The perils of not knowing how to use your mac.

[TreeHuginDruid]

The following is a simple example of what happens to you when you do not know how/refuse to use the full functionality of macros you get off of this site or MQ2 vip macro site.

One of the most powerful macros out there is BAZAAR.MAC. This macro is a trader's dream come true. It goes out and checks the price of items you are selling in the bazaar, and automatically updates your item prices to slightly underbid the lowest sale price some other trader has set for the exact same item.

Now, this could be a godsend or a nightmare .... if the other trader is using bazaar.mac as well. You might end up getting into an automated bidding war each time you both auto-update your prices on the same item.

The failsafe for this is that the macro has the ability to set a MIN and MAX price you want to set for any given item, so that you never fall below the MIN price if you are in a bidding war.

You would be surprised how many people use this macro and DO NOT KNOW or DO NOT USE this function.

Here is an example of the devastation that was wrought by not using the MIN/MAX safeguard in the bazaar.mac.

My server has allot of greedy greedy greedy price gouging traders. Selling crappy Tier1 and Tier2 attuneable SoD gear for 100K+ (rediculous prices). I normally do a manual check of the same items i am selling that they are, and set my prices way way lower. An hour goes by.. and lookey lookey ... they have altered their outrages priced items to be exactly 1% lower than my reasonably priced item. (Me suspects they using Bazaar.mac .. hehehe).

So i wrote this little private mac and use it on a secondary account mule in the bazaar. All it does is check MY other mule (my real trader), and compares/records the time when other people change the selling price of items he is selling as well.

After about 2 hours... i know the exact time that each other trader is changing their prices to outbid me. And can see that its automated because its so regular (within 10 second difference).

Now i decide to check if they have their min/max functions in place... and get a little dirty handed. Exactly 30 seconds before they are due to compare and change the prices of their items... i change mine to 10 plat. I then setgrav=0, zwarp 2000, and wait. Sure enough.... a minute goes by... and all the items they were in a bidding war with me on are now set to 9 plat.

I immediately turn trader off, setgrav to normal, /warp s.. and run back to my original trader spot, set my prices back to normal, and go trader again. (whole scenario lasted less than 2 minutes). The reason i setgrav0 and zwarp 2000 is so that no one can actualy trade with my mule during this time frame and take my low prices items.

Well... mister second mule goes walking up to them... buys out their items and clears them out for less than 100 plat. And then goes and stores the items in his bank to hold onto for future sales (at reasonable prices).

I'd like to see the looks on these price gouger's faces in the morning when they realize they just sold their 100k priced T1/T2 crap for 9 plat each.

The moral of this story is such: If you don't take advantage of the safeguards that a macro has in place for you.... then don't cry and bitch when you are robbed. You could prevent it with a minute of work setting your min/max price for sale of each item.... but you didn't.

Am I a horrible person for doing this... hmmm maybe... but I never do it to people who are selling items at fair and reasonable prices. I only do it to outrageous price gougers who try to be greedy f***ers and pray on the desperate.

I feel like a modern day "Robbing" Hood... lol Takeing from the greedy rich, and giving back to the poor ( me ).

All comments welcome to this thread .... keep the flames to yourself.

 

[aspire2008]

Lol nice one

I have used bazaar.mac for buyer mode before, the only problem I have with using it is that it sets values to low or high depending on the real worth of an item. Like, if an item is valued at >5000, i think it only raised it by 1 pp. Which is rather annoying, would rather see it raise it by 100pp or 500pp intervals or something. As people will just sell to the 5000 or 5001 pp buyer.

 

[TreeHuginDruid]

Lol nice one

I have used bazaar.mac for buyer mode before, the only problem I have with using it is that it sets values to low or high depending on the real worth of an item. Like, if an item is valued at >5000, i think it only raised it by 1 pp. Which is rather annoying, would rather see it raise it by 100pp or 500pp intervals or something. As people will just sell to the 5000 or 5001 pp buyer.

That is easily changed in the code. You would need to create a new priceset calc for buyer mode and adjust the multiplier to a higher number.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Way to fight the MACHINE. How do YOU know about the MACHINE!?

 

[fraggyfrank]

Gah I hate this macro. People selling shit from "darkened" blackburrow for 100k that I would easily purchase for 30 (and they would probably take 30) but they're never responsive to tells and the only way to lower their prices is to have the item already!

 

[Alexandra]

Thats funny, bazaar.mac dont work with are MQ2Bzsrch for some reason now you get a error but i use to do that to then i thought to myself im spending to much time here.

 

[Brano11]

Haha that's badass. I've slays wanted to do that but just never have haha.

 

[Maskoi]

I use the macro every day BUT I only run it once and then it /ends. People will buy my stuff or not I see no reason to compete with idiots running it every hour. You can easily tell most people using it too. You will see the same /ooc /shout "New trader up low low prices" etc. every hour lol

 

[mjtizzle21]

haha awesome

 

[DemonH2]

THAT WAS YOU?!!?!?

 

[TreeHuginDruid]

Thats funny, bazaar.mac dont work with are MQ2Bzsrch for some reason now you get a error but i use to do that to then i thought to myself im spending to much time here.

