Tired of competing against MuiQuasi bazaar sellers

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Deux, Apr 12, 2021.

  1. Hayzeus Augur

    My trader is in offline mode most of the time, but there are moments when I'm logged in for hours at a time. I may be chatting to old friends, but I'm not actively playing the game. This is a perfect time to have an online trader selling off items while also catching up on my screenships (friendships with people who I know only through the display screen).

    Forcing traders into offline trader mode only would have a negative impact on some facets of the social interactions involved in this game. And, as pointed out by several people, it wouldn't really stop the trader-bots from discovering when a price needs updating. *Maybe* a case could be made that it would make it less instant... ie... they'd sign in once every 30 minutes and then mass-update 10 prices instead of updating individual items one-at-a-time.

    Putting artificial limits on the number of daily price changes maybe would be better than forcing offline mode only, but as with any nuanced system, there would still be outliers that would be negatively impacted (without being the intended target of the process itself).

    The winning answer will eventually be the one that negates a majority of the targeted trader-bots while also minimizing the erroneous bycatch. However, there won't be any absolutes with whatever answer they devise (if they even bother to devise anything). They won't stop everyone, and they won't avoid negatively impacting all the innocent bycatch. It will be about how to stop many (not all) while frustrating the fewest innocent (not none)...

    I really liked the changes that made it so each trader only had ONE of each item show up on a buy/sell list vs having 10 separate buy-sell lines for a single item. That felt like a good step in the right direction.
    Corwyhn Lionheart likes this.
  2. Accipiter Old Timer


    It's childish, for sure.
  3. Accipiter Old Timer


    I'd be interested in hearing whether the program in question could actually do this. It wouldn't be difficult to write something like that but does that program do this now? Or can it only manipulate EQ once it's running? Not asking you specifically, just anyone who knows.
  4. Svann2 The Magnificent

    Is this a real program or just a made up name? I tried googling it and google only found this thread.
  5. Accipiter Old Timer

    Seems like you've been around long enough to know this, but I'll bite...

    We all know that the program in question has the letters M and Q and the number 2 in its abbreviation. Some folks use MacaroniQuest or some variant because the forum software filters out the name of two of these programs. So if I type "" the forum filter will strip out M, Q, and 2 and you are only going to see "".
  6. Svann2 The Magnificent

    Ok, Ive heard of macaroni lots of times but never saw this alias and assumed it was a different program. In all the years and all the complaint threads, I never heard it could do bazaar crap until just now.
  7. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    In my experience, most lower-level tradeskill mats that are listed on /barter, are listed for values lower than vendor prices.
    There are exceptions ofc.

    It is pretty obvious that the /barter folks aren't trying to "save" the tradeskilling market, otherwise they would pay more than a vendor.

    Edit: Maybe they actually think they are listing the the prices at vendor-prices, but forget to take charisma-bonus into account? :confused: if the bot-software just takes the prices directly from lucy...
  8. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    Could be. I don't recall much stuff other then blue diamonds being bought for less then vendor as a lot of things have next to no vendor value. That being said a person will always do better selling stuff directly off their own trader if they have the inclination to do so and enough of an item or valuable enough item to make it worth the effort.

    And I agree folks are not trying to save anything they just want to make some coinage.

    When I have sold stuff I have sometimes had to raise my prices significantly just to prevent some one from buying it and jacking the price up even more. I have always preferred to price to sell pretty fast but some guysbuy all of an item and put it at insane prices. I have no problems pricing things cheap for the end consumer but not for a reseller who hikes things up to crazy levels.

    And while I hate folks buying out items to sell at crazy levels its their choice and I can't claim its wrong to do it. The rules and mechanics let it be done so it is fair game. I just don't like it personally and try to avoid feeding those that do it.

    Those using pricing software though... I think that is wrong.
  9. Xatt Journeyman

    The obvious solution is to allow us to levitate the abusers and push them off the trading platforms!
    Tatanka likes this.
  10. Jhenna_BB Proudly Prestigious Pointed Purveyor of Pincusions

    I mean, it seems obvious they would have to let you set prices before going offline.
  11. Nennius Curmudgeon

    Like voting them "off the island"? Amusing, but far too easy for me to abuse.
  12. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    My point is some of us like to run traders online. And I personally know a couple folks who play it as the main part of their game. Just saying don't punish those folks do to cheaters.
    Andarriel likes this.
  13. Andarriel Everquest player since 2000

    Yea i enjoy the trader thing lol that and overseer. I got burnt out on my ranger doing hunters can thank south karana and jaggedpine forest for that. I just wish they gives us bigger trader bags!

