Dedicated ghosters/trackers

[Faust]

Staff has made comments in the past that any forceful auto ejection for ghosts would be an addition of mechanical inaccuracy and the idea died there on the spot.

Including locations outside of dungeons does make something like that slightly harder but definitely not that hard to do at all really.

Again, the only sensible approach that follows the era accuracy guide lines here would be a policy change with a prevention method put in place that could notify staff of a possible ghost/tracker much like the one that exists for afk resource gathering.

[Lucien]

It is a little harder than it seems to define things like this. Principally when dealing with such a wide subject.

[Ripplinger]

Eliminating or even putting restrictions on ghosting won't solve any problems though, not sure what you hope it will do. Most everyone has multiple accounts. Every PKer I've run into also has a glorious lord or lady ready to help them out, whether it's with res afterwards if they lose, or checking areas ahead of the red to catch people unaware. Blue comes in, seemingly appears they recall out after seeing the spawn taken (as quite a few players would do), but in a minute or 2 in comes the red(s) charging.

I have multiple accounts, not that I play the other characters at all, but I found it necessary to have them complete with runebooks to get me res'd quicker, get me unstuck as a ghost from islands, etc. I use ghosts also, but to check if a spawn is taken before I might take a wyrm out and gate there to save me time. So they have beneficial uses to players as well.

But curtailing ghosting in anyway won't fix or even change anything.

[voodoo]

Staff has made comments in the past that any forceful auto ejection for ghosts would be an addition of mechanical inaccuracy and the idea died there on the spot.

Including locations outside of dungeons does make something like that slightly harder but definitely not that hard to do at all really.

Again, the only sensible approach that follows the era accuracy guide lines here would be a policy change with a prevention method put in place that could notify staff of a possible ghost/tracker much like the one that exists for afk resource gathering.

That is a very sharp point that I didn't think of at all. The use of dedicated ghosters/trackers is very similar to AFK resource gathering, almost being something of a PvP equivalent, and easily as harmful for the shard's enjoyability. A policy solution might actually be very viable, considering that the problem seems to be isolated to relatively few people relying very heavily on this.

I also tend to agree that focusing on a solution for ghosting specificly will have too many harmful side-effects. "Being a ghost" is a pretty commonly used game function, and changing it to suit this would break era accuracy in many places as well as potentially mess up things for legit players. It would also only apply to ghosts, which are a part of but not all of the problem.

[Faust]

There is really no reason why this couldn't easily be implemented and managed. Sure, there will be people getting away with it from time to time just like they do with resource gathering. However, the net effect on the pysche that ghost/tracking is now illegal will curtail many from even doing it anymore. With the addition of a staff an auto staff notification and player notifications(can't forget about this part of it too) there is no reason this wouldn't work to be honest.

Sure, people will start using blue characters to run in and check... but that's way more obvious than a ghost that cannot be seen without a counter ghost. Who doesn't already suspect problems when a blue enters your farming location to begin with and become more alert here? A pack of reds would have a better chance throwing the farmer off guard by surprise than allowing a scout to get them alert and ready for the upcoming gank.

The policy change would be very easy and direct...

1st Offense - Warning/Teleport Ghost to predefined location indicating the warning.
2nd Offense - 24 Hour Ban
3rd Offense - 48 Hour Ban
4th Offense - 72 Hour Ban
5th Offense - Perma Ban

Edit: IMPORTANT INFO
Also, it's VERY important to implement auto boot on inactivity before considering such a change though... There are many people who die and just leave their ghost and client running after dying in a dungeon. Not everyone immediately decides to get the ghost out as fast as possible and will just take a break until their return. Obviously, this 'era accurate' feature must be included with any addition to prevent these sort of incidents from happening and getting wrongfully banned. A ghost that is still 'idle' and bypassing the auto boot feature would obvioulsy be ghost/tracking in most cases.

[Mikel123]

Faust, good point about mechanics vs. "notify a staff".

Is there a way to auto-disconnect ghost clients but not living clients?

[Faust]

Yes, you can always differentiate between a ghost and someone alive in the code for a player. However, defeating the auto boot feature is a simple task that even a ghost can accomplish by producing an invalid action such as trying to open a pack, moving, etc... I don't really see Derrick going with this approach either since it's altering/modifying an established era accurate mechanic(probably worse than coming up with one such as auto boot from a dungeon).

The difficult task here is determining if the ghost is in fact ghost/tracking. This can only be done by a staff member physically watching the actions of the ghost. No program or piece of code can actually accomplish this task under any circumstances. Playing a ghost however you want rather it's running around like a moron inside a dungeon/hot spot is permissable for anyone here. However, if the policy is changed for ghosting/tracking it must be dealt with in a fashion that works and doesn't ruin any other aspects of a ghost that are possible in game.

[tekai]

People will just start using a stealth alt imo, you guys are splitting hairs. This is how I learned to deal with ghosting: 105938549038543900480439584309 dragons.

The end

[Faust]

Good point.

[Generic Player]

Making people use a stealther would be a big improvement. They can't have a stealther sit in a dungeon completely safe indefinitely to auto-alert on potential victims. They actually have to pay attention to the character or people can reveal it and let the local spawn kill them.

[tekai]

until the person that owns the naked stealther opens a reverse portal into their castle, res's the naked stealther, and then the stealther walks thru the very same portal? =p

you have to understand that the vet's here have figured out and done just about everything possible at this point.

[Generic Player]

Sure they can do that, that's the whole idea though. Make them have to actually *do* something instead of just setting up their ghost bot and waiting for an alert. The complaint isn't that people can see in dungeons, it is that people can have invincible alert-bots that nobody else can do anything about. Right now all anyone can do is come in with their own ghost to check if the spawn is being botted, and if it is pick a different spawn. If they had to do it with a living character then it opens up options for those people to actually chase away the botter instead.

[Ripplinger]

All anyone with a ghost bot needs to do to stop from being kicked as idle is create a macro to walk a few steps left and back right again, and since Razor and macroing is allowed, it's a very simple thing to do. So unless you want to limit the time anyone is allowed to remain as a ghost, that won't work either. I wouldn't want to see any time limits on ghosts. I sometimes just go exploring in places I couldn't survive as a ghost just to see all the nooks and crannies in the game. Not often, but I wouldn't want to lose that ability either.

I still don't see anything you can do to limit/curtail/get rid of ghosting solving any issues at all. Might make it slightly more difficult, but not by very much.

[Derrick]

I still don't see anything you can do to limit/curtail/get rid of ghosting solving any issues at all. Might make it slightly more difficult, but not by very much.

This is what previous discussion on this subject have come to. Only extreme measures such as removing ghosts from dungeons unconditionally would have any effect, and this would have an enourmous impact on normal gameplay.

[rouss]

I still don't see anything you can do to limit/curtail/get rid of ghosting solving any issues at all. Might make it slightly more difficult, but not by very much.

This is what previous discussion on this subject have come to. Only extreme measures such as removing ghosts from dungeons unconditionally would have any effect, and this would have an enourmous impact on normal gameplay.

how about making pcs and npcs (in dungeons maybe?) invisible to ghosts, except for city nps & wandering healers? pretty evident that its nea but...