Blitzbot

[Vlain]

The difference is not everyone has a toon in range to blitz their own nanos, nor does everyone know how to get clicksaver running properly, but everyone that has AI can buy nanos from the shops whenever they choose.

Again, I'm not trying to say 'omg don't implement this cause its useless'. I think the idea has merit. I'm just trying to understand why someone would choose this option when easier/cheaper methods are available.

If the ones doing the hiring are froobs I can understand that since they don't have access to search terminals, otherwise I don't get it.

[Breaks]

I'm just trying to understand why someone would choose this option when easier/cheaper methods are available.

They wouldn't. People hire blitzers to get them obscure items no one keeps stocked, or to gather and bring them a collection of goods while they continue to play the game more or less uninterrupted. Many times i'm blitzing a nano for someone, the gms is the first place i look. It;s easier for most people to pay a fixer to run around than it is for them to run around themselves, especially when speed counts.

[Vlain]

They wouldn't. People hire blitzers to get them obscure items no one keeps stocked, or to gather and bring them a collection of goods while they continue to play the game more or less uninterrupted. Many times i'm blitzing a nano for someone, the gms is the first place i look. It;s easier for most people to pay a fixer to run around than it is for them to run around themselves, especially when speed counts.

Ah, kk...that's all I was getting at. I can see where having a bot would help streamline your services in the situations you listed. From my own experience I usually either blitz my own stuff or by from player shops, so I was having difficulty imagining where the demand for blitz services was coming from.

[FixerPorta]

It's a difficult question to answer to tell you the truth, but as I said, people hire blitzers constantly now without a bot, so a bot would just make it even easier. To tell you the truth Vlain, I can't understand why someone would hire a blitzer to get them anything with the exception of 250+ VE scopes (because only fixers can blitz these) because as I said in this thread earlier, I have toons to cover all ranges (not all fixers), and can get things for myself.... but they DO.

Some of the reasons may be, but are not limited to: 1) Blitzable items/nanos are not popular choices for people to put in their player shops. 2) Some people do not have AI expansion. 3) It's much easier to order 20 nanos from 1 person than go to 20 player shops. 4) From my experience, most of my customers use blitzing services as a time saver, not a bargain hunt (meaning they have credits to spare.

I once filled an order for every rollable trader nano in the game for someone. Some of these could have been purchased in nano shops for as low as 10k (maybe lower). Sometimes people want everything from one source, and are willing to pay for it, and sometimes = often.

[Breaks]

In AO just as elsewhere in life, people are willing to pay a premium for convenience.

This is rather convenient for fixers as well, as not only are we the fastest prof at getting to/from missions, but we also are one of the best profs at surviving large numbers of high ql RK mobs.

Anyone can roll QL250 custom implants, but not all professions can easily survive the mobs until close to 220, and no one else can do it as efficiently as we do. I once built myself a set of ql250 Agi/Sense implants (5xbasic imp, 6x clusters = 11 missions) in under 2 hours from when I began rolling.

Particularly for big projects, like every rollable trader nano, or assembling ql250 implants, people are willing to pay just for not having to do it themselves. They can grind SK or play an alt, or go to dinner, or whatever they want, while you do the dirty work for them.

[Emergenzee]

in an ideal world this would be the equivalent of unionizing blitzing, setting a standard fee for everything.

But really, in AO there's no minimum wage at which a character can survive - there's no rent to pay, no food to buy, no clothes that are mandatory. So someone would just underbid the bot.

The blitzbot should just be a bot where you PM the bot with item + QL "110 Nano Charged Rifle" then the bot would return the user a list of online blitzers who are in level range to blitz. Said user would then PM the selected blitzer from the list and ask him if he could blitz the item. Blitzer posts his rates and if user agrees both setup a rough time to make the purchase "Same time tommorrw?". Said blitzer then blitz's "110 nano charged rifle" and they both meet up at ICC shuttleport the next day and everyone is happy.

