themuntdregger

The fact that botless traders have to offer better prices than bots is simply a reflection of the additional inconvenience and risk of trading with them. Its a simple matter of market economics and applies as much irl as in el. If there were no bots, then it would certainly be better for botless traders, but given that you admit yourself that 90% of ppl prefer to trade with bots, you're rather in a minority. Indeed. Bots are difficult to code, expensive to set up, time-consuming to run, and need a degree of experience and expertise to get the very best from them. However, they're also great fun and provide a resource to the whole community. However, you don't have to be a bot owner to get access to a bot. Its not uncommon for better guilds to provide its members with access to bots, once you've proved yourself and are trusted. Many bots also have the facility to offer guild/allies discounts, so maybe get your guildmaster to do some negotiation. Yes, its happened to me a few times as well, so I know it can be annoying. However, the very worst you're going to suffer is a few minutes of wasted time. Same thing happens when you go to do a daily and find a queue for the spawn, or arrive in cc only to find there's an invasion. Inconvenience and disappointment are all part of the charm and pleasure of the game, (which is probably part of why we all love it so much lol). For you its bots with no gc, for me its having to dodge hordes of pk-weenies anytime i'm unlucky enough to get a daily in injun-country. Now i'd love a rule that stopped them from pointlessly attacking harvers for entirely no reason, or maybe some code that turned them into skirt wearing female elves for a week, but I doubt santa will be bringing those in his sack for me either. Merry Xmas

owner: themuntdregger bots: tove and littlemy

Added some content to the code examples based on php. Nope its not the sexiest language, but its simple, easy to understand and virtually self-documenting. Unlike other languages, you can run it from a web account, hence, its got some fairly 'interesting' possibilities, particularly if you use one of the less restricted free hosts. However, it can also be run from the command line, as either a foreground or background process, so its fairly handy as a general programming language, not mention ideal for writing bots ofc.

Because of the scammers out there that if they knew that a bot had a shitload of GC on it would make a bigger effort to find out how to scam it.. A warning stating that the bot is low on GC (perhaps make it so that the highest buy price is the limit for the warning) can be a good idea. Well you miss the topic entirely. Its about tradebots who offer to buy stuff for a price which is set from the tradebot owner, and these tradebots dont have enough gc to buy for the given / set price of the owner. It is defintely not about some theoretical scam of gc of tradebots. So may I ask you politely to stick to the topic please? At least imho, the idea of a warning when gc is low is a very good one, and seems well worth taking forward. The only issue I can see is that the value of items being traded by a bot may vary considerably, so what might be 'low' for one item, might be high for another. Hence, its not something that should be hard-coded, and would need to have a degree of user-configuration (including the option to turn it off entirely). On the matter of displaying gc, you need to remember that bots are bought and paid for by their owners, hence, your ability to trade with them is a privilege, not a right. Setting up a bot costs around $20 registration; $100 blessing; plus $??? for process hosting; its therefore quite an investment on the part of an owner, and understandable that many (if not most) are sensitive about the risk of misuse. With respect, it doesn't quite seem fair to have players who are not able or prepared to own a bot try and force their convenience on those that do. EDIT: Punctuation

I don't see any evidence or rationale for saying that out of money bots keep prices high. If a bot can't actually buy at its advertised price, then that price becomes irrelevant.

Agreed! If someone takes a trip to a bot only to find its got no gc, its more an inconvenience than a disaster. Even if a bot disclosed its gc, (particular if the price offered is good), there's no guarantee it wouldn't have run out of money in the time it takes the seller to arrive, or changed its pricing. In any case, a bot may be set up with a strategy of 'back to back' selling of one items in order to raise gc to buy another, in which case the availability of either gc or items may periodically be affected. Doesn't mean that the bot owner isn't interested in buying/selling, just that some customers perhaps need to be a little more patient and commercially realistic.

