Cambot Races, Doo-Da, Doo-Da
by prokofy on 17/01/07 at 9:09 am
By Prokofy Neva, Dept. of Bot-Watchers and Alien Look-outs
Bots treading Linden water outside of Emerald Falls Casino, which has been forced to ban unverifieds.
With apologies to Stephen Foster.
Campbot zombies sing this song
Doo-da, doo-da
Libsl can do no wrong
Oh, de doo-da day
Gwine to run all night
Gwine to run all day
Bet my money on OS SL
Somebody bet on Croquet
Oh, the Lin-den staff and the script-kiddie sorts
Doo-da, doo-da
Come to a bug hole and they all file reports
Oh, de doo-da day
(chorus)
I went down there with W-hat breakin’ in,
Doo-da, doo-da
Came back home with a million Lin-dens
Oh, de doo-da day
(chorus)
The Campbots have seriously become a problem for SL’s booming casino business. We had reported late last year about the invasion of Emerald Falls Casino and Games in Pruni by a bunch of bots with Greek names — they appeared to subside.
But Emerald Falls co-owner Clarrice Cinquetti reports the bots are back in full force, arriving constantly in large batches. At least two other casino owners have reported to the Herald that they, too, have been invaded by massive numbers of bots, who respawn as soon as they are ejected and banned, forcing them to close their land to unverified accounts with “no payment on file”. The move has effectively cut cash-strapped newbies — the target audiences for casinos and their ubiquitous camp-chairs and dance-pads — from being able to go to venues willing to aid them and provide game help, socializing, and a chance to win on the slots.
Last Sunday, Clarrice teleported me to a disturbing tableau by the elaborate fantasy bridge and working railroad tracks she built in Pruni. Dozens of bots were rezzing on adjacent Linden land, unable to enter her property, which they had been programmed to invade, now that it was set to ban unverifieds. The zombies were falling into the water, flopping around, and then finally logging off — only to be replaced by new bots. Her efforts to stop the bot-bunching had led her to purchase some nearby land at an outrageously high price — but Linden land was still open to be exploited.
Efforts to communicate with the new arrivals falling into the water proved fruitless; although they were decked out in their finest party gear and had plenty of groups and activities on their profiles, not a single one of the dozens of new, unverified accounts responded to IMs.
I also checked the list of bots from her first invasion — they all appear to have “live people” running them now with elaborate profiles and picks and comments. When I wrote to some of them, they did not reply.
Many of the bots had a comment about being Belgian, and hoping to “get rich quick”. Most had a group title of some kind on their heads to make them look authentic — various Lucky Chair groups or favourite VPs in sex clubs and casinos.
Among the clump in Pruni is one avatar, Tester Anvil, who has been reported by several sources who have observed his profile over time to have been a member of libsecondlife. He was the only bot tied to the controversial group, which has been reverse-engineering the client with the Lindens’ approval, some of whose members have run away with files like the notorious CopyBot program, and the means to make mega prims.
Summoned to the scene by distraught casino owners, Harry Linden, the liaison on duty, appeared to eject some of the bots clumping up in piles on the Linden land, but then took no further action — the bots reappeared minutes later. When I asked Harry if he could explain what was going on, he said, “No Comment.”
Libsecondlife leaders, also asked repeatedly about the Campbot operations, have also not had any comment.
The bots are said to be draining casinos of millions of Lindens. That constitutes theft, say casino operators, who are angry that their businesses, tolerated within Second Life for years, are being shaken down now without any apparent action by LL.
There may simply not be any TOS violation as such that covers the creation and programming of bots to go and sit on camp chairs and drain out the cash intended to be spent elsewhere in SL. While loathed by a vocal segment of SL, the camp-chair establishments not only bring profits to casino owners, they feed vendors of skin, clothing, and furniture who take advantage of casino traffic to sell their wares. While the Lindens long ago abandoned their “starter fluid” concept for SL, where stipends of at least $50 used to be given even to free accounts, along with other subsidities like rating points, today only the camp-chair, dance-pad, and other pay-outs simulating house-painting, lawn-mowing, and gardening are providing the kickstart needed for many entering SL.
Linden liaisons come on to the scene
Doo-dah, doo-dah
“No Comment” — “No Action” is what they mean
Oh, de doo-dah day
Gwine to run all day
Gwine to run all night
Bet my money on OS SL
Somebody bet on Croquet
Liberated bots log on to the land
Doo-dah, doo-dah
Banning “no-payment” defeats their command
Oh, de doo-da day
(chorus)
See those bots steal casinos blind
Doo-da, doo-da
They do the crime but they don’t do the time,
Oh, de doo-da day.
(chorus)
I win my money on OS SL
Doo-dah, doo-dah
Who made the bots Lindens never do tell
Oh, de doo-dah day
(chorus)
Nobody Fugazi
Jan 17th, 2007
Oh. I thought those were Prokofy Neva’s bots. The evidence that they belong to Prokofy Neva is as compelling as that which indicates that they belong to libsecondlife.
Prok, put your bots away! rofl
Truth is that these are probably just accounts created by a person or people who are willing to multiply a few lindens every hour to a multiple of that very low amount. It can be done with anyone who owns more than one computer. Really. And most campers don’t talk when sitting around having lindens shoved up their butts anyway. They have their anti-logoff devices and they go watch television because camping is *boring* (unless, of course, you surf around and leave 12 page dissertations on tinfoil hats).
AND… why do the casinos have the camping chairs? To get people to camp. Well, people are camping. You should probably find out what the problem really is. If they really have a problem with people camping, one would think that they would take down their camping chairs. Instead they ban unverifieds. Makes no sense. I somehow doubt verified accounts would camp that much.
Camping is socialist anyway. I’m surprised that you support socialism, Prok.
Prokofy Neva
Jan 17th, 2007
I don’t see why a report about an *exploit* of Second Life being used to steal from businesses is about “supporting socialism”.
I don’t permit camping on my own properties — of the pay-out money casino kind, I only have the old-fashioned wilderness camping in a cabin or tent for a small donation per day. So I’m no booster of “socialist camping” in the snotty little way Nobody Fugazi suggests.
And I don’t think camping is socialism when viewed as a whole system, in fact. It’s no more socialistic than the Lindens’ own subsidies which are socialist at one end for new people and capitalist at the other end as the new people then spend to enrich creators. And with the Linden-printing to artificially depress wages, the Lindens ensure that SL remains a haven mainly to attract new accounts to consume content.
Camping is welfare for campers, but it’s a loss-leader for companies, and one they can apparently justify. It’s a system that casino owners and vendors of items like clothing and skins use to make money for their products. Ultimately, they make a profit out of what they do, or at least break even, or they wouldn’t persit. A lot of the dollars campers make is fed back into “Lost Wages” sort of slots, so it’s a racket, but no worse a racket than any other game of chance in SL, you pay your money and you take your chance.
The camp establishiments provide these payouts not to fill up the coffers of exploiters but to keep the game interesting and attractive both to casual socializers and to creators. They make Second Life work for many people, in ways that LL isn’t interested in worrying about anymore. In short, whether we prudishly and Calvinistically hate what they are doing because the money is not achieved by “hard work,” they are making a legitimate and legal use of the Second Life platform.
