Specific Bot market channel?

[jamincollins]

Please read all of this before voting.

 

I would like to get player opinion for something a few of us have been tossing around for a while. A bot specific market channel.

 

This channel would be monitored by trade bots in much the same way that bots currently handle PMs. That is a player would join the channel and send a command to all listening bots simply by posting in channel. For example a player looking to buy rostogols would type something like the following:

 

@@## inv rostogol

 

where ## is the channel number. The bots in channel would then parse the message just like they would a normal PM. The difference however would be limiting responses to only those that have the item being requested.

 

Likewise a player looking for a bot that buys an item would send something like the following:

 

@@## wanted rostogol

 

This would allow players to query multiple bots at once rather than having to PM tens of bots in succession looking for one that happens to be selling what they are after. It would also lead to a reduction in the advertising spam currently found on market as bots would no longer need to advertise in hopes of being remembered or getting noticed. A new bot need only support the channel command set and carry items players are looking for.

 

Obviously, the exact command set would need to be discussed and documented, but I'd like to get an idea of player opinion on the topic first.

[2coolfool]

I would definitely use this. Seems a good idea and might start using bots again, PMing them all with INV is too spammy and remembering the names is hard too. Wouldn't be hard for me to get items from a new bot this way as it would pm me if it had the item

[Cycloonx]

I would definitely use this. Seems a good idea and might start using bots again, PMing them all with INV is too spammy and remembering the names is hard too. Wouldn't be hard for me to get items from a new bot this way as it would pm me if it had the item

 

Jep I would use the bots more often too, now it's just too hard to pm all bots to check for an item

[fyrrflyy]

I have been hoping for a suggestion like this for awhile, market channel is a load of rubbish. Yesterday I spent more than 2 hours looking for someone to sell ELE, and i got no reply other than about 50 different bots saying annoying ad's about meep'ing and oink'ing. A seperate channel would be great, this would allow those who want to buy a small amount of some item would be able to go to the bot channel and specifically find a item, and those not in such a hurry needing a larger amount could use the player channel. Also, it would be nice on the bot channel if you could type @@## inv FE loc portland, and see all the bots on portland who have FE's. I dunno if that is possible/programmable, but it would be nice.

[Aislinn]

I would LOVE this. (speaking as a player)

[Lotheneil]

I would love that. Too bad the topic emerges on forum from time to time, people voice their ideas and vote and still nothing changes... I hope this time something moves at last.

[Sistema]

Grand idea! It would be absolutely useful! I like this!

[Cycloonx]

people voice their ideas and vote and still nothing changes... I hope this time something moves at last.

 

Yes it came above some times now, but players can't change it on their own. I hope maybe some mod gives some directions about which channel to use, approval of the idea, etc...

[Sayre]

*adds his support to this idea*

 

The numbers of bots is rising, and this is a good way for the number of bots to be an aid to the buyer/seller, not a hindrance (remembering names/locations/spam issues)

 

Great suggestion.

 

S.

[Aislinn]

people voice their ideas and vote and still nothing changes... I hope this time something moves at last.

 

Yes it came above some times now, but players can't change it on their own. I hope maybe some mod gives some directions about which channel to use, approval of the idea, etc...

Well you are talking about two different things.

Making it an official channel is not the same thing as bot owners adding the code needed to their bots to accomplish this. This can only work if the bot owners, or a majority of them, want to do this and DO do it.

This really doesn't need to be official, however that would be something for mods to discuss if the idea works out with bot owners.

[jamincollins]

This really doesn't need to be official, however that would be something for mods to discuss if the idea works out with bot owners.

As I understand it, this would constitute a new function for the bot(s). No new functions can be added to a bot without approval before they are added. Myself and a few other bot owners are ready and waiting to make this change. However, we believe it needs approval before we can do so.

 

Additionally, it would be preferable to have the channel within the official range, but that's less of show stopper.

[Cycloonx]

people voice their ideas and vote and still nothing changes... I hope this time something moves at last.

 

Yes it came above some times now, but players can't change it on their own. I hope maybe some mod gives some directions about which channel to use, approval of the idea, etc...

Well you are talking about two different things.

Making it an official channel is not the same thing as bot owners adding the code needed to their bots to accomplish this. This can only work if the bot owners, or a majority of them, want to do this and DO do it.

This really doesn't need to be official, however that would be something for mods to discuss if the idea works out with bot owners.

 

Well if a mod tells we can use channel x it would make it easier to start. And second, afaik a bot isn't allowed to pm players without his approval, so there is some kind of approval needed from the mods.

[Aislinn]

All bot feature approvals and change approvals need to go through entropy, not the mods.

