Why is "inattentive" farming allowed?

[Lanhelin.3480]

"Inattentive" farming is the most boring thing one can do in this game. I tried it to get some vials of thick blood in Frostgorge Sound, and I have to admit that I didn't withstand it more than a few minutes^^ It's faster to walk around and kill the mobs than standing somewhere, waiting for the respawn.

[Oglaf.1074]

As far as I understand it, Anet are reluctant to punish you for it because it is very hard to distinguish it from “legit” forms of farming (such as running the game on a laptop in your lap while watching a movie on the Telly - yes under the current rules that is legit) and have decided it is better to let people get away with it than to accidentally punish innocent players.

[Majosea.2487]

In Orr, there was a group of about 5 necros at a certain place AFK farming sparks. Unbeknownst to them someone kited a champion to them that completely wiped them out. About 15 minutes later one of the necros, I guess, decided to check out his character, by 30 minutes they were all back. The fact that they were afk farming doesn't bother me, just don't post this "they or i were busy for a moment or two" stuff. Besides, I thought it was funny as heck since people kept rezzing them and they kept dying, and were almost down to their underwear before the champ left. :)

[Vayne.8563]

I sometimes do world complete while watching videos, or youtube. Listening to an audiobook. It's something I've done a bunch of times, it doesn't require my full attention. Maybe parents who have to deal with their kids should be punished too. Inattentive play is not only not against the rules, it's not even an issue.

[Turin.6921]

• It does not really affect anyone or the economy.

• It is not really getting anything without effort. You are just camping the resource and gather it when it re-spawns . Yes it is a very passive activity, but the action that the game assumes you should do to get the resource you do it. Be there when the resource is there, kill the adds around it and press the button to gather it. So all these ppl doing this are not getting anything unfairly. So all this pseudo-intellectual discussion about being insulting to see ppl gaining things without effort is moot. They ARE actually playing the game and get the benefits that the game allows them to have for the effort. They are just doing the bare minimum.

• Even more any active farm in game will get you much more benefits than any inattentive farm. That is the reason why the resource nodes do not re-spawn instantly. To make sure that actively playing the game is more rewarding. The "issue" is already dealt with through game design.

• And lastly how would you expect to enforce this? Boot people off the map if they stay too long? By having GMs on the spot policing 24/7 and making sure that everyone online is looking at their screen all the time? Would this really make for a more pleasant gaming environment than just letting people camp resource nodes?

[Turin.6921]

@"Halan.8951" said:

Autoloot mastery exists. All the reapers's i've seen have near max mastery points.

Autoloot has to do with looting drops from kills. It does not autogather resources. You still need to press for it.

Ember Bay on Europe right now (one of the spots). See how many Flesh Golems there are? It's like 7-8 players in a single spot, autocasting Greatsword 4 and minions do all the work.

So? That is how the A.I. minions, pets etc work. I do not see your point. Should we ban minions master builds and ranger pets? Why is a minion killing an add near a node any different than any other place in game.

[Halan.8951]

..........

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@Halan.8951 said:These characters stand there for hours (while account owner is sleeping, at work or somewhere else)Then report them and let ANet clean it up.

If people don't see anything wrong with it, I don't know what to say.How about explain what's wrong with inattentive farming?If the person is sleeping or at work or playing some other game in another room, then sure, that sounds bad for everyone concerned. But why do you object to people doing some farming while also watching TV?

If it wasn't profitable those groups of minion-reapers won's be standing in specific places.No one is saying it's not profitable.The point people are making is that (from what ANet has said) the amount of value earned is dwarfed by active players. People do it because it's better (to them) than earning nothing and ANet isn't that worried because it's not all that much better.

[Bollocks.4078]

I think the reality is something nobody on either side of this wants to hear. The reality is that it's not OK but it's pretty much impossible for Anet to catch people doing it.

