ANNOUNCEMENT: PM Wyrom revisits and clarifies POLICY 18, which spells out the expectations that a player is always responsive to the game. He speaks frankly about script checks and warnings with a special emphasis for people using multiple accounts. Here’s all four paragraphs of his explanation:
Text of Discord Post follows:
PM Wyrom
POLICY 18 Clarification
on 05 Feb 2024 3:33 PM
from the Official GemStoneIV Discord
on #general-announcements channel
There has been an uptick in POLICY 18 violations, mostly surrounding multi-accounting. When you play the game, you need to be fully engaged with the surrounding environment you may encounter. When we test players, we first try to not be a jarring event, but we ramp up the idea that you are being tested. We cannot deploy the same messaging each time because then that can be automated as well. Script checks are done by GameMasters, but we have more tools these days to detect possible inattentive scripting behavior before we get started.
Script checks have a bunch of tests that start off that the player won’t see. We also have tools that do things like add roundtime or create odd responses from the game that anyone at the keys and paying attention would notice. POLICY 18 is commonly referred to as AFK scripting, but you don’t need to be AFK to have a POLICY 18 violation, it could be more accurately described as inattentive scripting. If you’re running a bunch of accounts, you need to be able to respond to each account. If you have multiple accounts engaging in this behavior, it will result in all of the accounts logged in getting hit with cumulative warnings. We aren’t going to get involved with checking which accounts might be botting or not.
We usually check an account for 3 to 5 minutes, but some of that testing is done without direct messaging in game. If you’re engaging in a behavior that doesn’t really require much attention but still gaining something, the check can be pretty instant. Things like selling gems to turn in an Adv Guild task, you need to be able to respond to a check while selling, turning in the task, and resting for a small bit. Rubbing exp orbs is also the same thing, you need to be there when the exp is awarded and for a little bit of time afterwards. I realize this is subjective, and that’s how each test can vary. Using scripts like a spellup or a heal script are fine as long as you’re not botting.
The best way to always avoid getting warned is to pay attention to the game whenever you’re gaining anything. Pay attention to the game whenever you or your script (or even macro) are issuing commands and you are gaining anything. I realize this can feel penalizing to players running multiple accounts, but POLICY (and the ToS) is here to stay and something everyone needs to agree to when playing the game.
Direct Discord Link (Right click, copy link, and paste into Discord App if you don’t want to use the Discord web interface.)
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