[Fantastika]

great idea

[ttlanhil]

Issues:

- It would be a pain to use for items that are frequently in stock (for inv) or commonly bought (for wanted). After asking once and getting 20 replies from different bots, will people be any happier about the amount of reading?

I suspect it would come in quite handy when you want to find a rare item, but not so good for polling all the bots to see where you can get the best price on a common item.

 

- Bandwidth. As above, you will get a lot of PMs per single request. If you have a number of items on your shopping list, that drives up the number of PMs a lot more... And unlike the adverts on @@3 where the items are listed, other people present don't get the advantage of knowing what's on offer (unless the bots reply on channel, which means even more bandwidth used)

 

- Typos and abbreviations. From watching vakana's logs, I know it's quite common for people not to get the name right, at least at first. "Egratia ring" vs "ring of Egratia", "FEs", "fire essense" (check again, it is wrong, even if it doesn't appear to be at first ). Many bots probably won't match any of those 3 non-name queries... Heck, some don't even match on a substring (ie "Irinveron" producing a match) and require the full name. At least, some have in the past (maybe they all do now, I don't know for sure)

What will happen? Probably a race in name matching. Depending on the approaches taken, this could be disadvantageous to some bots (and the owners probably won't know why).

What if it's matched incorrectly? ie matching "ME" as magic essence: "No, you stupid bot, I wanted matter essence!".

 

I expect there are other potential problems, but these three immediately jump out at me. I'm not at all against removing bots from channel 3 if a good solution is found, but I think it will take a fair bit of work yet.

 

Yes, I am a bot owner.

But I'm not fond of the botspam in channel 3 either (vakana advertises in @@3 once per hour, not per 15min as is allowed. I know others don't, and even setting it at an hour for all bots as a rule would eventually bring back the same problem as numbers rise).

[peeper :)]

Eh.. if i knew there was a bot specific channel, i wouldnt go near it >.<

[sithicus]

Good idea. In essence it would mean that the ## syntax on that specific channel means all bots will act as if they receive a private PM with that command. Of course a ## inv without item specific should be ignored to avoid unnecessary load but other than that, I think it actually requires very little modification of the bots... and actually leads to less traffic. Perhaps you can just do it and put some code on the forum for a few specific languages that are used. Or just make a bot source code with this function in it public.

 

Anyway, bot spam on market has indeed made market channel horrible. Taking the bots off market would make more people listen to market channel. If bot channel is a success, this channel could be made official in the next client update?

[Guest baneazaghal]

I'd also like to support this idea. I haven't gone near the channel 3 for quite a while (putting all of my ads on channel 33), and I enjoy the lack of bot-generated spam. The issues ttlanhil mentioned could be resolved if bot owners were to agree upon a common naming system. We also could have a command "acronyms category" that would cause one of the bots to send the player a list of acronyms used on the channel for the given category (essences, armors, weapons, stones etc...), or even better PM him with a sticky thread that contains all of these acronyms.

[jamincollins]

- It would be a pain to use for items that are frequently in stock (for inv) or commonly bought (for wanted). After asking once and getting 20 replies from different bots, will people be any happier about the amount of reading?

Difference here is that the player requested the reading by sending the command, it wasn't spammed at them unrequested as the current market channel announcements are. These would be targeted responses, not shotgun advertising.

 

- Bandwidth. As above, you will get a lot of PMs per single request. If you have a number of items on your shopping list, that drives up the number of PMs a lot more... And unlike the adverts on @@3 where the items are listed, other people present don't get the advantage of knowing what's on offer (unless the bots reply on channel, which means even more bandwidth used)

I'm not convinced that this will consume anymore bandwidth than the bots spamming each other and players with their ads. Even if it does, you're now dealing with a case of requested responses.

 

- Typos and abbreviations. From watching vakana's logs, I know it's quite common for people not to get the name right, at least at first. "Egratia ring" vs "ring of Egratia", "FEs", "fire essense" (check again, it is wrong, even if it doesn't appear to be at first ). Many bots probably won't match any of those 3 non-name queries... Heck, some don't even match on a substring (ie "Irinveron" producing a match) and require the full name. At least, some have in the past (maybe they all do now, I don't know for sure)

Typos would simply be ignored by the bots as non-match, no problem there. As for substring matches or aliases, this is a question of command set implementation. That is something I clearly indicated in my first post would need to be discussed and agreed upon.

[ttlanhil]

Difference here is that the player requested the reading by sending the command, it wasn't spammed at them unrequested as the current market channel announcements are. These would be targeted responses, not shotgun advertising.

Yes. But with that mass of PMs (which will also grow as we have more tradebots), will players use it much? I think it will still be a limiting factor.