People are using terms like "AFK farming" and "inatentive farming" to describe it. How about we call it what it really is - it's automated farming. People are exploiting in-game mechanics to automate farming. That's basically equivalent to botting, it just exploits in-game mechanics instead of using 3rd party software.

Sure, people can report it all day long but that doesn't prove that someone is actually doing anything wrong. A crapload of people can report and I don't expect that's enough for Anet to do something. Anet has to be able to tell that someone is doing something that they consider a violation. The only way that can happen is for someone from Anet to monitor those players long enough to verify what's happening. If they are paying just enough attention that they can respond to a whisper from an Anet person within a reasonable amount of time then the Anet person can't do anything. This is why Anet won't actually say that it's wrong. If they did then people would expect them to stop it but that would take way too much time and resources.

[ReaverKane.7598]

@CamoBadger.8531 said:

@"iczek.9628" said:

@CamoBadger.8531 said:Who cares? It doesn't impact you.

As I said it's an unfair advantage like AFK farming and botting.

What unfair advantage are they getting? It's exactly the same as if they were camping there while sitting at their computers staring at the game.

Well... If i can do that while i'm doing something else (which might include playing a second account) i'm gaining a benefit (especially if i'm playing a second account).

[Endless Soul.5178]

There was someone on reddit a few months ago who bragged about how he got 50 gold a day doing "inattentive farming" (for several hours at a time), so it is somewhat profitable. I mean, I'd love to make 50 gold a day doing basically nothing.

[Drakz.7051]

It'll just drive people who are willing to pay away whilst encouraging people to afk all day long, convert to gems and not spend any real money on the CS.

This happens in BDO, half their playerbase is afk at all times. And if they don't do something then they'll just end up losing players and revenue.

Then it will get a reputation for it and pulls in toxic people.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@"Bollocks.4078" said:People are using terms like "AFK farming" and "inatentive farming" to describe it. How about we call it what it really is - it's automated farming. People are exploiting in-game mechanics to automate farming. That's basically equivalent to botting, it just exploits in-game mechanics instead of using 3rd party software.

Automated farming is different from inattentive farming. If someone is at their computer, watching a movie while playing GW2, that's inattentive farming and permitted. If they can walk away from the computer and keep on farming, then it's some form of botting, which is not permitted.

ANet can even identify most inattentive farming in the game.

The reason that they choose to treat them differently is that their research (and that of other studios) shows that people who AFK farm (aka botting) end up disengaging from the community; that's bad for the game. In contrast, people who inattentively farm remain connected to the community and end up, in the long run, being good for the game.

They do recognize that inattentive farming looks a lot like AFK farming and that it makes some active players grumpy.

Sure, people can report it all day long but that doesn't prove that someone is actually doing anything wrong.

We do not have to prove anything at all. Our job is merely to report. It's up to ANet to evaluate whether anyone is doing something wrong.

[Lots of] people can report and I don't expect that's enough for Anet to do something.

It's moot. One person can report or 10; ANet still investigates and still has to make a determination.

The only way that can happen is for someone from Anet to monitor those players long enough to verify what's happening. If they are paying just enough attention that they can respond to a whisper from an Anet person within a reasonable amount of time then the Anet person can't do anything.

Not quite right. ANet chooses not to do anything if the person responds. ANet doesn't consider it to be a problem.

This is why Anet won't actually say that it's wrong. If they did then people would expect them to stop it but that would take way too much time and resources.

I'm sure resource constraints are part of the calculus, as they always should be for a business. But I don't think it is necessarily the case that it would take more resources to draw a sharper line closer to active gameplay. In fact, it might be lot less work if they changed the policy so that they didn't have to distinguish between AFK and inattentive farming. Or, if it's an economics issue, they could implement harsher algorithms to kick in "diminishing returns." (As they have done in the past.)

