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Quesar

bots with no gc

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well you can always get the number of slots and emu available from http://bots.el-services.net/

 

Just to let you know not all bots listed on that site, just those hosted there.

I keep trying to spread the word about using querybot instead. A good chunk of bots are not listed by el-services. Thank you for bringing this up too.

 

 

So it looks like most people are in favor of bot code not offering to buy things when the bot has no gc or no free inv slots.

 

Dogbreath (and other bot coders) - can you please make this change to your code?

 

I always make sure to keep enough gc on my bot to buy anything it is trying to, but I will put my money where my mouth is and make this update to my bot code too.

 

One little nit here:

not buying because no free slots is going to be a bit of a pain to code correctly, as there's enough items that stack... As long as there's free emu you still can buy those, provided you have at least one in inventory. So you'd have to be able to reliably identify non-stacking items (item_info.txt does not have that information). (If you have none of a given item in stock, and no free slots, it's easy...)

 

This is a good point that I hadn't considered.

 

Even just adding the 'sufficient gc' test to the ads and the wanted list (and website too ofc) would be a giant improvement.

Edited by Quesar

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well you can always get the number of slots and emu available from http://bots.el-services.net/

 

Just to let you know not all bots listed on that site, just those hosted there.

I keep trying to spread the word about using querybot instead. A good chunk of bots are not listed by el-services. Thank you for bringing this up too.

 

Using ANY external query service is likely to have even more outdated information then any other source. The information can easily be old or incorrect! Suggesting anyone use use a third party query tool to avoid a bot not having enough GC is NOT a good solution. Those sites are good for initial research, but not for anything that is valid.

 

For instance, anyone attempting to scrap my bots websites will get DIFFERENT results there from WANTED ! In my case, the WANTED information is much more up to date & takes into account gc, slots, & EMU while the website shows the raw public wanted quantity without attempting to account for everything.

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well you can always get the number of slots and emu available from http://bots.el-services.net/

 

Just to let you know not all bots listed on that site, just those hosted there.

I keep trying to spread the word about using querybot instead. A good chunk of bots are not listed by el-services. Thank you for bringing this up too.

 

Using ANY external query service is likely to have even more outdated information then any other source. The information can easily be old or incorrect! Suggesting anyone use use a third party query tool to avoid a bot not having enough GC is NOT a good solution. Those sites are good for initial research, but not for anything that is valid.

 

For instance, anyone attempting to scrap my bots websites will get DIFFERENT results there from WANTED ! In my case, the WANTED information is much more up to date & takes into account gc, slots, & EMU while the website shows the raw public wanted quantity without attempting to account for everything.

Querybot is updated every 10 or 15 minutes, so it won't be very far out of date. It's best to confirm it with a /botname wanted before actually going to it though of course.

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Dogbreath (and other bot coders) - can you please make this change to your code?

 

Grrrrr.. obviously, Quesar and Nova, you are soon going to invent a bot that can read minds, the owner's as well as the customer's, and miraculously find an intelligent compromise that satisfies both sides.

 

ok, having let off the steam, I agree with many here, owners should keep their prices up to date, and putting very unrealistic prices (in the hope someone is an idiot or desperate) isn't exactly very becoming, either. Better take them off the INV/WANTED lists altogether.

Those bots don't get many trades i hope.

 

The orange for 19k advert is a good example for having become "the odd furniture" to instancers. But what can we do, when a bot owner is away from game ? This would be a good question to solve in this thread.

 

As for the not enough gc issue, in any case it can only work with INV and WANTED, i guess you need to listen to Learner's and Dogbreath's assessments what is realistic to achieve, since the mind-reading computer (as opposed to many users' wishes) has not been built yet.

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Dogbreath (and other bot coders) - can you please make this change to your code?

 

Grrrrr.. obviously, Quesar and Nova, you are soon going to invent a bot that can read minds, the owner's as well as the customer's, and miraculously find an intelligent compromise that satisfies both sides.

 

ok, having let off the steam, I agree with many here, owners should keep their prices up to date, and putting very unrealistic prices (in the hope someone is an idiot or desperate) isn't exactly very becoming, either. Better take them off the INV/WANTED lists altogether.

Those bots don't get many trades i hope.

 

The orange for 19k advert is a good example for having become "the odd furniture" to instancers. But what can we do, when a bot owner is away from game ? This would be a good question to solve in this thread.

 

As for the not enough gc issue, in any case it can only work with INV and WANTED, i guess you need to listen to Learner's and Dogbreath's assessments what is realistic to achieve, since the mind-reading computer (as opposed to many users' wishes) has not been built yet.

