Do AFK avatars drive new residents away?

[Ardy Lay]

On 12/12/2022 at 7:05 PM, SorachaNicEoghain said:

These days, I have been spending a lot of time in London and other newbie friendly sims and one issue has come up almost every time I've been there, AFK avatars. I usually end up explaining they should just ignore them and don't let it negatively impact their secondlife experience. It seems to be a big issue for secondlife though and very off-putting for new residents. Why do people do it? To increase traffic? Because they fell asleep? To create lag and take up space? To creep people out and make them feel ignored and lonely? 😆. Those last two are a joke. Am I the only one who finds the abundance of afk avatars at events and public sims unpleasant? I tp out as soon as I get a whiff of afk at a club; I'm very active in local chat and I tip well. So for dj's, you can make more money in tips if you invite people who tip and engage with local chat instead of logging in alts. 🙃😜.

 

So on a scale of 1 to 10 where, 1 = AFK avatars are a pestilence to 10 = AFK is awesome! Why would anyone want to engage in world and explore when you can randomly stand around waiting to be imed?

Where are you on this scale?

Do AFK avatars drive new residents away?  Absolutely, yes.  But not absolutely every one.  What I see is, people come in, say nothing, or something, doesn't seem to make much difference, then, if nobody greets them in a few seconds to several minutes they silently leave or utter something, sometimes something rude, then leave.  Ideally, people will always get some non-automated greeting soon after they arrive.  We don't pay people to be greeters, so, it's hit and miss whether someone notices the arrival and says something to them.  It's our home.  We should be allowed to lounge around, be distracted, take naps, wash dishes, do laundry, come back and read chat history, repeat.

[Love Zhaoying]

5 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

I know a joke about space aliens and ears, but its too risque for the general rated forums.

It is a little-known fact that Vulcans actually have THREE ears.

The left ear, the right ear, and the final front ear.

[Arielle Popstar]

33 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

It is a little-known fact that Vulcans actually have THREE ears.

The left ear, the right ear, and the final front ear.

I'm so ashamed, I actually laughed at that. 😥

[Midnoot]

I am passively in second life half of the time. It's something that comforts me , being around fellow humans.  I've already had people get angry with me for not responding to them quick enough and tell me how I'm the scum of second life for not immediately entertaining their boredom. It's nice to not be pressured into participating at all times.  I'll quit real quick if im expected to be on call for some stranger's immediate gratification . S T R E S S. 

[JeromFranzic]

27 minutes ago, Midnoot said:

I am passively in second life half of the time. It's something that comforts me , being around fellow humans.  I've already had people get angry with me for not responding to them quick enough and tell me how I'm the scum of second life for not immediately entertaining their boredom. It's nice to not be pressured into participating at all times.  I'll quit real quick if im expected to be on call for some stranger's immediate gratification . S T R E S S. 

I hear you! I feel the same way sometimes. I don't always quit or log off when pressured though, I'll c**kblock people who mess with me and TP away to somewhere else. 

[PheebyKatz]

If I'm hanging around with other avatars, or where they are, and they're talking, I'll talk. If someone I really like shows up on the sim I'm hovering around, I'll TP over to them and say hi. If I have to be AFK for a while, or think I might have to, I tell people I'll be hovering for a while and will be back later, and go hover in the sky somewhere.

I don't go talk to just anyone who's around, though.

I think of SL as sort of like being on a boat. Some people go boating to relax and do nothing, some go adventuring and exploring, some go fishing.

Some who go fishing are very proactive about it, and some don't care if they get any fish.

I believe some people also tend to go out on their boat when they should be doing things like mowing the lawn, or making dinner, or working. Fortunately, they can still do those things, they just tend to forget they're also out on a boat at the moment, sometimes.

As for people being AFK driving away or discouraging new users, well, I guess it depends on the quality of the users. I've had times where I'd be building, go hit the bathroom, and come back to find some n00b vainly trying to vandalize me. If they were looking for a friendly chat, that's the wrong way to have one with me.

Great way to get a free demonstration of my latest combat play system, though.

Edited January 10 by PheebyKatz

[Love Zhaoying]

One nice thing about AFK users is, you don't have to worry about them trying to talk with you.

[Silent Mistwalker]

Quote

Do AFK avatars drive new residents away?