[Bollocks.4078]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"kitten.4078" said:People are using terms like "AFK farming" and "inatentive farming" to describe it. How about we call it what it really is - it's automated farming. People are exploiting in-game mechanics to automate farming. That's basically equivalent to botting, it just exploits in-game mechanics instead of using 3rd party software.

Automated farming is different from in attentive farming. If someone is at their computer, watching a movie while playing GW2, that's inattentive farming and permitted. If they can walk away from the computer and keep on farming, then it's some form of botting, which is not permitted.

How do you come to that conclusion? The game is doing the work without any interaction needed from the player. That's 100% the definition of automated. The fact that the player is paying enough attention to the game to be able to respond if someone whispers doesn't change that the game is doing the work. The game will kill things and gather loot just the same whether the player is at the keyboard or in a different room. If an inattentive farmer walks away from the computer the farming continues just the same. As I recall, didn't Anet leave the distinction between AFK and inattentive farming pretty grey?

ANet can even identify most inattentive farming in the game.

How exactly?

The reason that they choose to treat them differently is that their research (and that of other studios) shows that people who AFK farm (aka botting) end up disengaging from the community; that's bad for the game. In contrast, people who inattentively farm remain connected to the community and end up, in the long run, being good for the game.

Can you provide a link or reference to support this? I'm not saying it isn't true, I just want to read it for myself. I'd like to see where Anet stated that inattentive farming is beneficial for the community and therefor allowed.

They do recognize that inattentive farming looks a lot like AFK farming and that it makes some active players grumpy.

Sure, people can report it all day long but that doesn't prove that someone is actually doing anything wrong.

We do not have to prove anything at all. Our job is merely to report. It's up to ANet to evaluate whether anyone is doing something wrong.

[Lots of] people can report and I don't expect that's enough for Anet to do something.

It's moot. One person can report or 10; ANet still investigates and still has to make a determination.

The only way that can happen is for someone from Anet to monitor those players long enough to verify what's happening. If they are paying just enough attention that they can respond to a whisper from an Anet person within a reasonable amount of time then the Anet person can't do anything.

Not quite right. ANet chooses not to do anything if the person responds. ANet doesn't consider it to be a problem.

So you're saying that every report is investigated. If I report someone and that's the only report on them for the entire day, someone at Anet investigates, 100% guaranteed? What are they looking at? Chat logs? Do they have logs of every keystroke the player made and the determination is based on whether or not there was too much time between keystrokes? That wouldn't even come close to telling the whole story. Someone who is physically AFK but comes back and interacts every 20 minutes would look less AFK than someone who is intently watching for a hour straight but didn't press a key. So there must be something else, right? Please tell me how that works, I'd really like to know.

The bottom line, though, is that if they determine that the person I reported was "inattentive" and not "AFK" then nothing will happen anyway. There's no way I can distinguish between AFK and inattentive. I'm sure at this point it'd be pretty rare to find someone who's actually foolish enough to be AFK rather than inattentive so that makes it seem like a waste of my time and Anet's time to report someone who's probably 99.9% chance just inattentive.

This is why Anet won't actually say that it's wrong. If they did then people would expect them to stop it but that would take way too much time and resources.

I'm sure resource constraints are part of the calculus, as they always should be for a business. But I don't think it is necessarily the case that it would take more resources to draw a sharper line closer to active gameplay. In fact, it might be lot less work if they changed the policy so that they didn't have to distinguish between AFK and inattentive farming. Or, if it's an economics issue, they could implement harsher algorithms to kick in "diminishing returns." (As they have done in the past.)

Harsher diminishing returns would also punish active players and everybody would be angry.

[Shikigami.4013]

@"Bollocks.4078" said:

So you're saying that every report is investigated. If I report someone and that's the only report on them for the entire day, someone at Anet investigates, 100% guaranteed? What are they looking at? Chat logs? Do they have logs of every keystroke the player made and the determination is based on whether or not there was too much time between keystrokes? That wouldn't even come close to telling the whole story. Someone who is physically AFK but comes back and interacts every 20 minutes would look less AFK than someone who is intently watching for a hour straight but didn't press a key. So there must be something else, right? Please tell me how that works, I'd really like to know.