 

I wonder how Dogbreath likes having all of the bots he hosts scraped every 15 minutes? Might also help explain why sometimes that service seems slow when you look at the number of bots involved. I make it a habit to block people that abuse my service like that with getting permission beforehand.

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Bot's don't have minds, they have code. Code can be read and it's pretty amazing what you can do with the right code.

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Dogbreath (and other bot coders) - can you please make this change to your code?

 

Grrrrr.. obviously, Quesar and Nova, you are soon going to invent a bot that can read minds, the owner's as well as the customer's, and miraculously find an intelligent compromise that satisfies both sides.

 

ok, having let off the steam, I agree with many here, owners should keep their prices up to date, and putting very unrealistic prices (in the hope someone is an idiot or desperate) isn't exactly very becoming, either. Better take them off the INV/WANTED lists altogether.

Those bots don't get many trades i hope.

 

The orange for 19k advert is a good example for having become "the odd furniture" to instancers. But what can we do, when a bot owner is away from game ? This would be a good question to solve in this thread.

 

As for the not enough gc issue, in any case it can only work with INV and WANTED, i guess you need to listen to Learner's and Dogbreath's assessments what is realistic to achieve, since the mind-reading computer (as opposed to many users' wishes) has not been built yet.

 

I wonder how Dogbreath likes having all of the bots he hosts scraped every 15 minutes? Might also help explain why sometimes that service seems slow when you look at the number of bots involved. I make it a habit to block people that abuse my service like that with getting permission beforehand.

I specifically requested being added for my bot. The service is in your best interest anyway, as it helps to lead customers to your bots. A few kb every 10 or 15 minutes should not be a big deal.

 

@aredhel - I am suggesting a change to the code. As you apparently have 0 experience coding. Perhaps you should keep your suggestions in line with your knowledge?

Edited by Quesar

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...

 

One little nit here:

not buying because no free slots is going to be a bit of a pain to code correctly, as there's enough items that stack... As long as there's free emu you still can buy those, provided you have at least one in inventory. So you'd have to be able to reliably identify non-stacking items (item_info.txt does not have that information). (If you have none of a given item in stock, and no free slots, it's easy...)

 

well you can always get the number of slots and emu available from http://bots.el-services.net/

 

it takes 5 seconds to go check that so id say its not such a big deal if you dont code that in but for amount of gc the bot has on him, i think that would be very useful and at the moment, you cant get that info for most bots

 

You missed the point, which was NOT about the bot's clients checking free emu and slots (let alone available gc, especially the latter is none of their business). Instead, we were talking about the bot not offering to buy items it couldn't accept (either through not having enough gc, not enough emu or not enough slots). Hint: bot code has no problem figuring out free emu, free slots or available gc.

 

To be honest, I'd rather not advertise free space or available gc, if only to make life just a little bit more difficult for scammers (let them waste their time on empty bots ;) )

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I'm also very disappointed each time I want to sell something to a bot and it says me that it doesn't have enough gcs. For the emu and slots, it can easily be checked before moving to the bot so that's ok.

 

A simple solution to display what the bot can really buy is to add a third column to the wanted list. This column would show for each item how many it can really buy according to the available slots/emu/gcs.

This way, you don't need to remove the items from the list which will not confuse users.

 

Just my 2 cents.

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For me, it is the responsibility of the bot owner, to make sure the bot has a reasonable amount of gc to buy stuff,

and sufficient free slots if you want non-stackables. If the owner gets lazy/sloppy, so that the bot is regularly

out of slots/emu/gc, that bot will lose customers.

 

Having the code adjusted, so that the bot only advertises what it actually can buy based on slots/emu/gc is:

1 - not all that simple (stackables, trade in kind: item against item, etc)

2 - making the code more complicated (so more chances for bugs)

3 - putting a burden on the wrong person (i.e. on the coder, not on the owner)

 

I agree it is unpleasant to arrive at a bot that can't buy what it offered to buy (and yes, it happened to me as well).

But I don't think the coder should be the one to solve the problem, so the owners can continue to be lazy.

 

That said, some fairly simple intermediate solutions are possible:

- no 'wanted' list when out of emu (or gc below a certain level), just a message (simple, and you cannot buy anything when out of emu)

- filter the list to eliminate all items of which there's none in stock when out of slots (still not too complicated).

You'll still end up running into bots that cannot buy what they advertise as buying, but well, see above :P

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For me, it is the responsibility of the bot owner, to make sure the bot has a reasonable amount of gc to buy stuff,

and sufficient free slots if you want non-stackables. If the owner gets lazy/sloppy, so that the bot is regularly

out of slots/emu/gc, that bot will lose customers.