I'm not convinced that this will consume anymore bandwidth than the bots spamming each other and players with their ads. Even if it does, you're now dealing with a case of requested responses.

Not each other, at least if the bots leave channels between ads (unless they're trying to figure out common prices or watch for what's in demand, they don't really need to sit there and wait). As for players, if this takes off, players would get a few dozen PMs per item they wish to buy... Maybe it won't increase bandwidth use. Maybe it will only increase it a bit. Not necessarily going to be a problem, just a point for consideration

Typos would simply be ignored by the bots as non-match, no problem there.

Wanna bet? As soon as one of the bot owners realises they can get more business by responding when other bots don't (as long as the match is reasonably sure, so there aren't too many stray PMs which annoy users), it will happen... And then many other bots will get the features too (copying of features isn't uncommon).

As for substring matches or aliases, this is a question of command set implementation. That is something I clearly indicated in my first post would need to be discussed and agreed upon.

Same problem as above, though it doesn't really have anything specifically to do with a bot channel; matching item names it useful already...

And different bots will have different approaches and levels of matching already.

Unless you suggest all bots have a certain method of item name matching, and they have to use that and only that for this channel (and it's backed up by the rules) bot owners will do what they can to increase sales. That means matching even if other bots don't.

[RallosZek]

Issues:

- It would be a pain to use for items that are frequently in stock (for inv) or commonly bought (for wanted). After asking once and getting 20 replies from different bots, will people be any happier about the amount of reading?

This is still less then getting full invs of 20 bots, using different commands, cause some do, some don't support filtering. More importantly, it cuts down on my typing, reading can be controlled with #ignore as it can now.

Additionally, one could extend on simple commands, by adding a continent and/or map filter to the commands, since location is a prime decision maker for bot purchases.

 

- Bandwidth. As above, you will get a lot of PMs per single request. If you have a number of items on your shopping list, that drives up the number of PMs a lot more... And unlike the adverts on @@3 where the items are listed, other people present don't get the advantage of knowing what's on offer (unless the bots reply on channel, which means even more bandwidth used)

As above, it happens more I query several bots full invs multiple times a day AND advertisement on top of that. I think both methods cancel each other out to various degrees, hence you'd only know when doing a week's test period.

 

- Typos and abbreviations. From watching vakana's logs, I know it's quite common for people not to get the name right, at least at first. "Egratia ring" vs "ring of Egratia", "FEs", "fire essense" (check again, it is wrong, even if it doesn't appear to be at first ). Many bots probably won't match any of those 3 non-name queries... Heck, some don't even match on a substring (ie "Irinveron" producing a match) and require the full name. At least, some have in the past (maybe they all do now, I don't know for sure)

What will happen? Probably a race in name matching. Depending on the approaches taken, this could be disadvantageous to some bots (and the owners probably won't know why).

What if it's matched incorrectly? ie matching "ME" as magic essence: "No, you stupid bot, I wanted matter essence!".

This is actually a pro for the channel, rather then a con. Since protocols will be standardized, so will the filtering/matching be, so rather then dealing with 10 different (including non-existent) implementations, customers know/learn what yields what. People yelling at bots, can't be dealt with no matter what grand idea you come up with, so that's entirely besides the point

[jamincollins]

Unless you suggest all bots have a certain method of item name matching, and they have to use that and only that for this channel (and it's backed up by the rules) bot owners will do what they can to increase sales. That means matching even if other bots don't.

That is exactly what I'm proposing, a standard uniform feature set on an official channel. Interactions with the bots directly can still use whatever feature set or command set the bot owners want. However, I propose that interactions through the channel have a documented and uniform set of commands and responses.

[dejan]

So you would like to get PMs or (even worse) replying to your querey directly to the channel from 200+ bots? o.O

 

I do not like this idea.

[jamincollins]

So you would like to get PMs or (even worse) replying to your querey directly to the channel from 200+ bots? o.O

 

I do not like this idea.

This would only happen if all 200+ bots had the item you're looking for. The idea is you will only get responses from bot(s) that are either buying or selling (depending on the command) what you requested.

[ttlanhil]

This would only happen if all 200+ bots had the item you're looking for. The idea is you will only get responses from bot(s) that are either buying or selling (depending on the command) what you requested.

What they can have in stock is limited. What they may want to buy isn't; at least, not as much.

No, this probably isn't too big an issue for buying (although the more common the item, which is where many trades happen, the worse it is). But consider wanted lists?

Say you allow partial matching. And someone says "@@botchan wanted enrich". That'd be the stones as well as the essences. How many bots will want at least one of the above, either for their owners or to resell?

 

This was one of my points above, although I didn't expand on it much then.