I don't have a link to where they said they investigate every report, but I do have a link that explains the criteria for a check of someone being afk.The post was made by Chris Cleary (Game security lead) and he stated the following in regards to afk-farming:

1) Using skill (1 or more) while AFK2) AFKing in a place where it is beneficial for your character to be at3) Unresponsive to interaction with GMs

If all 3 of these apply to what you are doing, you may get actioned for it.

As you can tell from number 3, that is the requirement for them to take action regarding the "afk" part. The player needs to be "unresponsive to interaction with GMs". That means that they do not look at chat logs (why should they) and they do not look at keystrokes (why should they). They check if the player will react to a GM trying to interact with him. An afk person will not react. An inattentive player may not react immediately, but as long as he checks his screen often enough to notice when a GM tries to interact with him, he can react in time to prove that he is not afk.

How long ArenaNet is giving the players to react is not being disclosed (probably to stop people from setting an alarm for exactly the timeframe they are given and only check their screens exactly that often.

By the way the whole thread from 2016 is available at the guildwars2 forum archive here

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@Bollocks.4078 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"kitten.4078" said:People are using terms like "AFK farming" and "inatentive farming" to describe it. How about we call it what it really is - it's automated farming. People are exploiting in-game mechanics to automate farming. That's basically equivalent to botting, it just exploits in-game mechanics instead of using 3rd party software.

Automated farming is different from in attentive farming. If someone is at their computer, watching a movie while playing GW2, that's inattentive farming and permitted. If they can walk away from the computer and keep on farming, then it's some form of botting, which is not permitted.

How do you come to that conclusion? The game is doing the work without any interaction needed from the player. That's 100% the definition of automated. The fact that the player is paying enough attention to the game to be able to respond if someone whispers doesn't change that the game is doing the work. The game will kill things and gather loot just the same whether the player is at the keyboard or in a different room. If an inattentive farmer walks away from the computer the farming continues just the same. As I recall, didn't Anet leave the distinction between AFK and inattentive farming pretty grey?

That's your definition of automated & inattentive, not ANet's. The farming doesn't continue "just the same" in inattentive farming; the player has to pay some attention.

ANet can even identify most inattentive farming in the game.How exactly?

Exactly how? If any of us knew that, someone would be able to write code that simulates it. What we do know is that they have a lot of data on what we do, including key-presses per minute, by person or by type of player. So they can use a variety of metrics to distinguish someone who is disengaged, somewhat engaged, or actively engaged.

The reason that they choose to treat them differently is that their research (and that of other studios) shows that people who AFK farm (aka botting) end up disengaging from the community; that's bad for the game. In contrast, people who inattentively farm remain connected to the community and end up, in the long run, being good for the game.Can you provide a link or reference to support this? I'm not saying it isn't true, I just want to read it for myself. I'd like to see where Anet stated that inattentive farming is beneficial for the community and therefor allowed.Beneficial? No, that's not even what I wrote to paraphrase.

2016-05-19

The core issue here is we don’t want to have players feeling that their main source of income is generated while they are not at the computer. We have already started to see the impact of this in-game and within the community. Not only does this behavior impact players in the world when they run across a pack of unattended farmers, but also the players who are performing the unattended farming. Eventually these players spend less and less time actually playing the game, and more time unattended farming.

We see the same trends in players that use bots, macros and cheats. It eventually leads to players falling out of the game (from both encountering the impact in the world, or by participating themselves).

They do recognize that inattentive farming looks a lot like AFK farming and that it makes some active players grumpy.

Sure, people can report it all day long but that doesn't prove that someone is actually doing anything wrong.

We do not have to prove anything at all. Our job is merely to report. It's up to ANet to evaluate whether anyone is doing something wrong.

