What happend to those shop bots?

[franknozly]

I remember back a few years ago (when RO was still new) there used to be merchant bots that would sell your items and give you zeny for it. Do those still exist? If not, why did it get taken down? Why hasn't anyone made another one?

Just incase you still don't know what I mean, the bot would accept your trades, automatically calculate how much zeny to give you, confirm the trade, sell items to npc and gain a small % profit. Overtime, get super rich.

I mean I understand that running that bot and advertising yourself in a chatroom would probably get you banned in the game. But what about a private merchant bot for you and your friends to use? That makes sense right?

[sli]

shop.txt?

[franknozly]

That's just vending. Setting up your own shop. Completely different.

This is how the merchant bot used to work:
1) open chatroom
2) wait for trade
3) someone trade with you
4) initiate trade
5) wait for person to OK items to trade
6) buy items for (value + 20%)
7) accept trade
8) close trade
9) sell items at NPC instantly for 23% overcharge

You gain 3%, they gain 20%, win win situation. (all done by bot)

[Technology]

Hmm, the other way around of earning zenny.
(buying+OC instead of DC+vending)
I've never seen such thing before, but its not a bad concept.

Is that the exact order of events? If so, are all events on your list?
Because it looks kinda troublesome now:
- kore (merchant) must then know the value of items from a database
(because kore can't for example add the items to the NPC sell list to receive their value from the server if kore is only dealing the other char once)
- just 1 deal on the other hand is a neccesity to avoid scamming

btw, OC is 24%

[franknozly]

this is not a new concept, it's been around since the beginning of botting in iRO. Just no one has pursued it ever since modkore died I guess. And yes, there once was a table of items and their values in the old merchant bot files. Unfortunately ever since the old bot has fell into absolute silence, the database has all but been lost.

Now that you mention it, the chatroom title was usually 'OC 20% Trade Here!' or something like that.

[Technology]

Hmm modkore, then i suggest a full rewrite.
Alternatively for the database you could use the eAthena item_db.txt, and make a plugin that parses ID & sell price.
For the rest, i suggest an event/AI based plugin rather than a macro.

Now that i think of it, why does openkore create a new hash/array for each table file while thats not needed for all?
What about caching the "ID->data (ex. items.txt) file" 's data all together in 1 hash.

Code: Select all

%items = (
	# from items.txt
	2101 => {
		# from items.txt
		name => "Guard"
		# from itemslots.txt
		equiptype => "32"
		# from itemslotcounttable.txt
		slots => "0"
		# itemsdescriptions.txt
		description => "A square shield\nthat is small, yet\neffective in combat.\nItem Class: ^777777Shield^000000\nDefense Rate: ^7777773^000000\nWeight: ^77777730^000000\nJobs: ^777777All^000000"
		# externally added (by plugin) ex. itemsvalue.txt
		value => "250"
	},
	ID => {
		name =>
		equiptype =>
		# if any
		slots =>
		description =>
		# externally added (by plugin)
		value =>
		element =>
		...
	},
);

The benefits would be:
- less RAM usage, because kore doesn't need to cache the item ID's for every table file all over again.
- less different datacontainers (no more %items_lut, %itemsDesc_lut, ...)
- easy to add another parameter (value, element, ...)
- the way the data is stored on the HD doesn't need to be changed (only the way its stored in the cache)

The disadvantages would be:
- ?

other idea's:
- it could be made possible that you disable parsing of some files (ex. itemdescriptions.txt: who uses that anyways?)
- what about dynamicly loading some data (for data thats used rarily and not needed instantly like the item descriptions)
- what about just adding the value of the items that are marked for sale in items_control

[Krai]

many major servers are cracking down on merchant bots. they are fairly easy to spot/ban. however, i still see them all the time, so i am not exactly sure why you say they are missing.