IMHO, Shards that allow AFK Macroing violate the spirit of the "numbers of PLAYER online". Those "PLAYERS" aren't playing, there standing around allowing the computer to farm gold and skill points for them. These ppl aren't playing and interacting with the rest of the population... This gives a false impression of an active an interactive community.

PLEASE dissallow them from being listed here.

I totally agree with what your saying but ListUO is after all a shard listing web site.

Although it gives a number of online players theres no way to determine if a player is actually playing a shard or not, that sort of thing would be down to the shard owner really, some allow it some don't.

As for the site and player count all i can tell you is this is totally automated now and the figure sent back to this site is not changed or altered at all, what the server sends is what you see here.

I don't intend to alter much on the site in the near future.

Hello Steve

Thank you for the reply, but I think you missed what I was asking.

I realize you can't tell which players are which on "this" end. What I was asking was for you to disallow shards that favor, encourage, promote, allow and tolerate AFK Macroing. Don't even show them on the list period. I know you can't script anything to adjust numbers.

Other list sites have done this for the same reasons I posted in my original post. It is very simple to tell which shards do allow it. When they signup, you check there webpage for the rules section. All shards post rules, and AFK Macroing is ALWAYS a biggie on there list. You also can get A confirmation of your rules an guidelines in an email from the shard admin when they apply for a listing spot. Heck, I can point out 3 shards in the top 10 right now that are attracting people on false inflated numbers right now due to this issue.

As i've mentioned previously, ListUO is just a site i created to list shards so what each shards rules are is entierly up to each shard owner really.

I do generally visit all of the shards own websites which are listed here to make sure they relate to there own shard etc etc, as for each shards own rules thats something i do not get involved in.

If there are shards which wanted to send false player figures then i have no way to know, if they do send false player counts then a new player to there shard would (i imagine) eventually realise that there on the shard with a limited number of 'actual' players.

I run my own shard and i have no problems with players running macro's if thats what they wish to do if there AFK alot, macroing characters in alot of online games does happen unfortuantly.

The debate about if it's right or wrong is something i don't really want to go into, all i will say about it in UO free shards is that if you own and run a 'good' shard you shouldn't have a need to try and send incorrect player numbers... the shard should speak for itself. In addition to that it's all free, if you disagree with how a shard is run or you have issues with a shard theres always the option to move to another shard.

To end tho, i wrote the code for the app which checks everything and updates the listUO site, to be honest i don't want to have to go through re-writing the app to remove that part of the site.

Steve

I am the head builder on a very long running an very stable server. I only brought this subject up as we have had a lot of comments along the lines of ....
"Geez, I wish I'd have come here weeks ago. I just wasted x amount of time over at "blankity blank" only to learn that most of the player base all macro resources, skill. then sit in there houses an create stuff, stock there venders an go right back to macroin. I want a player base that plays an interacts, yours does ..... blah blah"

anyway, I understand your point of view Steve an I appreciate your time an efforts here