[Lots of] people can report and I don't expect that's enough for Anet to do something.

It's moot. One person can report or 10; ANet still investigates and still has to make a determination.

The only way that can happen is for someone from Anet to monitor those players long enough to verify what's happening. If they are paying just enough attention that they can respond to a whisper from an Anet person within a reasonable amount of time then the Anet person can't do anything.

Not quite right. ANet chooses not to do anything if the person responds. ANet doesn't consider it to be a problem.

So you're saying that every report is investigated. If I report someone and that's the only report on them for the entire day, someone at Anet investigates, 100% guaranteed? What are they looking at? Chat logs? Do they have logs of every keystroke the player made and the determination is based on whether or not there was too much time between keystrokes? That wouldn't even come close to telling the whole story. Someone who is physically AFK but comes back and interacts every 20 minutes would look less AFK than someone who is intently watching for a hour straight but didn't press a key. So there must be something else, right?

According to ANet, every report is looked at. If you report someone and that's the only report, ANet looks at it. 100% guaranteed, according to them.

What are they looking at? We don't and won't every know, again, because if we did, then it would be easier to write bots to avoid it. They have logs of every keystroke, yes. They will look at amount of time between keystrokes, yes. Not pressing a key within 20 minutes doesn't count as "inattentive" &mdash that's away from keyboard.

Please tell me how that works, I'd really like to know.ANet's never going to tell us more than they already have. Either trust that they know their business and let them do it. Or don't trust that they know their business, in which case: we're still not going to convince them to change, since they don't know how to protect the game.

The bottom line, though, is that if they determine that the person I reported was "inattentive" and not "AFK" then nothing will happen anyway.

Correct, that is exactly what should happen.

There's no way I can distinguish between AFK and inattentive.

There is literally no reason for you to try to worry about it. If you are concerned, file the report and move on. Let ANet decide.

I'm sure at this point it'd be pretty rare to find someone who's actually foolish enough to be AFK rather than inattentive so that makes it seem like a waste of my time and Anet's time to report someone who's probably 99.9% chance just inattentive.First, you'd be shocked at what people think they can get away with. And second, if you think it's a waste of ANet's time to report, don't report it. If they aren't worried about it, why should any of us worry about it?

This is why Anet won't actually say that it's wrong. If they did then people would expect them to stop it but that would take way too much time and resources.

I'm sure resource constraints are part of the calculus, as they always should be for a business. But I don't think it is necessarily the case that it would take more resources to draw a sharper line closer to active gameplay. In fact, it might be lot less work if they changed the policy so that they didn't have to distinguish between AFK and inattentive farming. Or, if it's an economics issue, they could implement harsher algorithms to kick in "diminishing returns." (As they have done in the past.)

Harsher diminishing returns would also punish active players and everybody would be angry.First, not necessarily. There are all sorts of ways to implement DR, including ones that wouldn't impact the vast majority of us.Second, if you think low-attention farming has such a big impact on the game, isn't it worth trading off a little convenience for active players in order to prevent it? And if it's not that important, why worry that much about it?

That's a rhetorical question that's meant to illustrate what ANet has to worry about when they decide what policies to implement, e.g.

• What's the net impact on the community?
• What's the net impact on the players who do it?
• What impact does it have on the economy?
• What tools can we use to discourage the behavior? Prevent it? How would those affect other players?
• How much effort is it worth on our part, how inconvenient should we make it for active players,...?

[Drecien.4508]

Look at it like this, people get some measly reward for standing around. People get mad.People farmed istan and profited, people got mad.People farmed centaurs for leather, which would have driven the prices down, but people got mad.the moral of the story is, no matter if you stand in one spot and get crap, or farm your heart out and get good loot people will get mad and want you and your loot taken away.

