Quit timer option

[Incognito]

Lets say you're a bynner, who's just come out from a sparring session in a pretty banged up state. Your PC needs to rest/sleep to regen. But, something urgent's come up RL, and you have to AFK or log off.

So you can do one of these 2 things:
1) Quit out and come back later to regen.
2) Just idle in a safe room, and allow the game to "force quit" you.

The problem with option 1 - is that when you do get a chance to log back into the game, you will need to spend some time regenning. If you're someone who plays in short spurts, this is a pain in the butt.

The problem with option 2 - is that there is a chance you might get hungry/thirsty/dehydrated/killed/robbed/other nasty things - before the game "force quits" you.

I would like to suggest a third option - a quit command with a time argument.
For example: quit 10 (this will quit your PC after 10 mins RL).

Of course, it would be like the "gone" command - i.e. - if any other command is sent to the mud after using the "quit timer" command, the timer will be automatically purged.

What this will allow players to do, is accept a minimal risk for the duration of the time they choose, and then get logged out of the game.

It'd save the player time whenever they log in next, and at the same time, it'd ensure that the player doesn't die of hunger/dehydration before the game "force quits" them. At the same time, they'd be accepting a minimal risk of anything happening to their un-attended PC during the period they specify.

Other PCs won't get any OOC message/echo that the PC in question is "gone" - so there is no jarring OOC breaks in gameplay for anyone, or any sort of second-thoughts which might be associated with interacting with a PC whose player is actually AFK for a valid reason.

Risk on one hand - yes (but reduced from complete unattended situation until "force quit" occurs)
Reward on the other hand - yes - save time on your next log in.

I think this would be a useful thing for people who play off peak, isolated roles, have limited playing times etc, and there's probably no downside (that I can currently think of at the moment).

Whatcha think?

Edited to add:
If a player thinks s/he has to AFK for a short while, that might get unexpectedly delayed, s/he can put in a quit timer for lets say 20 mins, and leave their PC unattended. If they dont make it back to the game within 20 mins, the PC gets logged off. If they do manage to get back within 20  mins, it's just as if they were idling in-game.

[evilcabbage]

A while back they implemented another timer where after like 10 rl minutes or an hour in rl, you would not get hungry/thirsty while disconnected/linkdead from the game to prevent peoples power cutting out and them dying in certain areas. So your fear was already solved a while back.

[Yasbusta]

So because I have longer playtimes I have to sit and wait for my character to heal but you don't?

Personally I am completely happy with the current way things are.


*not that sitting and waiting for my char to heal is exactly that*

I see your reasoning but still, sorry man I don't care for this.


*edit to add*
With your edit I could support this if lets say regen stopped during this time.
Still only meh though, don't think the effort is worth the small benefit.

[Barsook]

I don't dig this.

[Incognito]

Force quit already does this.

I was just talking about offering a customizable period to the same end.

Actually, almost all mud clients offer this as a basic command - you just need 2 commands back to back:
wait <number of seconds>
quit

But if this command was added to the game, it'd help those of us who do not have mud clients, and the logging out would be cleaner than a mud client putting in a bunch of stacked commands. That is all.

[Riya OniSenshi]

As far as I know, the game never "force quits" you.

If you idle long enough for the game to drop your link - that's not the same as quitting.

You won't be accumulating hunger or thirst, but your pc is still in-game despite you client not being connected.

If the server reboots for some reason while you're link-dead, it'll be like you actually did quit out, however. (Most of the time...)

All you have to do is plan your playtime according to how long you have to play, and there'd be no issue. And we have the OOC quit now, so if there's really an emergency, that's covered.

[RogueGunslinger]

Force quit already does this.

I was just talking about offering a customizable period to the same end.

Actually, almost all mud clients offer this as a basic command - you just need 2 commands back to back:
wait <number of seconds>
quit

But if this command was added to the game, it'd help those of us who do not have mud clients, and the logging out would be cleaner than a mud client putting in a bunch of stacked commands. That is all.

I use this command in Mushclient in order to deal with the "you're too exited to leave." shenanigans. Wait 5 minutes then log out.

[FantasyWriter]

Wow... never knew about the wait command with MushClient.  Will probably use this all the time now. I also support adding this to Armageddon.

I haven't seen an argument against it here yet.

[Chettaman]

I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to:

>''force quit''
Then run to work real quick and be there for 8 hours IRL because I'm irresponsible. But while
after ten minutes my character is quitting on his own!

And if that's already on simpleMU... someone better show my irresponsible butt right now.

[Iiyola]

.... am I missing something or did we all forget about 'quit ooc'?

[Barsook]

.... am I missing something or did we all forget about 'quit ooc'?

Sounds like we forgot about that!

[Lizzie]

quit ooc doesn't address the situation of the OP's concern: that the character is down on hps/stamina/stun and needs to regen, but the player needs to leave the game for the day/night/several RL hours. The player knows it takes only around 10-20 minutes for the character to regen to a reasonable level such that the next time he logs in, he won't have to sit there for 10-20 minutes waiting to regen before he can even do anything productive. But he has to leave -now- - not in 10-20 minutes. And so - a timer, that allows him to log out in 10-20 minutes, even if he's not at the keyboard to type the "quit/x" commands to close his game client and log his character out of the game.

I -would- like this idea, IF this would stop happening:

The Bar
This is a busy tavern, there's lots of people here, including Amos, who is here a lot, usually standing, and he's a character with the listen skill on his skills list.

Amos types "listen on"

>OOCly, Amos says:
AFK for 20 minutes.

Amos goes idle - because he's busy playing Warcraft, or making dinner, or at a meeting at work, or doing any of a bunch of things that require him to not pay any attention to the game for awhile..and yet, he is able to bump up his character's listen skill this entire time, because he's standing, as he always does, in a busy tavern where lots of people hang out and talk at tables.

If this was just one person who had one character who did this, it'd be easy to just file a player complaint. Unfortunately, it's pretty common. Maybe it's the same player who does it with all his characters. Maybe it's just two people who do it with all their characters. I don't know. I don't know who's playing these characters. I just know that I see it often enough that the staff would probably tell me to STFU if I complained every time I saw it. And so I don't.

Because of this - I'm against anything that encourages you to NOT be at your computer, while your character is in the game. I don't even like the GONE command and I don't use it. If I think I'll need to be AFK for more than a couple of minutes, I log out. I wish everyone else would do the same.

[BleakOne]

Quit OOC is very useful for these sorts of things.

I've used it myself once or twice when the sparring timer was still counting down but I absolutely had to go right that instant.

Staff are pretty understanding about these things, I've found.

[RogueGunslinger]

Can I just use this time to espouse how fucking amazing 'Quit OOC' is? It's the best thing this game has seen in years, if not ever.

[Nyr]

If this was just one person who had one character who did this, it'd be easy to just file a player complaint. Unfortunately, it's pretty common. Maybe it's the same player who does it with all his characters. Maybe it's just two people who do it with all their characters. I don't know. I don't know who's playing these characters. I just know that I see it often enough that the staff would probably tell me to STFU if I complained every time I saw it. And so I don't.

Yeah, if you could actually put in player complaints about this, that'd be great.  Airing your concerns out here just breeds annoyance...from you (you are experiencing this issue and see it as a problem), from other players (who are aware the GDB isn't a place to complain about individual PC behavior), and from staff (who are, in fact, quite willing to look into cases of code abuse).

As for the OP idea, you can already quit OOC.  If you have to go, you have to go.  That's the compromise we have right now and it should work fine for this.  Either way, you have to spend time regenerating.  If you have to go, do it later and quit ooc.  If you don't have to go, do it now and then quit later.