Bot Of The Month Club

ObjectSignBot is a bot with no avatar. It enters a world, but it has no position in that world. That means that you can not see it, and it can not see you. In addition, you can not chat with it, and it can not hear your chat. Several utility bots are invisible like this, including the DJBots in AW and AWGate.

So, if the bot is not visible, what good is it? If you go to AW world, ground zero, you will find a sign that continuously updates the count of objects in the world. This sign is updated by the ObjectSignBot. This bot does several things that most other bots don't do. The main thing it needs to do is to get the count of objects in the world. How does it do that? The bot signs in to the world server as a world administrator. Once the bot is talking directly to the world server, the server reports updates in object count. Fortunately, the bot doesn't need to actually *count* the number of objects - there are over 100 million of them. Once the ObjectSignBot has the number of objects in the world, it simply finds the sign object in AW that it's supposed to update, then changes the object, and you see the new number in-world.

This bot is particularly interesting to bot programmers because it incorporates two completely different connections to the world server. It logs in to the world server as an administrator, and it also logs in to the AW universe and world as a regular bot. Check out the AW_EVENT_ADMIN_WORLD_INFO event.

Remember that if you get a bot from someone else, make SURE you get it from someone you trust. Happy Programming!

If you're interested in finding out more about how to use the SDK, visit the SDK site for information!

Know of a bot that you'd like to see featured as the Bot of the Month? If so, contact us at newsletter@activeworlds.com.