There aren’t many groups of programmers in Second Life. It’s a fairly small cohort, and they all know each other. I’m fairly certain that legitimate companies like ESC or IMV or MOU who might have grabbed libsecondlife programming to explore it aren’t also trying to make CampBots drain casinos. And I’m not the one here to point the finger at libsecondlife; the casino-goers and owners, all on their own, are doing this by providing eyewitness reports. So once again, the Campbots are a problem both of a group that doesn’t control its members so there is no accountability, and groups exploiting that lack of accountability.
Libsecondlife may deny having anything to do with these Copybot and MultipleInstancebot like characters, and the Lindens have “no comment,” but it’s more than obvious that a small group of tekkie types who hate camping have found the perfect way to fight back against them with no finger prints or evident TOS violations, and LL may be more than happy about this development.
The idea that these are just a few accounts logged on by a few people is completely false. Anyone who has observed how dozens of these bots all log on at the same time and fan out over a casino can see that they aren’t alts just operated by one computer, but bots.
I saw myself how they morphed from their copied mode into the accessorized mode, just as the Sheepbots do. They appear in that hunched over way that bots do and then start treading water — somebody logging an actual avatar on multiple computers would place the avatar differently as they’d be operating him.
The bots are controlled remotely with command lines in chat.
Macphisto Angelus
Jan 17th, 2007
The only theft here is the bandwidth and performance loss that the bots cause since they use the same resources as a live user.
The casino issue is not one at all. They install camp chairs to game the traffic system. The person running the bot is helping them do that. What does it matter to the casino owner who is being payed the pennies an hour they offer to the pixelated butt in the camp chair? If it is outrage because the new players are being denied the money instead then why close your establishment to all unverifieds who could use the lindens gathered elsewhere to try to win in the casinos?
These people who flood the sims with campers and help degrade the performance of SL for others in the sim are hard pressed to get sympathy from me because someone is gaming the camp system that the casino (and other) owners are using to game the popular places system. Both are exploiting a system, are they not?
Artemis Fate
Jan 17th, 2007
I just think it’s funny that the casino owners are getting a taste of what they’ve been doing to newbies and the grid with camping chairs and slot machines for months if not years: getting screwed.
Prokofy Neva
Jan 17th, 2007
I don’t think that crime is acceptable just because the victims are unsavory or disliked by the crowd and the gotcha gang.
It’s still theft if you park bots on a lot, invading the casino so that no one else can get on the server at all, and just drain all the dollars out of it. That’s not what these establishments make available their free dollars for. They all have social circles, regulars, newbies they help, slot machines, and vendors of products, and it’s an economy of sorts. It’s disrupted by these botters who are using an exploit of SL for their own personal gain.
If bots merely helped casinos keep their fake numbers to stay at the top of the list, then they’d not care about the bots and leave them. But they are all actively trying to get rid of them, push them off their parcels, and now even banning unverifieds to keep them off, at the expense of their business.
They close their venues because an invasion of 40 bots night after night completely kills the business.
I have several sims where I suffer business losses due to uncaring casinos or sex clubs that use dance-pads and camp-chairs to keep artifically high on the Popular Places list or the list in general in SEARCH — and I have NO USE for those who suck up all of a sims’ resources even if they own the least amount of land on the server and have to share that server with other owners who are sometimes even blocked from entering their sim!
You do have to realize, however, that the campchair thing would not occur unless there was a real need for entry-level jobs for newbies, which the synthetic world and its orchid create-or-die creator-feted hothouse economy hasn’t generated yet.
Myrrh Massiel
Jan 17th, 2007
…camp chairs and money trees are generally just a method for gaming a parcel’s traffic numbers, and if those landowners suffer from being gamed in turn, well, just rewards – developers tend to reap what they sow…
Macphisto Angelus
Jan 17th, 2007
>>I don’t think that crime is acceptable just because the victims are unsavory or disliked by the crowd and the gotcha gang.
Nor do I. I hate these bots because they are adding more load to a shakey “platform” that feels like it is bound with 99cent store duct tape sometimes. Not to mention alt abuse issues for those who didn’t pay for a thousand names or what have you. That is the crime I see. I don’t think them parking on the chairs is a crime though. I have never seen a sign saying in a casino that the chairs are only for a certain kind of camper. Therefore I see it as money for anyone that plops down on one.
Joshua Nightshade
Jan 17th, 2007
“The bots are controlled remotely with command lines in chat.” — Prokofy Neva
This article and the comments after it are pretty damning evidence that Prokofy Neva knows who is running the campbots and is harboring them. All the technical details of how the bot programs work and how the owner communicates with it, locations of where they go, L$ figures of how much the casino owners have lost from them… what are you hiding Prok? Care to share the whole story with us?
Prokofy Neva
Jan 17th, 2007
I’ve reported everything I know on this, that I was given the go-ahead to report. Any common user of SL can go watch how the bots log on and behave to “get it”.
Here’s the damning evidence from Baba Yamamoto:
http://evansavenue.wordpress.com/2007/01/02/the-trouble-with-libsecondlife/#comment-342
Here’s what he says about all of libsecondlife’s actions, and about campbot in particular:
“Doubtless there will be more controversy, be it generated by libsecondlife directly or just one of our users, as libsecondlife gains new tricks.
libsecondlife:
understands avatar appearance, clonebot is born
understands objects, copybot is born.
understands animations, dancebot is born
understands avatar controls, followbot is born.
understands sitting, campbot is born
understands images, imagetool is born…
Everything new we learn how to do leads to someone making something that can use that feature. It will always be that way no matter who has control of the source.
So, credibility? You don’t have to like our people or our users. We provide a tool, and it’s only a tool. Use it or don’t. A tool doesn’t need credibility.”
What he does, then, is claim the moral neutrality that he believes is inherent in tools extends back to him as a programmer, and then blankets him and all of libsl in rectitude, and that it’s oh, “only a few bad eggs” who might grab these tools to flush out casinos, just like it was “only a few bad eggs” who made, sold, and exploited the fears of CopyBot. These are only “our users” for with libsl — and LL by extension — claim no responsibility. I beg to differ.
Cocoanut Koala
Jan 17th, 2007
No, the casinos aren’t using the campchairs just to inflate their traffic. They expect that people who come there to camp will also come there to gamble, and also to purchase the goods on sale there.
As for money trees, people are not using those to inflate traffic at all. It takes like .09 seconds to strip a money tree, lol. People have money trees because (a) they want to help new players or enjoy being one who does, or (b) they want to get more eyeballs to their shop and provide good PR for their shop so that new players will remember it fondly when they are ready to buy things.
As for the bots, that’s the last thing we need. But it is exactly what LL deserves.
coco
Erbo Evans
Jan 17th, 2007
Agreed. While I’m not a huge fan of camping in general, neither do I condone wholesale fraud against casino owners, not to mention stealing resources that casino owners have intended to use to help newbies and/or draw clientele to their establishments.
Casinos may have to get smart with their camping systems to combat this problem. For instance, I’ve seen one system recently that ties the camp pad to a slot machine, such that (a) you have to pull the handle on the machine at least once during the camp period to collect the payout, and (b) the amount of money paid for “camping” is directly tied to wins and losses on the slot machine itself. This encourages the camper to keep playing, and would probably stop simple camp-bots, or, at the very least, force their code to be rewritten so they played the machine as well.
