What about Bots?

This proposal is NOT intended to make premium more valuable, it is intended to make traffic measurements more accurate.

It does make premium more valuable though, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Are you kidding me?

If properly implemented, the only effect on premiums would be that it would encourage the development of areas that are attractive to the kind of people who tend to be premium. It wouldn't make "being premium" inherently more valuable.

This is a subtle distinction, perhaps, but I believe a significant one.

From an SL Bot website:

SLbot Features




Client accept teleport lures from master and group members.

*groupinvite - Invite a given avatar to a given group (Usage: groupinvite UUID)
* load - Loads commands from a dll. (Usage: load AssemblyNameWithoutExtension)
* dilation - Shows time dilation for current sim.
* sit - Master point a prim bot sit on this pointed prim
* im - Instant message someone. Usage: im [firstname] [lastname] [message]
* stand - Stand
* agentlocations - Downloads all of the agent locations in a specified region. Usage: agentlocations [regionhandle]
* leavegroup - Leave a group. Usage: leavegroup GroupName
* joingroup - join a group. Usage: joingroup GroupName | joingroup UUID GroupId
* imgroup - Send an instant message to a group. Usage: imgroup [group_uuid] [message]
* showevent - Shows an Events details. Usage: showevent [eventID]
* crouch - Starts or stops crouching. Usage: crouch [start/stop]
* importoutfit - Imports an appearance from an xml file. Usage: importoutfit inputfile.xml
* attachments - Prints a list of the currently known agent attachments
* searchevents - Searches Events list. Usage: searchevents [search text]
* findtexture - Checks if a specified texture is currently visible on a specified face. Usage: findtexture [face-index] [texture-uuid]
* gridlayer - Downloads all of the layer chunks for the grid object map
* i - Prints out inventory.
* gohome - Teleports home
* export - Exports an object to an xml file. Usage: export uuid outputfile.xml
* detectbot - Runs in the background, reporting any potential bots
* appearance - Set your current appearance to your last saved appearance
* exportparticles - Reverse engineers a prim with a particle system to an LSL script. Usage: exportscript [prim-uuid]
* changeperms - Recursively changes all of the permissions for child and task inventory objects. Usage prim-uuid [copy] [mod] [xfer]
* balance - Shows the amount of L$.
* setmaster - Sets the user name of the master user. The master user can IM to run commands. Usage: setmaster [name]
* primregex - Find prim by text predicat. Usage: primregex [text predicat] (eg findprim .away.)
* jump - Jumps or flies up
* goto_landmark - Teleports to a Landmark. Usage: goto_landmark [UUID]
* stats - Provide connection figures and statistics
* location - Show the location.
* uptime - Shows the login name, login time and length of time logged on.
* moveto - Moves the avatar to the specified global position using simulator autopilot. Usage: moveto x y z
* whisper - Whisper something.
* clone - Clone the appearance of a nearby avatar. Usage: clone [name]
* who - Lists seen avatars.
* md5 - Creates an MD5 hash from a given password. Usage: md5 [password]
* sethome - Sets home to the current location.
* goto - Teleport to a location (e.g. "goto Hooper/100/100/30"
* giveAll - Gives you all it's money.
* dumpoutfit - Dumps all of the textures from an avatars outfit to the hard drive. Usage: dumpoutfit [avatar-uuid]
* deleteFolder - Deletes a folder from inventory.
* echoMaster - Repeat everything that master says.
* packetlog - Logs a given number of packets to an xml file. Usage: packetlog 10 tenpackets.xml
* findobjects - Finds all objects, which name contains search-string. Usage: findobjects [radius] <search-string>
* objectinventory - Retrieves a listing of items inside an object (task inventory). Usage: objectinventory [objectID]
* mapfriend - Show a friends location. Usage: mapfriend UUID
* wear - Wear an outfit folder from inventory. Usage: wear [outfit name] [nobake]
* priminfo - Dumps information about a specified prim. Usage: priminfo [prim-uuid]
* shout - Shout something.
* showeffects - Prints out information for every viewer effect that is received. Usage: showeffects [on/off]
* help - Lists available commands.
* follow - Follow another avatar. (usage: follow [FirstName LastName]) If no target is set then will follow master.
* backuptext - Backup inventory to a folder on your hard drive. Usage: backuptext [to <directory>] | [abort] | [status]
* activategroup - Set a group as active. Usage: activategroup GroupName
* touch - Attempt to touch a prim with specified UUID
* setMasterKey - Sets the key of the master user. The master user can IM to run commands.
* regioninfo - Prints out info about all the current region
* import - Import prims from an exported xml file. Usage: import inputfile.xml [usegroup]
* parcelinfo - Prints out info about all the parcels in this simulator
* say - Say something. (usage: say (optional channel) whatever)
* tree - Rez a tree.
* debug - Turn debug messages on or off. Usage: debug [on/off]
* findsim - Searches for a simulator and returns information about it. Usage: findsim [Simulator Name]
* exportoutfit - Exports an avatars outfit to an xml file. Usage: exportoutfit [avataruuid] outputfile.xml
* fly - Starts or stops flying. Usage: fly [start/stop]
* gridmap - Downloads all visible information about the grid map
* groups - List avatar groups. Usage: groups
* primcount - Shows the number of objects currently being tracked.
* siton - Attempt to sit on a particular prim, with specified UUID
* friends - List avatar friends. Usage: friends

So bots have a usefulness? Yeah to steal your stuff!

