Hey, folks. This one is gonna be more of a downer, unfortunately.
It's never fun when you have to put a stop to people's fun. Nor is it enjoyable to tell people they can't do something they've been doing before. However, as time has gone on, more and more issues have become apparent and it's clear that we need to do something.
Starting today, AFK Farming will no longer be permitted on the MC server. This DOES NOT include mob farms as a whole - this only refers to people using them through things like auto-clickers or game exploits. If you're there giving the inputs to the game yourself, there's nothing to worry about. If you're routinely making use of things that have your player sat idle racking up items, XP, or other such things while you're off eating, watching videos, at work or school, or doing anything else - then unfortunately you will need to stop those behaviors.
However, I'm not going to insert a new rule without giving some sort of explanation. So, let's do that.
Over the past while, the following nerfs have had to be made for Mob Farms in general:
- /xpsell had to have its earning rate reduced in order to offset the extreme amounts of money players are able to earn from just clicking a bunch
- MobMoney drops had to had to be heavily reduced to offset the stacks of cash people could earn with little to no effort
- MobMoney had to also get nerfed to not drop anything if a mob died from fall damage, as some earlier grinders caused the mobs to die from fall damage while targeting a player - this in turned caused money to drop as it treated it as a player kill
However, all of these are mainly an issue with Mob Farms, not AFK farms. And while these are issues I want to resolve, they are not being addressed now. In other words, we are NOT banning standard Mob Farms. I want to try and find a proper way to continue to allow these that doesn't screw over players that don't wish to use them.
What does however suffer from all of the above issues (except for AFK fishing farms, that is) and a new, much larger issue are AFK farms. That new issue lies with Autorank - a plugin we use for time-based ranking.
Originally, we added Autorank to give a way for players to earn ranks. Later it turned out that feature essentially allowed us to be compliant with Mojang's EULA. The EULA forbids any sort of non-cosmetic perks, but apparently having a way for players to obtain those same perks without paying makes it allowed. I think you can start to see where I'm heading.
The times for the ranks are based on their prices. Donator is 5 days, VIP is 10 days, Platinum is 25 days, and so on. The plugin ignores any time that a user is set to AFK - because it'd be unfair for people to earn ranks without being there. These AFK farms just so happen to operate in such a way that players are never marked as AFK - and as such, are able to earn those ranks within an incredibly short amount of time.
There is no easy way to fix this outside of finally putting a stop to AFK farming. Sure, I could nerf the hell out of autorank and make ranks even harder to obtain, but what does this do besides continue to screw over legitimate players? For me, this combined with the other caveats of mob farming itself were the breaking point - the point where I have to just say enough is enough.
Once again, I want to reiterate - standard Mob Farms ARE NOT banned - only farms which bypass the server's AFK checks are banned. If you're found to be AFK farming, you'll simply get a kick. If we need to step it up, we can - but our hope is that we won't need to. You guys are mature enough to understand the issues at play here - and I trust that you guys will work with me here.
If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to voice them! I'm always open to hearing new suggestions and will try to ease any worries you guys may have.
Addendum 2-24-2020:
AFK fishing farms are not being banned outright. Due to their ability to bypass AFK checks, however, any players that wish to use these will be excluded from time-based ranking entirely. If you wish to forego ranking up in favor of auto-fishing, that choice is yours to make.