Ordinal Malaprop
Jan 17th, 2007
I take an _extraordinarily_ dim view of establishments using chairs – obviously there are degrees, a casino with chairs is better than a place where the campers do nothing at all, and a social site with chairs but where people talk to others is hardly bad at all. In any case, though, I will simply laugh and laugh if I hear any chair operators complaining that they’re being “stolen from”. Multiple clients have been able to be run from a single computer for donkey’s years now. What, precisely, is being stolen? If the chair owners wanted to make sure their campers were doing certain things every now and then to “earn their keep” they were quite able to script that in beforehand, and bots should be unable to pass those tests. You were quite happy to lag the hell out of other residents in order to boost your traffic and advertise, and you clearly didn’t discriminate for “active” campers (otherwise the bots wouldn’t be a problem) – I have no sympathy whatsoever, such behaviour is worse than that of ad griefers, who at least don’t actively degrade sim performance.
The issue of camping chairs being the only (or far by the easiest) way for new unverified residents to get hold of cash I do find disturbing; there should be some way for them to obtain funds to upload the odd texture or buy the odd frock. That doesn’t mean camping in the slightest, which is an exploitative play on a particular, illogical way that SL is set up at the moment, doubtless soon to be consigned to history.
Macphisto Angelus
Jan 17th, 2007
Awesome post Ordinal. I agree with it all.
There are so many ways for a new player to get linden bucks if they take in a class and lots of free resources out there such as textures and scripts to use in creations. This would require some research but there are forums, websites and other resources to help with that.
Besides you don’t *have* to have money in SL. If you want to buy the high end clothes, skins, etc then that is a luxury that has to be worked towards. Otherwise there are tons and tons of free items out there to have fun with.
Camp Chairs are not really a big help for new players in the long run.
Prokofy Neva
Jan 17th, 2007
Hmm, unfortunately we’re finally seeing the usually-perfect Ordinal doing something wrong as a result of her socialist beliefs. Regretable indeed. She’s willing to stick it to somebody she doesn’t like whom has violated some socialist precept and violated the overall Rule of Law — violated the 7th commandment that says “thou shalt not steal”. (The commandment doesn’t say, “It’s ok to steal from people who steal from others.) She is substituting the Bolsheviks’ “Expropriate from the expropriators” as the moral code in place of the 7th commandment. That’s wrong. The 7th commandment doesn’t have qualifiers. This is why communism starts as immorality with its revolutionary justice and its qualifiers; it ends by being criminal.
It *is* stealing to flush money out of a camp-chair establishment. Ordinal thinks that two wrongs here make a right. If a camp-chair operator lags a sim, or “steals FPS” from the whole sim, then too bad, anybody can shake him down.
Not so. It’s exploiting something that wasn’t intended to enrich one person or group who can exploit the venue with bots. Camp-chairs are meant not only to give traffic or to flush coins into casinos that benefit their operators, but also to jump-start the newbie economy and help a variety of sellers and the economy as a whole. Newbies cannot create or die; they can only consume at first and they have nothing with which to do that consuming except to accept freebies foisted on them.
Commanding casinos to make more elaborate scripted devices that force newbies through their paces seems to me to be merely another version of “means-testing” or “workfare”. That is, not content to issue welfare, socialists add to their do-gooding some kind of judgemental aspect that tries to “improve” the poor.
I hate ad griefers, and I hate clubs and casinos that lag sims where they are not the only owners. But the answer to that dilemma is not to figure out how to vindictively take them down through exploits and theft. The answers are as follows:]
1. Have the Lindens sell club servers that have more powerful specs and urge clubs to bid on them on the auctions or create an option for clubs to move to them for higher tier
2. Offer those caught on a sim with a club compensation by being moved to another sim at no charge – make “club relief” sims — the problem with this is that a sim really can’t have two clubs each with 38 visitors a night, and yet a club may not own the whole sim (that’s why no. 1 is to be preferred as an option)
3. Bill for CPU usage (my response of choice)– that will make clubs be responsible and bag the camp-chairs as unaffordable luxuries — they’ll have to provide greater and more compelling amusements.
I think it’s important to note that in this case of the casino in Pruni, they are the majority land owner, and even bought an adjacent sim plot to stem the tide of bots. If you saw the sim, you’d rethink your hortatory and judgemental notions that they have committed theft originally themselves. They have not.
Macphisto is merely adding more of this Calvinistic church lady stuff that always leads us to creator-fascism. You *must* learn how to build or make something. You *must* consume only those freebies that the Wiser Older Content Providers have Selflessly Provided for you — and shut up. You can’t take handouts or sit in camp-chairs — that’s evil! You *must* work towards owning luxuries — or else be despised, if you are gifted with them!
It always amazes me that people in SL who reserve for themselves the rights and freedoms to be pagans or godless or secular humanists or socialists or BDSM or any old thing will suddenly rise on their hind legs with the utmost fury and condemn with hellfire and brimstone somebody who merely buys a second piece of first land, or who sits in a camp chair to make a few bucks for a dress. Something really out of whack here.
otakup0pe Neumann
Jan 17th, 2007
I agree with Ordinal that there should be ways for a newb to make a few L$. I like the idea of money trees, and agree with CoCo that they aren’t used for inflating traffic stats.
On the subject of these CampBots ? I don’t know who is doing it, but it seems obvious that it is with libsecondlife. Is this new ? No, as Ordinal mentioned it is possible to run multiple clients on one system. I had my P4 3.0 up to about 5 accounts that way… It wasn’t happy though. Like others are saying, it is ironic to see casino owners complaining.
The item that has been hinted at throughout this article and comments is what I believe to be the major issue. Bots should not fill up a sim, they should not deny service to legitimate users. If they are in fact doing this (I don’t frequent casinos, so I haven’t seen these particular cases) then it is (at best) sloppy programming.
The social issue of casino owners being “gamed” is not the important one. It is the “technical” issue of genuine users being denied service, much in the way casinos have been known to do in the past.
Prokofy Neva
Jan 17th, 2007
Why is it that under your system, when someone makes someone with libsecondlife, they don’t post that new thing they’ve made, which might be a tweak of an existing thing, on this bulletin board of sorts described, with their name as creator? With the Lindens on open-sourcing of the client, this is being discussed, that different items will be posted. In fact, programmers argue about “forking” and “forking” to be throwing a temper tantrum versus rightful forking, if there is such a thing.
Obviously, you could have such a giant project and so many variations and iterations of something that you couldn’t possibley keep track of it. But the group of programs in SL now is a small number. Everybody knows everyone else. And it’s a still relatively privileged and closed society. Therefore to “not know who did it” and also to not have a system of accountability seems suspect to me. Especially when it involves changing the very fabric of the world in ways that affects everyone in that world. That has always been my major critique of open-sourcing related to SL. No one bought a subscription and paid for land that could be flooded with 40 bots and become unusable. With this exploit, bots could be used to wreck events, crash townhalls, etc. etc.
Artemis Fate
Jan 17th, 2007
I totally agree Ordinal.
