Acelon Report post Posted September 13, 2011 Hey guys! So when I came back to EL a couple days ago, I realized that gossip was gone. I heard that the overall majority of the EL population was pretty upset we lost such a great community aid, so I took it upon myself to e-mail Scafativ (gossip's creator and host). He's going to get her back online, but he needs some help doing so.. this was the reply he sent me! What I will do is this: I will get her fired up this weekend, but you can help me. I understand that some of her functionality is broken, due to changes in game and Learner's APIs. If you can help me test her, and identify what isn't working, I will take the time to fix up what's broken. If you don't have time, perhaps you can scrape up a few volunteers? Will that work? I will not be able to be on much this weekend, but I was hoping some of you would be able to volunteer testing her! Post here if you are able to. I'm not sure what time he will be on this weekend, but I can send him the link to this thread, so he has a general idea of who he can PM once he logs on. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
The_Piper Report post Posted September 13, 2011 I will not be able to be on much this weekend, but I was hoping some of you would be able to volunteer testing her! Post here if you are able to. I'm not sure what time he will be on this weekend, but I can send him the link to this thread, so he has a general idea of who he can PM once he logs on. He should check how and from where Gossip reads the players online informations. Gossip wasnt delivering mails anymore, until she saw you or you PM'med her. The time when a player is/was online was mostly wrong. Maybe some other stuff too, which needs the information if/when a player is/was online, is affected too. Piper Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jinxie Report post Posted September 13, 2011 I can be online most all weekend and would be happy to help test. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nathanstenzel Report post Posted September 13, 2011 Hmmm....if Gossip is back online and does not act like she drank too much wine then we will have 2 bots that do that stuff. Mercator is the other bot. Some redundancy is nice in some services, so that might work out. Maybe Mercator and Gossip can even go out on dates sometime since they have a common interest. lol Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Learner Report post Posted September 14, 2011 Hmmm....if Gossip is back online and does not act like she drank too much wine then we will have 2 bots that do that stuff. Mercator is the other bot. Some redundancy is nice in some services, so that might work out. Maybe Mercator and Gossip can even go out on dates sometime since they have a common interest. lol The last thing we want is a pack of little gossips running around! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Acelon Report post Posted September 14, 2011 Mercator can't even compare to gossip really. I've tried using it, and it's just not as user friendly. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Raistlin Report post Posted September 14, 2011 Mercator can't even compare to gossip really. I've tried using it, and it's just not as user friendly. I think you should try out mercators functions a bit more, actually I think he does a comparable or even better job. I talked to VinoVeritas constantly to improve mercator and so far he did great. He was open to improvements and suggestions and all I can say is, I don't miss gossip anymore because I have a substitute for her. Can't understand what's not 'user friendly' about mercator. Most ppl only use gossips main functions (/tell or /about), mercator uses the same command, simple as that. And I love his /tellme function Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
korrode Report post Posted September 14, 2011 I thank Scafativ for the years of service Gossip gave to EL, however. 1. Mercator is just fine. 2. Hows about since Scafativ doesn't play anymore, he just gives Gossip's source code over to a capable coder that does still play. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Raistlin Report post Posted September 14, 2011 I thank Scafativ for the years of service Gossip gave to EL, however. What Korrode said, gossip was fine for the time we had her, so ty scafativ for hosting her that long Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
circe Report post Posted September 14, 2011 Gossip did a great job when she was in game & was missed by all when she had her break down, then came along Mercator, who more or less did the same as Gossip except for 'admire' which was the one thing i saw most ppl moan about. Scafativ & VinoVeritas have both provided a service for all of ELers & at no benefit or gain for themselves. Come on people, join in with me here.. Thank You to you both Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TuDaeFadda Report post Posted September 14, 2011 The only small disadvantage at which I find Mercator in comparison to Gossip is that he's at PL docks, which is a less-frequented position than the WS docks, at least by new players. Apart from that, Mercator's responses are more human-readable I think. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Krrick Report post Posted September 14, 2011 Thank you to both Scafativ & VinoVeritas. I won't be around much this weekend, but I will be happy to test if I am. I still miss Gossip eventho I use Mercator and Adarah a lot. And btw, Adarah also does both about and tell functions. I like her layout on about better. She only keeps tells around for a week and is a little slow in delivering them, but it's another option. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
