What Is a Landbot?

what does it do and how does it work?

It's an automated avatar, scripted to search for and buy land parcels. It can operate much faster in scanning and buying than a human can, and some feel this is an unfair advantage. Also landbots can capitalize on a sellers mistakes, in setting land price too low. See the "I was ripped off by a Landbot" (tm) threads. Landbots are allowed according to Linden. There have been examples of bot runners who do use them ethically, as well as those who don't, in these forums.

A land bot scans the land sale listings, then as soon as a property shows up priced under a certain L/m it swoops in and buys it. They operate faster than humans could expect to work. They have lead to some heated debates when a resident will price a piece of land at a very low/giveaway price meaning for a partner or someone in particular to buy it. But the bot picks it up first.

A landbot is a bot that hunts around for underpriced land and buys it.

A bot, in the SL sense, is a program that runs on a user's computer and that automatically imitates the actions of a user working through the ordinary SL viewer. It can do this because some time ago, the protocol used for communications between the SL viewer and SL servers was reverse engineered. Hence, a bot program can be written to automatically perform some repetitive task, as if a user had been sitting in front of SL doing it, but obviously much faster.

Thanks


So all the conversations I have with Avatars that swarm cheap land like flies on a rotting corpse were bots?...

Cool !

So they really cannot do anything that a Seller does not enable them to do with regards to a Land sale...

The physically go to a property and then buy it?

Really, can they circumvent the time that it takes for the Sale Transaction Page to load?

If they were talking, they probably weren't bots.

And yes, that is where the arguments come in, the seller has to make a mistake in pricing or not setting "Sell to XXXXXX".

It sounds almost like VonGkl was trying to set this up.

I see no problem with land bots. The only problem is that I don't have one!

They don't use the normal SL client software, but something that is sort of 'text only' - data loads very very fast because it doesn't have to be portrayed in the pretty graphics format with all the other SL rendering going on. In fact it doesn't have to be portrayed at all - the 'bot' program just scans the data looking for whatever parameters it is set for -- such as, lot > 256m, price per m < 8.75 or whatever their trigger is.

SL a while back 'throttled' the search page so you can't refresh it 50 times a second. From what I understand, the botrunners responded by going from one bot hitting the search page over and over, to dozens or maybe hundreds of bots, each hitting the search page in turn, with a master program running the show.

When they locate a parcel that meets their criteria, the bot can teleport over right away and it does not have to wait for all the textures and surroundings to rez - it simply engages the 'buy land' dialog and purchases the parcel before normal people can even see if they like the view. Bots don't have to be even on the parcel, they just need to get into the same sim, so they can buy the land in a split second without even being seen.

-Atashi

set what up?

So if the bot engages the buy Dialog, what would stop a seller from writing a program that changes the price a split second after a Bot lands on that parcel? lol

You can be standing next to the person you intend to sell the land to, with nobody else around in a 20 sim radius, with the intended buyer waiting to click the buy button, and there is no possible chance for them to buy the land if you set it for sale to anyone at a price of $1. The landbot will get there, buy the property, and return all items before your finger leaves the sell button.

So I am gathering that bots only capitalize on the stupidity of others. If people are that stupid to set a piece of land for sale for 1L to "anyone" they deserve it..

One of my neighbor's did that once for a piece I was buying from him, but no bots showed up.

hmmm almost positive its a setup now.

It's not stupidity if they've never heard about the ability of landbots. It is reasonable for a smart person to assume that other avatars would have to notice the land for sale in search, read the ad, teleport, rez, click the about land interface, and buy. If there's nobody else around other than seller and intended buyer for miles, it is reasonable to believe that the simpler method for selling the land is safe.

After 12800 posts, I would be surprised if you weren't locked into a little room in a basement, thinking everything is a setup and that everyone is out to get you...twice

haha

then they should use captcha's for Land Sales to avoid that problem

Not everything's a setup,

And it not setting *me* up

But setting posters up .. this thread .. yeah.

Yep, sure looks like it!

That clinched it!

Isn't this a form of trolling? LOL

Maybe its a way of running for office.

I don't really care if this is a set-up...LOL...glad this question was asked and answered. Now I have information that I have been wondering about. I am not that active on the forums and roll in an out periodically to read and/or post. So I appreciate the question and the answers!

Oh, then you must search for some of the landbot threads. You will learn all you could ever want on the subject, and more.

Actually, this thread was very concise and informative for the first dozen or so posts. As for what reasonable people might do, one could argue that a reasonable person might at least wonder why one of the options for selling land is to sell to a specific individual or actually realize that it was to ensure that an intended targetted buyer was the only one who could accept the offer to sell the land. One could also argue that a reasonable and prudent person would select this option regardless of whether he or she was aware of the existence of landbots if his or her intention was to sell only to a specific individual.