[Ludthen]

Nice to see people dabating the bot for and against, just the kind of replies I was hoping for.

Yes its true, people can usually buy the items from GMS and other players. Before I rolled a fixer, this is generally how I got my items.

My main reason for this idea was as mentioned I saw people requesting items on trade channel. Not everyone uses GMS, or knows blitzers as this highlighted to me. Also, I spend most of my time in Adonis now, or doing dynas, so I don't even see the trade channel. I could be missing out on some nice well paid blitzes.

Sometimes I'm just doing missions in SL, or in dungeons looking for my next gems or what have you, so if bot let me know there was a job, a few casts of nanos and I'm back in rk, blitz it, warp back to adonis and carry on. I don't have to spend time waiting on RK on the off chance someone wants an item blitzed.

Time is money as they say, and while I can spend hours waiting about in RK cities I'd rather be off doing something more fun, and I feel this would make things that little bit better for those of us who do spend time outside of trade channel vicinity.

[EDIT]

How the bot actually does what it does isn't a big concern at the minute really, its open to debate and the more input about how it does what it does it the better, its the idea and the hope that enough people like it, and a programmer to develop it I'm aiming for. Once we have that established then everyones views about how it does what it does is needed and greatly appreciated.

If we can't agree on one method, not a problem as mentioned by another poster, we could implement a few for people who like one way, but not another, providing a programmer can do it of course

[Xfinity]

Once you manage to work out the way it's supposed to work, programming is not that big of a problem. Especially if you use other bots as base (Basicbot, for example) it's just a matter of defining trigger words.

I'd say it's harder to get a place to host the bot :P

But if you work it out, I can give a hand with the programming if the bot will be PHP-based (AOChat makes things easier).

[Ludthen]

Many thanks for the offer of help Xfinity, any bot you want to work on will be good.

Going from the responses, there are a few options that should definately be in the bot.


Client Side

Rollable List - tied to the Master Blitz list. Command !list would reply with a list of groups, broken down in the same way the Master Blitz list is seems appropriate, nanos, weapons, armor etc. Each link would send a list of items in each category.

Online - Show all blitzers currently online. !online I guess would work,would reply with Blitzers name, level, blitz range, and available or busy.

Specific Quality Level - Shows all blitzers who are online that can roll a specific QL item. !ql XXX could be used. Possibly with a 5% margin if noone is on that does exact QL for the likes of armor etc for people who will accept slightly different. Would have to state clearly in the case of margin what the QL hit would be.

Specific Profession - For a more specific search, !nano profession would reply with a list of the profession specific nanos only. Not sure how much call there is for specific profession armor/weapons, could be added in case there is a need for it. !armor profession etc.


Blitzer side.

Online - Let bot list them as available, !logon could be used if this doesnt conflict with the current one bots support, maybe be able to remove or edit it. !offline to remove yourself from the list.

Status - !free and !busy self explanitory really.

Range - In case some blitzers don't fell confident to blitz their maximum range or whatever, and don't want pestered to do higher, !max could be used to set maximum they will accept.


Those seem to cover what some people agree on and would like to see in the bot, and will be the main functions that need to be in bot. If we could get the bot to do these things, then I think we would have something to work with to test how people take to the Idea in game.

Some of the other things mentioned in the post, like for people requesting multiple items to be added to a 'to do' list, and blitzers just wanting to pull jobs off this list could be added, but not a priority, just an extra feature maybe.

If anyone would like to give their opinions on the functions as they now stand in this post, or if I missed one you think is vital, please feel free to comment, both for and against if need be of course, your input is greatly appreciated.

[EDIT]

!help is needed too I guess to show functions etc until people get the hang of the bot, and any new functions that may be added.

[Xfinity]

Well it would be easiest to use the standard org bot but take all the commands away except the ones needed so they don't conflict.

Other than that it's just a matter of finding an account for the bot to run and a host to run it.