Yup, I'm aware there are already rules for bots, but they largely relate to how bots are used rather than how they are coded. Certain bots features can have both legal and illegal use, and its not always possible to code against the latter. Hence, it seems entirely sensible to have a set of rules governing how bots are used. However, where its possible to code compliance with the rules into a bot, its obviously more effective than relying on user compliance. Hence, why it makes makes sense to have an entirely different set of rules (lets call it a 'code standard') to cover how bots should be coded. A code standard might have other potential benefits if it enables bots to be more cooperative and efficient on matters like providing information to market query engines, or other data providers. Using the el server to collect and distribute bot data would certainly remove the need for a whole lot of scraping (in-game and from outside). If you expose the raw data via a web server, can't see how the risk of illegal access to the game server is any greater than at present. As for providing input data in the correct format, thats a coding issue which, I guess, brings as back to why a 'code standard' might be a good thing. I had in mind extending the current el server protocol to allow data to be uploaded from bot chars to avoid the need to scrape bot servers. As to 'for what exactly', well that again brings us full circle in that it provides a means to deal with the issue that is the central subject of this thread, ie controlling bots that advertise without gc or slots. If the 'code standard' requires bots to upload sales spam to the server, obviously the server is then in a position to know if the bot has sufficient gc and slots.

Laptop: Lenovo Z570-1 Chipset: Intel® Core™ i5-2410M Dual Core (2.3GHz, Intel Sandy Bridge) Graphics: Optimus switched Intel HD3000 and Nvidia GT555M Driver: Nvidia-current under Ironhide OpenGL: 2.1.2 OS: Unbuntu 11.04 & 11.10 There are a few tricks to setting up EL under Optimus switching graphics systems. The default GPU is an Intel which runs natively on linux, but with the speed of a striking slug. Hence, the only true path to joy is by engaging the discrete nvidia chip. Alas that ain't easy, and attempting to do so by installing the nvidia driver in the normal way will render your system unusable (after log-on, you'll get a black screen). You'll still be able to boot in recovery mode, but it'll be using the vesa driver and have a very restricted graphics capacity which won't allow you to run EL (or any other opengl proggy). If you do (as everyone with optimus inevitably seems to) install the nvidia driver and end up in this position, don't panic. Simply boot in recovery mode and remove the driver from the command line. Once the nvidia driver is removed, just reboot as normal and linux should recognise the intel chip and work with it natively (no special drivers need to be installed). Check that everything's working properly by calling up a command line console and running glxgears (you should see a little animation of some gears if all is working well). However, to engage the nvidia chip, you'll need to load software from the Ironhide project*. You'll find the repository at https://launchpad.net/~mj-casalogic/+archive/ironhide/. If you're adding from synaptic, be sure to open the details window, as the installer will request some command line input and otherwise hang the install. Once loaded, if you're running 11.04, go to System/Administration on the gnome menu bar, or under 11.10 you'll have to wade through unity. you'll find a proggy called ***Ironhide Applications Settings where you'll need to add Eternal Lands and any other proggy that you want to run using the nvdia chip**. To get EL or anything else to run, you then need to invoke it from the command line* and preface with 'optirun', ie to get EL up and running, you enter 'optirun eternallands'. *Ironhide is a continuation of a former project called bumblebee. The latter is still available, but is no longer updated. If you've already loaded bumblebee, make sure you remove and purge it from the command line before installing ironhide, otherwise that way lies madness. More info on ironhide can be found at http://www.martin-juhl.dk/2011/08/ironhide-reporting-for-duty/ ** if you want the nvidia chip to run whilst your lappy is on battery, select 'Performance', otherwise you'll only get it when you're connected to mains electric. *** There's another proggy called Ironhide Indicator, which is an applet that shows when the Nvidia chip is engaged and provides a shortcut to Ironhide Appplication Settings. Under 11.10, just click on the icon and it'll load to the Unity menu bar. Haven't so far managed to get it to work under 11.04 with Gnome. Any ideas gratefully received.

minimap seems to have grown. Anyone any ideas ?

