Specific Bot market channel?

[jamincollins]

Feel free to help document the command set and clear up any areas you feel are too vague.

But where ? Your wiki is read only, even for registered users.

The wiki (specifically the wishlist sub-page) is the intended place. I'm looking into the permissions currently. However, in lieu of being able to update it, discussion could have taken place here in the forums or via forum PM.

 

As for the intent and current implementation of "matches", it is a simple substring of the item(s). While regular expressions would be nice, they are far beyond the average user.

NO!

 

We need to decide exact syntax before anyone try to implement anything, if not everyone make it different, and every bot will give differen result, one big mess on the channel.

I think perhaps you misunderstood. Simple substring matching for the pattern is the consensus of those that have contributed to the discussions regarding the command set so far. So, it is what the wiki is intended to convey with regard to the pattern and a match.

 

The intent of the wiki is precisely to document the command set and behavior so that we don't have everyone doing it in a different way and responding in a different fashion. I announced the wiki here a while back and my intent. I waited for some time for contributors and received a few. Then began work on the proof of concept.

 

Consider that people are using different languages writing their bots: prerl and python implementation of this will be easy but what about c or qore ?

I'm sorry, but I don't get the point of this statement. These are (as far as I know) all capable languages.

[Kedrigern]

So what about question like

"diss ring" "mm cape" "pof" there are not substrings of item names, curently some bots understand that some not.

Should we prohibit answering such questions ?

Create list of alloved shorts on wiki ?

 

Another thing

"he" is a substring of: Hawk Feather, Leather Gloves, * Helm, Enriched * Essence, Chrysanthemum, Polished Sapphire, Black panther fur. Henbane, Wood Branches ... (and many other things)

 

So u can get tones of spam with almost everything in the answer on inv he (i'm sure that many people ask that question many times every day on that channel)

 

And how about plural form ?

eg

"moon medallions"

that is not a item name but some bots understand that (and some not)

 

I'm sorry, but I don't get the point of this statement.

Im trying to show nonsense of this.

 

There is no chance to make it works corectly, and many people will have lot of work with implementing this in many bots written in many languages, work for nothing.

 

Much easer way is create one bot that will ask every other bots every hour with inv and wanted then puts collected data in its own database,

have celar syntax of commands avidable for players, can show help when sobody makes mistake and does not matter how type of matches thats it's author choose, it will be fair for everyone.

 

Is bot cerated by only one person politicly correct ? maby not but no less than wiki created for only one person and readonly for evryone else.

 

Thats all that i want to say and forgive me my bad english.

Edited June 29, 2007 by Kedrigern

[jamincollins]

So what about question like

"diss ring" "mm cape" "pof" there are not substrings of item names, curently some bots understand that some not.

Should we prohibit answering such questions ?

Create list of alloved shorts on wiki ?

A consistent list of aliases could be very useful. If used they should be consulted prior to any pattern matching attempt.

 

Another thing

"he" is a substring of: Hawk Feather, Leather Gloves, * Helm, Enriched * Essence, Chrysanthemum, Polished Sapphire, Black panther fur. Henbane, Wood Branches ... (and many other things)

 

So u can get tones of spam with almost everything in the answer on inv he (i'm sure that many people ask that question many times every day on that channel)

All bot responses from channel are limited to a single line. Sure new users may initially use extremely vague patterns. I'm confident that they will learn to use more specific patterns. Additionally, if there is a list of aliases this specific case ('he') would become moot.

 

And how about plural form ?

eg

"moon medallions"

that is not a item name but some bots understand that (and some not)

Doesn't match, silently ignored.

 

I'm sorry, but I don't get the point of this statement.

Im trying to show nonsense of this.

 

There is no chance to make it works corectly, and many people will have lot of work with implementing this in many bots written in many languages, work for nothing.

If you (or they) don't feel it is worth it, don't implement it. The users have clearly indicated that they would like something like this, and I'm willing to add it to the code I maintain.

