common set of required commands for bots

[ttlanhil]

I'm sure a number of people have run into problems like this... there's something gone wrong with a bot (or something went right) and you want to contact the bot owner... it used to be possible back when the first step was registration, we could go search through all the stupid posts for the bot name to find one contact... but that don't work no more...

 

so I'm suggesting it be mandatory for all bots to respond to a minimum set of commands... contact/admin/owner would be the first one, in order to find out who to contact when something goes wrong/right.

I'd also think a help type command would be good for all bots, even if it's just to say "I only deal with my guild" if that's true

 

some command that will work the same for all bots (if possible, making the octothorpe (#) optional for the start so it suits more bots) so people can find out the contact details reasonably easily

 

opinions or revisions?

Edited February 26, 2007 by ttlanhil

[shallara]

The problem lays in those that do not bother using the help. Adarah clearly says in her dialogue she is the Rivan Warriors bot, and to contact the Rivan Warriors (yada yada yada) and also exactly how to use her. Yet 99% of the time people will sit in local and fuss and gripe and call names and lay the blame on 'the stupid bot' when, if fact, she is working perfectly, they simply are not following directions.

 

(I know the point is for every bot to have a help feature/contact thing that would tell the user who to go to, I personally think it is a good idea. Just a bit from the bot owner side from one that DOES have it.)

[LabRat]

Seconded.

 

It would be a minor code change to list your owner/administrator, and definitely worth it in my opinion.

 

Currently my bots reveal me as the owner if you send an unrecognised command, but I can easily add the code to list me on help/about as well.

 

For tradebots - /owner your bot is full

For guardbots - /owner I wanna be whitelisted on the bot/I was told to click on a brick and I died and lost my leather helm can it be returned?

For other bots - /owner your bot is not responding to PMs/stuck in a loop/wandering IP lost/whatever

 

As more bots come into the game trackability decreases rapidly, and this would be an easy solution.

[ttlanhil]

I know about people not being capable of reading and understanding. they aren't my concern (and heck, if they can't find out who to complain to, it's not so much a loss).

I'm more worried about when those with some clue see something that really is wrong, or when someone sees something right (this may apply more to vak than the average trade bot, since she has so many features that are limited to sets of people, but being able to contact the owner/coder is still going to be quite useful)

[Aislinn]

Speaking for moderators, we would love this.

[shallara]

Just out of curiousity, as I'm not a programmer, how hard would it be to include a "#contact_info <botname>" command? (for example)

For each bot to have a #set_contact_info <full PM line of text available> option? Maybe include a "newbie hint" with something about it?

[LabRat]

If it was a case of adding #contact_info to a bot code, incredibly simple - for the bots I run:

private void OnGotPM(object sender, BasicCommunication.MessageParser.Got_PM_EventArgs e)
	{			
		string Message = e.Message.ToLower();

		if (Message[0]!='#')
		{
			Message = "#" + Message;
		}

		string[] CommandArray = Message.Split(' ');

		if (CommandArray[0] == "#contact_info")
		{
			TheTCPWrapper.Send(CommandCreator.SEND_PM(e.Username, "My bot owner is "+TheMySqlManager.BotOwner(Settings.BotID)));
		}

		return;
	}

 

 

Adding it to the server would be a little more work, but not that much

[jamincollins]

I too would love to see this, it was one of the first features I added to my bot code to ensure that people would be able to locate the owner.

 

Though, I should probably add some explicit indication that the command exists in the help response.