Originally Posted by
Loony BoB
Said afker isn't using the resources which are bottlenecking the situation (duty finder instances) and SE have stated they are monitoring things 24/7 to allow increases/decreases to server populations based on resources used. This is why the devs aren't that bothered about the afk'ers. Let's put it this way... they set the world capacity at 3,500 and then boot all the afk'ers, say 500 of them, so it's 3,000 people online. The demand on the duty finder server? Exactly the same. So they adjust the world capacity to 3,000 with no afkers instead of 3,500 with afk'ers. Nobody wins. The resources required for an afk'er are pittance compared to the resources required by an active player. If the devs really felt that the afk'ers were causing these problems they would have done something about them a long time ago.
The problems lie with the stresses caused by the duty finder, so they need to sort that out instead of coming up with scapegoats that do nothing to fix the problem. If they implemented afk booting, all it would do is result in more people logging in which would take up more stressful resources in one minute than the afk-in-the-inn member would use over hours.
Also, just to make matters worse, you end up with a feature that naive people will think will magically solve the problems and it won't, and when it doesn't, how do you think these people will feel? Happy that an afk boot is in despite still not logging in, or even more frustrated that they still can't log in despite an afk boot? And now they're competing with people who come back from afk, too, for placement on the server, and the lobby server goes under further stress (after the duty finder server or "instance server", the lobby server appears to be going under more stress than any of the other servers), and the problems exaggerate.
People need to stop making assumptions without any consideration for/understanding of the the actual issue. Jealousy of those who are online is not going to make your problems any better. Instead, let SE deal with the real issues and know that they are the ones with likely very stressed out heads and perhaps (at worst) careers on the line, while all you have on the line is the ability to play a game as often as you like. I trust they are doing everything they can to optimise the number of people who can play the game short of making it financially unviable.