Weekend Grid Outages

As a bot is simply someone running custom/hacked viewer code on a PC, how exactly do you suggest LL scan the sims for bots? About the only way you can tell someone has lots of bots is by comparing the IP addresses of each login. And even that fails because several people could be running different characters under the same roof or in a hotel.

So how would you go about detecting a bot that uses the same server to viewer protocols as your connection? What magic bit in the datastream would be the BOT bit?

Well, duh! You answered your own question - it's the 'magic' bit!

edit: it'd probably have to be a manual thing for traffic bots - they're not hard to spot when you see them but might be tricky to spot via code. For landbots, I think they're well aware of who is beating the bejesus outta search/land all day, every day..

Agreed those of us that pay into the economy should not be kept out, but since when do bots look for sex?

If I set up a table with 10 chairs and then sold dinner to 15 people and told 5 of them, sorry but there is no seat for you...i would be a theif. I would be just like LL.

As long as you clowns continue to let more people onto a system while those you have already billed can't use it...you are thieves.

All the rest is just BS. BS that we have heard for YEARS.

It's pretty clear to me!

Us PAYING members do not get free land either (except for long-time accounts) and everyone that wants land pays tiers (we pay it to LL, free accounts pay to landlords). We do not get free money (yes, we get a stipend, but that is part of our fee and it does not account for the fact LL makes money off our money but lindens are essentially free for them). Oh, and anyone can buy an island, you do not need a premium account.

Basicallly, premium accounts are putting in money ..... but not getting much more than a free account.

Hey, bots have needs too you know!

Nope.
I would ask the resitdents to AR bots and their owners.
Then I would investiage the Abuse Report, and conclude that a resident is a BOT.
In that case, disable the account and main and eventually the other alts of this RL person.
I mean, no avatar stays online forever. We all sign off and go to bed. But BOTS dont. They keep online, using special software. So if somebody ARs a bot, I would check how the long the account has been online. And and from that I would continue the investigation. Of course, i we dont want LL banning real accounts that are only inactive for a few hours. I am talking about accounts that are online for several days without any activity. Those accounts would be considered as a bot according the policy I proposed.
So I would disable those accounts, including the rest of the accounts, owned by the same RL person.

Then stop complaining and become a free member too
Nobody told you to become premium
Personally my account is free too. Not because I dont have the money to pay for a premium account, but because its not worth the money. I rather buy L$ with the money and spend them inworld. You can do the same thing too .
About about the free members paying to landlord.. well, in case you didnt notice, landlords ARE premium members, so we're covering your bills hun

Behave, they're already paying 100 bucks a month more in tier, one month equals more than a yearly membership. Island owners pay enough already.

hmmm still no replies from Frank...

where are you Frank? The residents have questions and concerns and need (and want) answers.

Hi
I am trying my best to understand what is said in the blog, however you are using long sentences and difficult stuctures and words to explain what you are working on.
Could you simplify your words or make a link to a more simplified example please?
Your residents do not all have English as their native language..
Thank you for considering..

With the amount of people online reaching over 74 thousand people, the grid is getting worse and worse with more issues, almost to the point that this computer with 4 gigs of ram and a video card that is a geforce 9600gt still lags and makes me log off and do something else. Then we have paying customers unable to log in while the majority of the people on the grid are more than likely basic free accounts. It is time to start charging people to play this game like all of the other games like WOW who has over 10 million subscribers who must pay about 14 USD a month. WOW has no shortage paying customers. With their 14 day trial period, there is no mass exodus of people leaving WOW and the game plays so much better. Maybe it is because since the people using the service are paying for it and WOW has the money to keep the game running smoothly.
If the grid is over loaded, then log out the free basic accounts and allow the paying customers to stay in the game and allow the paying customers to log in and use the service that they are paying for.

and if they began charging like WoW then how many people would be left? 10,000? maybe. less more likely.

No. Will not work. Especially since the system generally doesn't work very reliably as it is.


Folks, they have issues and are working through them. Give them a chance.

Yes, all we can do is waiting, I agree
But it would be nice if the Linden answers some questions in this forum.
((can we put the money rules situation behind us, and try to solve the Bot problem first? Its the fee account members that are buying ''premium member's'' objects, clothes, scripts. So I would say premium accounts are clients of LL and free account members are clients of premiums))

I have given them 2.5 years to fix things. How long do I have to wait for a working platform, not even an exceptional platform?

