There are fewer bots on the grid for sure. The numbers for traffic ratings for clubs have dropped dramatically. Whereas traffic ratings over 100000 were once commonplace, it is now unusual for a club to surpass 75000. Some venues, however, continue to pad their numbers though the use of scripted entities. They are just getting more clever about it. Some are just blatent. Today I would like to feature an example of both; a place called ZAPP club.
Well, the bikini-clad babe is certainly fetching. They advertise themselves as “THE ZAPP CLUB ..WHERE REAL LIFE Djs PLAY DON’T SETTLE FOR SECOND BEST.” Ok Great. So, if you are so great why is your entire sim filled with scripted agents? (Bots) As you can see by the visitor counter, there were 411 visitors for the day. That should yield a traffic rating of about 15000. Todays traffic rating – 49,186. How is it possible?
They fill the Store with bots who sit there day after day without moving. They dont rez since they are manipulated by a software program. They don’t even bother to call them models.
These tactics are so blatent and out in the open. As far as I can tell, the Lindens just overlook it. Its obvious to anyone that this is Traffic Gaming. These are not real avatars enjoying the grid. This is a drain on server resources. How would you like to be one of the other 3 estate owners sharing space on a server with this? On the other hand, bots are much less of a burden on the servers than real people since they don’t do anything but sit around all day and bring up the traffic numbers so the venue goes higher in the search places ranking.
According to the MiniMap there were 44 avatars in the sim but I could only count 32. Where are the other 12? The answer lies 3500 meters above the club. I zoomed right past it the first time because, well the box that they are hiding in is really invisible. This is quite a piece of work since it totally blends in to the sky completely masking the subterfuge contained within. No match for the Bot hunter however. A quick right click and edit reveals that it is called a “Hide A Box 15″ with a dozen bots inside.
Will the Lindens take action against this? Who knows. It is just irritating when the staff at Ambrosia and other legitimate clubs work so hard to generate genuine traffic and cheaters like this are rewarded with high traffic ratings. I suppose life would get boring for the Bot Hunter if they all went away. So, raise your glass up high and let’s give a hearty FU to the cheating dooshbags at ZAPP Club. Maybe you can even tell the Lindens with an abuse report what you think of clubs that use Bots to lure in newcomers.
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