[Shikigami.4013]

I don't remember seeing tons of threads about centaur farming on the forums. In fact, when searching for "centaur" and "leather" with a site-restricted google search, I only found [one thread in "Player helping player"](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/10463/lake-doric-still-the-way-to-go-for-farming-that-darn-leather "one thread in "Player helping player"") where someone asked if that was still a good place, and other players answering in a helpful way. Nobody being mad, nobody jumping in and complaining about leather farmers.

In case of istan, people were not getting mad because of other players farming in istan, but because of a design that allowed for unusually (and unreasonably) high rewards, which in turn as I recall was fixed by ArenaNet.

Your description of "people getting mad" just because others earn loot seems just fabricated to make people who disapprove of cheaters look bad. The threads about afk-farmers are not about people getting too much loot, they are about people cheating to get loot for not even playing the game (this thread right here is the only thread on the forums ever to complain about "inattentive" farming, all the others are about afk-farming).

[kharmin.7683]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:If they aren't worried about it, why should any of us worry about it?This is the right answer to the OP's question. Everything else in this thread is irrelevant.

[BlueMelody.6398]

This whole thread is a load of cobblers.

It's impossible to distinguish between the kinds of "inattentive" behavior you've described and people getting up to use the restroom/answer the door/take the food out of the oven/check on a pet/see why their kid is yelling/answer the phone/etc/etc/etc. People are not going to log out before they get up for any of these purposes, and there is no way to tell whether their temporary absence is due to one of these or deliberate "inattentive farming".

There is no practical solution to your issue (which shouldn't be an issue anyway, someone else "inattentive farming" is not destroying your fun), and Anet isn't going to (and has no way to) do anything about it, so this entire thread is pointless.

[Bollocks.4078]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"kitten.4078" said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"kitten.4078" said:People are using terms like "AFK farming" and "inatentive farming" to describe it. How about we call it what it really is - it's automated farming. People are exploiting in-game mechanics to automate farming. That's basically equivalent to botting, it just exploits in-game mechanics instead of using 3rd party software.

Automated farming is different from in attentive farming. If someone is at their computer, watching a movie while playing GW2, that's inattentive farming and permitted. If they can walk away from the computer and keep on farming, then it's some form of botting, which is not permitted.

How do you come to that conclusion? The game is doing the work without any interaction needed from the player. That's 100% the definition of automated. The fact that the player is paying enough attention to the game to be able to respond if someone whispers doesn't change that the game is doing the work. The game will kill things and gather loot just the same whether the player is at the keyboard or in a different room. If an inattentive farmer walks away from the computer the farming continues just the same. As I recall, didn't Anet leave the distinction between AFK and inattentive farming pretty grey?

That's your definition of automated & inattentive, not ANet's. The farming doesn't continue "just the same" in inattentive farming; the player has to pay some attention.

No, it's the dictionary definition of automation. One of the definitions of "Automatic" is "working by itself with little or no direct human control." That's exactly what makes inattentive farming and AFK farming work. Without the automatic part the farming would stop as soon as the players attention is taken away from the game. Without the automatic part this entire debate and all of the others would never exist. You park your necro, spawn your minions and the farming will happen with little or no intervention. The small amount of interaction required to do things like re-spawn minions and process inventory doesn't change that. The amount of attention is minimal. The farming absolutely does continue when the player is not paying attention. That's the whole point. That's why people do it. It may not continue indefinitely, but that's just a matter of how long the player is inattentive.

Also, just realized I misread you're previous post. I thought it said automated farming is different from inattentive farming. That was my mistake.

The reason that they choose to treat them differently is that their research (and that of other studios) shows that people who AFK farm (aka botting) end up disengaging from the community; that's bad for the game. In contrast, people who inattentively farm remain connected to the community and end up, in the long run, being good for the game.Can you provide a link or reference to support this? I'm not saying it isn't true, I just want to read it for myself. I'd like to see where Anet stated that inattentive farming is beneficial for the community and therefor allowed.Beneficial? No, that's not even what I wrote to paraphrase.

