be. This means that you will gain anything from being there, be it gold, items, karma, quest completion or anything that is beneficial for your account. If you are not at a place where you gain anything, you can be afk and autocast a spell all day long, noone cares. You can stand in Lion's arch on top of a house with your pet out and shoot arrows into thin air. Feel free. As long as you don't gain anything.

 

When a, b and c are all fulfilled, this is what most of those people do who stand in big blobs with their necropets, engi turrets or sometimes ranger pets. They will typically stand there for hours being afk, never moving. When a GM checks these players and they do not respond in the "generous timeframe", this would be point a)

They typically have one or more skills/spells on autocast. Necros mostly seem to use an aoe attack while engis obviously recast their turrets all the time, because they will selfdestruct after a while. Point b) fulfilled.

And these blobs of afk-farmers stand in places where mobs spawn frequently and regularly, so that they have an endless supply of targets to gain loot/gold/other game currencies like volatile magic. This is point c)

 

So feel free to go afk, anywhere, anytime, even with pets out. You will either die, or kill a few mobs before being timed out and logged out into the character selection screen. As long as you do not make your character perform any action while you are away, you will be fine and you are not an afk-farmer.

[Lineere.8042]

Ok. Thanks so much for the in depth response. So basically so long as my character isn't doing anything I'm good. Which I've never had happen, as I have no idea how to do that in the first place. Anyways thank you so much everyone. The information has been really helpful, and has made me feel a lot better about playing necro.

[Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921]

I've been gone too long and the game just logs me out. I don't use bots so when I'm not there my character doesn't act. Unless you hit something with a skill minion and pet kills don't give you loot. AFK farming involves bots that make your character hit the mob to get the loot. I've been kicked offline many times but never banned. Usually if this happens you're given a smaller window to act in for a while and then the game returns to normal as long as you're playing.

[Shikigami.4013]

> @"Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921" said:

> [..]Unless you hit something with a skill minion and pet kills don't give you loot. [--]

 

Sorry, not correct. Just tested it to make sure and logged in my necro. Casted all the pets and walked near an aggro mob. Without my char even moving a finger, the minions killed the mob all by themselves and I got loot in addition to xp.

 

 

[Zaklex.6308]

> @"Shikigami.4013" said:

> > @"Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921" said:

> > [..]Unless you hit something with a skill minion and pet kills don't give you loot. [--]

>

> Sorry, not correct. Just tested it to make sure and logged in my necro. Casted all the pets and walked near an aggro mob. Without my char even moving a finger, the minions killed the mob all by themselves and I got loot in addition to xp.

>

>

 

You are correct, it works the same way with Ranger pets, if they kill the mob(and you have auto-loot from the Tyria masteries) then your character will get what ever loot that mob dropped.

[Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921]

> @"Shikigami.4013" said:

> > @"Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921" said:

> > [..]Unless you hit something with a skill minion and pet kills don't give you loot. [--]

>

> Sorry, not correct. Just tested it to make sure and logged in my necro. Casted all the pets and walked near an aggro mob. Without my char even moving a finger, the minions killed the mob all by themselves and I got loot in addition to xp.

>

>

Yeah I checked it, strange I remember it being the other way around before. If you ask me I'd suggest they start there with AFK farming, it's not a hassle to attack something with my necro or ranger to get loot but getting loot without me actively attacking it? That's not right.