Landbots 101

Okay Weedy you do that.

Precisely.

Not really. The average user is not going to sit and spend all of their time clicking the search page over and over all day long.



I never said they were idiots or dullards. See my comment above for my explanation why the average user really didn't have much of a chance to find below market land.




Yes the land dealers without the bots.




How is this different when a human land trader jacks up the price?




No. Only other land dealers without a bot pay more just like the end user who pays more 95% of the time. I would really like to see proof how EVERYONE pays more because of the bot. I hope someone is compiling this data.

The tool is eating up resources.

And that is the point I have been trying to contribute. Yet seems to be ignored. *sighs*

This is a valid point. In all honesty, one way or the other, prices are the result of supply and demand.

Over the years, the release of new sims has had the greatest effect on land prices.

There are few aspects to land dealing and whoever did it, found their own way into the market. Personally, I buy low and sell low. Regardless of price, I would reprice according to the lowest price on the list. If anything, some might view this as "undercutting", particularily those who bought entire sims at current prices. Last week a bunch of sims were bought at 11/sqm, while less than 24 hours later, the price plummetted to the high 8's. I can see how that might distress someone who invested 3k USD.

Then there are premium land buyers. They go around looking at base priced properties with something to "value add". Flat, green, waterfront, low lag, protected land etc. are all factors which affect the overall quality of land, and they risk holding land in tier for extended periods until they sell to a motivated buyer. There is nothing that can be said about that. It's their land and they can sell it for whatever they wish. If it's too high, people simply will not buy it.

I think it comes down to one thing. Land Barony is like prostitution. It's the oldest profession in SL and not likely to go away under any circumstances. The point being, would you rather have equal and fair access to the market place by anyone who freely decides to do so, or would you rather have an elite few take it all?

I suggest, anyone except a bot would prefer the former.

I don't know if this has been mentioned, but there is another reason why throttling is extremely counterproductive: I often will guage the market by flipping through pages of listings starting with the cheapest per meter, so as to not just get an idea of the bottom of the market, but also the middle range as well. Throttling search makes it so I have to wait, then turn a page, then wait, then turn.

Instead of fighting an arms race with landbots, which will not solve anything and only hurt the honest seller, LL should make landbotting against the TOS and ban people who insist on using it after giving an initial notice and warning.

Very good point Aminom. Upon looking at the list and flipping pages ahead, this could frustrate the higher end of the market.

"Next and Prev" should have throttles different from the initial "Search"

The throttling is a major pain in the rear. I still scratch my head how LL thought this would help against the bots. I think slowing the bots were not their intention at all. They simply introduced the search throttling to reduce the load on the servers.

Hmmm one bot .. or 40 people .. tough choice.

If one bot is using the resources 40 people could have .. and OK, lets say half of those are basic, not premium .. don't they still deserve to have a chance of cheap land?

Sorry if I've trolled a point someone else made but heck! this has gained 5 pages overnight and I haven't got that much time to backread!

Well technically it is 40 bots not one. Is it a drain on resources? Probably. Is it a terrible drain on resources the same as sims full of sleeping campers that LL feels something should be done to stop it? Apparently not.

So how many of the 40 people from your example sit and pound the search every few seconds all day long hoping to win the land lottery just to find a cheap piece of land to use and not flip? Probably not many.

And it's okay. I have already been accused of trolling for having the "unpopular" opinion in this thread so no worries.

Ah yes, 40 bots .. one person .. taking up the resources of 40 people.

Yes, camping jams resources too. Are LL any more actively trying to reduce them too/either? I don't know. It's really a different issue; they are both lagmills.

Probably not many of those 40 people are there pounding at the database but does the database need pounding?

How many of those potential 40 people are going to find that sweet little 512 or 1024 plot going for a song?

None. Bargains? Forget it! No real person is ever going to get the chance to read the database entry.

Shame. I thought SecondLife was about people ... lots of people .. not the few.