Blizzard doesn't have these issues, and WOW has 10 million subscribers.

11.5 million actually

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/world-of-warcraft-hits-11-5-million-subscribers

Warcraft is sharded, divided into multiple completely unrelated server pools, has no user-created content at all, and is basically completely unlike SL in every way. You might as well say "Youtube doesn't have these issues", you're comparing Apples and Aardvarks.

Split it up into multiple grids, make teleporting from one continent to another a one-way process, where you have different inventory and avatars depending on whether you're on Nautilus or Dreamland, where you have to wait for content approval before it's available, you'll get a lot more scalable system. I'm not sure I'd be interested in visiting it... I've seen There and I'm not sure I could care less about it.

I fail to see what it is you're trying to prove here. Of course the grid was much more stable then - there was only 1/8th the population then!

I wonder how much different your argument would be if today's entire SL population were all paid accounts and the grid was still toppling on a daily basis.

To all of you who seem to think the answer to all your in-game ills is to throw the entire population of non-premium users out in the cold: Are you REALLY naive enough to believe that this will fix all your problems? Sure, it will restabilize the grid, and LL won't have to lift a finger to fix anything, as it will have all "fixed" itself; but - do you honestly believe automatically disqualifying roughly 94% of the total population (Reuters, July 200 from ever stepping foot in your store unless they pay a "cover charge" (what being forced to pay before entering would equate to) makes good business sense? Really?

Call me stupid, but I have never believed that biting the hand that feeds you is a good idea.

Setting idiotic business practices aside, have you stopped to consider how many of us free account holders ARE such because the real-world's economic climate simply doesn't ALLOW us to be otherwise? I am grateful that LL opened the doors to basic membership. If I had to choose between feeding a video game and feeding my kids, which do you think I would choose? Now consider how many hundreds of thousands of us may be in the same boat.

I will once again state that us unpaid members are the backbone of the SL economy. Cut us off, or force us to choose between feeding a game and feeding our families, and you cut off your arms and your profit margin.

But, hey, if it helps to feed your elitism, then by all means, please do us all the courtesy of posting the name of your store or business and which regions they are in, so that I, and the thousands like me, know where we are not welcome to spend our hard-earned Lindens.

Edit to add: If I see one more post making the utterly outlandish claim that "freebies" are somehow given preferential access to the grid ahead of "premiums", I'm going to scream! If this were really the case, then WHY did I have to spend over four hours trying to log in last Sunday???

Why on earths name are you still using mySQL?
If you want to sort out the central database/warehouse then switch to MSSQL or Oracle, you would be far better off support wise and yeah maybe it might cost you more in licenses but i know for a fact they will cut you a deal if your buying in bulk.

While applaud your efforts, and am amazed have what you have managed to do with what you have, I feel it is necessary to point out that while FOSS is good, and I run a number of FOSS packages, there is a time when FOSS wont cut it. you don't have the time (in man years) to do the required development. I know I don't. I run about 300 unix boxes of various flavors, and FOSS where applicable. However, everything has a place. Use the best tool for the job and FOSS is not always the answer. I have 30000 users on a daily basis and if I had the kind of down time that LL has had I would have my ass handed to me. Sure, my databases were laid out ahead of time, and optimized for what they do, and only handle a few thousand transactions per second each, but they don't go down unless I tell them to.

Maybe consider upgrading to some RISC processors and an oracle database, or even DB2 on Power6 hardware.

If you insist on all FOSS, maybe MySQL on Debian isn't the best answer.

And yes, I do think I could do it better, and yes, I would quit my current job and move to the west coast to prove it. If the price was right

I love how half this thread is people talking about banning bots to help performance when the original post already said that it's not concurrent users that are the problem, it's their infrastructure's inability to handle the query load from accounts that are actually doing things.

I know a few people who like to leave their avatars idling in their houses, cuddling with their mates, while they sleep because it adds to the experience if their avatar "sleeps" while they do. Would they be committing bannable offenses with some of these more aggressive suggestions?

No DBA worth his salt would advise switching database engines as the first cut in solving a problem.

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all your feedback and questions. At this time, I'm going to close the thread. Frank will be back next month with a Grid Update (and hopefully not sooner).

Thanks again!