It's quite possible that non-AFK avatars drive away more new residents than AFK avatars. 🤔

[AmberJoyBliss]

AFK avatars make clubs look boring and I don't stay for longer than a minute or two if everyone is like a bot.

All avatars lag as soon as you have them in view. Some people have avatars with 200,000 in complexity, a lot of high res textured complex mesh objects and who knows how many scripted huds that could be running for loops and boolean check a number of things.

It used to bother me when I had a club, how some had no problem with using up 10x the resources of others. That combined lag and too much AFK behavior was a growth bottleneck, so I closed my business down before losing more money on it, and am not interested in giving Second Life another go.

[Extrude Ragu]

I don't think the issue is the presence of AFK avatars.

Nobody complains of afk users on discord, but it's not like we have discord open 24/7.

The issue stems from the application design. Weaknesses in SecondLife's handling of AFK avatars need exploring IMO.

We should be asking ourselves why we have so many successful interactions on discord rather than SL and learn from that to improve SL.

[Midnoot]

9 hours ago, Extrude Ragu said:

I don't think the issue is the presence of AFK avatars.

Nobody complains of afk users on discord, but it's not like we have discord open 24/7.

The issue stems from the application design. Weaknesses in SecondLife's handling of AFK avatars need exploring IMO.

We should be asking ourselves why we have so many successful interactions on discord rather than SL and learn from that to improve SL.

Honestly , I think it's just a pet peeve of some people who get frustrated with their own boredom and attempt to entertain themselves with the people around them , as if these human beings are their toys. :3

[Midnoot]

13 hours ago, AmberJoyBliss said:

AFK avatars make clubs look boring and I don't stay for longer than a minute or two if everyone is like a bot.

All avatars lag as soon as you have them in view. Some people have avatars with 200,000 in complexity, a lot of high res textured complex mesh objects and who knows how many scripted huds that could be running for loops and boolean check a number of things.

It used to bother me when I had a club, how some had no problem with using up 10x the resources of others. That combined lag and too much AFK behavior was a growth bottleneck, so I closed my business down before losing more money on it, and am not interested in giving Second Life another go.

I've been to many Sims that automatically eject someone If their script use is too high . Not sure if it could be done with complexity,  but it should.  Any time I see an avatar. .. with over 200,000 complexity,  it's a flexi prim hair wearing , floppy flaxi dress using , system avatar from 2003 with 200 resizer scripts.  Ain't nobody gonna miss those. Force them to be script and complexity conscious . 😛

[elleevelyn]

 

18 minutes ago, Midnoot said:

I've been to many Sims that automatically eject someone If their script use is too high . Not sure if it could be done with complexity

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlGetObjectDetails

begin with OBJECT_RENDER_WEIGHT

[Arielle Popstar]

38 minutes ago, Midnoot said:

Honestly , I think it's just a pet peeve of some people who get frustrated with their own boredom and attempt to entertain themselves with the people around them , as if these human beings are their toys. :3

Why they call it a social world. SL presents itself as such and raises an expectation in new people that there will be people to talk to and then depending on the venue, they find busy rooms completely devoid of local chatter, people unresponsive in IM, bite their heads off for simply saying Hi and that's if they even can get in the places to begin with without an unceremonious boot for not being 30, 50 or 90 days yet. 

Totally unrealistic expectation.

[PheebyKatz]

42 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Why they call it a social world. SL presents itself as such and raises an expectation in new people that there will be people to talk to and then depending on the venue, they find busy rooms completely devoid of local chatter, people unresponsive in IM, bite their heads off for simply saying Hi and that's if they even can get in the places to begin with without an unceremonious boot for not being 30, 50 or 90 days yet. 

Totally unrealistic expectation.

I agree with this.

If you're in a venue for social events and its a social event, probably best to be social. I mean yeah, everyone talking at once can be too much, but a full-on DJ set with nobody talking is just a crap go, IMO.

I mean yeah, I spend a lot of time AFK when I'm actually inworld, but I'm usually hovering somewhere around 4000 meters up away from the public areas when I do it.

And building isn't always the most social thing, but I'll totally chat with someone while I build. Especially if they're standing right there watching me build.

I think a lot of times people are a little passive-aggressive, and when they snap at people for trying to talk to them it's because they were trying too hard not to be rude by saying they didn't feel like talking to that person right then, and it ended up turning rude anyway.