If camping chairs had some kind of test to make sure that the people in the camping chair were active, it wouldn’t be so bad. Atleast then it’d just be people choosing to spend their time on a chair instead of walking around. My huge problem with camping chairs is when (and it often is) people sit there, put on an anti-idler, and then go to work, or sleep, or something else. Thus we have one extra person logged on to Second Life who wouldn’t otherwise and adding a person’s worth of grid lag, who is not actually playing the game. Thus the server load increases and makes things laggier for everyone else for literally pennies.
I hate the whole “but we’re helping newbies!” thing, yeah, great you’re giving newbies a few cents to get a bunch of fake advertising you must be a saint. I equate camping chairs to a real life subway, where the company decides to stick penny dispensers every half hour or so in the middle of the stairs down to the subway, and hobos start to crowd the steps to collect the money. Thereafter people have to wade, stumble, step over, and otherwise get through these crowds of hobos gathering pennies, slowing everything down for everyone. Basically, yeah you’re somewhat helping the homeless by giving them tiny amounts of change, but you’re severing slowing down things for everyone else.
Prokofy:
“She’s willing to stick it to somebody she doesn’t like whom has violated some socialist precept and violated the overall Rule of Law — violated the 7th commandment that says “thou shalt not steal”.”
I don’t see how the camping chair bots are stealing, they’re doing something that the camping chairs were designed for.
“Not so. It’s exploiting something that wasn’t intended to enrich one person or group”
What, you mean like using camping chairs to get undeserved high traffic for the old developer’s incentive?
Also, ever noticed that when ever pretty much any topic comes up that you don’t like, you can’t help but apply the word “Socialist” or some synonym to it? You said it 7 times for this conversation (note: the only one to use the word Socialist in description for non-socialist things or not in reply to you). Ever wonder about that? Sounds like a paranoid obsession.
Heartun Breaker
Jan 18th, 2007
Gwine to run all night
Gwine to run all day
You fucking racist! It’s “finna run alla day”… not “gwine to run all day.”
What are we in here? Disney’s Song of the South?
Prokofy Neva
Jan 18th, 2007
It’s “Gwine” Heartun. It’s a dialect word for “going to”. And it is not racist. Don’t be fucking RIDICULOUS. Go look it up. I don’t know what on earth you’re talking about “finna run alla day”. It’s not Disney’s song of the South and P.S. did you totally lose your sense of humour?????
Prokofy Neva
Jan 18th, 2007
Artemis, why does it bother you so much if someone sits idly in a chair and collects a handout? What Puritanical vein is popping here?
I wouldn’t bother to pay such deadbeats — when they first came out with the camp chairs long ago and I tested them, I quickly found that people would sit in them all night and drain you for hundreds of Lindens — and what would be the point? You couldn’t make that back in dwell payouts even with dwelloper awars. But people who do this method nowadays are getting it to work in combination with casinos and vendors — otherwise they wouldn’t do it.
What you seem unable to concede is that for some people, this is having fun. It’s what they wish to do. Some casino owners don’t even mind if they lose money, they like the feeling of being big men around town with babes on their arm and blingy rings and the pimp look or whatever — I’ve seen it, I’ve seen characters like that drop thousands of US even on it. You enjoy other things like gossiping in the IRC channel or suddenly stripping naked and posing or whatever it is that you do. Why so controlling and hateful about what other people wish to do? After all, nobody is asking you to go there, or pay for it.
The only beef that any of us could legitimately have is that they lag sims and deprive us of FPS, which is a scarce resource. But that could happen even with just plain casinos and no dance pads. I think most of them would have less traffic without them, but we wouldn’t be free of the problem. The only answer is to have zoned sims and the Lindens refuse to do this.
The least possible thing in this equation is to force people to close casinos or stop what they are doing. The Lindens do not stop them and permit camp chairs. There are many aspects of this problem you could tackle but trying to browbeat and shame people for not working like slaves in PSP or hunched over finicky and buggy prims is just plain fascistic. Stop it.
Camp chairs are not for bots to sit in merely to passively generate traffic. They are supposed to have live people in them who also play slots and socialize and buy stuff. It isn’t fun, and it isn’t human, if there aren’t humans. Otherwise, what’s the point? You might as well play Zelda by yourself in your mom’s basement.
And I just refuse to accept the hypocrisy involved in this concept of the Puritanical zealots in the little programmers’ clicks that run SL. They find certain topics involving other people’s freedom to get hysterical about, like casinos and camp chairs, which annoy them more because they are low-brown culture than anything else, while leaving other topics to completely to run wild, like grief building on other people’s land. Why is their sacred fuck-you hedonism able to be applied in the one case, but not the other?
It’s pointless to try to browbeat and shame people for getting the old developers’ incentive, removed nearly a year ago, when that’s utterly beside the point now. People who continue to use camp chairs and who have no hope of getting in the top 20 use them merely to try to get noticed in search under key words to sell things from vendors.
No, socialism is the appropriate word to use for those aspiring to control the economy and finances of others, and it isn’t applied to “things I don’t like” but to phenomenon that is socialist in nature. I’m not afraid of applying this label to phenomenon which describe it.
Artemis Fate
Jan 18th, 2007
“Artemis, why does it bother you so much if someone sits idly in a chair and collects a handout? What Puritanical vein is popping here?”
To quote my previous comment which I can only assume you read, this is why:
“If camping chairs had some kind of test to make sure that the people in the camping chair were active, it wouldn’t be so bad. Atleast then it’d just be people choosing to spend their time on a chair instead of walking around. My huge problem with camping chairs is when (and it often is) people sit there, put on an anti-idler, and then go to work, or sleep, or something else. Thus we have one extra person logged on to Second Life who wouldn’t otherwise and adding a person’s worth of grid lag, who is not actually playing the game. Thus the server load increases and makes things laggier for everyone else for literally pennies.”
Obviously the more people logged on to the grid, the more overall server load there is. When I traveled along the mainland, just about every single time I came across a group of dots, they’d be all campers, and mostly with (busy) or (away) up (even if it wasn’t with anti-idlers it doesn’t mean much). Anyways, based on this, I can assume that there are a good portion of people online that are in camping chairs, hard to say how many but i’d wager over 1000. So that’s that many people online in a grid that is already bursting at the seams with people, who aren’t even actually at their computers.
If all the campers were at their computers chatting in IM or with other campers, testing out building or scripting, or hell even running the slots, anything that has the person at the computer, I wouldn’t mind so much.
“No, socialism is the appropriate word to use for those aspiring to control the economy and finances of others, and it isn’t applied to “things I don’t like” but to phenomenon that is socialist in nature. I’m not afraid of applying this label to phenomenon which describe it.”
What, you mean like bitching about Dell’s financing division and how they pay for SL? I believe you called that socialism too.
All i’m saying is, you certainly seem to see “socialism” in a lot of things, where almost no one else sees or even agrees with you. Have you ever been to a psychiatrist?
Artemis Fate
Jan 18th, 2007
Heartun forgot to put in the HTML to turn off italics, hope that fixes it.
Jonas Pierterson
Jan 18th, 2007
It constitutes theft? Sure. Just like the camping arenas set up by casinos constitutes theft of sim resources.
Anything that kills camping is good in my eyes, it brings more harm than good.
