Limit free users...

The viewer can report the MAC address from the computer it's running on.

I was going to say that .. then I remembered I own about 9 computers....

Yann,

I take exception to your post. I am not a premium user, but I am not "free" either. I am a paying customer. I just paid my monthly rental on two parcels - $5600 L. I spend at least twice that each month in other SL purchases. I contribute to the economy each month, I don't see why I should have any different access to SL than you do.

There are legitimate reasons for being logged in on more than one account and even for using bots that aren't used to game traffic metrics. It's akin to suggesting that all families are limited to 1 car to solve a problem with roadway congestion. There are better solutions that don't involve handicapping the platform.

/me plunges a knife deep into the OP's heart, and twists it slowly.

The truth is that LL scans these forums and blocks the people who complain.

Actually, it's not that simple. There isn't a distinction between "scalable" and "not scalable". We talk like there is, but in truth, scalability is relative. It's like saying something is either thick or thin, and there's no gray area.

Scalability is a quantifiable property, with a lower bound of 1 (or perhaps zero .. but that would be "borked" and no specific upper bound. For SL, one scalability measure would be the number of accounts that can log in. Another would be the number that can log in and operate smoothly. There are quite a number of different possible metrics, each meaningful in a different way, casting light on different resources.

SL is highly scalable. It would run like a dream with half the number of residents (and frequently does).

Here's what's happening. LL is working furiously on scalability on a number of fronts, and continuously making improvements. This is obvious to anyone who's been ingame for more than a year or so. However, rather than imposing a limit of logins based on what *they* think is a reasonable upper limit on scalability, they let *us*, the participants, decide, by logging out when we can't tolerate it.

Now, I admit that occasionally -- all too regularly -- LL does show terrible judgement or makes a serious technical blunder. They're not perfect, that's for sure. But let's not make completely meaningless criticisms like this one.

SL concurrency has been growing at a rate of very roughly 100% per year for several years now. That's laudable, not laughable.

And they'll code the bot client will make up a MAC address. This is not a solution.

MAC addresses don't go end-to-end, so you can't know the true MAC address of the source. The best you can do is have them tell you, in which case they can lie. Very easily, too.

Is the --awesome option only available for Empresses? It never works for me.

Dumb question, likely:

I've wandered away from my computer on some occasions to come back to a message which states that I'm about to be logged off for inactivity (although that's never actually happened).

Wouldn't doing that that solve the bot issue? Just kick people out that are just standing around, anyway, and not talking to anyone?

HAHAHAHAHA

Now, for starters, do you have any clue onto my technical knowhow? do you have any idea whom your talking to ?
do you have any idea about what i know about technical network scalabilities and architectures?
Do you know what my technical level is, in relation to the working of SL?
DO YOU, DO YOU? well, mister big mouth, do you?

The only one who has absolutely no real clue about SOFTWARE/NETWORK SCALABILITY TECHNIQUES = you my friend!

don't shout, or you make yourself heard and laughed at

(somehow, i get the feeling that you are one of the pawn in the LL staff list, you know the one at the support desk, that thinks he/she knows alot, just because he/she works there.. but infact knows barely nothing.)

They'll just script the bots to talk and move, increasing the load they cause on the grid.

A dog, or a Neko?

It's OK.

On the Internet nobody knows you're really a dog.

GEEK FIGHT!

SSSSSSST!

OH DANG!, now everyone knows
"Houston, we have a problem, wooof!"

First off, let me apologize for my tone in my first post. As soon as I posted it, I edited it to not be an offensive rant.

However, I can tell from your post that you either know little about scalability, or you don't communicate very well.

I work for a major high tech equipment vendor that has over 20,000 software engineers. I wrote the section of our programming guide that deals with writing scalable code. Actually, I was *asked* to write this, after being a member of a scalability task force.

The company I work for makes networking equipment. I've contributed to RFCs and implementors's agreements for ISO specificaions, and participated in telecommunications interoperability forums. I've written an embedded network layer used in telecommunications management equipment. I recently code that literally handles millions of packets per second on arrayed network processors. These days I'm working on the control plane for a network bridge that can serve up to half a million MAC addresses.

If I said anything incorrect about scalability, please point it out and correct me.

Ok, that's ok, no offense taken.

anyway, i might be lacking some things here and there, i'm trying to avoid long indepth technical talking that many cannot follow anyway. And that can have the negative side, for technical people to not completely follow my writing. (no offence)

Some background, i've done quite alot of work/implementations for big firms as it comes to network architectures, failsafe redundancy system configurations, on both hardware and software levels.
Some of these companies include ISP's and ASP's, with thousands of concurrent users/members using their products/services. (with SLA's alongside)
Target = 99,95 percent uptime/working system.
that means, the software (like daemons) and hardware (switches/routers/loadbalancers/servers/uplinks etc etc) should be able to manage the load with ease.
So, i've seen pretty much first hand what bad scalability is, and what good implementations are. SL, to me is not build for easy scaling as the userbase changes over time.
It's a "static" implementation, that needs a "shutdown, place a new configuration, startup again" type scale as it is.
it's based on a tested designed for a fixed maximum concurrent user base (that is slowly gearup upwards in tiers)
e.g. the max. supported/workable scale they used was 65K concurrent users, any more users = failure.
now it's after long time of troubleshooting set to 75K concurrent users..
it's not flexible not on the fly scalable setup.
(see the forced logout and login blocks during such situation, to prove it)
i guess, the userbase has grown too quickly for their initial expectations, during the design/implementation, and their facing the bottleneck now.. and have difficulty keeping it up, from that point.
heck, their haisty to redesign the protocols used in the system, since a year or so.. but it's going slower then expected..
If it where designed for scalability, this wouldn't be needed in the first place. One could "hot" plug new configs into play as needed.
e.g. adding new hardware to the running system, without going down. or adding more software capacity to the running system (cluster system type)

I hope this explains it a bit more, onto what i ment, and my background in this. I might have used the wrong wordings, it happends sometimes..

premium members get what they pay for, this feeling of entitlment is growing old.

ok... that is a given


how about...

I am a human, I can not log in
get rid of the bots so real people (be they premium or basic account holders) can log in

make more sense?

I'll put in a good word for you later this afternoon when my freeloading alts are done looting Lucky Chairs.

works for me

I am a basic free account and have been in SL for over 2 years as such. I run businesses, sell goods, build items, spend money, contribute back to the SL economy, contribute to the wellness of the SL community through volunteer services, and am an all around fun person to be with.

I don't have a need to own land, and don't have a need to be able to pick up the phone and call Linden Labs. That's the only benefit I see from paying $70 / year.

You aren't paying to play, you're paying for tech support and land rights. You are *not* paying for priority access. Maybe LL should create a "Priority Access" account status and charge $500 / year for it. Then, if being able to get in immediately and on whatever whim you wish is that important to you, you can certainly pay for that ability.

I remember whenever the online user count hit 20,000, the entire grid would crash. We relogged 2 minutes later and went on about our business. The same story was told then ... too many free accounts were clogging the system. LL improved the system and we moved on. Your complaint is nothing new, and guess what ... LL is working to improve the system to handle their current and projected load.

I have only gotten the "grid is full, wait your turn" login problem twice since the 20K user cap problem. Each time I was able to log in within minutes. I went and grabbed a drink, came back, and was able to log in. Wow ... glad I didn't pay $70 for that 2 minute delay. *smirks*

Do you loot Crazy Chairs as well? o_O

works for me almost all the time, but then I do wear the title of Empress quite often.