Good news - Checked the ironhide repository and some files have been updated recently. After updating my install, minimap seems to work fine.

I think we have the same issue, as my machine also has optimus with intel/nvidia graphic gpu's. Only difference is that I run Ironhide (instead of Bumblebee) to handle graphic switching. However, both Ironhide and Bumblebee (in their latest versions) use the standard proprietary nvidia graphics driver, and i've not noticed any issues with anything else that I run.

Which client are you using? The official one or a self compiled one? Whats your OpenGL version? Type #glinfo in game and post the first 3 lines here. Piper Thx Piper... 1) Official 2) 2.1 Mesa 7.10.2 3) First 3 lines of #glinfo are : GL_EXT_direct_state_access GL_EXT_draw_buffers2 GL_EXT_draw_instanced GL_EXT_draw_range_elements GL_EXT_fog_coord GL_EXT_framebuffer_blit GL_EXT_framebuffer_multisample GL_EXTX_framebuffer_mixed_formats GL_EXT_framebuffer_object GL_EXT_framebuffer_sRGB GL_EXT_geometry_shader4 GL_EXT_gpu_program_parameters GL_EXT_gpu_shader4 G nice to know that

Sounds a great project. I've a simple bot structure written in php which might help. PM if you'd like a copy.

Lots of things to love about EL; bots being one of them. They are a great feature, all the more because you can code your own. However, I roughly agree with Aislinn, ie there should be some kind of code standard... (might I even say rules ?) Maybe a good case for suggesting that the EL server should collect, collate and publish bot info. If the latter is csv, mysql or whatever, there's still plenty of scope for third party query engines, plus its so much easier and quicker to implement. Maybe also extend that to the in-game players list ?

ppl have a right to exchange their time and effort for money. Hence, even though a char is not player property, a player ought reasonably to be able to sell the irl input that went into its creation On the other hand, the only thing giving any value whatsoever to that input is the time and effort (at not least skill) of the guy that did the game coding, those that pay for the game server on which it runs, as well as the individuals that manage gameplay. Surely their contribution deserves equaly recognition at that point ? And what of the rest of the community of players within the game? If the selling of chars impacts on their enjoyment of the game, then shouldn't their position also be reflected ? In this respect, it needs to be recognised that the effect of 'not inconsiderable' amounts on irl money changing hands in char sales is that it creates a significant potential for criminal fraud. The effect of the latter extend, not just to those involved in char selling, but creates an active incentive for fraudsters to operate in-game. Moreover, in a game where char names act as a proxy for a players irl identity, anything affecting the reliability of the latter has the capacity to seriously undermine social structures and cohesion in-game. In this respect, whether others are misled inadvertently or intentionally as a result if a transfer of char between two players, the impact on the wider community would seem much the same. There's no quick and easy solution to these competing interests. However, something that might help to achieve a fairer distribution might be to use the char ip address as a mechanism to control access to chars. How might this work ? Well, at the time a char is created, players might be given the option to assign a specfic ip address to that char and to restrict certain in-game commands to that address, ie those commands relating to changing the chars password/name. Necessarily further protection could be implemented by extending the options available to players to include restricting play of a char to a single specified address. Ofc not everyone has the benefit of playing from a static ip, hence why an assigned ip address would need to be optional. However, on the basis that a significant number do, the immediate benefit would be to significantly restrict the ability of scammers to take advantage of 'player naivety'. The secondary advantage is to introduce a mechanism that would at least allow for partial control over transfers of chars between players. Necessarily, once a char has its ip assigned, the game's operator is then in a position to exercise control over how it is then passed on, and therefore in a position to impose charges for doing so. On the basis that the main reason for such transfers is irl financial gain, so there would seem a justification for the game's operator to charge accordingly, with the scale being made commensurate with the potential irl value being realised by the seller. However, the overall benefit of such mechanism would not just be a more equitable distribution of benefits between all stakeholders, or indeed preventing abuse of the game and players by criminals, but the ability to impose measures that would reasonably seem to protect and enhance all aspects of gameplay in a cost effective and efficient manner. This post brought to you by the Tirun School of PostingTM