Prokofy Neva
Jan 18th, 2007
The way to cease the theft of resources is to have the Lindens bill for CPU. Or for civic movements to emerge that get people simply to refrain from going to camp chair establishments and convincing vendors to stop placing vendors there. That isn’t a movement that will likely get up any steam soon, but I don’t think that you combat one wrong by committing another. You are no better than them then; if we posit that any libber can come in and write code to rip off and harass people he doesn’t like, we have no rule of law, only the dubious morality of coders, who are very selective about what they find “moral”.
Once again, Artemis, you and Ordinal both are guilty of insisting on means-testing and making people go through work-fare to get welfare — and while somebody might make cases for the morally uplifting and socially reformist value of doing that in RL, in SL, where people are just mainly trying to have fun, it’s really dubious.
People camp because they don’t wish to buy Lindens. And because the money is there for them to get for free. If there’s one thing that you can discover quickly about people in Second Life, it’s that the more things you put out for free, the most people take; the less you put out for free; the less they take.
There’s a sizeable population of people who simply are unwilling or unable to spend on SL, usually because they are dependent on others. People who find it easy to deploy the resources they need on SL can’t seem to put themselves in the position of others who have much less of these resources.
Corporate welfare is a kind of socialism, yes.
Artemis, have you been to a psychiatrist? You have a curious desire to probe into the psyches of strangers online. You really ought to seek help for that curious obsession.
humanoid
Jan 18th, 2007
I think the camping devices that force people to mop, sweep, wash windows and etc. are rather clever. The owners are effectively paying people to become part of the scenery. Granted, the resource consumption is an issue.
Artemis Fate
Jan 18th, 2007
“Once again, Artemis, you and Ordinal both are guilty of insisting on means-testing and making people go through work-fare to get welfare — and while somebody might make cases for the morally uplifting and socially reformist value of doing that in RL, in SL, where people are just mainly trying to have fun, it’s really dubious.”
I wouldn’t call it “work-fare” all it is is to make sure that the people are actually at their computer, this is even good for the clubs that host the camping chairs since it means people will be interacting with club hosts/playing slots/buying stuff and generally becoming more attached and friendly with the club then just some zombies in the corner. Now, people are trying to have fun in SL, I understand that. But the people who aren’t even AT their computer are obviously NOT having fun in SL since they aren’t even on SL at all, they’re doing other things. So whether or not a person is having fun or not isn’t in the equation, it’s whether a person is THERE or not.
I don’t support the bots, since it has the same effect as having normal campers there instead, but I do find it ironic that the camping chair owners are bitching now that they’re getting exploited on their exploitation systems.
“Corporate welfare is a kind of socialism, yes.”
How is giving incentives for a company to come here “welfare”? Giving corporate discounts and special payment plans for corporations is a form of trading services, trading Second Life’s ability to trade and the ease of payment and services with the corporation’s draw of more customers and repute for Second Life.
So no, Socialism has nothing to do with it. This is pure capitalism, something you claim to love, but tend to show that you only love it when it serves your purposes, otherwise if you’re left out of a special deal or not benefited by it, it seems to become socialism.
“Artemis, have you been to a psychiatrist? You have a curious desire to probe into the psyches of strangers online. You really ought to seek help for that curious obsession.”
Nice deflection, a fair attempt to avoid the question, but it should be noted that you’re the only one i’ve asked, since I do think you have mental problems that could be served by going to a psychiatrist. However, because of your mental problems, I believe you’ll never accept that you have any, but stick with the belief that you are the only sane person in a world of intricate conspiracy theories, socialist spies, and the uninformed masses waiting for you and you alone to save them from their ignorance.
Unfortunately that sort of narcissistic paranoia predicates never seeking help.
Baba
Jan 18th, 2007
Our system? We don’t have a system. libsecondlife is a library that allows a programmer to create freestanding applications that connect to Second Life. How do you propose we force them to register with us?
Lucky for us that the library remains unforked. Where as the Second Life client is an application developed now by two distinct groups and any changes made by one group that are not incorporated by the other can be considered a fork, libsecondlife’s applications use the existing set of functionality in the library to do a number of different tasks.
As for accountability and knowing everything another person does, I’m sorry. We don’t force our users to release their code or even tell us what they are doing. We cannot do that even if we wanted to.
You attribute to us far more than we are capable of.
You don’t like my “tool” argument… How about education? Open sourcing Second Life is like education. The things people do with it can be good or bad.
Smart people have made bombs and they have cured disease. Would you ban education because bad people might learn something?
You seek to maintain the status quo. It’s easier when people know their place, right?
Rumgoat Pugilist
Jan 18th, 2007
Regarding Heartun’s comments about Camptown Races. Whether it’s gwine or finna, it’s a song written by a white man using African-American vernacular English for comic effect, and originally sung in minstrel (blackface) shows. Using a song that mocked the disorganization of the newly freed slaves to refer to campbots wandering around without a master…might be a little offensive.
But Prok’s crazier than a shithouse rat, so this is pretty much why I read the Herald. Just watching Prok flip the fuck out. Good times.
Lewis Nerd
Jan 18th, 2007
People are forgetting that there is an easy way for newbies to gain money that doesnt involve camping.
1) Provide verification details on signup – gets L$250, the last time I looked.
2) Upgrade to premium, and get a nice L$300 per week, every week, and with the free 512 sq m plot thrown in, you effectively still play for free.
It’s a win win situation for everyone – and kills off the need for camping.
Lewis
Prokofy Neva
Jan 18th, 2007
>Regarding Heartun’s comments about Camptown Races. Whether it’s gwine or finna, it’s a song written by a white man using African-American vernacular English for comic effect, and originally sung in minstrel (blackface) shows. Using a song that mocked the disorganization of the newly freed slaves to refer to campbots wandering around without a master…might be a little offensive.
Heartun is merely trying to be provocative. It’s definitely, “Gwine,” check all the sources. Stephen Foster wrote many of the most popular American tunes, like “Oh, Susannah” that are incorporated into the history of American folk songs and every school child knows them. Minstrely isn’t as one-dimensional as you imagine. It emerged in an era of slavery and post-slavery, was practiced by both whites and blacks and satirized whites as well, and curiously enough, is still a method used today by black actors themselves as a way of satirizing racial issues and cultural issues in general.
I don’t think you can claim a song from another era which has become a well-known tune as inherently “racist,” thought it has been used in a racist manner in some settings, and for people of the current generation, might be associated with a movie with a scene where it was indicative of racial stereotypes.
It’s just a well-known song that happened to have similar words which was used to make a parody. There is nothing in the parody lyrics that suggest any “racism” — that’s merely trolling.
In fact, if anything, the discrimination and racist-like attitudes are in those who so hate casino owners and camp-chair sitters, bringing some of the hateful attitudes that whites have historically brought against blacks for being “shiftless,” eh? Think about that, why don’t you, if you are so keen to be attuned to “racism” and ensure equality and peace. There’s nothing “batshit loony” about taking this or any Stephen Foster song and making a parody out of it that highlights the hatreds that people bring to SL against others.
In fact, there are interesting paralells. The raggedy camptowns with their bog-tail nags and such in races attended enthusiastically by poor, newly-freed slaves, and the condescending attitude that whites took to the low-brow entertainment and culture of the lower classes in that era, is in fact a *perfect* analogy of the situation today, where the “whites” of Second Life, the skilled programmers and superior FIC types with land and creations to sell, who are so smug and hateful about the “niggers” of Second Life, who are the unverifieds, the poor, the camp-chair sitters. Very apt indeed.