    Andarriel
    Corwyhn Lionheart and Svann2 like this.
  14. Svann2 The Magnificent

    What do your friends say about the bot traders? Big problem or no? Is it interfering with their enjoyment of the trading game?
  15. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    On xegony it doesn't seem to be a big issue right now and I am not aware of any bot baz folks. But they hate them that is for sure. I think it is worse when you actually put a lot of time on your trader playing the baz game and others are using software that puts to shame all your hard work.

    Did see one a couple years ago making all the mistakes newbie ones do then he must have stopped playing. Like others I made some money off his auto pricing. There was a guy I was watching because all his prices had a gold piece added to it which seems a lot of work when manually updating prices. If he is using it he isn't doing frequent updates.

    I just wish there was a way to get rid of the bazbots without ruining the baz for anyone.

    Any sort of solution shouldn't be a throw the baby out with the bathwater sort of thing. In my opinion.

    Software detection has the possibility of false positives or at least having folks who will claim that.

    Hard to find ways that will slow down or stop the bazbots while not making life a pain in the butt for everyone else. Limiting how many price changes you can do a day or per hour or what not also limits real players.

    Maybe software detection and Bazaar privileges bans. False positives get appealed and reviewed and privileges restored. Not idea by any means And I have no idea how the software updates prices and whether that can be detected by how fast prices get updated or something along those lines. But just a baz ban not a actual account ban isnt as bad unless you are the person it happens to of course.
    Svann2 likes this.
  16. Blastoff Augur

    I did not know that this auto undercut was a thing in Everquest. After years of updating prices by hand and giving myself carpal tunnel I thought the bazaar was just full of no lifers who hated their wrist! After reading this post and realizing why they were just so much more dedicated to undercutting than me I started digging into how the ini was setup a bit and I hope this doesn't get me in trouble but i wrote a really really basic program to modify the text file that stores barter prices. All it does raise the price of all items by a set amount based on the value of the item. It does not scan the bazaar in any way to compare prices to others and will not work while your character is in game or even at character select. You need to log out all the way or the changes to the .ini will just get overwritten by eq. This is a really simple program and way less invasive than even something like [Unmentioned 3rd Party Software] which is openly accepted. I have posted it on github and am happy to take it down if any developers have a problem with it. I hope this doesn't get me in trouble but it is silly that I should get carpal tunnel while other people have autmated undercutting.

    https://github.com/nitroplr/BazaarPriceUpdater

    This is the repo. The project is literally only modifying the BART_charname_servername.ini for you. Start by installing a Java IDE and get that setup. Then just run this project and hit the button to modify your toon's buyer prices. The only bit of code you have to change is to update the buyerFilePath variable (in src/GUI) with your own filepath to your character's BART_charname_server.ini. Enjoy. If the devs don't eat me I may add a seller version this summer when I have more time and maybe find a way to make it easier to use.
  17. FrozenWater Augur

    When people are writing programs to combat other programs. This is how Skynet starts sheeple!! WAKE UP.

    P.S. I really admire the full circle of 3rd party programs we have created. It's ... beautiful, and without any sense of irony. Truly, beautiful :)
    Warpeace likes this.
  18. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    Or, just ignore it all. I just put stuff up, and it sells when it sells. I've had items, unchanged in price for months, not move at all. Then finally, a sale, and then 5 more sell over the next week at that same unchanged price.

    I can only see doing this if playing Bazaar is your main EQ pursuit.
    Annastasya and CatsPaws like this.
  19. Blastoff Augur

    Just added seller functionality. Keep in mind these are both just carpet bomb undercut everything buttons to make updating traders easy. What this code is doing is similar to changing your own map files. It will only work while offline all the way. The entire program is about 130 lines of code and could probably be condensed into 70 if I got rid of the gui and cleaned it up a bit.

    The Raise Buyer Prices button currently raises all prices under 50 by 1 plat, under 100 by 2 plat, under 400 by 4 plat, and under 1.8 mil by 5 plat(just to avoid attempting to go over 2 mil). The Lower Seller Prices button currently lowers all item prices less than 1,999,999 and greater than 10 by 1%. Keep in mind this will lower all prices your character has a price set for, including ones that have already sold.

    Edit: These may get buggy with gold/silver/copper in your auctions. I can't log in to see what effect those values have on the parts of the log files I'm working with are atm.

    Edit: I just got in to test this, it will work just fine as written but will ignore and zero out any gold/silver/copper values.
  20. Gremin Augur

    So if the quasi sellers are that bad, stand next to em. Go into trade mode, and put the price super low and see if they bite. If they do, immediately drop trader and buy the item. If not, just put the item back at the price you care to have it at. Rinse and repeat for all your items.