1 ) Can you tell me any way in which it could ever possibly help char buyers ? 2 ) Yes dynamic ip's are an issue, but whether the whole idea is "moot" would depend on whether there's an alternative way to identify players separately from the chars they control ? However, if there's any point to that discussion, I guess its desirable that ppl understand the purpose of doing that and agree that the benefit is worthwhile ? PS: Politely, and for the second time of asking, can i ask you to remove the remarks added to my first post. Its neither fair or helpful to anyone.

Yeah, but how would you "control" this ? That fee, would just be added to the char price, no big deal for the buyers/sellers. If i was about to sell a char, i'd pay the IP re-assignment fee and just continue like it's done now. It's not possible to check the reasoning why i want to change my assigned IP address(es). I can imagine zillion valid situations... Also, a static IP address is really not that common as you would think. Nice questions groomsh, thx Re "control", yes its inevitable that the market would compensate for a re-assignment fee. However, the effect of increasing costs is usually to reduce the demand. Hence, char sales ought to reduce. Yes some sales would continue, but the skew to the game is significantly reduced, and there's a partial compensation to EL through the income stream. Re "reasoning", yes there's an issue of balance, nope I don't have it all worked out lol. However, on the basis that all char transfers (paid or unpaid) are essentially bad for the game, there's a case for disincentivising all char transfers. However, that leaves us with circumstances where the ip changes but the player remains the same. Clearly there's no detrimental effect to the game from the latter, so no justification to disincentivise. Indeed, it seems distinctly unfair to penalise players in such a situation. However, there's obviously some issues on how we determine a legitimate ip change from a false one thats being used as a front for a char transfer. Here's my thoughts so far : a ) If you make a free ip reassignment contingent on it applying to all a players chars, plus any future ones he creates, its going to be less attractive to a char seller who' intending , to remain in-game simply because he's going to lose all his chars and the ability to make new ones b ) Having obtained the ip address that the player wishes to transfer to, if its already shown on the EL records as being used, it would seem likely that its being used by another player and that a char transfer is intended. At that point, you can then make the transfer chargeable. The above would seem to get round some of the issues and, I assume, would lend itself to being coded rather than a manual system. Alas, it still doesn't get around the issue of dynamic ip's. I'll take your word that statics are not that common, but obviously that puts a serious hole in things lol. Still, thanks for at least being prepared to give the idea serious and polite consideration.

Hmm why do you think the seller would not assign a different (buyers) IP address(es) before selling it ? That would completely render your solution useless. That's a reasonable point. First thing to say is that the feature relies on a static ip. If the ip is dynamic, then there's little point in registering it against a char. Hence, its never going to be a cover-all solution. Whether that renders it useless I can't say. Anyhow, assuming we have a situation in which one player wants to a transfer a char to another, two scenarios might apply: a ) If the transferer has not registered the char then there's nothing to force the transferee to do so and, assuming that he/she doesn't intend to do so in the future, yup I agree the feature is irrelevant. b ) If the transferer has registered the char then the password/char name is tied to his ip address. Assuming he's not also elected to restrict the char to being playable from that address, the char can be played from elsewhere, but the name/password can't be changed unless the registered ip is reassigned. If EL was to levy a charge for that reassignment, I guess it rather begs the question as to why anyone would ever want to register an ip in the first place. Well, assuming we accept that there is an advantage to EL of controlling char transfers, that might then justify providing in-game advantages to registered chars. Yup it would distort the game in a way that favoured registered chars, but it would at least progressively knock the bottom out out of unregistered char sales, and might then gradually remove the greater distortion of char buying from EL. However, still not sure how you might deal with ppl on dynamic ip's who would be consigned to a disadvantaged char through no fault of their own. Maybe the latter renders the whole idea junk, but i still think its worth exploring