Trying to pull an analogy to a libsler pulling the strings of campbots that supposedly “go astray” to liken it to slaves newly-freed and disorganized is not only stretching it, but a broken analogy. The bots are never freed from their master. And they don’t go astray, they just log off when they can’t reach the land from which they are banned.
In short, another cheap broadside from yet another anonymous and irresponsible poster.
Lewis, the problem with your scheme is that it isn’t rational given the price of the Linden. If you can buy a $1000 Linden for $3.70 or something today, or at least always under $4.00, then there’s no need to keep buying the $9.95 per month subscription to get only $1200 Lindens, you see the problem? $9.95 would get you $2000 or more Lindens at today’s prices. Of course, you could move to the plan with $7 or even $6 a month by paying 3 or 12 months in advance, but not everyone wants to shell that much out up front. To be sure, you get the 512 thrown in, but unless you find a rental or group to share with, shelling out some $35 or $40 US in upfront payments to buy a 512 on the market now seems hard to justify.
Cocoanut Koala
Jan 18th, 2007
The resource consumption of those people paid to be part of the scenery by gardening, sweeping out, etc., could be a problem, yes.
But doesn’t seem to be one at all in the places I’ve seen them in. They just have a couple, usually, and it is very cute!
coco
Cocoanut Koala
Jan 18th, 2007
The corporations should not be “given incentives” to come here. They should pay MORE for coming here to advertise non-SL products in SL, because that is all they do here.
They should be treated as sponsors, not residents.
Within that structure, they could then get their own incentives, such as discounts on their (already higher) prices for purchasing more sims.
Instead, we have LL desperate for corporate involvement and recognition, and residents and Lindens in development groups anxious to line their own pockets by building for and serving these corporations for huge fees.
The fact that the rest of us get screwed over is irrelevant, because people creating content for and within SL are expendable now, having already done the job of getting the grid ready and the population here for the corporations.
coco
Cocoanut Koala
Jan 18th, 2007
“Smart people have made bombs and they have cured disease. Would you ban education because bad people might learn something?”
In the real world, Baba, there are checks and balances; there is law. Smart people are not allowed to make nuclear bombs or study the ebola virus anonymously and then unleash them on the population with no accountability.
That is the problem with SL in a nutshell. No law, zero accountability, and complete anonymity.
coco
Macphisto Angelus
Jan 18th, 2007
>>Macphisto is merely adding more of this Calvinistic church lady stuff that always leads us to creator-fascism. You *must* learn how to build or make something. You *must* consume only those freebies that the Wiser Older Content Providers have Selflessly Provided for you — and shut up. You can’t take handouts or sit in camp-chairs — that’s evil! You *must* work towards owning luxuries — or else be despised, if you are gifted with them! < <
Hi again Prokofy.
I guess I don't understand how believing new players can find better ways for themselves then zombie padding equates with religious attitudes, but since you brought it up I actually subscribe more to the thoughts of Arminianism for a SL new player. After all Calvanism is a thought pattern that people have no choice and everything is pre-ordained and only for a select group. With all the potential a person has to make a way for themselves in SL that is just silly to believe. The new player *chooses* to enter SL and can *choose* how much or little they invest in time, knowledge, finances, etc etc for the experience. Fate is largely (but not totally) in the hands of the user so my comments about them having other options is obviously grouunded in Arminianism church lady stuff to put it in terms you are comfortable with.
Creator facism is also not on the board in my comments. I am pointing out that in the long run camp chairs are not very beneficial for the new players in relation to the time and effort they put in. It would be silly to believe tying yourself to a chair for around 12 lindens give or take an hour would support a high end SL lifestyle. That is just silly to believe if one does.
Notice though I did not judge the camp chair sitter. See, you put that on my comments. I am more taking issue with the owners that put out so many that it lags the service for everyone. A small amount placed out is not an issue in anyone's book I would hope. But of course we are dealing with my comments here so I digress.
Also the take the freebies and shut up comment was a bit on the hyperbole side of things. My comment that a person doesn't *need* money or a high roller lifestyle in SL still stands. A person can easily get by without spending a dime if that is the choice they make. If they do want to buy a 3K skin and enough bling to light up the SL skyline then camp chairs will not do that unless they intend to anti-idle and leave themselves logged in 24 hours a day (I guess in a few months of that they can get that skin). That would be away from your idealogy of the camp chair happy places where people socialize, get help etc etc though. Oh and nothing at all in my comments mentioned or applies despising folks for having or not having luxuries. I think people spend way to much on that stuff but that is for them to decide and if they do then it is for them to make the means to do so. That applies to RL, SL, TSO, WOW, Guild Wars or whatever. As for how they get the means is up to them, I don't judge them as you imply up there. Keep it in the TOS and it is good.
The funny thing I see being argued is that casino owners put the chairs out to encourage play on the machines. So in that case they are not providing a service much at all as they are hoping to get the traffic and get the lindens back in the process. Not a bad gig considering I don't hear much of people making lots of big payouts gambling. Like RL the odds are you will spend way more then you will win. I don't blame the owners for that mentality by the way. If that is what they do to make a buck so be it. I just think it is wrong for them to do so at the expense of everyone. Speaking for myself I don't like paying my SL bill and living in a laggy area due to the chairs (and I do btw for the record).
>>It always amazes me that people in SL who reserve for themselves the rights and freedoms to be pagans or godless or secular humanists or socialists or BDSM or any old thing will suddenly rise on their hind legs with the utmost fury and condemn with hellfire and brimstone somebody who merely buys a second piece of first land, or who sits in a camp chair to make a few bucks for a dress. Something really out of whack here.<<
This was tacked on the end of your comment and I was unclear if you intended it at me. Being I am not any if the things (godless, socialist, etc etc etc) I assume not. Hellfire and brimstone condemnation are not my thing. I dislike anything that takes the enjoyment of SL for others be it sim resource hogs, griefers, exploiters or what have you. I blame first land issues on LL for the mess they made with the Island situation. I don’t personaly care about someone owning more then one first land. After all if they pay for an account they have all rights given to that account. I find it very sucky for the ones that upgrade to premium in hopes of getting a first land plot and having a group jump on the first release of the day and buy it up before they can get it but that is another issue and doesn’t have anything to do with my comment you addressed.
Now having said all that I do wish to change my initial post of saying bots are not theft. Thinking on it further last night I can see how it is. It is theft of resource (the same as the owners who abuse the chairs)and it is taking lindens through an exploit which is theft in itself. I am sure the TOS is quite clear on exploits (I will have to re-read it later)and LL not taking a stand on it is weak at best. So yeah, I am seeing the theft side of it.
Macphisto Angelus
Jan 18th, 2007
Hi CoCo!
>>The resource consumption of those people paid to be part of the scenery by gardening, sweeping out, etc., could be a problem, yes.
But doesn’t seem to be one at all in the places I’ve seen them in. They just have a couple, usually, and it is very cute!
coco< <
It is fortunate that the places you have seen do not abuse the system. I wish my next sim over neighbor that has about 7-8 of the things filled all the time would pick a few up. That coupled with the place across the street from it having chairs, and the other chairs on sims and props around me really make for a slow rez day and lots of fun building issues where I am.
