Green Dots

Playing with explosives

Seven people in the Niseko4 sim were in voice chat at about 4pm SLT. And also playing with some explosives. These were Real Live People.

A nice cafe

There were twelve people in or near the Open Latte Coffee Shop in the Mill Pond sim when I arrived, and the crowd grew to sixteen while I was there. There were several people by themselves and seemingly Chilling and IM-ing, but the crowd gathered at the fireplace was engaged in conversation. This was definitely Real Live People.

This visit happened at 1 am SLT, Friday, August 15, 2008.

Combat roleplay

Eight dots in the Tribo Brasil sim turned out to be people engaged in combat roleplay. I think. No-fly zones prevented me from observing from a distance, so I TP'd to the sim landing point and was placed in the middle of the action. I didn't want to interrupt, so I didn't stay. I'll call it Real Live People.

This visit happened at 12 am SLT, Friday, August 15, 2008.

Roleplay

Between the new and old mainland continents there is a pair of sims (Innuendo and Fae Loch) that host a roleplay system called Sulime, which runs the Spellfire combat system. When you teleport in you appear in a skybox where you can obtain the rules, and a visitor tag if you just want to look around. There were thirteen people in these two sims, other than myself. I didn't look around. It looks to be an archaic combat environment and I wasn't dressed the part.

This is roleplay, so I'm assuming these are Real Live People.

More hangin' at the mall

Today found me investigating a loose clumping of avatars in the Rendezvous sim, which has a couple stores, a nude beach, a non-nude beach, a mall, and Herbalife signs. I found about 13 people, some of them chatting in Portuguese. I found one person at the nude beach, not nude, and when someone new arrived he chatted with her. Someone else was hanging at the mall beach with a busy tag. One I originally thought was a mannequin turned out to be someone trying on clothes from her inventory, and she chatted with a new arrival. Someone else was waiting for lucky chairs, which were paying L$1 or L$2, to pick his letter. I saw him win one while I was there. A group of three chatted at the mall. Another wandered the mall. Another hung in the air at another store.

These seemed to be Real Live People.

This visit happened at about 7 pm SLT, Tuesday, August 5, 2008.

A new twist on camping

I found about 13 people gathered in a cafe of some sort in the Japanese sim JPL SAITAMA, on a parcel that had no name. They were apparently camping, but also chatting. And they were chatting a lot. In Japanese, of course.

This was a system called Chat Camp. It occurred to me that maybe the camp system was animating the avatars, so I sat down to find out. It should also have occurred to me that a script can't make avatars type into open chat in their own (white) voice.

I was greeted in English, so I said hello and explained why I was there, and apologized for not speaking any Japanese. And I was almost immediately paid L$34.

A busy infohub

I chose another spot on the mainland for a visit. It turned out to be the Nova Albion Infohub at the corners of the Miramare, Barcola, Sistiana and Grignano sims, west of Ahern. There were about 30 people present at 2 am SLT. I was here a few weeks ago and found this place to be mostly occupied by bots that had lost their way, but this morning things were different. These people were text chatting, and for the most part they were well-behaved. There was a mixture of relative newbies and relative oldbies, Payment Info Used (PIU) and No Payment Info (NPIO), and they were having a real conversation.

This one's easy. These were Real Live People.

Found a gem

A couple days ago I found the Rasta Ventures sim through random discovery. It contains three attractions: a reggae club (Club Rasta, or something), an amphitheater for live performance (Red Rock Amphitheater), and a blues club called Mama's, which also hosts live performances. I arrived at the end of a performance at Red Rock and then caught a performance at Mama's. I didn't think to get pictures, so I went back today. I'll talk about Red Rock and the reggae club in future posts. Right now I'd like to talk about Mama's.

Mama's is a gem.

Chilling and IM-ing at a nude beach

I found a group of about 20 people relaxing at the Solana club and nude beach in the El Tajin sim. It was very quiet. No conversation at all. Most of them seemed to be alone, and a few were wandering and therefore probably at the keyboard, so I didn't think I'd be intruding by saying hello. I did so three times over the course of thirty minutes before I got any response at all, and when someone did greet me a few others chimed in.

At the moment this place was being used for chilling and IM-ing. How do I know? I asked. I hadn't thought to create a category for that, but now I have one, and I'm naming it after the response I got when I asked what people were up to here. Chilling and IM-ing.

The categories, described

Bots and campers

Posts in this category will describe locations where I've primarily found bots and campers. Bots are avatars controlled by a computer program rather than by a human. Most bots exist to boost traffic figures for locations so that they appear higher in search rankings. Campers are human-controlled avatars, but their mission is pretty much the same. They are paid tiny sums of money to hang out at locations to boost search rankings. These avatars sit in one location for hours while their human is off doing other things, like sleeping. Many campers also qualify as bots, as there are computer programs available that run multiple campers simultaneously.

I'll probably name these places, since the owner apparently has no shame.

Chilling and IM-ing

You gotta park your avatar someplace while you chat in IM, and it might as well be someplace pretty or someplace with good music. I suspect this is why a lot of clubs are busy but silent, and I admit to contributing to this. Most clubs will still fall into the next category, Club Chat, because that's the kind of conversation you can expect there, but some places are just really quiet. There's nobody trying to make the place seem more lively than it is. People are just away doing other things.

I'll probably lump most private residences into this category because I don't want to investigate too closely.

Club chat

Posts in this category describe locations where I've found mostly meaningless chat. They may or may not be clubs, but the category is named for the kind of conversation you find at many (most?) clubs. That is, gesture spam and meaningless banter, like "Mary spanks John, LOL". This type of chat may not flow logically as it isn't intended to contain actual communication. It's intended to make the place seem more lively than it is. It may even be scripted. That is, these may be bots, too.

I'm going to unfairly lump some places into this category because the Real Live People category will have high expectations. Being put in this category doesn't mean there aren't humans present or there can't be real conversation; it just means I didn't find any when I visited. I may or may not name these places, depending on how certain I am I'm being fair or how mean I've been in describing them.

Real live people

Posts in this category will describe locations where I've found people actually at their keyboards, willing and maybe even eager to chat. These are worth visiting, so I'll certainly name them.