Mq2Bzsrch works perfectly ... thats the core plugin bazaar.mac uses. I have not crashed since it was updated 2 years ago to search for new item types ( charms, power sources ).

I use that plugin every day... perhaps you have an outdated copy ? Patch version from this site works fine.

Or perhaps you using an outdated version of bazaar.mac ... i made allot of changes to it over the years... skipping redundant(already priced) items that i have more than 1 of, ignoring empty slots, ability to toggle on or off any /ooc message upon each update, better timer mechanism for looping searches.. etc

 

[Zinky]

I love playing games with folks who are obviously using bazaar.mac. [These are usually the guys selling 'darkened' armor and the like at 120k who drop something to 19999 as soon as you put an item up for 20k]

If I spot them, I'll play with them to see how low I can get them to go. Had lots of fun moving prices down to something where it becomes very worth my while to buy and resell. This works (or worked, depending on how flodded the market is) really well for 'commodity' items like chonobines, silver tokens, chronal resonance dust, tradeskill materials, etc. Equipment too, though often there's not enough of a market to make it worth the bag slots.

For items that won't move quickly, and/or they have set a reserve price, I'll figure out what their reserve price is and set mine just above it. I don't really need plat, so I'll just set a goal of cutting their profit margin as much as possible. Could have price matched silver tokens at 150 plat...or set it to undercut by 10% or some real discount. Don't want to adjust bazaarbot to do that? Sell it at 30 plat instead while I have three silver tokens up for sale at 31 plat to manipulate your price (the rest of mine being in the bank until you are sold out).

* * *

That being said, I've been trading since East Commons, and tradeskilling since before metal plates stacked. Never used bazaar.mac or the tradeskill macros (would have saved me a lot of carpal tunnel). As a tradeskiller (well before I saw MQ2), if someone wants to undercut me by 5-10% or something? More power to them. I'll either keep my price where it is or match.

For the guys who do the 1 plat discount.... We're talking a 50k item here, not a gallon of gas. If you want to undercut my price, how about really undercutting price? No hard feelings - competition and all that. But one plat?

So if you use bazaar.mac, set your price max and mins - and set the undercut amount to something reasonable. On my server a lot of the long-term tradeskillers scarred by years of price warring, will not buy anything from the obvioius bazaar.mac bots. We'll go elsewhere for spells, raw materials, etc.

So more power to you, Tree! I do the same every chance I get.

Cheat smarter.

 

[htw]

<snip>
For the guys who do the 1 plat discount.... We're talking a 50k item here, not a gallon of gas. If you want to undercut my price, how about really undercutting price? No hard feelings - competition and all that. But one plat?
<...>

I chuckled when I read that. For years, when I buy something, when I see someone with an odd price a plat or two below some other guy (like you said, 50k for guy #1, 49999 or something for guy #2), I go straight to the 50k guy out of spite. I do it every time, out of spite.

htw

 

[unity0110]

I chuckled when I read that. For years, when I buy something, when I see someone with an odd price a plat or two below some other guy (like you said, 50k for guy #1, 49999 or something for guy #2), I go straight to the 50k guy out of spite. I do it every time, out of spite.

htw

I agree with htw for once, I did the exact same thing. These bazaar macs go too far.

 

[Vesryn]

I chuckled when I read that. For years, when I buy something, when I see someone with an odd price a plat or two below some other guy (like you said, 50k for guy #1, 49999 or something for guy #2), I go straight to the 50k guy out of spite. I do it every time, out of spite.

htw

Thats funny, I do the same thing myself. I thought I was the only one who thought that was a cheap thing to do.

 

[Brano11]

I chuckled when I read that. For years, when I buy something, when I see someone with an odd price a plat or two below some other guy (like you said, 50k for guy #1, 49999 or something for guy #2), I go straight to the 50k guy out of spite. I do it every time, out of spite.

htw

Either that or go buy the 50k one and then set it up in trader and see how far down you can get the other guy!

 

[Tempest]

I use the mac, but just once each time I set up so that I don't have to sit there and type crap out to change it all over again. Good mac, evil uses

 

[TreeHuginDruid]

Lol

My usage is to just easy me initial setup for the night... run it once.. turn it off.. forget it till i wake up.

My point is just the sheer greed of some of these traders... selling crap stuff got 50 or 100 or more k plat.

I just got fed up with their greed.. and decided to stick it to them.

 

[wilbunk]

HA HA HA HA HA HA AHA H!!!!!!!!!!

I applaud you sir. The idiot that you took advantage indeed wasnt cheating smarter, and for that i thank you. Hard way to learn a lesson tho ha ha!

 

[mike1984]

Awesome Job Tree. I don't sell in bazaar anymore and had no idea how this mac worked. On Bert we have the 100k Darkened, and other lowbie junk, idiots too. Thanks for the heads up! I'm going to put a few of my items up for like 6k and see what happens to their prices and hopefully buy their ass's out. Personally, I would not even give 5k for any of the sub-80 stuff. How long do you stay between 70 and 80 anyway---unless you have a real good reason I guess.