Aislinn - I've posted nothing about supporting char-buyers. I don't like it, support it any way, and I certainly don't engage in it. As far as the effectiveness of passwords are concerned, i'm not questioning the responsibility of players, or criticising the current arrangements. The premise I started with was that char transfers cause issues that skew the game, and that linking chars to ip's might give the game's operator some control. If thats not the case then fine. It was only an idea, and you guys are the experts. The only reason for suggesting it was in the hope that it might be interesting and the slight chance it might be helpful. Sorry if you thought otherwise. PS:Do you think we can now remove the stupid comments that 'someone' in your team has thoughtfully added to my original post. If we're going to have rules here, lets all respect them.

@tork - I had in mind that such a facility could be entirely code driven on the server. Necessarily, maintenance of ip address record would primarily the responsibility of the user, and not something that would seem to require any moderator intervention. Indeed, the only time when moderation effort would seem to arise would be when users pay to change the ip registered against a char. Even so, beyond checking that payment had been received, i'm guessing the amount of work involved ought reasonably to be minimal. However, I agree with your point of there being a question over how many ppl might use the feature. Necessarily it would have no relevance to those players with dynamic ip's. I can't speak for the situation in the US or elsewhere, but certainly here in the UK and Europe, static ip's are fairly commonplace. Nevertheless, if the majority of the player base is on dynamic ip, I fully accept there's little point in expending effort on a feature that most can't use. @Raz - Hope the above clarifies the position re moderator effort. On the matter of 'developer hassle', I guess all development could be considered to present either an incovenient hassle or interesting challenge depending on the nature of whats involved. However, regardless of which, clearly the key issue is whether the potential benefits of a task outweigh the work involved. I'm not sure that extending the server database to record an ip, making the check, or providing the necessary client functionality would create require the kind of effort you seem to think, but i'll gladly bow to anyones greater knowledge on such matters. @Aislinn - Re your disagreement with the post title, yes passwords are an important aspect of security per-se. However, the post (and indeed its title) is intended to allude to issues well beyond the immediate consequences and victims of char loss/theft. In this respect, the argument for enhanced security arises specifically because these aspects are not covered by passwords alone. Re your disagreement with the first statement, I think you misunderstand the point I was making. I strongly disagree with char sales for precisely for same reasons as you. However, whether you and I like it or not, the practical position is that there are currently no structures that allow for this to be effectively controlled. In this respect, the argument for enhanced security arises specifically because it provides basis for you to establish greater control over such activities than you currently enjoy. Re EL being a "free" game, if you accept that the value of a commodity is related to the value of the labour needed to produce it, then the fact that EL chars sell for fairly significant sums would clearly indicate labour by someone. Whether the labour arises for commercial or leisure reasons has little bearing on how others value the commodity, ie if i buy and sell antiques as a hobby, the fact I derive enjoyment from the activity, and engage in it primarily as a leisure pursuit, doesn't lessen the value of my skill or its value to others. The relevance of this to the general issue is that I respect that ppl ought to have the 'right' to sell the product of their labour (be it virtual or real). However, I object to them doing it in a way that doesn't fairly respect the interests of others, ie those who create the game, run the game and, last but by no means least, those who play the game. Regarding the scam factor, yup I sympathise with and understand your position entirely. I hadn't intended the post to relate specifically to immediate victims of scamming, more to highlight it as one of a series of inequities that arise out of unregulated char transfers. In this respect, whilst we might get there by different routes, I suspect there's very little difference between our viewpoints. Edit: typo's (damn swarms of them)

lmao ... shhhh and don't give the game away lol.

Ouch, was that aimed at me, or Caliphear ???? If it ever needed clarifying, I am totally against cheating.

