Behind The Scenes - May

There's a fair bit of talk about "AFK" amongst us and I am concerned that you may be reported or "detected by Jagex".

Q&A:Customer Support's Answers

Mattonline asks: Afk training is becoming a massive problem, and after having a disucssion in game with some players, many think that it is ok, since you don't stop them from doing it. My questions is, will you try to put a stop to AFK training.

Mod Murray: AFK (away from keyboard) training is as much a breach of our rules as Macroing. Both methods of training allow a player to increase their levels in a way that they would not be able to do themselves and that provides them with an unfair advantage.

Mod Murray's answer creates confusion for me. How is watching TV, browsing another website, chatting to someone (outside of the runescape facility) constitute "increase their levels in a way that they would not be able to themselves"?

I could understand a response that suggests an AFK person is not contributing to the runescape community whilst playing, but not this ideal that watching TV is like someone else helping you. Maybe the someone else (the people in the TV show) is helping you by alleviating boredom. I don't know.

Have I got the notion of AFK wrong?

In any case AFK, whatever it means, is not tolerated.

In the literal sense, AFK means away from keyboard, but it's hard to say what he means by it because it's sort of been expanded at times to include stuff like watching tv and browsing the web.

I think what he's really saying is that they don't want you leaving the room for a minute while your character is fletching or whatever. But to suggest that they're breaking the rules if they don't comply is absurd.

If they don't like AFK training, they can reduce it by making it more worthwhile by making it more rewarding to pay attention to what you're doing. And I think they do a pretty good job of that already. There are a lot of tactics like flashing prayers and buying spins that give the active player an advantage over people who are just stitting there watching their guy go to work.