And looks like it is approved by LL, after all, any name with SL in it must have their approval.

Very optimistic of you! No, it'll cause people to give out micro payments to premium accounts who visit, create premium only camping areas, competitions only premiums can enter and all sorts of crazy things neither of us have imagined yet.

To be accurate, the Premium demographic would need to be as close as possible to the whole world demographic.

It only needs to be closer to the average user demographic than it is to the bot demographic.

I suspect that you're making assumptions about the results of "llRequestAgentData(id, DATA_PAYINFO)" that aren't actually true.

Hmm, I haven't fiddled with lsl in a while so I wasn't really familiar with that function in the first place. I'm just making assumptions about human nature and ingenuity.

I get the feeling this would be the likeliest outcome if LL did manage to properly implement a code change that counted only premium accounts toward traffic. People WILL find a way to game a traffic system no matter what form of traffic counting is used. Especially if it's used as a way to get oneself further up the popular places ranks.

Plus, it excludes those who actually do pay LL money via the LindeX, as well as estate owners who don't feel they NEED a premium account along with their island. They get way better support and well, being counted as traffic is NOT enough incentive to become premium.

I think traffic is.. well, only useful to shop owners who want to quick gauge how their land is doing, but a visitor counter would be more useful for that.

I consider the whole traffic system useless these days thanks to bots
there are loads of useful bots however and I have seen some nice places with actor bots that actually add something to the place

I think there should be a cap on traffic so that it isn't a race to infinity and beyond. A reasonable number attainable in a genuine fashion could be set as the cap and every place beyond that could be sorted randomly in Search, perhaps.

remove traffic it does not work
remove spotlight that is for linden alts and friends

I disagree with this. People have been saying traffic should go away for a long time, but for those of us who AREN'T using lindens as the measure of "success" then taking away traffic (and the ability to view others' traffic) takes away one of the "game elements". Yes, I know traffic scores can be gamed with bots and the like but usually this is fairly easy to determine.

I wouldn't mind if traffic were not computed in search results, but I'd be quite upset to see it totally removed and/or unviewable.

Yeah, I don't think there's much chance of it going away completely. As-is, it's a very (*very*) crude measure of who's been on a site, so businesses that rely on it are... uh... "missing an opportunity." But LL seems on a path to deliver some of the finer-grained demographics--and whence the visitor's came, such as TP'd from Classified / Search All / etc. That's something that would really help a business and that scripts can't deliver.

I'm not all that keen on making public those numbers, nor even the current crude metric. I guess, if that's really one of the game elements, it seems a pretty lame game to me, but maybe that's just because I see only the limitations of current Traffic data collection. And if the data really were useful, as proposed, I wouldn't want to share it with the competition.

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Re: Premiums only for Traffic counts. Forget it. As much as we may wish that Traffic doesn't matter anymore, it does. Big time. It simply *determines* the ranking on Places search, and still affects Search All. The continued significance of Traffic is the only reason there are still campers, which unlike bots actually cost L$s. And note that net of stipend, an annual plan Premium account costs less than the L$s to keep a camping spot filled, even at the now bot-depressed camping rates.

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Traffic needs to go away from Search completely. Actually, it would be worse if it were *not* gamed, because then folks would actually believe it and flock to the busiest spots. Luckily, Traffic really is only used for gaming Search now--nobody with a clue uses it to find "popular" places. If they did, it would be the worst possible engineering: focusing resource demand on the already most congested points on the grid. Maybe it was okay back when the grid was tiny and there were few residents, but the architecture does not scale that way. At all.

Only way to control bot numbers is to verify all accounts, or make it uneconomical for people to leave 80 of them logged in somehow.

Well, you could also just remove the economic incentive to run them. I think we'll be seeing some action on this topic in the very near future so I'm quite excited to see what happens.

For those saying premiums could be farmed because you almost get the same L$ from a premium as you get from buying in the lindex:

You could be more restrictive. For example only count premiums also paying a certain amount of extra tier for example an extra 512 or possible a larger amount.
There will always be some cut off point where its not economical to farm premiums.

Conceirge accounts would always be counted.

like it or not, a high traffic rating will result in higher sales for the majority of sl business out there. im not a big fan to traffic bots, but due to the nature of traffic ranking i see them as a necessary evil.

i think if they are gonna have all these bots in these boxes they should all have an animation that kicks in once every hour where they stand up raise both arms over their head and yell.
FOR THE HORDE!!!!!

You are very mistaken. True, traffic bots don't DO much, but they are another avatar in the region that the server has to maintain, whether anyone is there to render them in the client or not. 30 traffic bots aren't any lighter on the server than 29 bots and one guy looking at them. An avatar is an avatar is an avatar.

While running lots of bots that run lots of scripts - or heck, never mind bots, *residents* who run lots of scripts - are a drag on resources, resources spent on avatars who do nothing but stand there, unmanned, are worse than avatars that do something useful or entertaining, unmanned.

Not to mention the effect on search results, another argument in itself.

Besides, why on earth would anyone put 30 fishermen bots on their land - except, of course, for the TRAFFIC?

Maximizing profit doesn't justify evil.