Marcus Gideon
Gallente
Federal Defense Operations
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Posted - 2011.07.30 22:45:00 -
[1]
1) The issue isn't "AFK Cloakers", it's your awareness of them. If Local were made into "Recent Speakers" all around, so the only faces you see are people who spoke in the last 15min, you'd have to be paranoid all the time instead of just when you see a strange face.
2) In the spirit of #1, try living in WHs instead of 0.0 where you never know if there's someone lurking. I notice the OP talking about solo ops in 0.0 and yet counters the WH argument by saying "Then have some friends guard the WHs and pull watch". So WH denizens are supposed to travel in groups for safety, but 0.0 dwellers should be allowed to solo through life?
3) The issue isn't "AFK Cloakers", as those are two completely distinct and separate words. "Cloaks" are the counter to Probes, and should be left alone in all regards. The paranoia comes from not knowing whether another player is "AFK". This could be remedied in a number of ways.
- Have a little mark the depicts when someone is AFK. Then you won't try talking to corpies who haven't been around for hours.
- Log players out after lengthy periods of inactivity. There is nothing in the game that requires your presence, but not your involvement. If someone is cloaked, and providing active intel, they are chatting with their fleet/corp/alliance/whatever. That conversation means they are not (A)way (F)rom the (K)eyboard. However, if they are hidden in any regard, whether that's cloaked or just MWD'ing into deep space... and the player is nowhere near their desk... that person is truly AFK.
Of course there are ways macros could prevent someone from "timing out". However, macros are illegal, and would be dealt with on their own.
In summary, Cloaks aren't the problem. As "everything needs a counter", Cloaks are the only true way to counter Probes. Leave them alone.
Go after the real problem. The presence of someone in your system that you don't know.
Either remove the knowledge of their presence (fix Local), make it easier to tell if they're actually a threat (AFK flag), or...
Watch your borders better, and kill people when they invade!
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