AFK Security Blanket

[Destro]

A lot of the time people are nervous about running AFK macros. What if a GM shows up and decides to start talking to you? What if they summon you and you go running into a wall trying to get back to whatever mob you were killing? I'm thinking a really good way to help with this would be to write something that would send a alphanumeric page to you via email. If your sleeping or have mq2telnet access to your bot (for when your running this while at work or whatnot), you could jump online and hopefully mitigate the damage. Of course if your doing really evil stuff like warping, as has been said before, once the GM contacts you, your screwed anyway.

I wrote a proof of concept perl script awhile ago but I haven't really used it much since I haven't had the need. I could dig it up if anyone cares. There are several ways you could go about this though. Monitor your logfile for some specfic pattern that you want be alerted to. Another way (and I think this was how I did it) was have MQ write out the message to some flat file, then exec the perl script which handles the mailing. This lets you trigger off stuff directly in MQ. The later method was someone elses brainchild on the regular MQ boards, I just took the concept and ran with it.

At any rate, I just thought I'd throw this out there. I'm sure someone with good C++ skills could write a plugin to generate the email just as easily.

 

[odessa]

If you are at home BEEP on tell will do just fine. If you are away and have telnet/irc access just sit on telnet server or irc and write some custom BEEP event so that if window is buried you can still get the warning.
In any case, if you are truly afk (away from the place where the computer is placed) you will most likely be screwed no matter what if a GM shows up.

 

[KeithClancy]

GMs deal with hacks/macros so often these days this would be a little bit pointless. GMs usually only show up for 2 reasons: either you've been petitioned by another player, or he/she is doing a routine sweep through known hot-spots where macro/hackers usually frequent. In either case they'll usually cloak themselves and monitor, only contacting you after they're sure you're cheating. With the most common macros like warping taskmaster, monster missions, and bard kiting, this is extremely observable via direct visualization.

Basically, once you get the tell you're caught. If I were a GM I'd get serious kicks out of watching people try to fumble out an explanation seconds/minutes after getting the infamous "Hello this is GM-Admin soandso yadda yadda".

My friend once warped in VT (one of the few zones they actually log char positions automatically as it's a hotspot for cheats/farms). A GM popped in the zone just a few seconds later and informed the bard that he had observed the warp. Knowing he was busted he went ahead and tried to make the GM laugh (and dick around under the assumption that the ban stick was falling) with an outrageous story about how he pissed off another GM and was banished to the ends of the earth as 'punishment'. The GM laughed and informed him that this was far from 'the ends of the earth' and promptly Teleported him to the very back of the North Temple of Veeshan. He said specifically: "This is the ends of the earth and your punishment for playing dirty; try and get yourself out of this mess. Consider this your lucky day, but I warn you: if I catch you warp/gate again, you will be banned. I'm watching you." Knowing the GM was watching for warp/gate he ended up running around with a massive train behind him until he ultimately died and CR'd the old way (necro summon pre-Guild Lobby).

If they /tell you, you're as good as caught already. Once upon a yesteryear before hacks became as widely used, talking your way out of a bust was a little easier, but GMs these days are pretty well versed in hacks, and they'll generally simply monitor your activity until they're sure without a doubt you're up to no good. It depends highly on the GM imho, but personally I would try to appeal to the GM's emotions of sorts ... humor, sympathy, etc.

My guess is you'd have better success with an off-the-wall approach than fumbling around trying to explain or recover. They're smarter than you think and have dealt with pretty much anything you're trying to get away with 1000 times already.

You're only chance is if you have a /beeping GM check loaded in your macro and aren't actually truely afk and adjusting your actions accordingly before they get a chance to 'observe you'. Most GM's who are on an active hunt for cheaters, though, are smart enough to cloak before-hand ... so even this isn't gonna save you.

 

[Destro]

True enough on the gm stuff. Back when I wrote this I wanted it more to alert me when I had players contacting me while I was afk farming trade skill stuff. The random tells like "Hey are you camping these?" or "Can you not kill mob xyz, I need him for a quest." I used to run those scripts during the night while I slept and I figured this would at least alert me to tells so I could respond to them rather then robotically just plowing the camp over and over while some noob was trying to interact with me. Just ignoring them is a good way to get yourself petitioined and bring a real GM in to check you out. Simple beeping isnt' going to wake me up when the bedroom is on a different floor in the house. So I would say this still has at least some merit.

 

[KeithClancy]

In that case I would say it's a great idea, as you can cut down on your chances of being petitioned a whole bunch.