Suggestion talk:20070817 Missing In Action

The thing don't like about the “Show Idle Characters” and “Mark Inactive Contacts” suggestions is they provide an exact time frame for when a player has stopped and started playing which can be abused by meta game tools. Players are flagged inactive at a set point then the moment they type in their user name and password they become active again.

If those change were implemented as above then someone managing a bounty hunter list could write a program to drop names off the list the day a player becomes inactive and add them right back onto the list as soon as they login even if months or years have passed.

The MIA suggestion I am making does not work that way. In fact it only tells you 2 things about the player:

  1.The character was idle for a week.
  2.No one who has the character listed as a contact has seen them since they went idle.

Using MIA you can't tell when an MIA character has returned to the game till someone recognizes him. The MIA player could start playing the game the day after they go MIA or they may never return but it leaves the state of the MIA player somewhat ambiguous as MIA should be.

The “Last Seen Column” is a good suggestion on it's own and would be a nice tool but it is just different from what I am suggesting. MIA as I am suggesting it has no date column for last seen.--Pestilent Nomad 20:00, 17 August 2007 (BST)

Your suggestion, while realistic, over compensates. People have little time to play and shouldn't be penalized having to wander all over the city until they run into someone. they know to make contact. An important aspect of the game is the simplicity. And, if one or more of the Peer Reviewed suggestions gets implemented YOUR idea will be, so to speak. If I have some people on my contact list that I see as idle for a prolonged period, I may delete them. If siad people return they would HAVE to "come look for me" to get back on my contact list.--Pesatyel 05:11, 18 August 2007 (BST)

Hi Pesatyel, I probably was not clear in explaining the idea. If ANYONE who has a MIA player listed as a contact sees the player come back into the game then EVERYONE who has that player listed as a contact will see the player labeled as active again. You can't see how many AP other characters have left but you can guess based on their recent actions. MIA would not tell definitely if a player had stopped playing the game but if you belong to a group and no one in the group has seen that player over time you could probably assume they out of the game or they moved away from the group's area of focus to join another group.

If Kevan wanted to implement "mark inactive contacts" or the "show idle characters" change (already in peer review for over a year) he could probably do so in under 5 minutes of programming. My guess is he either does not like the idea or there is no in game reason to know the exact real life time inactive players punch in their username and password. The "last seen" in peer review is a very good idea on it's own but it would not be a good tool for removing inactive contacts. If you are part of a large group and part of the group is working in another part of the city you might not see them for a long time but they are still active members of your group. My though was that the MIA would give players a tool to remove players who are probably inactive with in game justification for doing so. It also make sense that someone who knows a person has to see them before they are no longer considered MIA.--Pestilent Nomad 01:17, 19 August 2007 (BST)