 

Having the code adjusted, so that the bot only advertises what it actually can buy based on slots/emu/gc is:

1 - not all that simple (stackables, trade in kind: item against item, etc)

2 - making the code more complicated (so more chances for bugs)

3 - putting a burden on the wrong person (i.e. on the coder, not on the owner)

 

I agree it is unpleasant to arrive at a bot that can't buy what it offered to buy (and yes, it happened to me as well).

But I don't think the coder should be the one to solve the problem, so the owners can continue to be lazy.

 

That said, some fairly simple intermediate solutions are possible:

- no 'wanted' list when out of emu (or gc below a certain level), just a message (simple, and you cannot buy anything when out of emu)

- filter the list to eliminate all items of which there's none in stock when out of slots (still not too complicated).

You'll still end up running into bots that cannot buy what they advertise as buying, but well, see above :P

It is a complicated process, but can be done. My bots for years have adjusted their internal wanted lists & and advertisements based on available GC, EMU, number of slots, and your status with the bot (normal, friend, enemy) as well as a smart bot owner can even specify certain items are no longer desired if the available EMU is below a limit. In my case this information is available in game, not the website, since that is a general reference.

 

This is something the bot developers have to do, first before the bot owners can do anything though. Yes, a bot owner should be responsible for making sure the bot has GC if he expects to buy the item, but he shouldn't have to keep adjusting his wanted list just because of the GC level since sometimes a bot can run out of GC in a very short time when expensive items are involved. This is an issue about features in the bot code, not how users use the bots.

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OK, after about 15-20 minutes of coding, I've added a whopping total of 8 lines of code to my bot, and changed 2 lines. Now it will not list items for querybot that it doesn't have gc for, it will not print them in the wanted list, and it will not advertise them.

 

This is not an undue strain on bot coders. This is a simple change. While it's easy to say "but it's the bot owners job", the simple fact is many are too lazy, or not even in game anymore to do it. This is something that can easily be fixed with code.

 

Handling item slots would be much more difficult, yes. I did not do anything to code for that. But in my opinion, gc is the biggest problem from the experiences I've had so far, and that is VERY easy to code for.

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It is a complicated process, but can be done. My bots for years have adjusted their internal wanted lists & and advertisements based on available GC, EMU, number of slots, and your status with the bot (normal, friend, enemy) as well as a smart bot owner can even specify certain items are no longer desired if the available EMU is below a limit. In my case this information is available in game, not the website, since that is a general reference.

 

Of course it can be done. It's just that a full adjustment of the wanted list taking into account all factors that could stop a bot from buying an item that is listed as wanted gets a bit complicated.

 

This is something the bot developers have to do, first before the bot owners can do anything though. Yes, a bot owner should be responsible for making sure the bot has GC if he expects to buy the item, but he shouldn't have to keep adjusting his wanted list just because of the GC level since sometimes a bot can run out of GC in a very short time when expensive items are involved. This is an issue about features in the bot code, not how users use the bots.

 

As in many things, both have their responsibilities.

Yes, a bot can run out of gc very fast. That can always happen, and that's not in itself difficult to code for.

There remains the problem that barter becomes difficult to take into account when you don't list items as wanted when you don't have enough gc to buy them.

 

My reasoning was more that the problem of slots and emu is the bot owner's problem, in that he should have a realistic 'wanted' list (and not 40+ items where there's only 36 slots, and I've seen such bots) and keep an eye on things to prevent constant lack of gc, slots or emu. If simple coding can then catch the remaining problems, all the better. BUT, I refuse to pander to the owners that systematically have too little gc/slots/emu on their bot. All the more so as doing this properly is a complicated process (as you said above)

 

This ties in with remarks elsewhere about bots listing ridiculous prices (in today's market) in their wanted lists.

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I am going to make an website for game items list, that will be editable in a way for the known items, all known statuses will be not editable, but the stackable and non stackable list will be, and mercator himself will be able to change the "Flag " stackable if he sees that one item uses more then 1 slot. Hope having a list with all informtation about if item is stackable or not, will make it easier for people to implement a feature that makes a change in wanted list at free slots+ but i will be sure to include a + in a wanted list if i want more items then a slot has free. Because on mercator i will predefine the money to the items, in the quantity i buy. so he will never run out of money.

btw. http://rip-el.forumotion.com/Modified-Greypals-Marketsearch-h1.htm that uses http://greypal.el-fd.org/cgi-bin/querybot database too has if avaiable the links to the website of those bots.

so people can and should have a list there what is there and not.

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[..] and not 40+ items where there's only 36 slots, and I've seen such bots [...]

 

It just looks so very pr0 and awesome if you buy an "UNLIMITED" number of an item that costs 5kgc or even 100kgc

 

This ties in with remarks elsewhere about bots listing ridiculous prices (in today's market) in their wanted lists.