Me, if someone's just trying to talk to me or ask me questions, or even needs help with something, I'll drop everything and talk to them most of the time. I get why most people don't, but yeah, it's just kinda politer to be a little social, at least for a few minutes, even if I'm busy.

Besides, being polite means they're more likely to be polite back to me when after 10 minutes or so I say, "oh darn, I gotta get back to this project I'm working on."

Edited January 12 by PheebyKatz

[Chefkoch]

New users will love seeing things like this for sure and certainly won't feel uncomfortable.

I had many new users at certain info hubs telling me in IM's if we can go to another location because they feel afraid of these "people". (Not chatting  AFK avatars and bots staring at them) 

[Rowan Amore]

Honestly, if I saw new users at an info hub, I'd insist we go elsewhere, too.  Not because of afkers but those have always been hotbeds for drama llamas and griefers.  They've been that way since I started in 09.

[PheebyKatz]

2 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

Honestly, if I saw new users at an info hub, I'd insist we go elsewhere, too.  Not because of afkers but those have always been hotbeds for drama llamas and griefers.  They've been that way since I started in 09.

In my experience, such places are best suited for exactly that, meeting new people and spiriting them away to show them the real SL. It's part of graduating from the welcome areas, other users deciding you're cool enough to rescue from the mob and show you where the real regulars actually hang out.

[animats]

1 hour ago, PheebyKatz said:

In my experience, such places are best suited for exactly that, meeting new people and spiriting them away to show them the real SL. It's part of graduating from the welcome areas, other users deciding you're cool enough to rescue from the mob and show you where the real regulars actually hang out.

But new users are warned not to accept teleports from strangers.

[PheebyKatz]

23 minutes ago, animats said:

But new users are warned not to accept teleports from strangers.

If someone I don't know sends me a TP request out of the blue, I refuse it, too.

I'm talking about meeting people and deciding they might be worth the risk of allowing one to give one a tour of other places besides welcome areas, etc. I'm pretty sure if nobody ever did that, the entire population would still be trying to get into Social Island and it would always be overfull.

Aside from hit-or-miss solo sim exploring, the only way I ever really found places with genuinely cool people to hang out with was through someone inviting me to come along and see those places, instead of leaving me behind at the welcome area when they left to go to the event/club/party.

Edited January 12 by PheebyKatz

[Rowan Amore]

23 minutes ago, animats said:

But new users are warned not to accept teleports from strangers.

Define stranger in the context of SL.  

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

Define stranger in the context of SL.  

Some people are MUCH stranger than others.

[Gabriele Graves]

To the OP:  New residents often think people are AFK when they see avatars "just standing around doing nothing" but in reality they could be doing anything and absolutely not AFK.  The only things they are not doing is moving around, texting in local chat and responding to "them".

A lot of the "issue" is one of perception.

To be fair, I think that if residents who've been around for a while hang around in new resident areas then I think they should make an effort to at least acknowledge a new person.  Many don't.

[animats]

2 hours ago, Gabriele Graves said:

The only things they are not doing is moving around, texting in local chat and responding to "them".

SL does tend to look dead, even when avatars are around.

I'd like to have a bit for IMing, like the one for typing, available to avatar scripts. Then, when you're IMing, the AO could pull out a cell phone. There are animations for that, but they're triggered by local typing, too, which looks wrong.

Reliable indication of avatar status would be nice. If the avatar gets no user inputs for a while, show the "AWAY" indicator. Perhaps Region Tracker and the map should be aware of AWAY state.

Places which don't want avatars just standing around AFK could put in an experience which seats them on some out of the way seating. I have a demo of that at the little park bench behind my workshop in Vallone. Stand close to it for 30 seconds without doing anything and you will be seated on the bench. There's a sign nearby to explain this.

[Gabriele Graves]

12 minutes ago, animats said:

Places which don't want avatars just standing around AFK could put in an experience which seats them on some out of the way seating. I have a demo of that at the little park bench behind my workshop in Vallone. Stand close to it for 30 seconds without doing anything and you will be seated on the bench. There's a sign nearby to explain this.

New people don't expect seated people to be AFK anymore than they do standing ones.  There is nothing inherent about being seated that would indicate that.

This is exactly the kind of thing that makes me Experience averse and why I don't accept them.  I think it would be rude for a host to seat someone like this tbh.