learg Report post Posted September 14, 2011 I'm glad to hear that Gossip will be back. It's good that we will have 2 bots. When first is "broken" we can use second. I figured that Mercator seems to be overloaded sometimes. Sometimes I don't recive the response from him. Anyway, thanks for your time and effort spent in programming these bots. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Alddra Report post Posted September 14, 2011 Thank you Scafativ for the long years of service you have provided through your "gossip" bot. I have had lots of fun using the functions. If need be, I can help test it this weekend. Another thank you goes out to VinoVeritas for his replacement to "gossip" with his bot "Mercator". I for one would like to see both bots working. As learg has pointed out, it would be nice to have a choice. Thank you both for your service to the EL community with your bots Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jaraxle Report post Posted September 14, 2011 I too will be pleased to see Gossip back \o/ and Scaf pop in to say hello Jaraxle Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Vanyel Report post Posted September 14, 2011 Never liked gossip and due to some mess around it I stopped using its functionalities at all. I do not care if it is back or not as long as I'm not bugged by it and by default, this or any other bot, leaves me in peace. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
van_binsbergen Report post Posted September 14, 2011 Ill help to test this weekend. love to bring her back.. Will send Vanyel secret admires all the time =) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lyndy Report post Posted September 14, 2011 I will help if i can. I like Mercator but already is unreliable - not answering for a long time, or sometimes not at all. I think two using same functions is a good idea - for when a server goes down? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nathanstenzel Report post Posted September 15, 2011 It seems a number of us agree. Both bots have brought alot to the game. I thank their makers for their contribution. Gossip and Mercator are great bots when working correctly. Gossip started having issues where she would not reply or would be down and now Mercator is having minor issues of his own. I wish their makers luck finding the reason for this and correcting it. I wonder if it had to do with the database or the disk drive not being periodically maintained or if it might have been something to do with a memory leak in a program. If the bots had to "sleep" for something like an hour or so a week for maintenance, I think most would agree that such a thing would be acceptable (and perhaps amusing) as long as the bot functioned normally when it was not. Can you imagine pm'ing a bot and getting "ZZzzzzzzzzzZZZZzzzz" as a reply? hahaha Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
vinoveritas Report post Posted September 15, 2011 (edited) First of all Mercator was thought first of formost as Tradebot not as Community bot, his Gossip functions came into play because gossip stopped working, and i hated that. So i did something against it. Mercator itself while i belive he is as userfriendly as gossip, is far from failurefree, this has to do with some rashed in jobs that left him with some bugs that seams to only come into play on the main server. So while Mercator is now free from losing Data like tell messages and so on, he is prone to stop working until i restart it. simplest solution is to contact me, i have the game running a lot almost all the time while i work so if you do not get a response from him talk to me and i restart him (not best solution but a workable especially since it cut into my debugging of his problems if i get notice of him not working probably at the times when it happens. That said if i see gossip up and running and it seams that he runs ok i will shutdown some of mercators features, in regard of doing an overhaul in his gossip features before deciding if i put them back on. they would be back on if Scafativ does decide not to put Gossip back up. I like to see some redudances in game, some features do not need to be on the double so to speak. So i for one like to see Gossip back in game. As for Mercators place to be worth then gossips, i like to think its almost as good as gossip place as the Tutorial sends lots of new players to portland at a early state of their playing. And Mercator does not need to see players to get their name. The only thing he really gets from seeing chars is their sex and race. Edit : I am constantly trying to see to that mercator is getting better and better as the times go on. So if you have some Problems with usability. commandnames that you think are better ... Feel free to contact me i am not going to bites anyone head because he has something to say about mercator. or in that respect for the Market search http://rip-el.forumo...etsearch-h1.htm that i am maintaining. If you tell me about what is wrong with the services that i programmed for el, its the first step for it to get better. If you have wishes thoughts and comments about them they are welcome as well.else i would have to guess what people want, and my guesses could be the complete opposite. and as mercator is formost a tradebot he allways accepts gc donations :(not that i would ask anyone to donate anything to him his services are free after all) Edited September 15, 2011 by vinoveritas Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ednovel Report post Posted September 22, 2011 Great job by both of you!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hussam Report post Posted October 5, 2011 looks like she's online now. but she still doesn't know if someone is online unless they are standing beside her. I'm online now but [PM from Gossip: hussam was last logged on about 5 hours ago. ] Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Acelon Report post Posted October 5, 2011 looks like she's online now. but she still doesn't know if someone is online unless they are standing beside her. I'm online now but [PM from Gossip: hussam was last logged on about 5 hours ago. ] Yup, scafativ is aware of this. The fix should be coming soon Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
abel Report post Posted October 6, 2011 Thx for bringing Gossip back Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
vinoveritas Report post Posted October 10, 2011 (edited) Nice having Gossip back. but i still will keep on developing Mercator further, and keep all services he offers running, as i feel that there is place for both.bots, While i call the services Mercator offers next to his trade duties Gossip features, they are by now all a bit different then how gossip offeres them Giving People the choice which they like better. Edited October 10, 2011 by vinoveritas Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
