Attacking players when they are idle has long been the sport of some of the
players here. It is also a suitable time to exact revenge for some wrong, to
take advantage of a tiger mission, and for someone with AoH to wander by
completely by accident. It happens. That's why most players don't idle in
public.

Now granted, even if you are in the safety of the church or a well-guarded
castle room, Bad Things can still happen. And it sucks when someone runs
clones or BB when you're idle. But this happens, and it happens to everyone.
There will always be some risk involved when you idle. You age, you get
thirsty, and, yes, you look like an easy mark. That's why the feature is on
HC, but not (yet) here.

So we might port that feature over, but I won't. I feel that BatMUD would lose
some of its remaining risk if we did that, and BatMUD is not a place where you
can rest easy. Personally, I would use the following two options while you
wait for another arch to take sympathy on your plight:
-- when I idled as a mortal, I turned word of recall on, moved wimpy to
maximum, and made sure I was in a room with at least four exits. Assuming the
threat was not an instant kill (which, honestly, idle or no idle, you're not
going to survive) I would hopefully escape. Outworld rooms are good for that
-- just not near great lions and swampmonsters (but you might take your
pkiller firend with you!)
-- the "auto_ld" function we have cuts your connection if you are idle under
any circumstances. If I were mortal, I'd set it to 300 seconds (the same time
as it takes my screen saver to go on and also before the "idle 5min" messages
show up on my tell status) if I was the paranoid type.

In addition to all this, I'm not ready to hear the whining if I _do_ set up
this feature. For example, we all know that it is legal to use triggers to
appear unidle (also, to eat/drink when idle). So, players legally and
intelligently using such triggers would find themselves at risk, simply for
using them. And they would whine. Admit it. If some other arch wants to figure
out how to code a "how long was he idle, not counting eating, drinking, or
saving, or anything else mortals use to appear unidle" function, they have my
blessing. But better them than me.

Shinarae Lluminus