Why Do Some Players Sit And Do Nothing On A Online Game Server?

[oldgamerz]

I assume those people are hacking, the ones who stay on a game server and appear to do nothing, I used to encounter these kind of players all the time on when I used to play Zandronum online. sometimes with a console bubble above their head. but later versions didn't have that over the players head.

Why do people sit and just take up space on an online game server? Google it not answering my question today. I always wondered about this, what are these players really doing?

[emporerdragon]

Generally it means that they're either away from the keyboard, have the program running in the background while they do something else, are fiddling with things in the menus, just making use of game chat, or are simply idling for playtime-based rewards/drops.

[kamikazekeeg]

Depends on the type of game.  Unlikely to be hacking if they are just sitting around doing nothing.

[kypherion]

If it's TF2 then to farm items, otherwise I would guess either AFK or to rack up hours.

[tripredacus]

They could be running mules. I don't know about the game you are talking about specifically, but I used to do this type of thing in Diablo II. By that I mean that I owned two copies of the game and the expansion and ran two computers at a time. My second computer would be the one sitting around doing nothing and was typically meant for specific purposes such as:
- holding games open
- muling items
- creating games where the Cow King would spawn

[hoshichiri]

Generally it means that they're either away from the keyboard, have the program running in the background while they do something else, are fiddling with things in the menus, just making use of game chat, or are simply idling for playtime-based rewards/drops.

This. Keep in mind, a lot of these players could be kids, so it's entirely possible that rather than try to reconnect when mom yells at them to take out the trash/walk the dog/come have dinner, they simply go AFK.

I know when I'm playing Monster Hunter World, if I'm expecting friends to join me, rather than log off to go do quick chores & such (which would make it much harder to find a room we can all play in), I typically go to the gathering hall, sit at a table in the back, hit the 'sleep' action and put the controller down. If my friends come on while I'm away and find me unresponsive to messages, they'll know I'm in the back of the hall passed out drunk & come hang out.

[baileykun]

Hmm.. yeah, it's hard to say why if you don't know the game. In Ragnarok if I go AFK it's either cause I'm waiting for someone to show up and want them to be able to find my afk avatar, because I'm buying/selling goods and don't want to hover in the meantime, or I might be waiting out some variety of timer in rare circumstances. Also, sometimes on priest I just hang out and randomly buff passer-bys who ask, but otherwise might look afk.

[borjesson16]

Probably the same reason why some people sit on their computer and just post on forums

[wolff242]

I assume those people are hacking, the ones who stay on a game server and appear to do nothing, I used to encounter these kind of players all the time on when I used to play Zandronum online. sometimes with a console bubble above their head. but later versions didn't have that over the players head.

Why do people sit and just take up space on an online game server? Google it not answering my question today. I always wondered about this, what are these players really doing?

You seem to assume a ridiculous amount of hacking is going on. I recall another post you accused a lot of people of being hackers. Sometimes people just fall asleep, or get distracted. I'm currently playing War Planet online and I idle a lot just because I can run it in the background on not continually open and close the program. It doesn't need my attention all the time.