 

Much easer way is create one bot that will ask every other bots every hour with inv and wanted then puts collected data in its own database,

have celar syntax of commands avidable for players, can show help when sobody makes mistake and does not matter how type of matches thats it's author choose, it will be fair for everyone.

This has been suggested before. Many bots provide different pricing based on who they are taking to. Such as lower sale prices and higher buy prices to members of friendly guilds. Any centralized listing service will not work correctly in such cases. And again we are back to the goodwill of a third party with such services. Nothing stops them from excluding bots or fudging results.

 

Is bot cerated by only one person politicly correct ? maby not but no less than wiki created for only one person and readonly for evryone else.

Not all of the wiki is read-only. Sure there are sections of it that are, but much of it is modifiable by any registered user. Not having a user modifiable section of the wiki for this discussion was an oversight, and has been corrected now that it's been brought to my attention.

[Kedrigern]

Another thing

"he" is a substring of: Hawk Feather, Leather Gloves, * Helm, Enriched * Essence, Chrysanthemum, Polished Sapphire, Black panther fur. Henbane, Wood Branches ... (and many other things)

 

So u can get tones of spam with almost everything in the answer on inv he (i'm sure that many people ask that question many times every day on that channel)

All bot responses from channel are limited to a single line.

200 bots = 200lines, every line with one or more random thing, thats lots of spam.

 

And how about plural form ?

eg

"moon medallions"

that is not a item name but some bots understand that (and some not)

Doesn't match, silently ignored.

but not by everyone - some of bots that can handle with it, will response

 

How do you force them to ignore it ?

 

I'm sorry, but I don't get the point of this statement.

Im trying to show nonsense of this.

 

There is no chance to make it works corectly, and many people will have lot of work with implementing this in many bots written in many languages, work for nothing.

If you (or they) don't feel it is worth it, don't implement it. The users have clearly indicated that they would like something like this, and I'm willing to add it to the code I maintain.

Im also add it to the code that I maintain but in different way, it will be respond when Im want to be respond and ignore thing that i want to ignore.

 

Much easer way is create one bot that will ask every other bots every hour with inv and wanted then puts collected data in its own database,

have celar syntax of commands avidable for players, can show help when sobody makes mistake and does not matter how type of matches thats it's author choose, it will be fair for everyone.

This has been suggested before. Many bots provide different pricing based on who they are taking to. Such as lower sale prices and higher buy prices to members of friendly guilds

What you imply is nonsense. there are no guild tags visible on the channel and I don't believe everyone remembers by heart every bot's guild.

[ttlanhil]

As a foreword, since it seems to have been ignored (and yes, check your bots logs, it is common):

- 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!".

Also:

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.

Hmm - as long as responses are sent via PM I don't think help messages will be a problem. However, responses should be limited to 1 line. Otherwise the user will get spammed with 5000 lines of "help" - with responses from various bots intermingled. Maybe the addition of a probability multiplier should be encouraged - ie a bot has a 10% chance of sending a help message (keep in mind that that virtually guarantees a response with 100 bots on-channel).

Even if it's one line per 10 bots, that's gonna be rather a few PMs. Probably better to have a few (for example, 4) 'nominated' bots that post every now and then (in this case, once an hour, properly offset) so that there are regular messages on the channel so that people know how to use the channel. Why not one bot? So that if one is missing then you only miss one example (so there's a half hour gap instead of 15min. Not great, but not that bad).

How long this should be, I don't know... Perhaps one message per 5min, even, would be appropriate. The bots would, of course, have to have reasonable uptimes, reliable timers (vakana used to use a delay for her timers, rather than clock time, so she wouldn't have been reliable before), and different Earth locations (no good having a dozen bots on the same machine doing this)

While regular expressions would be nice, they are far beyond the average user.I realize you are dead set against this and nothing I or anyone else says about it will change your mind. However, what makes you assume that this won't be documented in a more straight forward fashion for end users in some way? Right now the implementation is a proof of concept of the bot side of things. The user documentation will follow, assuming we get approval to put this on the production server.

