World of Warcraft PVp (player vs. player) has a long-standing problem with people who try to take advantage of the WoW battlegrounds system. One of the most common ploys is to log into Warsong Gluch or other battleground and not contribute to the battle. The player does something in real life, earns honor points simply for being in the battlegrounds, and the rest of the PVP team fights a man short.
Avoiding AFK (Away from Keyboard)
A character that stays inactive for a period of time in World of Warcraft automatically goes /afk, or gains an Away from Keyboard status. Going AFK in WoW battlegrounds automatically boots the player from the battle, and he or she gains a ten minute “Deserter” debuff. While the Deserter debuff is active, the player cannot enter another battle.
Blizzard included the Deserter debuff to dissuade players from sitting in the battlegrounds letting the rest of the PVP team do all the work. Unfortunately, the company failed to consider the extent a lazy player is willing to go to in order to farm honor at other players’ expense.
Players devised a variety of hacks and macros to prevent characters from going AFK and getting booted from the battlefields. Hacking the game, of course, will get a player’s WoW account permanently banned, while writing macros capable of preventing Away from Keyboard status is a complicated process.
Players who lacked marco skills and preferred to avoid World of Warcraft account bans would seem to be out of luck if they wanted to leach honor on the battlegrounds. Never discount the inventiveness of the truly lazy, however.
A quick search on YouTube for ways to avoid going AFK in World of Warcraft yields some interesting results. Players have designed elaborate timed contraptions that hit keys on a computer keyboard, triggering character actions that prevent the player from going AFK. Usually a pencil or pen is used to hit the key.
Some of these contraptions look a little like those gag “drinking birds” that bob up and down, or an old Japanese bamboo fountain that tips out water. The quality of the designs ranges from ludicrously bad to high-tech products that would make a professional engineer proud.
Given the length of time some “anti-AFK” devices take to design and make, one has to wonder if the player wouldn’t have had more fun fighting honestly in the WoW battlegrounds.
Reporting Away from Keyboard
Blizzard’s response to the dishonest, if somewhat inventive, ways to avoid going AFK in Warsong Gulch and other PVP arenas, has been to give some power to the players. If a player in the WoW battlefields suspects that another player is leaching honor, the suspect can be reported AFK. If proven, the offending player receives a brief suspension from the game.
There are problems, of course, with this system. A player who is defending an area on the battlegrounds may appear to be AFK, and be reported because he or she is playing smart, and not running willy-nilly across the map looking for combat. The system allows players to refute an AFK accusation by engaging in combat, but again, that discourages people from playing defense, which is often necessary to win a battle.
Then, of course, there are those players who are, quite simply, out to ruin the game for everyone else. They may report other players AFK simply to irritate other people, or even report members of other Warcraft guilds, specific player races (amazingly, some players “discriminate” against imaginary races). Some players actively try to trick people with fake Away from Keyboard reports designed to get their victims to leave WoW battlegrounds.
Blizzard’s attempt to combat battleground parasites is commendable, but sadly, there’s no rule that griefers and trolls (the players, not the species) won’t find ways to exploit.
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