It once was about people. Unfortunatly it has become about quick money more than anything. If I honestly believed the OP was truely concerned about the effect the bots had on the community as a whole and not just their now broken business model, and offered proof of how the enitre community is hurt by this tool then I would be singing a different tune probably.

I have heard people say the bots hurt the end users of land by decreasing competition and driving up prices. Yet I see no evidence of this. I have heard people say that the bots actually encourage lower prices for the end user by reducing the number of times the land is flipped because would be land flippers are missing from the equation. Yet I see no evidence of this either.

It is simply a few trying to create hysteria about something that really does not affect anyone not in the land dealing business. Some are finding they can no longer compete and are either panicked or just mad. That's life.

I was one of those few end users pounding the search looking for the cheapest land before the bots came on the scene and time and time again was beat by human land dealers. Eventually I got tired of spending all my time on the search page and just paid the cheapest market value I could find. But hey, that's life and some non-bot benefited from my land purchase.

Well, I would continue to draw a distinction between land dealers and land speculators. The former are those who work something on the model of a RL realtor, providing added value to the land they sell or lease. It's the latter that are the real parasites, who simply have no other interest than to vacuum up whatever they can find as fast as possible and resell it at an unearned profit.

Such people are socially and morally worthless whether they use a bot or not. As to the argument that no-one should be penalized for using a tool that gives them a advantage, this is not a morally sound argument. One could use it to justify insider trading, which is a crime in most countries.

As some posters have pointed out, SL is first and foremost a virtual reality where people can pursue second lives. It is not intended to be a vehicle for competition between a handful of hackers as to who can leech the most money out of it. This simply degrades the experience for 99.999% of SL's residents.

Well land flipping sucked whoever was doing it, with bots it just sucks *more*.

What actually annoys me, is that we keep having things removed (like inworld transactions history) or suspended (searches) in the name of easing stress on the databases, while all the time, LL is happy to allow people running farms of libSL bots to hammer those same databases into the ground in the name of simple greed.

Where I come from they call that "pissing on your head and telling you it's raining."

Knock yourselves out with the harassment script but it's worth noting that the orb has no affect whatsoever on any bots and just serves to lag sims and hassle normal people using the official viewer.

Lagging your sim with ineffective security scripts is not the answer, but if you really feel strongly about this and feel it affects you then the email addresses that were posted in that thread are worth a shot. It's the whole anti-copybot craze all over again.

Last time I checked, llOverMyLand() and llTeleportAgentHome() were approved LSL functions. Likewise, if people run scripts on their own land to prevent bots or their controllers from from using it, that's hardly harassment.

OMG boo hoo, the bad resident TP's me home from their land.

So tell me Mr. Bigshot, on what authority do you have that TP home scripts lag the sim?

The truth is, you can't.

You had the Lindens remove those scripts at your behest, bypassing the AR system, yet even after submitting the original version of the script to Spike Linden for inspection, why is it the script is still permitted?

This folks, is the sense of entitlement these bot controllers think they have, not only to corner the land market, but to also dictate what scripts can and cannot be run on land they don't even own.

As a side note, notice that these bots (or so they claim) work around security measures provided to you by Linden Lab.

If people don't want the bots on your land, it's their absolute right. Hacking the client to workaround it is a TOS violation, in itself.

Pointing out to the community a major security exploit in the forums is also a TOS violation.

I wonder how many griefers are going to run libsl now?

Wow. Why don't you take your own advice and let other people have an opinion too? I think if we eliminated just half your posts in this thread the thread would be only half as long. You remind me of my brother always having to get the last word in. Youve said your opinion now how about letting other people speak?

Oh i'm sorry my posts bother you. I am simply responding to what has been quoted from my posts.

No. No it's not. Because copybot never actually entered widespread use.

But don't let that stop you from making lame excuses and charges of resource hogging, when in fact, it's the bots that are hammering away with queries at the architecture.

Enjoy it while it lasts will be my advice, because LL simply cannot in good faith and in common sense business logic allow it to continue indefinately. Same goes for camping and traffic. Enjoy them while they last.