Regexps are tricky to make safe, and well beyond the capability of most people. Limit it to substring matching, with possible acronyms (ie: MtE for matter essence; ME should not produce a match as it's indistinct), and fudging ("ring of X" vs "X ring"). Just because LabRat doesn't like the idea doesn't make his points any less valid. And how can you expect bot owners to develop and test things when you say you'll clarify exactly what the syntax and all means later?

Maybe you haven't worked on large projects before; but you need to plan your project before you jump in and start coding. Coding without plan leads to patchwork, feature creep, and ugly design.

Doesn't match, silently ignored.

What penalties will there be for bots that are better at matching? Assuming "HE" isn't defined as meaning "Health Essence", but a bot matches anyway, what are you gonna do? Nothing? Then bots will match it

This has been suggested before. Many bots provide different pricing based on who they are taking to. Such as lower sale prices and higher buy prices to members of friendly guilds. Any centralized listing service will not work correctly in such cases. And again we are back to the goodwill of a third party with such services. Nothing stops them from excluding bots or fudging results.

I'm glad you at least know this idea was bad

[Guest baneazaghal]

Well, if people refuse to follow the agreed standard, it's obvious it won't work the way it's supposed to. If I got it right, current rules in wiki disallow loose matching etc. If "we" manage to get "a blessing" from Entropy, then the bots might be forced to follow the rules, or not participate in the channel. Simple as that. If not, then this whole idea will probably be dropped.

Also, I don't think it's anyone's fault if a user can't spell right. I don't think they should be encouraged to keep misspelling.

[jamincollins]

- 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).

I believe this is mostly self explanatory. Either a match will be made and a single line response returned, or a match won't be made and nothing will be returned.

 

Even if it's one line per 10 bots, that's gonna be rather a few PMs. Probably better to have a few (for example, 4) 'nominated' bots that post every now and then (in this case, once an hour, properly offset) so that there are regular messages on the channel so that people know how to use the channel. Why not one bot? So that if one is missing then you only miss one example (so there's a half hour gap instead of 15min. Not great, but not that bad).

How long this should be, I don't know... Perhaps one message per 5min, even, would be appropriate. The bots would, of course, have to have reasonable uptimes, reliable timers (vakana used to use a delay for her timers, rather than clock time, so she wouldn't have been reliable before), and different Earth locations (no good having a dozen bots on the same machine doing this)

I agree that there needs to be some way to get the word out to the users about how to use the channel. However, before attempting to get the word out, we need to define what the word is that we are trying to get out.

 

Regexps are tricky to make safe, and well beyond the capability of most people. Limit it to substring matching, with possible acronyms (ie: MtE for matter essence; ME should not produce a match as it's indistinct), and fudging ("ring of X" vs "X ring").

I never intended to make regular expressions a requirement or even an option. I simply commented that they would be nice. Personally, I love having them, but I know they are well beyond the average user's ability. Only substring matching will be used.

 

What penalties will there be for bots that are better at matching? Assuming "HE" isn't defined as meaning "Health Essence", but a bot matches anyway, what are you gonna do? Nothing? Then bots will match it

Whether there is a penalty or not largely depends on whether the channel is an official channel or not. If the channel is official with a required command/response sent and bots deviate from it, I assume they could be banned from the channel or possibly from the game.

 

However, what real difference does it make if some bots want to try and extend their matching? If their matches are too broad they risk being added to a user's #ignore list. If their matches are more precise/helpful, then the other bots can benefit from them.

 

Just because LabRat doesn't like the idea doesn't make his points any less valid. And how can you expect bot owners to develop and test things when you say you'll clarify exactly what the syntax and all means later?

Maybe you haven't worked on large projects before; but you need to plan your project before you jump in and start coding. Coding without plan leads to patchwork, feature creep, and ugly design.

