Ambrosia Dance Club

The construction crew has been in and there have been a few changes to the interior of the club.  The dance floor has been expanded by moving the bar off the floor and rebuilding it adjacent.  The new improved bar will carry a full line of pixellated beverage delights and the Dancers have already claimed it as the new favourite place to strut on stage.

The officially opening of the the New Cooper’s Corner was at the Wild West party when we all got together for a round of Cuervo!  Cheers everyone!

It was with great joy that i read the news that Jack Linden has declared a Fatwah on Bots and Campers that game traffic in Second Life.

On the Second Life blog post on Thursday April 23, Jack Linden stated the following:

“Almost everyone agrees that using Bots to manipulate traffic (and therefore Search rankings) is unfair. Not only with respect to Search itself but also due to the load on Mainland Region resources and how that can impact other Residents in the area.

“Therefore we are setting policy that attempting to gain an unfair Search advantage, by the use of Bots to inflate the Traffic for a parcel, will be considered a violation. This policy applies to both Mainland and Private Estates as both are represented in Search.”

Jack Linden posted that residents would not need to report violations, but next week Linden Labs would “routinely look at the Search results” to look for camping bots. Where they found clear cases, the owner would be given a warning, followed by “an account suspension or removal from Search if it persists.”

He went onto reassure users of other bots, “We will not be banning or removing Bots from Second Life. There are many amazing and useful ways to use Bots and the fact that in some circumstances they can be misused should not impact the more constructive users of Bots. We wouldn’t remove Scripting because it can sometimes be used in bad ways, and Bots are no different in that respect. … ”

So this is great and wonderful news.  Ambrosia has never in its history employed nefarious traffic gaming tactics such as the use of bot campers and AFK dancing couples on the dance floor.  As a result, we have always showed traffic in the range of 5000 to 15000 for the first 2 years of our operation.  Only recently, has Ambrosia truly broken into the mainstream of popularity.  The Sim is now generating traffic figures of between 20,000 and 30,000 with over 700 unique visitors in a typical day.  But what of our competitors?

I recently took a trip around the grid to see how the implementation of Jack Linden’s edict was progressing. I typed “Club” into search places and found the highest traffic belonged to this place; Atlanta City with a traffic rating of 109360.  How do they maintain such an amazing rating?  BOTS.  Located on the edge of the sim, hovering in the air seated around picnic tables are the owner’s 83 Bots in all their glory.

Below we have our friends at the “number 1″ venue in the game Dance Island. They have cleverly skirted the issue of having campers by creating a bogus new dance club on the other side of the island under the stores and filling it with bot dancers.  You can clearly see the two sets of dots on the minimap.  Former Camper Bots are now disguised as legitimate patrons. Well done. A great big “Up Yours Jack!” from the number 1 dance venue in Second Life.

Here is a fine establishment called  Classic Rock.  Today’s traffic rating is an incredible 106722. Now look at this screen shot.  There are 67 avatars all dancing away in the room but what is missing?  Yes, you guessed it there is no chat whatsoever.  In fact the only chat i heard was from the DJ and a few totally disoriented noobs who teleport in because…hmmm, it’s ranked number 1 in search?

Well at least they make no attempt whatsoever to disguise their bots.  Totally out in the open and making their faux Lindens.

Here is another great dance club that most people have stumbled onto in their search for some sort of place in SL where actual people congregate for a good time.  This is Flashbacks, a place where you can rent advertising space that gets viewed by disoriented noobs and amorphous puffy bot clouds.

High in the sky above September Rain, Traffic 47,366, is a black box protected by a security system.  What secrets lie inside?  And why would you protect a black box with a club logo with a security system?

Why to hide the fact that you are running bots of course.  Well at least they have been given a very scenic view whilst they stand around and gain an unfair advantage in traffic.

Here, Party Like a Rockstar dispenses with the niceties and just has their Bots floating around in the sky.  Note the actual club traffic on the mini map.

Here finally is  a legitimate club, Toby’s Juke Joint Blues Club. You can see 10 or 12 avatars dancing and having a good time. Not to much conversation though.  Perhaps they are in the naughty box. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.  But wait…there are 38 main agents in the sim.  Is there another party going on?

Why of course.  It’s a party behind the wall on the beach!  Whoo hooooo!!!  Toby is apparently a great philanthropist who wants to allow noobs to get ahead in life by paying them 1 Linden an hour.

This is just a very short list of examples that I was able to find in about the space of 20 minutes.  The use of Campers and Bots is obvious to anyone.  As of today all of these offenders are still operating these traffic generating devices and thumbing their noses at everyone who is attempting to play by the rules.  SL mirrors Rl in that respect.  People who game the system are rewarded and legitimate business owners are penalized. So now, any store owner or club manager that removes the bots they were cheating with and tries to rely on the real traffic that their venues generate are instantly relegated to obscurity while their competitors continue to attract a steady stream of new traffic.

My guess is that 50% of the SL world is populated by Bots and Campers generated by outside software. It is hard to believe that the Lindens will ever truly do away with half of their concurrent numbers.  So this whole policy of banishing bots and campers is truly a farce and just talk.  And anyone with a few minutes of spare time can see how easy it would be to do away with the most egregious of offenders. Just go down the list of the highest ranking places and look around like I did.

Traffic generating Bots are naturally obvious when they are sitting around as campers. They are not so obvious when they are dancing as couples on a dance floor.  However, they are easily flushed out with offers of cash on a crowded dance floor.  When a shout of “I will give 100 L to anyone who says Hi” is met with silence or an answer from the DJ/Host…you just might have a sim full of bots.

No Sim that has just a clothing store on the Grid should  have traffic higher than 10000.  It’s ludicrous when a store has traffic in the high 5 figures or even 6 figures.  These are obvious cheaters.  Shut them down.  Remove them from Search Places.  It’s simple.  Let them pay for classified ads.  Use the money generated to hire more staff to sniff out bots.  Death to the Bot hoards!

The Ambrosia Dance Club is a venue that tries to recreate an upscale dance venue with witty and sophisticated human avatars interacting with each other whilst gyrating to the latest and greatest music.  Sometimes, SL being SL, suprises await guests when that puffy white cloud materializes into recognizable pixels.  You never know exactly what is going to show up on the dance floor.

Well I can guess why this orange fella has a grin on his face considering the angle of his view. I think I would get out the shovel if i saw one of these in the back yard in RL.

What more can we say here.  It’s a dancing giraffe.  He must have smoked cigarettes in his youth and stunted his growth.  Thank you to everyone who has been submitting these pictures for the website.

Ambrosia is slowly but surely moving to around the clock coverage on the schedule for Live Music and DJs.  We have added several new spinmeisters in the past few weeks. One of the newest is DJ Cristol.  She is a cute little elf that has come amongst the Ambrosians to spin delightful sets.  She brings youthful exuberance and musical potions to beguile even the most jaded Ambrosian to partake in Bacchanalian delights.

Your old favourites are still up to their old tricks on the big stage at Ambrosia.  Check the schedule often to find out when they are on. Below, Dj Cooper stirs the Ambrosians into a gesture frenzy.

You know things are getting hot when the DJ’s are taking over the dance floor when they are not doing a set. Here, DJ Daywalker and his brother Cro show off some of their fine moves to impress the ladies.