Mallbot

macman104

Member
[quote author=Kunundrum link=topic=207.msg1030#msg1030 date=1149936733]
Oooohhhh... does anyone here write mallbots???
[/quote]NO!!!! For starters, mafia does not have mallbotting capabilities. Not too mention that while I'm sure hola's aware that there may be someone using the program that he's put many hours into developing for a mallbot, he isn't staunchly against it. For you to come and ask for someone to write one for you with his program is a major slap in the face. Yes, this is a harsh post, but it deserves it.
 
Actually I disagree with Macman104. The request doesn't deserve such a harsh response.

Holatuwol never intended this program to be used as a mallbot, and even if you did find a way to run a mallbot, the results would be the same as the well known CarlsonandDaddy. His account got disabled for it after he put quite a bit of time into making large sums of meat.

Mallbots are not liked by the masses, and tend to end up on players ignore list which render them less effective.

Something that I noticed is that when carlsonanddaddy got disabled, kols economy became more unstable than it was before. Prices started falling very fast. Everyone hated the mallbot, but they also wanted to sell their item as fast as possible so they undercut someone else. Mallbots actually gave the person who wanted it their meat fast. On the down side, if someone just wanted to give someone else a good deal, the mallbot would jump in and snag it.

Oh and 1 more thing. what about that Mr. Accessory you sold for 450,000 meaning to sell for 4,500,000 well carlsonanddaddy would give it back via a trade later if you sent him a kmail saying you had mispriced it. chances were pretty high that he would have been the one to get it too.

All that said, I am actually neutral in oppinion about mallbots. It's all based on who is running the mallbot. Their personal ethics. I am probably one of the very few though.
 

macman104

Member
[quote author=efilnikufecin link=topic=207.msg1035#msg1035 date=1149965193]All that said, I am actually neutral in oppinion about mallbots. It's all based on who is running the mallbot. Their personal ethics. I am probably one of the very few though.
[/quote]Oh, please don't confuse my harsh words with my personal feelings towards mallbots. I personally couldn't give a rats ass who is running a mallbot, because it's not just mallbots that snatch up mispriced items. My response was not out of personal disgust for mallbots, it was because Holatuwol is against his program being used for mallbotting purposes, and to ask for someone to write something for his program is what I found terribly disrespectful, hope that makes more sense.
 
[quote author=macman104 link=topic=207.msg1038#msg1038 date=1149976417]
Oh, please don't confuse my harsh words with my personal feelings towards mallbots. I personally couldn't give a rats ass who is running a mallbot, because it's not just mallbots that snatch up mispriced items. My response was not out of personal disgust for mallbots, it was because Holatuwol is against his program being used for mallbotting purposes, and to ask for someone to write something for his program is what I found terribly disrespectful, hope that makes more sense.
[/quote]

That is understandable, however we must always remember that the person posting the request may not know that Holatuwol feels so strongly about that. Now that he/she knows, if the issue is pushed then would be the time to be more harsh in our response.
 
[quote author=Alexander Daychilde link=topic=207.msg1044#msg1044 date=1150001093]
And offhand, whereas I can't recall a specific quote from Jick, I know he doesn't like things that cause extra hits on the servers for stupid reasons (e.g., mallbots - although it was shorebots that caused the memorable quote ;-) )....
[/quote]
Errm, maybe this post: http://kolmafia.us/index.php/topic,208.0.html would be a great place for a similar response?
 

macman104

Member
[quote author=Alexander Daychilde link=topic=207.msg1044#msg1044 date=1150001093]However, I sincerely hope we continue to develop a polite community here. On this particular topic, it is most definitely possible for someone to think a mallbot is a good idea (which, to the player who hasn't pondered the consequences or who doesn't care about them, it's a *great* idea, of course). So we must educate them.

If we gracefully explain the reasons, there's always a chance they might understand, and agree. And certainly more chance they will not feel like a criminal and hate the community. Always possible someone who would have become a pillar of the community gets run off by sharp words... There's more to being helpful than merely being right.