It may not make his points less valid, but as far as I can tell he's not willing to try and help find a solution.

 

Do I have all the answers? No. That is why I had hoped to discuss the command/response set with other bot owners and find a good fit for everyone willing to participate. There have been a few bot owners that have contributed to the discussions so far. If you would like to contribute and help refine the requirements, you're more than welcome.

 

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't see how coding a proof of concept for what we have thus far is hurting anyone. It's only on the test server. If the command/response set changes, the proof of concept will be updated, or if needed rewritten.

[LabRat]

Whether there is a penalty or not largely depends on whether the channel is an official channel or not. If the channel is official with a required command/response sent and bots deviate from it, I assume they could be banned from the channel or possibly from the game.

My bots won't be participating, so they won't return the required response. Should I expect that you would use that to justify a ban for them?

 

My bots won't be participating, but I host other bots and my views are nothing to do with the fact that *if* you get the go ahead from Entropy (have you approached him about this feature yet and elicited his response? If not I would definitely do so before you get too involved with this idea) I will still have to add the feature for those bots if the owners decide they want it.

 

My views on the matter are just that, if you go into a bank with a business plan that is poorly written or improperly conceived the bank will turn your idea down without hesitation. Go back to the documentation phase and come up with a clearer structure (I would suggest coming up with the player documentation first so the programmers have a more stable design base to work from) - and remember you are just a player and in absolutely no position to dictate what (if any) rules should be ingame with regard to channels.

 

/aislinn btw mods get discounts on my bots (when I remember to add them to the list ) to say thank you from me for their dedication to the game - isn't that payment enough?

[jamincollins]

Whether there is a penalty or not largely depends on whether the channel is an official channel or not. If the channel is official with a required command/response sent and bots deviate from it, I assume they could be banned from the channel or possibly from the game.

My bots won't be participating, so they won't return the required response. Should I expect that you would use that to justify a ban for them?

Why would bots not participating in the channel be bound by the channel's requirements? Have I suggested anything like this?

 

My bots won't be participating, but I host other bots and my views are nothing to do with the fact that *if* you get the go ahead from Entropy (have you approached him about this feature yet and elicited his response? If not I would definitely do so before you get too involved with this idea) I will still have to add the feature for those bots if the owners decide they want it.

Yes, I have contacted Entropy about the idea. His responses thus far seem quite promising.

 

As for other bot owners that you provide hosting for wanting the features, that is between you and them.

 

remember you are just a player and in absolutely no position to dictate what (if any) rules should be ingame with regard to channels.

I don't see documenting a full proposal (with functional proof of concept) as dictating anything, you are however entitled to your opinion.

[LabRat]

remember you are just a player and in absolutely no position to dictate what (if any) rules should be ingame with regard to channels.

I don't see documenting a full proposal (with functional proof of concept) as dictating anything, you are however entitled to your opinion.

Whether there is a penalty or not largely depends on whether the channel is an official channel or not. If the channel is official with a required command/response sent and bots deviate from it, I assume they could be banned from the channel or possibly from the game.

[jamincollins]

I assume they could be banned from the channel or possibly from the game.

Yes, as the portion you bolded indicates that is nothing more than an assumption. I am not dictating anything there.

[fyrrflyy]

remember you are just a player and in absolutely no position to dictate what (if any) rules should be ingame with regard to channels.

I don't see documenting a full proposal (with functional proof of concept) as dictating anything, you are however entitled to your opinion.

Whether there is a penalty or not largely depends on whether the channel is an official channel or not. If the channel is official with a required command/response sent and bots deviate from it, I assume they could be banned from the channel or possibly from the game.

Do you have anything promising to add to this thread? All I see if you shooting down the idea, criticizing blackthorne, and criticizing anyone who says something about it. If you don't have anything helpful to add to the thread, leave it alone.

Edited June 29, 2007 by fyrrflyy

[LabRat]

I am a bot owner and bot programmer.

