Request for an auto log out feature

[Kent]

Example of real-life situation where this feature would be valuable: Playing away at CLOK on my smart phone, the doorbell rings; I slip the phone into my pocket and answer it. Turns out to be a friend and we head out to grab a cup of coffee somewhere. Nearly an hour later I pull my smartphone out to check the time, and behold! I am still logged into my CLOK session, having ignored other PCs who walked by and tried to engage Kent in RP and having lost time on my lessons timers, or worse, if in a hostile area, having been killed.

Currently, the game logs you out after every 10 minutes of total lack of input, but where this fails for me, is that somehow if I don't send a command at least every 45 seconds, I lose my connection to the game through my server. I have no idea the cause of this, I just know that it is, so I have to set up a timer to send the command 'Status' every 44 seconds.

My request is to have an option to toggle that would log you out at set interval of time, say, every 30 minutes at the 30's and the beginning of each hour (or some other sensible interval) unless certain conditions are met.


Idea 1: Every interval, the game sends you a question in the form of, "Type XYZ" to remain connected, and if you don't type XYZ in the next 45 seconds, then you are logged out by the game.

Idea 2: If no action command is entered during the interval, then you are logged out by the game.


Simpler Variant of Option 2: Perhaps the game code doesn't easily distinguish within itself which commands are action and which are informative only. In this case, it might be better to have the conditions as these: If during the time interval none of one or two stated commands are typed in, then you are logged out by the game. For example, the required command might be Status, or either Status or Health, and if neither are entered in the 30 minutes, then logout.

I suppose different ideas could be proposed for the conditions. And remember, I am asking for this as a voluntary option, not something everyone has to have.

[merin]

I really hate to sound like a jerk here, but, that one's kind of on you. The ten minute idle out feature, in my opinion, is an auto logout feature.

If you have done something to negate that, then, you take that risk. For what it's worth, though, I'm sorry about the 45 second thing...is there a way to fix that or a different client or is it just your internet

[Jirato]

Merin pretty much said what I have been spending the past ten minutes trying to think up a tactful way of saying. I'm sorry, but I can't really see us spending a significant amount of effort on this when you've pretty much clearly identified it as a problem on your end. We have the 10 minute idle disconnect timer, you chose to bypass that with a timed trigger, there's not much we can do about that.

This whole 45 minute disconnect thing seems to be a problem with your device or your client, I think you'd have better chances at resolving that. Is your software up to date and everything?

[Kent]

Merin pretty much said what I have been spending the past ten minutes trying to think up a tactful way of saying. I'm sorry, but I can't really see us spending a significant amount of effort on this when you've pretty much clearly identified it as a problem on your end. We have the 10 minute idle disconnect timer, you chose to bypass that with a timed trigger, there's not much we can do about that.

This whole 45 minute disconnect thing seems to be a problem with your device or your client, I think you'd have better chances at resolving that. Is your software up to date and everything?

It's as up to date as Blowtorch gets. To be more precise, it's not that it disconnects me, but after about 45 seconds of typing nothing in, any commands typed in thereafter result in no response from the MUD, as if I were in a neverending lag. My only remedy is to quit out of Blowtorch and relaunch it and relog in. This doesn't happen if I play via the flash client web page http://clok.contrarium.net/play/hmud/ on my computer.

Perhaps..... might it be easy to exempt a single command (eg Status) from being regarded as a command for purposes of the 10 minute auto time out that currently exists? Or is that a biggie too?

[Xyra]

I'm guess that'd be a big deal from their end, because right now even non commands will reset the timer (such as asdf).

I'm not sure how complex the timers and triggers and such can get with Blowtorch, but you could set this up on your own end.

Simply have the timer increase a variable by 1 every time it triggers, and have it shut itself down once the variable gets to... say 30 or so. When it does that it sends a final echo reminder of some kind that you need to use an alias to reset the timer.

[sona]

Alternatively, if you're queuing up these anti-idle things every 45 seconds, you could with relative ease set up a trigger counter for the timeout, so one the 1st timeout you prevent, it counts one, and if it counts to an equivalent of 10 min, have it log you out, so you're actually logging out after 10 min of inactivity. This could have you logging out more than you intend, but if you're about and not active for 45 sec * num, it shouldn't be a huge deal, either. Just a thought.

[Xyra]

I think the problem with that Sona is it sound like it just goes off every 44 seconds period, not every 44 seconds since his last command. Depending on how robust the system is, he could set it up that way, but it might be complicated.

[Kent]

I'm guess that'd be a big deal from their end, because right now even non commands will reset the timer (such as asdf).

i see. Never mind, then.