Staying afk... why?!

[Azureus Scipio]

It seems like my friend cannot make a character on balmung because it is always locked. I also know people stay afk in game while they are in bed, at work, school, ect. It really does not seem fair for people in other time zones who want to play with their friends. Is it so hard to have some common courtesy.. what do other people think of this? do you think they should not have removed the auto-logout in 2.2?

[Berrod Armstrong]

It seems like my friend cannot make a character on balmung because it is always locked. I also know people stay afk in game while they are in bed, at work, school, ect. It really does not seem fair for people in other time zones who want to play with their friends. Is it so hard to have some common courtesy.. what do other people think of this? do you think they should not have removed the auto-logout in 2.2?

The amount of people online at the time doesn't affect server lockout. There's a certain time in the morning when the server opens for character creation. He should try now actually, this is usually when people get in.

[Azureus Scipio]

It seems like my friend cannot make a character on balmung because it is always locked. I also know people stay afk in game while they are in bed, at work, school, ect. It really does not seem fair for people in other time zones who want to play with their friends. Is it so hard to have some common courtesy.. what do other people think of this? do you think they should not have removed the auto-logout in 2.2?

The amount of people online at the time doesn't affect server lockout. There's a certain time in the morning when the server opens for character creation. He should try now actually, this is usually when people get in.

 

we've been trying for the past 3 hours , i don't want to end up with him and me making characters on a completely different server away from my FC friends who will happily help him when im offline. :cry:

[Blue]

 

It seems like my friend cannot make a character on balmung because it is always locked. I also know people stay afk in game while they are in bed, at work, school, ect. It really does not seem fair for people in other time zones who want to play with their friends. Is it so hard to have some common courtesy.. what do other people think of this? do you think they should not have removed the auto-logout in 2.2?

The amount of people online at the time doesn't affect server lockout. There's a certain time in the morning when the server opens for character creation. He should try now actually, this is usually when people get in.

 

we've been trying for the past 3 hours , i don't want to end up with him and me making characters on a completely different server away from my FC friends who will happily help him when im offline. :cry:

A good way for you to know when the server is open is when you start getting RMT tells, cause it means RMTs are making characters.

 

And yes, the server doesn't open just because people log off. It is opened on set hours to prevent long log in queues.

 

As for reasons to afk, personally I like to stay online even when I'm away because I like to come back and read the RP that has happened in my LS chat channel. It's like coming home to watch your favorite TV show recorded!

[Berrod Armstrong]

It seems like my friend cannot make a character on balmung because it is always locked. I also know people stay afk in game while they are in bed, at work, school, ect. It really does not seem fair for people in other time zones who want to play with their friends. Is it so hard to have some common courtesy.. what do other people think of this? do you think they should not have removed the auto-logout in 2.2?

The amount of people online at the time doesn't affect server lockout. There's a certain time in the morning when the server opens for character creation. He should try now actually, this is usually when people get in.

 

we've been trying for the past 3 hours , i don't want to end up with him and me making characters on a completely different server away from my FC friends who will happily help him when im offline. :cry:

Another thing to account for is the patch drop. They may have incurred extra restrictions with all the folks who have returned in addition to new rollers. Keep trying all morning and see!

[Phayte]

we've been trying for the past 3 hours , i don't want to end up with him and me making characters on a completely different server away from my FC friends who will happily help him when im offline. :cry:

 

The lockout really sucks and I would have to say Balmung is one of the hardest servers to create character if not the hardest. Unfortunately your friend chose the worst time to try and create a character. I attempted to create an alt a few weeks back and had no luck late at night (1-2AM CST). I woke up earlier that morning around 6AM and the lock out was lifted. Unfortunately there is no regular open window as I remember SE saying it is based on server load (which the whole AFK thing is sort of valid).

 

If your friend can be patient, I'd say keep trying for a few more days. The patch day craze should die down hopefully for you guys to be together!

[LiveVoltage]

I actually had the same problem when I first tried to get into the server. The way I got in was I just transfered over my current main Ive been using since I started playing using the world transfer services. I wouldn't recommend doing this though unless you have an extra 20 or so $ to throw around for it. But I think that is the only other way to get into the server if you don't want to start from scratch or cant stay up late enough to create a character and join the server.

 

EDIT: I have personally confirmed there are no server join restrictions towards characters being transfered so that would be the most solid yet expensive method at you're disposal.

[Mae]

It seems like my friend cannot make a character on balmung because it is always locked. I also know people stay afk in game while they are in bed, at work, school, ect. It really does not seem fair for people in other time zones who want to play with their friends. Is it so hard to have some common courtesy.. what do other people think of this? do you think they should not have removed the auto-logout in 2.2?

Consider going to a quieter server for now to pal around with your friend. When things calm down, they can server transfer or just re-roll. I typically don't have a problem making a new character on Balmung between 4amEST and 7amEST Monday through Thursday, but I'm not going to even try doing that for a bit because of the new content. Balmung is a popular server, the overwhelming majority of people who fill the server to the point where it's locked are actively playing. That a major content patch just came out is adding to the server population; people have resubbed or picked up the game for the first time. Even if SE went and reinstated the auto-logout, it wouldn't be enough to make a difference right now.

 

Removing the auto-logout has really nothing to do with the amount of people AFK for a long period of time. Pre-2.2, if you wanted to stay logged in while sleeping/at school/at work, you could do it easily by leaving yourself in an activity that flagged you as 'busy' by the server -- stopping mid-dialogue with an NPC, stopping in the middle of a synth. They removed it more for the people who would be called away for twenty minutes and then would have to fight against other people who had been called away for twenty minutes to get back in. I live at work. I'm here 24/7, 340-ish days a year. But I'm only DOING work an average of two hours a day, in an average of twenty minute bursts that happen at random. The auto-logout just kept adding me back to the unholy mess that was the queue; I can't tell you how many times I'd be sitting back down and reaching for my keyboard, only to watch  the "You've been disconnected" message pop up.

[Aya]

I always thought that the lock was dynamic, and I remember during the time after release when they changed it so that /afk people were being kicked from the server (a feature that seems to have been turned off since then), but maybe that was just to open up queues?

 

I certainly remember the server opening up for character creation at times that did not seem set in the past.