XelaG Quality Bots
In July 1999, while I was preparing my contribution to the Aussicon virtual reality event in ActiveWorlds, I was approached by San Marco (Stuart Gold) of DigitalSpace Corporation, to help on one of their projects, connected to Avatars 99: Meet3D, a system which facilitates learning functions using the ActiveWorlds software. A bot was needed to interact with ActiveWorlds, and the Av99Bot was born.
The Av99Bot is based on the x1.exe xelagot code. It lacks a proper user interface, having only a single screen to display technical messages. It contains, however, the full xelagot bot code, including the verbal command and script processing engines. It also has the smtp client, the built-in xelagot server and the clients. It differs from the regular xelagot in that it lacks all user interface facilities: chatting through the bot, seeing who is there, visually changing world options and the ejection database, the survey manager, and more of these facilities are totally absent.
But it has a few advantages: it is faster than x1.exe (mainly because it does not need to interact with the screen), and it can carry more than 3 bots. It also accepts commands through files dropped in its DB2Bot folder, using a special format of the WriteToBot statements. In fact, the WriteToBot statements used in the xelagot Action Script were originally developped for this bot, and form the 3rd command set of the xelagot family (the other two being the Verbal Commands and the Action Script statements).
The Av99Bot was first tested and used in e_xpo and e_trek in ActiveWorlds, and in expo in OuterWorlds during the Aussiecon events in September 1999. It was the first Paintball Bot: it was tested and used extensively in WAR of ActiveWorlds in September through December 1999. It powers the Wien2 bots and Who's RPG bots in Ethereal.
Earlier this year (2000), JayDee of the City4All universe contacted me asking for a Xelagot version which could be run in the background on an NT machine. The NT service version of the Av99Bot was born: SrvcXlgBot. It lacks all user interface, and can be run even without logging into Windows, at Windows startup. It powered the Avatars2000 event in October 2000, with 25 bots in one application, all connected through a Xelagot Server.
Both these versions are now available on this page as freeware for non-commercial use. Notice for bot hosting services: as long as the services you provide are reasonable and affordable, your services are considered non-commercial in this context.
Installing the Av99Bot.
Unzip av99bot.zip into a new folder, preserving the directory structure in the zip. Start the executable to produce a model of the ini file, and stop it to tweak this ini file.
Installing the SrvcXlgBot.
Unzip srvcxlgbot.zip into a new folder, preserving the directory structure in the zip. Bring up a DOS console, go to the application's folder and type srvcxlgbot.exe /install. Go to the Services applet, select the service and start it. This produces a model of the ini file. Stop it to tweak this ini file.
Tweaking the ini file for both applications.
These ini files are very similar. Each ini file must be edited manually. Their main constituents and how to prepare the ini file for usage are shown on this page.
Note on SrvcXlgBot: By default the StartUp Type of this service is 'Manual', change it to 'Automatic' if it is to start running at Window's startup. To uninstall it, stop the service and type (in a DOS console as above): srvcxlgbot.exe /uninstall.
Upgrading to a newer version.
The Av99Bot and SrvcXlgBot applications do not expire. Nevertheless, new versions are posted here from time to time, with bug fixes and enhancements. To upgrade from an older version, just unzip the av99bot.zip or srvcxlgbot.zip (preserving the directory structure) overwriting the old version. For this, the programs must not be running: the service application must be stopped and uninstalled (as described above) before upgrading it and re-installing the new version. Old ini files will not get written over and do not need to be tweaked, only the executable and the chat files (in the Chat folder) are upgraded.
Commanding the bot.
There are three command sets the bot understands:
To find out more, follow this link.
Connecting the bots to a Xelagot Server.
See this page for an overview: How do bots log in?