Grazing?

Anybody else seen these?

I have recently been seeing cow shaped avatars (looks more like a bent over, human wearing a cow costume) appear in the Welcome Area in Korea, and now at Warmouth too. They have a group tag "grazing" above their heads, but no listing for any such group in their profiles, nor is there any listing for a group of this name in the search/groups. They appear for a minute or so, chew a bit, then vanish. They appear to have unique avatar names, but I have not been able to get any one to speak (I've tried 5 times with different avatars).

It just seems odd...don't really know why it seems odd, but it does. Anybody else seen these? For the record, I don't drink or do drugs.

Thanks.

Drugs? SL is my drug .. or my addiction at least
Not seen cows that I can remember but a sheep walked through a dance hall a month back. Hippos abound in various places .. and dragons?? sheesh!

I know that are some kind of "pet" that can wander around on your land.

So had a friend of mine lama's and penguins wandering around her house. It was fun to see.... Imagine, penguins on guard!!!!


Morwen

I'd forgotten this:
Last night, I went to my favourite sl pub and there was a cute terrier outside with no label. I 'touched' it and it emitted a green-texted 'woof'

No one ever learned you that you shouldn't pet dogs that you don't know?

Tsss... those hobbits...



Morwen.

I want a penguin.

We tried having a rotwieller roam in our yard, but the blasted thing was goofy and wouldn't follow it's waypoints properly so we sent her to the kennel. I do have a cow or two in my inventory...but they are unscripted so no luck getting them to move. Grrrr....

I used to keep a couple of home-grown goats in a pen outside my cottage. They were scripted to wander around, but because the ground wasn't very flat (or the scripting very good ;D) they used to occasionally wander completely out of the sim. It became more and more frequent, and then I started getting messages saying "Your object "Stan" has been returned to your Lost and Found folder from "Casino XXX GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS"" and I realised Stan possibly had a bit of a gambling problem, and they went to the big grazing land of my inventory.

LOL

ok ok...



I really don't know why, but the whole thing seems sinister. They're not pets. They're definately avatars...but there is a certain...hollowness to them....


I'm going to snap some pics next time.

My bro and his honey used to have a swan swimmin just outside thier window in a pond. The silly thing used to stop and stare in the window at them so they started calling it peepers. Then one day peepers vanished. About 3 months later peepers was returned to my bros inventory from 3 sims away. We have since had peepers in several locations around sl and always one day he poofs to be found months later.

I eventually found out that the script that runs peepers is physical and people were shooting him to kingdom come.

Now I ask you what kind of sport is a a swan in a fountain/

"Grazing" is likely the custom name for their role within their group. If you click on one the grazer's profiles , you should be able to see their groups...and one of those would then contain the role that would have "Grazing" as their tag, even though the group would not be called "Grazing." You'd have to search the groups listed until you found the one that had a decription that might include some reference to ummm...farm animals Then you might be able to join if it's a public group and do some grass munching yourself

The role-in-group thing makes perfect sense, except, in this case, none of the "cows" I've found have ANY groups listed in their profiles.

It's not that I find cows odd. What's odd is that they seem like they aren't being driven by a person. IOW, it seems like an avatar on auto-pilot, with a stealth group name, and that strikes me as very weird. Why would there be hollow avatars moving about SL in herds?

LOL - what makes you think they're "hollow" ? Because they don't speak? Maybe they're playing the part of cow so well and they only speak to non-humans Perhaps they hide their groups in their profiles...I dunno

Maybe the camp chairs are full?

When you approach them, does a hollow voice say "Plugh"?

I have not seen them yet but the groups showing can be turned off, anyone with group powers can make a group "hidden" from public view and they will not show up in the profile from what I have experimented with. A "hidden" group will also not show up in search - > groups.

Ah...well..see? There's usually a rational explaination for my paranoid delusions


And re: the camping chair comment...Yeah, that's kinda what I was thinking, but it makes no sense for them to be in the WA.

Haven't seen any cows recently. Have seen zebras though.

http://forums.secondlife.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=13881

No real answers (so far) but more discussion here

Thanks Lorelei.

I'm barely resisting the urge to jump up and down shouting, "I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!

In retrospect, I now understand why I thought they were such funny looking cows: because they were sheep! Moreover, I was going to make another post again last night when I saw another "hollow" sheep that had "libsecondlife" in its profile. I didn't post this info because I thought it would only confirm I was a paranoid. Whatever this is exceeds my technical understanding, but I'll venture a guess that it's probably no big deal.

It probably is just another version of the *autotar* crap that is going on.

After reporting numerous times to SL about the Greek first named alts, I seen they are gone from the search list.

Now they have regular names and still sit in camp. No different then the sheep or the rock group that are automated to go to a certain sim xy and perform a task.



The photo above was of the same autotar over a 15 minute period. They were banned from our land so kept rezzing in the lower corner of our sim. Notice the different avatar looks they change to each time they would rez.

I am sure the program, exploit, whatever you want to call it is pretty widespread by now.

Apparently it isn't acceptable by Linden Lab or the Greek alts would still be around.

I just hope the person gets the $9.95 charge the web site explains is charged for multiple alts...

It's the electric sheep company experimenting with libsecondlife bots.

Details here: http://blogs.electricsheepcompany.com/chris/?p=191

Hmm .. a thread on 'grazing' .. Shep ...

She-ep! <whistle> ... sorry .. just struck me as kinda funny

Ok...I was "Almost" willing to sit on the fence with this one until I got to the part about NPCs.

NPCs in SL = Huge Nono in my book. I don't care what they're used for....NPCs wil only spell trouble. SL isn't the place for NPCs of any sort. We have scripts that can despense notecards with info people might need, or even say it aloud for a group of people to hear at once when asked the right question or told the proper keyword. Having avatar shells about would only lead to more people running around blasting everyone in sight because they "thought they were an NPC".

And from a non annoyed standpoint...what would this do to dancers and hosts and sales reps in SL? Why pay someone out of pocket when that person may just show up and go afk, when you can have an NPC there in their place, spouting prescripted lines at random intervals or when queued?

Bad.....SL NPCs = Bad.

Grazing!! It just gets better! ROFL sorry .. Friday fever

Thoroughly agree though Joseph .. SL is about people .. not automatons and NPCs

It's Fridayyyyy!