They filled mainland roads .. and roadside parcels. They sped along the highways, cars, tanks, Taxis, Ice Cream trucks, motorised vehicles but it seems that they’ve now crashed permanently. I’m talking about the infamous AnnMarie OToole (not to be confused with Ann OToole) automated vehicles which have apparently disappeared from the Second Life highways.
In her profile, AnnMarie says:
“Yes I am the notorious AnnMarie who invented the drunken vehicles on the SL Roads but the Lindens have shut it down.
Remenber you live in a dictatorship, not a democracy. No charges, no arrest, no hearing, no representation, no appeal. Don’t forget to give copies of all your creations to an alternate account and never keep Linden $$, convert to US$ or risk losing everything.
5 years with over 110,000 visitors taking over 325,000 rides. All gone.”
Now these vehicles were not universally popular, this may be an understatement. A thread over at SLUniverse entitled Guess who’s at it again…Exploiting Mainland cites many reasons for their unpopularity. Allegations about exploiting exploits, crashing, using Linden rez zones, polluting the highways etc.
AnnMarie herself actually pops into that thread to explain a few things, to try and dismiss a few misconceptions and most intriguingly to me, to explain about the problems with an Ice Cream Truck:
“There was a conflict with the Ice Cream Truck, it used to vend ice creams when clicked but people wanted to ride them so the click was changed to RIDING instead of VENDING. Despite 10 fancy Italian flavors they all tasted the same . IM me if you would like a free ice cream.”
AnnMarie pops in and out of the SLUniverse thread, discussing the woes of getting vehicles to work in Second Life and listening to advice, she also gets a bit personal and reveals that at 74 she’s probably the oldest nerd in SL. I’m not sure that’s true but it’s good to see a diverse range of age groups using Second Life.
Despite the complaints though, some people liked these vehicles, some people felt they brought life and character to the mainland roads and on the official Second Life forums there were a couple of posts asking where the vehicles had gone:
What Happened To The AnnMarie OToole Cars?
That post leads to a bigger discussion:
The OP there definitely seems to be in the like camp:
“Seriously. Where are they? They used to cruise the mainland roads and you could just jump on and off. They were like the taxis of Second Life. The mainland roads are so dead now without them. Please bring them back.”
Plenty of people in the thread are definitely not in the like camp and the end result appears to be that the cars have ended up on the scrapheap. Love them or loathe them, they were certainly noticed.
Good riddance to them.
Not a fan then 🙂 I think they were a nice concept but delivery was certainly questionable to say the least.
You’ve got a black belt in the Art of Understatement. 😛
Didn’t realized that they where gone, lag is bad as always and for sure ill miss the funny encounters i had with them when riding on mainland!
A few people have said they miss encountering them, in odd places too!
More than 1 year has passed and the problems with AnnMarie Otoole’s garbage is there to stay.
Now she uses AaronM Jenkins and Enid Oompa to rezz her garbage in the sky of rez zones and then the bots move the garbage to the no rezz zones of LDPW, like taxi signs and bus shelters. Then, the bots appears each 10 minutes, to rezz the “fixed trash” and the vehicles.
I have a land in Plusia, where I built the Plusia Train Station, near Spangle. The Moles installed SLRR switch’s in North and South entrances of my station.
Both AnnMarie bots are banned from my station. Their garbage stay at the entrances of the station, when redirected by the SLRR switch’s.
It’s usual for me RA each vehicle from the bots, that tries to enter my station, with “Disturbing the Peace >
Object littering”, “Disturbing the Peace >
Repetitive spam” or “Harassment >
Advert farms / visual spam”. Of course nothing happens and the littering of garbage at my entrance is a fact, without any reaction from the Lindens.
Some days ago, I installed a scripted sensor at the main entrance that commutes the switch to branch (my entrance) when it detects an object owned by one of the bots and the garbage is then auto-returned by the LDPW configuration.
Yesterday, AnnMarie Otoole visited herself the Plusia LDPW land and IM’ed me:
[08:34:31] Second Life: Incoming message from AnnMarie Otoole
[08:34:39] AnnMarie Otoole: How about removing your selective switch?
[08:35:02] (You): How about stopping the littering of objects not related to SLRR_
[08:35:20] (You): into SLRR tracks?
[08:35:54] (You): You can RA the switch… Do it, please
[08:36:02] AnnMarie Otoole: I just finished doing the morph program for the bus, you delight in destroying all of them. It seems like a vendetta rather than a littering problem.
[08:36:39] (You): you have the right of considering whatever.
[08:37:01] AnnMarie Otoole: OK 🙂 Let me know if you change your mind.
[08:37:28] (You): The SLRR track is for the SLRR lovers and their trains. Keep your vehicles on the roads and off the SLRR tracks
[08:39:40] (You): Meanwhile, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
[08:39:45] AnnMarie Otoole: But you destroy my train versions so why should I bother?
[08:41:39] (You): If you stop your buses, ice cream vehicles and taxi’s and horses from riding the tracks, I will stop the selective switch
I didn’t deleted the sensor and as retaliation, half hour later AnnMarie Resident, another Otoole’s ALT, installed a *Bus Shelter at the North entrance of my station, in LDPW land and started rezzing objects named V-Metro City Bus V#1861*,
During more than 7 hours, I RA each object rezzed at the entrance of my station (more than 40 RA’s).
Also, I opened the Case #: 02055549:
Dear Sirs:
In 2011, I bought a land at Plusia, to build a train station and connect the track to the LDPW track.
For several month, my SLRR entrance has been spammed by moving objects not related to SLRR and rezzed at several places by AaronM Jenkins and Enid Oompa, both ALT’s of AnnMarie Otoole.
I already RAed many of those objects, but they keep littering the Plusia Station entrance.
Today, probably by retaliation, AnnMarie Resident, another ALT of AnnMarie Otoole, installed in the LDPW land of Plusia and at the track connection to my own, a *Bus Shelter and started rezzing objects named V-Metro City Bus V#1861*. As the land has 10 minutes auto-return, they keep rezzing the objects at that rate. This is against TOS/CS and since the starting of this new form of harassment, I already filled dozens of Report Abuses, with no results.
I pay promptly my 1/4 of SIM, I pay promptly my annual Premium fee, but I don’t have any help from Linden Labs, when I’m harassed at the entrance of my own land, using for that, Linden Labs land.
What can I do, to stop this type of violation? Do I need to close my account (from 2007) and go to other Grid?
Meanwhile, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
I also stopped the script of redirecti ng the garbage to my entrance.
Today, the Bus Shelter is not there, but AnnMarie Resident is still at Plusia SIM, supposedly doing nothing.
I still manually redirect the garbage not related to SLRR to my entrance and return them to the ALT’s of AnnMarie Otoole and I’m going to see what comes next.
SL: Radioactive Rosca