Wonder how accurate this is ...

[Omni]

Re: Wonder how accurate this is ...

i guess you can have a bot sitting at ah and it periodically checks items all day. then it will check history and since now when you click on a history listing, it displays a full description of the transaction, which then can be parsed since its in the chat log. though, having an account on just to do that would be sorta lame no?

[fleckz]

Re: Wonder how accurate this is ...

i guess you can have a bot sitting at ah and it periodically checks items all day. then it will check history and since now when you click on a history listing, it displays a full description of the transaction, which then can be parsed since its in the chat log. though, having an account on just to do that would be sorta lame no?

I don't have a bot sitting there all day to check the AH. I haven't scanned the AH in awhile. I don't have a seperate account to check the AH, I use my own. To answer your question, no, I don't think it's lame to do that.

-fleckz

[Aeni]

Re: Wonder how accurate this is ...

i guess you can have a bot sitting at ah and it periodically checks items all day. then it will check history and since now when you click on a history listing, it displays a full description of the transaction, which then can be parsed since its in the chat log. though, having an account on just to do that would be sorta lame no?

Not to mention the lag it creates. It's like how Auctioneer in WOW works, where it methodically checks every listing and every category and goes down the line and creates a history. In FFXI, there is no need to create a history per se, since there's a running list already. It's safe to say that for general purposes, only 10% of all available items on the AH move with such liquidity that an accurate reading is hardly necessary unless someone is studying minute details on all transactions. In other words, about roughly 95-99% of all items on the AH can have their history checked only once every two hours or so and still produce a meaningful reading.

But, even with that, you're limited to only about 20 content IDs per account. There's 3 major cities and Jeuno. That's already 4 IDs per server dedicated to checking the price. Add in the list of items (which number in the hundreds if not thousands) and you're talking about having many accounts, possibly handled by a server, processing and retrieving data and storing it away into some gargantuan SQL data. To me, there really is no need outside of a scientific purpose for anyone to undertake this on their own (and possibly cause disruption in the game) I fail to see how it will be beneficial to release a personal auctioneer as a Windower Addon without creating a huge lag akin to a DDoS attack ... especially if 15 or more players are simultaneously "tagging" the same AH ...

[Macht]

Re: Wonder how accurate this is ...

Aeni,

I'm aware that the data on there is not real time, that was obvious from checking items on it that are usually 10-30 sec. sale items and seeing that thier last sale was like a month ago. Idea wise what you suggest is intresting, technology wise is unlikely. There is so much data going around in the game that to have something running at real time on the internet for something like an AH is way to much.

Running a camera object to pass through various zones is extreemly less taxing on the system then having it access and query out results that could easily go over 500,000 records. I see this doing something similar to like my companies Mail Order area were quering data from them takes a whole freaking day while other areas only take 15 seconds.

It's a great idea but with current technology I have extreem doubts of it application. This is unfortunatly what hackers love to ignore. Even if SE made an access to do like suggested, there will be someone who doesn't like it and will still attempt to hack it to get it their way instead of letting the original designer do it. It's that damn behavior I don't like, that's the behavior being examplified by that site.

Either way even if you made a bot and just parssed the data from the logs it captures. The bot is still hammering the AH increasing its work load needlessly and is still nearly as bad as a DDoS attack.

[Omni]

Re: Wonder how accurate this is ...

I don't have a bot sitting there all day to check the AH. I haven't scanned the AH in awhile. I don't have a seperate account to check the AH, I use my own. To answer your question, no, I don't think it's lame to do that.

-fleckz

i think you misunderstood me. i meant would it be lame if someone were to have an account that was dedicated to checking it. not if you did it or not :p

[fleckz]

Re: Wonder how accurate this is ...

Not to mention the lag it creates. It's like how Auctioneer in WOW works, where it methodically checks every listing and every category and goes down the line and creates a history. In FFXI, there is no need to create a history per se, since there's a running list already. It's safe to say that for general purposes, only 10% of all available items on the AH move with such liquidity that an accurate reading is hardly necessary unless someone is studying minute details on all transactions. In other words, about roughly 95-99% of all items on the AH can have their history checked only once every two hours or so and still produce a meaningful reading.

But, even with that, you're limited to only about 20 content IDs per account. There's 3 major cities and Jeuno. That's already 4 IDs per server dedicated to checking the price. Add in the list of items (which number in the hundreds if not thousands) and you're talking about having many accounts, possibly handled by a server, processing and retrieving data and storing it away into some gargantuan SQL data. To me, there really is no need outside of a scientific purpose for anyone to undertake this on their own (and possibly cause disruption in the game) I fail to see how it will be beneficial to release a personal auctioneer as a Windower Addon without creating a huge lag akin to a DDoS attack ... especially if 15 or more players are simultaneously "tagging" the same AH ...

It works differently then WoW's Auctioneer according to my experience of using the Auctioneer. The first difference is only 2 people have access to the tool I use(Although I am sure someone has and can make a program to seek the auctionhouse). WoW's auctioneer will store the data for only the user's benefit. I store the data and use my own bandwidth to host it for everyone to see. WoW's auctionhouse didn't have any anti-hammering timers like SE's AH so the Auctioneer is alot faster. I haven't played WoW for awhile so it's possilbe they added timers. My tool adheres to SE's timers of course and takes several hours to complete. So it runs maybe 1 item check every 5 seconds, that will never cause lag if only one person is doing it. On an average I would do this once a week. My site probably averages around 10,000 hits a day. I could probably argue I take some load away from SE's server. Visitors of my site would probably opt to check my site rather than checking the AH in game.

I respect people's opinions and it's fine you think there is no need for this. I have received alot of praise from people and alot of emails of thanks. Some like it because it saves them a trip to the AH for a price check, others have something to do at work. Alot of people love and hate the player search. With that being said, if SE thinks this is detrimental to the FFXI community they know how to solve it.

I didn't plan on making hundreds of chars. Like I said, currently only 2 of collect the data, one on Titan and me on Fenrir. It's not hard for someone to tag the AH for their own personal gain, either by recording transactions or bidding low on items. Take my word, I don't do the latter. I try to give back the data I collect to everyone so maybe other people won't do it. The bad part about that is I will end up being the scapegoat for any technical problems SE might have or real DDOS attacks that happens. This thread is already proof of that.