You said "In contrast, people who inattentively farm remain connected to the community and end up, in the long run, being good for the game." The word good means beneficial. Good can be defined as "benefit or advantage to someone or something." My interpretation of what you said is 100% fair.

@Shikigami:It's not just criteria 3. It has to be all 3 criteria together to be considered AFK farming. No GM will care at all if you are AFK if you don't satisfy the first two criteria.

There seem to be some contradictions between what Shikigami and Illconceived are saying. One says the don't look at keystrokes the other says they do.

I'm sure a GM is not jumping into the game the moment I report someone so they can whisper them and then wait to see if they respond withing the required amount of time. I would never expect that, it would be completely unreasonable to expect that. If they do investigate every report I make then the only other way to do that would be to review historical logs.

A couple of interesting things about those 3 criteria. Let's say I park a necro in a good AFK farming spot and raise my minions and walk away with no skills on auto cast. That would satisfy criteria 2 and 3 but that would not satisfy criteria 1. It specifically says all 3 criteria have to be met so in this case I would not be considered to be AFK farming. The other thing is that they say that if you meet all 3 criteria you "may" get action-ed. They can't even commit to that being a definite actionable offense. So even you you do satisfy all 3 criteria it's not guaranteed that you'll get action-ed. That's pretty gray.

[Patchwreck.2357]

@"iczek.9628" said:I came across 3 players that appeared to be afk farming. 2 necros including their pets and an engie with his turrets. Mobs kept spawning and the pets and turrets kept killing them. I typed "akf?" A moment later someone replied with this:

"AFK farming isn't okay, because it tends to lead people to stop playing (both the AFKers and those who see them); it has an economic impact, too, but not as severe. Inattentive farming is okay. For example, you can watch a movie while moving your character occasionally." (I did find this original post in the forums although the movie reference was not included in the original post)

I understand the difference but they're not playing actively playing the game. They can be playing CS:GO, or watching a movie like they said, or cleaning the house. The point is they are not actively playing the game. They are doing activities outside the game while having their characters logged in and gaining items in the game while they are not actively playing. People will probably argue this is fine since they check their computer occasionally but in the end they are not actively playing the game. It does give the appearance of them having an unfair advantage.

Its because the devs likes them better than you.They want you to experience anxiety every time you see a necro.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@"Bollocks.4078" said:No, it's ...The point is that ANet is not okay with people earning loot without paying some attention to the game. They aren't concerned with how much attention, just that people are actually "playing" in some extended sense of the word. Everything else is just commentary or illustrations of that idea, and why it makes sense to this particular studio.

[Shikigami.4013]

@Bollocks.4078 said:

@Shikigami:It's not just criteria 3. It has to be all 3 criteria together to be considered AFK farming. No GM will care at all if you are AFK if you don't satisfy the first two criteria.

There seem to be some contradictions between what Shikigami and Illconceived are saying. One says the don't look at keystrokes the other says they do.

You misunderstood what I wrote and there is no contradiction. I wrote "As you can tell from number 3, that is the requirement for them to take action regarding the "afk" part." That means, that number 3 only refers to determine if someone is afk or not.

Number 1 and 2 still have to apply for the "farming" part of course, but I answered directly to someone asking how ArenaNet determines "being afk". So my answer was specifically tailored to explain that they determine "being afk" by criteria number 3.

PS: Quoting you triggers the kittenizer for your accountname. Probably wasn't the best choice to name it :)

PPS: Your argument that the wording "may get actioned" means that this is a grey area is nonsense. It is the usual legal speak that stays polite but leaves them open to do whatever they want. The whole TOS is full of the word may, be it that they say they "may do something" or that the player "may not do something". You are fabricating things based of what you want it to mean, contrary to common sense and the normal usage of these terms.

[Doggie.3184]

Because they are not AFK. Being lazy isn't against TOS.