Make a /xmppafk command. There's already some xmpp specific slash commands, why not another?
That's what Codewalker was saying, but the problem is that the idea is to have two commands: afk would be for genuine afk status and would not only show up over people's heads but also show up to generic chat clients: you'd see their status in your chat client as "AFK". But the problem is that the XMPP message you'd normally use to do that is also used by Paragon Chat to signal a significant amount of other stuff. If you are genuinely going AFK, it makes sense to send an updated Presence message that works for both CoH/PC and for normal chat clients (remember: Paragon Chat is fundamentally a chat client). But if people are going to also use afk as a prefix to
every tell they make, it will hammer the XMPP servers with these Presence updates. I'm AFK now I'm not no I'm AFK again no I'm not wait I'm AFK again. That's not good.
Since City of Heroes players use the /afk command to actually do two different logical things (that happen to appear the same), signalling genuine AFK and signalling "can't talk right this second because I'm typing", it makes sense to have two different commands that do two different things: one signals genuine status, and the other just pops the bubble over your head (but signals nothing to non-Paragon Chat users). The problem with making an /xmppafk command is that honestly few players would use it. Let's be honest: a large number of Paragon Chat users ran into exactly the same problems and asked exactly the same questions in the first week of launch. If you make /afk work and make an /xmppafk command and people start using them, other players will see that working and assume Codewalker got /afk working and just start spamming that instead.
Having said all of that, one possible way around this might be to change the way Paragon Chat processes commands so that /afk *cannot* be used in macros. That way if someone types /afk or actually goes afk literally (idles away from the keyboard and prompts the game client to try to auto-afk you) that triggers a Presence update. But if someone tries to "afk TypingNow$$startchat" the afk will not execute. That would enforce a "use xmppafk for afk-chat" rule, but still allow people to use /afk for legitimate away from keyboard time. You could even have /afk throw a system channel error that says "cannot use afk in macros, use xmppafk instead".
(Except I wouldn't call it xmppafk, because that's Bizarro nomenclature - the real afk is the XMPP afk, and /xmppafk is explicitly *not* an XMPP afk. I would call it "/chatafk" because that's basically what it is.)