They are indeed cute though.. just not where I am.
Ordinal Malaprop
Jan 18th, 2007
It’s not a question of campsite owners “getting what they deserve” from this or any such nonsense; I don’t tend to have much sympathy for people doing things I don’t like, but campbot operators aren’t any better, they’re not some sort of divine scourge.
The fact is though that as Artemis says, campsites are in fact catering for bots already. An AFK camper with an anti-idle device is basically just a bot that takes a lot of the operator’s system resources; you can run several at the same time. People have been doing that for ages. Whatever these campbots are – if they are libsl or OSC bots – is just a more efficient version of that.
Some people have campsites that actually serve some purpose – they’re casinos, say, which I don’t terribly like but other people do, and offering them money to stay there and gamble is just like providing free drinks in RL. Or perhaps there are some where people actually hang around and chat and socialise, I have no problem with those either; that’s like a club with a money ball, say. Both of those eat up more sim resources than they should but that is a different problem, which should be addressed both technically (making the system more efficient so that more people can use sims at once) and socially (zoning, people having a bit of respect for their neighbours etc, many different possibilities).
But zombie campsite owners claiming that bots are some sort of awful abuse of their generosity, well, that’s just comedy. They were quite happy to have people using bots beforehand. And for anyone to claim that camping is the only (or even best) way to distribute funds to new residents – discriminating against those who actually want to explore, or talk to different people, or have some knowledge of the sim resource effects and don’t want to annoy other sim residents – that’s nonsense. There does need to be some solution that doesn’t involve people being forced to build crap and try to sell it – this isn’t some sort of work camp – and I’m not sure entirely what is best, but campsites are not that solution.
Ordinal Malaprop
Jan 18th, 2007
(Incidentally there’s an unclosed italic tag somewhere up above that needs fixing.)
Prokofy Neva
Jan 18th, 2007
I reject your argumentation of live people who use anti-idlers as being “bots”. The may use anti-idlers — but their whole purpose in trying to earn money is to then spend it on things in SL and thereby support the economy. I don’t think you can devise some sort of accurate way to discriminate against people just because they engage in a lifestyle and a form of entertainment and economic activity that you don’t like and get squeamish over.
After all, you can get quite indignant about Anshe Chung trying to suppress the media and any number of other righteous causes around SL. These people also feel that what they are doing is right and feel they have no legal sanction or reason to stop what is fun and lucrative.
The only rational thing to do in a situation like this if you are caught with a camp chair operation taking up only 2560 m2 on a sim where you own everything else is to try to use persuasion, try to buy them out, ban them, use whatever legal tools there are, but I don’t think the answer is to steal from them with other bots.
In this current land market, everything sells. So if you are in this kind of untenable situation, you can definitely get back double what you paid for by putting your land to sale. That will give you the cash to shop around and buy something else even at today’s outrageous prices.
I don’t see how camp chairs “discriminate against those who explore or wish to earn money”. That’s absurd. Both are possible.
Just as in RL sex-trafficking of women and exploitation of child labour and the drug markets appear in countries in violent transition and with weak systems of governance and the rule of law, and just as they are inevitably the niches that poor people fill and predators exploit, so in SL the camp chairs and casinos and sex clubs will go on existing until the society is less stratified and there are more entry-level jobs. It’s the biggest thing that people cite as a reason why the new user experience is so negative. In every other game or world, there are make-work jobs that pay out game currency of some kind. In SL, there are only these camp establishments and the sex trade and club DJ niches — it’s very, very hard.
Ordinal Malaprop
Jan 18th, 2007
I would challenge anyone to indicate how the following differ:
1. people running SL clients using anti-idlers where they don’t have to do anything else but set the client running in a particular location;
2. people running SL (open-source) clients (that don’t display idle stats or automatically anti-idle) where they don’t have to do anything else but set the client running in a particular location
differ.
Because clearly there isn’t a difference. They are the same. There are just differences in effiency. You cannot say that one is basically okay and deny the other unless you have other, unstated, criteria.
I am actually quite shocked, and I don’t say this as part of any sort of rhetorical technique, to see Prokofy Neva supporting the concept of “if you don’t like it, move”. “you can definitely get back double what you paid for by putting your land to sale” – screw that. Maybe I like the sim? Maybe I don’t want to have my hand forced by the activities of my neighbours? Maybe, and this is a weird concept, I don’t like someone else telling me whether I should move or not on the basis of the imaginary “market”, which only really exists even in RL in the imagination of stupid college students and the remaining Randians?
Ordinal Malaprop
Jan 18th, 2007
Something odd has occurred there – I didn’t post that last segment personally.
Ordinal Malaprop
Jan 18th, 2007
Ah, hold on, I do think I may have posted that, damn bots
Cocoanut Koala
Jan 18th, 2007
There will never be any entry-level positions, as far as I can see.
The problem is – and has always been – there are no ways to make money (not buy it, make it) except for building, scripting, dealing in real estate, or selling sex.
The incentives for providing entertainment, meager at best, have been removed.
When I first joined SL I suggested the Lindens put in some sort of entry-level jobs, and was told in no uncertain terms by others on the forums that we were supposed to provide everything.
But when residents came up with ways to provide new players with entry-level money, those ways were always looked down on by the same people in the forums.
At one point there was an LL economic guru who actually talked about LL providing entry-level jobs, but she didn’t last long.
Every time a resident came up with an idea like that – like getting paid for learning the things on Orientation Island or Help Island – I cheered it, but it never happened.
As a basic, I made my money through money trees, Bingo games, free slots, trivia contests – anything and everything I could do that didn’t involve selling my body. I also got the $50 stipend which was a great pump-primer in an inspirational sense.
Nearly all of the ways I made money were constantly pooh-poohed by those on the forums, but I was grateful for the residents who provided those ways.
Camp chairs, sploders, money balls, AV contests, bartender and other club jobs – those are all things devised by other residents that give new players money. Yet all of them are always decried as low-brow, (except, for some strange reason, for the venerable money tree).
And here’s why: LL never wanted us to make money on SL; they wanted us to buy money from Lindex.
And the people pooh-poohing money balls and the like didn’t want people getting money that way either; they wanted people to buy their money from them, from GOM.
Now that Lindex is a reality, the Lindens are also cutting stipends so that people will buy more money from Lindex. Ultimately, the Lindens want to provide no money in any form to residents, aside from grandfathering in old stipends. They want all Lindens to be purchased from Lindex.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t work as well for creators who are selling their Lindens to make money, as they are in direct competition with the Lindens, who print money to sell, and because they have to pay the Lindens fees for every transaction through Lindex.
But as I said before, SL content creators – those who create content to sell to other residents, for use in SL – are yesterday’s news anyhow, and quite expendable.
coco
Prokofy Neva
Jan 18th, 2007
Well, Ordinal, be shocked. But I suggest it to those who might benefit as a reasonable alternative these days. I myself do not believe in the exit argument to get rid of all undesirables, unhappy, and dissenters. Jamais! I myself do not follow that precept. I do *not* move. I remain on 2 sims where there is a severe, severe club problem. I wait it out. It’s been a year now at least on one of them. It’s OK. I’m willing to wait. Eventually they’ll go to an island because the lag will get to them, too. So…be shocked. But I’m suggesting that Macphisto, who is jamming on this, might be a good candidate for a sell-out and a move if he doesn’t have any special sim.