 

I guess such bots are rather frowned upon, it makes the "inv"/"wanted" lists longer than necessary, and the person who accidentally or stupidly sells/buys those items will feel cheated upon.

 

Another issue - in this case, applies to Dogbreath's item search (which is really kewl btw)

Bots that ARE NOT online should not be listed!

 

Edit: This matter is being taken care of, there was an issue at a different stage, thanks for looking Sir Odie !

Edited by aredhel

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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 ?

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There are rules for bots (and their code) already: here...

 

As for the official server collecting bot data: bots have always been a player activity, why should the official server want to

deal with that? Also, how would you assure that the data is reliable, and won't be used to try and gain illegal access to the server?

(not saying it can be done that way, but why should the official server take the risk?). And that's assuming the bot owners provide

data in the correct format (which is already not easy between professionals, btw).

 

We'll not dwell on that such a system would require yet another scraping of the bot servers every so often (Learner said

something about 15 min intervals). So you propose putting an extra charge on ALL servers concerned for ... (yeah, for what exactly?)

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This is just so wrong. Just in nordcarn there are at least 10 bots who cannot buy what they claim they are buying. You have something you wanna sell and you have to run from bot to bot checking if they have enough money.

 

On top of that most of those bots without money have their prices set at highest, both buying and selling prices. People, who sell on channels usually take account of the bots price (actually its the main source of info for prices). You want to buy something and the guy says "man bot buys for x, yet u pay x-y, why should i sell to you", even tho several top-pricing bots dont have any money to pay for the stuff.

 

And you cannot just trade what you sell for what they have usually, because their "selling" prices are set very high.

 

Owners should be made to monitor their bots and keep them updated. or at least if they are too lazy to monitor, then should make that extra line with available GC and should NOT be permitted to advertise stuff.

Edited by Helklo

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There are rules for bots (and their code) already: here...

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.

 

As for the official server collecting bot data: bots have always been a player activity, why should the official server want to deal with that? Also, how would you assure that the data is reliable, and won't be used to try and gain illegal access to the server? (not saying it can be done that way, but why should the official server take the risk?). And that's assuming the bot owners provide

data in the correct format (which is already not easy between professionals, btw).

 

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.

 

We'll not dwell on that such a system would require yet another scraping of the bot servers every so often (Learner said something about 15 min intervals). So you propose putting an extra charge on ALL servers concerned for ... (yeah, for what exactly?)

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.

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Short summary, I want to see how many gc on a bot. Thats an endless discussions, some guys use bots to keep prices artificial high and these bots never have cash when i try several times a week (i did in teh past quite often, was very bored)...

 

Because I can not unmix an item which i made for selling to that particular tradebot i lost for sure average 10kgc / month for sure because of some tradebot owners buying items for certain prices don*t have the cash on it, so I had to sell it to the next one which bought the item 1-3k gc cheaper.

 

Well if we could get an unmix feature, why not :) It is mostley unlike someone will sell stuff to the bot worth the stuff he buys always so I really prefer a visible line of cash on the bot :) To prevent such issues.

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I am owner of Xavierx bot in NC who ALWAYS has enough gc to buy what is wanted ,I seem to remember a player looting bots of GC.

Because of this I am against bots showing amount of gc they have,I believe this would make them a target for the less honest players in EL.

Surely it would be better to code bot so that it cant advertise as wanted an item it hasnt got the gc to buy?

 

Just my thoughts on the matter

 

the_grud

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I do agree that bots should not advertise for expensive items that they cannot pay for. However I feel that this is an owner choice on what they do. While I think an option in the bot code is fine, I do not agree with forcing it. I do NOT want my bot advertising how much gc it has and any technique to limit what they buy based on how much gc they have does exactly that. In addition there are other ways to buy/sell such as trading for other goods (something I do see happen quite often).

 

I always try to keep gc on my bots so that they can do plenty of business. Mostly I succeed and my bots rarely run out of gc - and if someone lets me know it has or lets me know that my bot is full, I correct it as soon as possible or buy from them directly if possible. I think this is the responsibility of the responsible bot owner. This is my own personal policy, but it's not something to legislate.

 

If you don't like that bot owner's policy or pricing structure, if you don't like them trying to buy things they don't have gc for, then boycott them - don't buy or sell anything from/to them. There are plenty of bots around, so find one where the owner has policies you do like. Talk to the owners, most will try to adjust their bot or somehow do business with you - they WANT your business, that's how they make gc or make their life easier in game, or whatever their goal is. A bot sitting there with no business is no benefit to the owner or anyone else, so they will probably work with you, but if they won't that's their loss - take your business elsewhere.

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The problem with arguing that anything is the responsibility of the bot owners is that a lot of these owners have quit the game and are no longer logging on to take care of their bots.

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