...I feel strongly about mallbots, so I find it difficult to try and censor macman104's reaction... But I would hope tempers can be tempered (pun intended)... ;D
[/quote]Understood, apologies to Kun for coming on so harsh.

[quote author=efilnikufecin link=topic=207.msg1039#msg1039 date=1149977666]
That is understandable, however we must always remember that the person posting the request may not know that Holatuwol feels so strongly about that. Now that he/she knows, if the issue is pushed then would be the time to be more harsh in our response.[/quote]I'll save my more tempermental posts for those who fail to grasp something the second time around ;)
 

Nightmist

Member
[quote author=Alexander Daychilde link=topic=207.msg1048#msg1048 date=1150005530]
If there is a hit on the servers, I suspect Jick will do things differently next time. ;D
[/quote]

Haha it seems it did, the poking of the eye no longer occurs.
 

Kunundrum

New member
NO! NO! NO! I meant a mallbot that buys the underpriced items then sells them back! I don't want to scam people out of their stuff!. lol.
 

macman104

Member
[quote author=Kunundrum link=topic=207.msg1052#msg1052 date=1150021884]NO! NO! NO! I meant a mallbot that buys the underpriced items then sells them back! I don't want to scam people out of their stuff!. lol.[/quote]Sorry, it's stilll not gonna happen here at least, because the bot you are looking for will still have the base workings of a mallbot. Even if it is returning items to people, that little feature of the bot would be easy enough to remove, and then you're left with a mallbot that does not return items to people. But it's all academic, because what you're looking for is not even possible with mafia unless you modified some of the files in the mafia program, you are honestly better off learning some perl and coding it yourself. It's nice that you want to help out, but you're not gonna find the solution here, because it's not really possible. Also, unless you code your bot carefully, you face getting in trouble with Jick and Co. For example, someone had a bot that didn't even buy things from the mall, just searched to pull prices, however, the bot they had made was coded poorly, and used up 3% of the available bandwidth, and was promptly disabled. Good luck.
 
Because he has used the words "potential for abuse" many times, I would say that Holatuwol is actually not opposed to the idea of a mallbot entirely. I can say with some certainty though that he is opposed to the abusive forms.

I will point out that there is antimallbot, and though limited in scope that bot does exactly what you are referring to. I also know that it was discussed with Jick & co. before antimallbot was set up. Jick gave his blessings but included stipulations on how many times the bot could hit the servers.

The display case database (which I personally love) was looking at everyone's display case, and building it's own database from the info it obtained for public view. Jick liked the idea so much that he had his developers write up some scripts which epeterso could run which bypassed kol's scripts server completely, and hit only the database server. If someone who wanted to abuse the ability got ahold of those scripts, the results could be tremendous. Possibly even devastating. some information just does not belong freely distributed.
 

Tirian

Member
[quote author=efilnikufecin link=topic=207.msg1061#msg1061 date=1150052309]
Because he has used the words "potential for abuse" many times, I would say that Holatuwol is actually not opposed to the idea of a mallbot entirely. I can say with some certainty though that he is opposed to the abusive forms.[/quote]

In a product with KoLmafia's scope, it would be hard to draw the line between functionality that would satisfy ethical players and functionality that would be abused by haxxors. To be specific, I think that the line is drawn as well now as it could be: if you want to buy something, KoLmafia will buy the cheapest one without pre-checking to see how expensive it is. If you can't stomach hitting the mall at a bad moment before buying those chow meins (as it would be if you think that the mall is the game), then you'll have to check by hand.

If you want a mallbot, you can either write your own or use Fnord7's tools, which are much more adaptable to the task. I'll just come out and confess that I wrote a mallbot for Neopets back in the day, and it really isn't that hard to do, and with the KolBot module I should think that the majority of even that work is done for you. Heck, there might be someone over in that neighborhood who would sell you a bot for enough meat.
 
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