As for your “differences in bots,” yes, it’s possible to allign the equation such that there is no superficial difference.
But where does this equation pertain in actual SL?
People who use anti-idlers don’t ONLY do that. They also take the cash and log on live and fly around and buy stuff. Quite a few of those zombies sitting in the camp areas come to every hour or three and sink coins in the slots, hoping for a payout there — most of these places require live payouts now. So I don’t think you’re going to find *in nature* as it were a situation that pertains like this — the reality is that people spend long hours AFK in camp, but they also come to now and then and shop and interact live. Meanwhile, bots clump in and fill up the chairs and just suck Lindens, never playing slots.
I suggest you go to this place I’ve written about and see how it works. It isn’t like the row upon row of AFK zombies you imagine. In fact, I see several SC regulars there milling around and playing the slots and chatting up a storm. That’s what’s so funny about it all.
Artemis Fate
Jan 18th, 2007
“And here’s why: LL never wanted us to make money on SL; they wanted us to buy money from Lindex.”
Well, except for the notable fact that LindeX didn’t even exist untill probably about 2 years or more into Second Life’s lifespan.
The real reason as I see it, is because Second Life was designed as a content creation and socialization program, where people would create things and sell to each other and socialize. Fairly simple concept. But then of course there were people who didn’t want to create things but still wanted to buy things, and that’s where it became problematic, since there’s no real system set into the game to get money without having to be creative.
I have actually had no real problem with any of the newbie ways of money, the contests seemed fairly gamed (it was more about how many friends you had at the event then whether or not you were best in red or whatever), the games like Tringo and such seemed like a great way to make money and have some fun at the same time, Sploders aren’t so bad, etc. etc. I’m really quite okay with every form of easy money making device in Second Life, EXCEPT Camping chairs. I’ve outlined the reasons above so I won’t bother repeating it. I’m just stating that it’s not some matter of “looking down my nose at these low brow money-makers”, it’s specifically the camping chairs that bother me.
There really does need to be something for newbies, and that would be better than just outlawing camping chairs. Obviously if there were something better to go to than the camping chairs, people would eventually stop using them and clubs would put them away. It’s just hard to think of what, the stipends really solved this problem but I think the Lindens mostly are doing everything they can to avoid being involved in world matters (especially when it pretains to something they have to pay).
Artemis Fate
Jan 18th, 2007
“So I don’t think you’re going to find *in nature* as it were a situation that pertains like this — the reality is that people spend long hours AFK in camp, but they also come to now and then and shop and interact live. Meanwhile, bots clump in and fill up the chairs and just suck Lindens, never playing slots.”
Course, you have no idea what happens to the money, for all you know, they could be taking the total sum and donating it to money trees (a real newbie helper), or they could be going out and buying stuff with it, the same thing the newbies are doing. I don’t imagine it’s just going nowhere.
I wouldn’t imagine who ever is doing this would play the slots, if they’re smart enough to set up this scheme, then certainly they’re not going to be stupid enough to practically give it to a Casino owner on rigged/weighted/unfair slot machines. Certainly that scam works on newbies and is a very good scheme for the casino owner with no ethical quarries. Set up camping chairs, pay small amounts of money for good advertising, then get it right back by playing off of the newbie’s irrational hope for a high (and entirely unlikely) payout. Thus free advertising and money for the casino owner, and the newbies leaves as poor as they came.
Macphisto Angelus
Jan 19th, 2007
>>But I’m suggesting that Macphisto, who is jamming on this, might be a good candidate for a sell-out and a move if he doesn’t have any special sim.<<
Prokofy, you made it clear in world to me that you think I am being an ass and am forum harassing you or something, even citing this thread as a reason. I respectively ask you to not bring me up again in the conversation since my presence here bothers you.
Thanks.
Cocoanut Koala
Jan 19th, 2007
I know Lindex didn’t exist back then. But I think it was always the plan.
When LL started selling Lindens, everybody said, “It’s okay, it’s not like they are printing them.” Then it was, “It’s okay, they are printing them but only to this limit.” Then the limt was gone, too
I think Lindex planning was there very early on.
I do understand why you and others don’t like camping chairs, especially where a person can’t even get into his own land!
coco
Clarrice Cinquetti
Jan 19th, 2007
The dreaded camp chair controversy.
Forget the camp chairs for a second, I know it is difficult.
I am a Premium subscriber, I also pay the nice $195.00 a month to Linden Lab for my Sim Pruni. That also covers my chunk of land in Enyo. No not a group paying for the Sim, but me…I also pay for my Premium account and pay for an Alt account.
I have no problem with someone trying out SL on a free basic account. I do think it should have a time limit though like any other online game/platform. 1 month maybe max.
I know there are people who just don’t trust online payment systems and they stay basic.
Well then give them the option to stay basic but pay in Lindens some kind of resource fee. Something, my gosh nothing is free…if they can afford the connection and good enough PC to run SL then damnit they should be able to afford to pay something…I am sure a great many of them are making a profit on creations they sell. So if you are basic, and make lindens, you should be taxed if not Premium.
Now why the hell should I and other Premium subscribers be flipping the bill for someone to log 100 plus alts into SL? Think about it, these alts are teleporting to their designated Sim, they are using groups for no other reason then to be in a group, they have profiles. All of this uses resources we all pay for. Do you think it is fair or can you just not get past the omg it’s camp, they all deserve to be scammed?
I seen Sine Island yesterday, not much there but an area with dancing alts, displaying the owners dances. I liked it. I could see the dances and the gentleman wasn’t sending them out to sit in camp, he wasn’t using someone else’s resources, he had them on his Island and using them in a good way. And he had only like 10 going I believe.
When I see these damn alts landing on land I pay for, using resources I pay for..I get pissed. And I have every damn right to be pissed about it. You want to have multiple alts for camp, to use as pole sliders, whatever…pay for the damn resources you are using, or keep the damn alts on land you pay for.
I believe the website says basic is free, every account past that is a 9.95 set up fee.
I asked in Linden Answers for some clarification, hopefully someone from the Lab will answer.
All you people complaining about the stability of SL and how you are losing inventory, how teleporting isn’t working…put part of the blame on the huge amount of these alts out there teleporting constantly into a sim, joining groups, creating profiles…all on your dime..there are 100′s of them out there, and I am sure as soon as the Sine owner puts the program up for sale, it will only get worse.
Clarrice Cinquetti
Jan 19th, 2007
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=161456
This is my post asking for clarification on Linden Lab’s website membership fee page.
Oh and if you really truely hate campers, please let me know, I would be more then happy to make a notecard to give our campers telling them that their money isn’t welcome at your stores and establishments. I would be more than happy to do that for you. At least the campers I know shop…the campbots/alts/autotars that camp…don’t…
Cocoanut Koala
Jan 19th, 2007
I agree with you totally, Clarrice.
LL apparently believes that anybody and everybody with 1000 untraceable free alts and bots should be able to help themselves to the entireity of SL, and that we should pay for that.
I don’t think that’s right.
I particularly do not like paying for someone’s bots. I also don’t like LibSL for making those bots possible.
coco