Avatar Time-Out Issue

[Freda Frostbite]

This is a big problem for those of us who do readings, drama, story telling and music in virtual worlds. In the viewers, there is a setting that we can change to say how long our avatars stay inworld once they have become inactive. In Kitely, however that setting is over-ridden and your avatar gets the heave-ho after 30 minutes of appearing idle. That is a good thing for people who occasionally fall asleep at the keyboard and for land owners who don't want to pay by the minute for parked avs on their lands.

It is not good when a person giving a performance or attending a meeting gets the boot because their av has not moved or typed anything in 30 minutes. I have been timed out in the middle of readings on more than one occasion and have seen the same happen to Shandon Loring and others. When we are reading, we are not always able to look at the Kitely screen. And, even if we could, it would seem odd to suddenly hop off a performance pose ball and walk around some whilst reading. In fact, in my case, it could not be done whilst reading because the manuscript is in one screen and Kitely in another. I actually have to stop a reading to move every 28 minutes or so.

Is there anyway to change this? I think raising the time-out time to 60 minutes would do the trick, because very few literary and arts events exceed that length of time. What do you say, Shandon? Cale? Marita? Others?

Ilan and Oren, can this be changed?

[Graham Mills]

Hi Freda,

All that is needed to reset the inactivity counter is to press the space bar (or any other key) in local chat, you don't have to move around. Is that really that much of a burden?

[Graham Mills]

I don't have a problem with it being adjustable via the website panel for the world but would prefer the default to remain as it is. I can imagine students swapping to and from the web and occasionally forgetting they are logged into Kitely. As I run metered worlds that could get expensive.

Hi Freda,

All that is needed to reset the inactivity counter is to press the space bar (or any other key) once in local chat, you don't have to move around. Is that really that much of a burden?

[Freda Frostbite]

I ahve actually tried doing that, Ilan. And was bounced. Once I was even bounced after walking around at the 25 minute mark.

[Ilan Tochner]

You have to make sure to be typing while chat is selected so it will detect the movement (if the courser isn't moving in the chat field then the movement won't be registered).

The inactivity detector sends you a message after 30 minutes of inactivity and then gives you a minute to click the "I'm here" button in that dialog to remain in the world and reset the counter. If you were disconnected prior to that it couldn't have been due to the inactivity detector (there is no variance in the amount of time it counts down). If you ever encounter the message before 30 minutes of inactivity have passed then please let us know so we can review our logs.

Please note that there is currently a problem, that we're currently working on eliminating, that may have caused lag/disconnects in various circumstances that are not related to avatar idle time outs (the same problem that caused yesterday's connectivity issues in the weekly meeting). We hope to roll out a fix for that early next week.

[Dundridge Dreadlow]

it would be a fairly simple script to move an avatar every 20 minutes or so....

However, it isn't really possible to detect if a world is premium or fixed price, or to detect if a user is premium or not, so it probably isn't a good idea....

[Freda Frostbite]

This is not something I see as a HUGE problem more important than the many other you-all are fixing. Was just hoping some long-range consideration could be given to solving it for those of us who find ourselves reading a manuscript in one window and getting timed out in another. It could go on a list along with the hundred thousand other things on that list.

[Deuce Halsey]

Considering the extreme price advantages of hosting worlds in Kitely I don't think it's too much to ask of people attending events to make an effort to have everyone chat or move about every 20 minutes or so during a performance. I have been to quite a few real life meetings/conferences where the attendees are given frequent breaks to tend to nature's call, or even to just get out of their chairs and stand for a few minutes.

The concept of an inactivity timeout should not be too strange to people who are used to playing online games. We can just make these quick frequent breaks a kind of custom during performances or meetings in Kitely.

[Freda Frostbite]

When was the last time you attended a play and they asked you to get up and move around at 20-minute intervals? What I (and others) do in Kitely events is more like a play than a meeting.

[Shandon Loring]

I don't think moving around should be a requirement we only need people to tap the space bar in the chat window once every 25-30 minutes. For those attending and not currently busy with performing the dialog that opens and prompts them to indicate they are still there should be enough, they don't even have to preemptively tap the space bar.

Please remember that the idle avatar timeout serves important purposes:
1) It ejects campers that just keep a world active and may be costing the world manager KC (if they are non-Premium Account users and the world is a Premium World).
2) It helps us keep prices for worlds low by freeing us from having to reserve servers for worlds when they aren't actually in use.