 

I have *every* right to be on here, and even if I don't like the idea it will affect me because I will be changing my bot code to allow the bots I host on behalf of other players to work.

 

If I see a potential problem I will happily point it out and expect clarification, just the same as any other bot coder.

 

I am not the only person that has problems with the suggested specifications.

 

I believe a couple of posts back I suggested documenting the human side of it completely as opposed to the dev side of it, knowing what data to expect makes development a lot easier than jumping in now and having everything change later at the wiki owner's whim, and will make the transition a lot smoother for the end users when (if) the time comes.

 

The code change you are asking for is trivial, but the wiki needs a lot more information with regards to expected item names, map names etc before the work should be started on. Feel free to do a section with every ingame item and every alt name, maybe separated with |, and the same with map names.

 

Here's my contribution, feel free to copy and paste into the wiki:

Moon Medallion|moon medalion|moon med

[jamincollins]

I believe a couple of posts back I suggested documenting the human side of it completely as opposed to the dev side of it, knowing what data to expect makes development a lot easier than jumping in now and having everything change later at the wiki owner's whim, and will make the transition a lot smoother for the end users when (if) the time comes.

Here we disagree. Documenting the inputs, their behavior, and the outputs results in defining the human side of it. The human side is the input and output of the development side, or am I missing something?

 

Would you like the page of the wiki for this opened so that any registered user can make changes? I figured limiting the changes to that page until some discussion had occurred would be better, but if you'd rather more people be able to change it, I'm more than willing to give it a shot.

 

The code change you are asking for is trivial, but the wiki needs a lot more information with regards to expected item names, map names etc before the work should be started on. Feel free to do a section with every ingame item and every alt name, maybe separated with |, and the same with map names.

The item names are not something specific to the proposed channel. They are the full and actual names of items in the game as provided by the server. If you would like a statement to that effect on the wiki, I'll be glad to add it. The same is true of the maps. In fact the wiki indicates that map names will allow the abbreviations listed in the encyclopedia. Do you really see a need to duplicate this documentation?

 

Now, item abbreviations I can see a need for documenting. If someone would like to undertake this please let me know, otherwise I'll add it to my todo list.

[LabRat]

What I mean by the human documentation specifically is a guide for Mrs Josephine Newb to be able to use the channel, maybe a prototype for the forum post.

 

Why put that before the bot channel is in place and the bots are ready for it? Simple really, if you want the idea to succeed you need testers. You don't want to spend all the time on the test server explaining how it all works, if the testers know how to use the channel they can crack on with finding all the problems, breaking stuff and all the usual things that they love to do. Keep a complete log of everything sent on the channel and make it public so the devs can see what is sent, and to ensure that the guide is clear to everyone.

[appel]

I likw the idea of separate channels so I can request items from live players, not that I mind buying from bots, but would like to give live players a chance at making buy/sell first.

[LabRat]

wrong thread.

[jamincollins]

What I mean by the human documentation specifically is a guide for Mrs Josephine Newb to be able to use the channel, maybe a prototype for the forum post.

Isn't that simply the channel commands, and their various forms, possibly with examples?

@@chan inv air essence c1

@@chan inv air essence c2

@@chan inv air essence map:PV

@@chan inv air essence

If so, isn't this documented on the wiki currently, or am I still missing something?

[sithicus]

I think this is made less complicated by use of an 'official and centralized' acronym list instead of loose rules that everyone has to interpret (so that every bot will match FE to fire essence alone, because the acronym list translates FE to Fire Essence)?

 

I propose this to take the place of ANY custom pattern matching with regexp and whatever else. The acronym list will intercept common misspellings and otherwise players need to spell correctly.

 

This way, bot owners do not need to code much only incorporate this acronym list. You also fix the moon medallionS issue. Any uncommon misspellings that are not on the list would then result in no replies at all, and the channel mods would probably be able to say something about it.