Fair enough..you're paying real money for your bots. But imagine the following scenario. Your alts keep selling health essences to your bot which you sell for a profit that your main gets to keep. That's against the current idea behind rule 5. You might be thinking of totally different and possibly harmless ways that your alts can use your bots. However, this creates extra work for moderators because they now have to keep a 24 hour eye on every trade with every bot. That will work against the argument in the first post in this thread. Agreed. Regardless of whether it involves bots or alts, multi trading creates an unbalanced input to the game. If you simply allow it then the effect is ultimately to undermine some fairly fundamental aspects of game-play. The alternative is therefore either to prevent (by way of moderation or code), or to balance with corresponding risk/cost factors. Necessarily, the circumstances in which you might consider the latter is where controls are impractical or ineffective. In this respect, if the extra work required by moderators is leading to diminishing returns, maybe it might be time to look at the alternative, ie : The first problem with multi's is (as Vanyel quite rightly pointed out in his earlier comment) that it rather undermines the social aspect of game-play. A solution may be to clearly identify concurrent alts (multi's) in a way that clearly indicates to other players that the actor is not a main char and that it is not intended to receive pm's, trades or other social interaction. The second problem with multi's is they exist outside any defined theme within the game. A solution maybe to automatically dress them in rags, manacles, make them look dirty, scruffy, downtrodden as if they were slaves. That way, their role and purpose within the game is made clearly apparent apparent. The third problem with multi's is balancing the additional input that arises where they mule, harv and perform other services for a main. One possible way to provide such a balance is through implementing associated risks, ie make slaves pk-able on any map, limit their attributes/emu, prevent them carrying armor/weapons. Create an active incentive for players to attack them by linking their emu to the amount of gc they carry. Remove unnecessary input by allowing any other materials they carry to poof on death. The fourth problem with multi's is crowding. Harv and other sites are likely to get blocked by the extra chars and may prevent main's from getting access. Therefore, introduce potion of 'drone removal' which allows any main to teleport a slave to some random location. Necessarily, the above would have the advantage of reducing the need for what seems to be a difficult and largely ineffective area of moderation. It introduces a new and different aspect of game-play which has a visual appeal and doesn't require non-adopters to change their existing approach. Advantages of multi'ing are balanced by corresponding risks/costs in a way that allows for control of any corresponding 'mudflation', and which enables single char players to compete on equal terms. The disadvantages are that it would require a fair degree of server based coding to implement, including changes to the communication protocol with clients. It also doesn't deal with the problem of alts interacting with bots, or using the latter to cheat.

Whether you like it or not, its the amount of 'grind' that determines the extent to which players feel a sense of achievement in achieving objectives within the game. Its also a balancing factor between differing aspects of game-play, ie creating an economic imperative for non-combat activities such as mixing/harving. The only substitutes for grind should be skill, knowledge and cooperation. With regard to the latter, if there was a benefit to of helping/supporting someone to develop/maintain a specialist pk char ie, within a guild situation, possibly ppl would be more inclined to do so, however, thats hardly the case. Although pk may be an attractive element to some players, its hardly an essential element in the game, and really no more than a luxury for those that have spare time and rosto's to burn. Under the circumstances, it seems rather a good thing to make them pay for their 'habit' at the shop, and in the prices they pay to those players who do the 'grind'. Maybe just two more reasons to forget about multi'ing lol.

The argument that the effect of multi-ing is likely to be a positive to the EL economy seems rather naive. You might just as well try and make the same argument in favor of macroing, or any other currently illegal method of gaining an advantage over other players. All it achieves is to introduce a style of gameplay that gives such an advantage to those who use it that other players are then effectively forced to do likewise if they want to compete on level terms. Thats fine, if what you're doing enhances the aesthetic qualities of the game, but multi-ing can hardly be said to do that. The assumption that the benefits somehow trickle down to those who don't want to multi, ie through falling prices, assumes that players will produce and distribute a surplus. However, it kind of overlooks multi-ing as an exercise in removing the grind for those that really can't be assed to make the effort. In that respect, all it achieves is reduced need for them to buy other players goods, and the skills/effort/time that go into harving/mixing them. Yup, you'd be quite right in saying that reduced demand would make prices would fall. But whether thats a good thing remains to be seen.