Curse

unienaule · Apr 06, 2006, 12:30 PM // 12:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by 96TSi

seems a little to close to being a keylogger combo deal. you would have to get more than one person to stay on top of the trader prices for your update and im sure as hell not going to download something that i cant control. not to flame your idea but it will end up being just another spam in LA to get people to download crap

and even if that isnt what is going on, im sure GW has rules about bots/macros that do stuff for you

About your flame, re-read what he's going to do.

About the macros, it's not doing anything in GW.

96TSi · Apr 06, 2006, 01:07 PM // 13:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tainek

i have made a little macro, it takes a screenshot, crops it to a certian size, then uploads it Via FTP to a website,

Quote:

, would anyone use it?

sounds to me like he wants us to use a macro that sends info automaticly to his website...

my english skills arent the best but thats what i got out of the OPs post

eudas · Apr 06, 2006, 02:34 PM // 14:34

screenshot -> crop -> OCR to yank the #'s out -> plug in to db or spreadsheet -> autocalc profitability and profit margins -> step 3, profit!!!

pretty easy to understand.
harder to implement on such an awkward procedure...

part of the challenge, as well, is that to get the rare material trader's buy price for a particular rare material, you have to have one of them in your inventory to get a quote.

course, the step after that is to get at it coming from the other end, so it will also tell you when to buy. then you could really start profiting.

eudas

LAMS3K · Apr 06, 2006, 04:38 PM // 16:38

Instead of character recognition you could possibly pull the values directly from memory. I recall someone who modified the amount of gold in storage on the client this way. The reverse should be possible.

anti_z3r0 · Apr 06, 2006, 04:42 PM // 16:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by 96TSi

sounds to me like he wants us to use a macro that sends info automaticly to his website...

my english skills arent the best but thats what i got out of the OPs post

He is saying that he would run this macro on his own computer, which will then update onto his website. He concludes with asking if anyone would use the website with all of the current prices on it. He asks no one to run any third party software, simply go to a website.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LAMS3K

Instead of character recognition you could possibly pull the values directly from memory. I recall someone who modified the amount of gold in storage on the client this way. The reverse should be possible.

This is a very good idea. I'm sure it is completely possible, since Kuntz made G-Stats. The only problem (which is a problem with g-stats) is that you need to update the program every time GW updates.

eudas · Apr 06, 2006, 04:54 PM // 16:54

there's also the problem that, i believe, getting the information that way is against the TOC.

check it just to be sure:
http://www.guildwars.com/legal/rulesofconduct.php

Quote:

17. You will not attempt to interfere with, hack into, or decipher any transmissions to or from the servers running Guild Wars.

and possibly #20 as well:

Quote:

20. You will not create, use, or provide any server emulator or other site where Guild Wars may be played, and you will not post or distribute any utilities, emulators or other software tools related to Guild Wars without the express written permission of NC Interactive.

(emphasis mine)

of course, there is the difficulty of enforcing it, especially if it's just taking information received on your personal machine and not sending it out anywhere. it becomes a "how would they know?" issue.

if you really wanted to make a program that would pull the data somehow, i mean, i guess if you wanted to be 100% above-board you'd just secure the written permission of ncsoft and keep it on file and then begin development of the app. if it's truly harmless, they might grant it. then again, they might say "no" and take the request as proof of concept for customer demand, then steal your idea and develop it themselves. who knows. depends on how rogue you want to be. the beastie boys say you have to fight for your right to party, after all.

developing an app that takes the data from the game datastream would be the most efficient way to do it, but as you can see there are issues there. using the screenshots/OCR method is a gimpy workaround but it avoids some of the legal complications, at least, those in section (17) above. there's still the issue of (20) above to be concerned with. of course, section (20) doesn't say you can't *develop* a tool or *use* the tool, just that you can't *post* it or *distribute* it without written permission.

(yes, i have too much time on my hands... plus, the good ol' INTJ personality...)

eudas

eudas · Apr 06, 2006, 09:13 PM // 21:13

whoops, i killed the thread... :P
Any other ideas/comments?

eudas

Phaern Majes · Apr 06, 2006, 09:26 PM // 21:26

Heh, I think you pretty much said it all :P

eudas · Apr 06, 2006, 09:44 PM // 21:44

INTJ FTW! :P

eudas

Sagius Truthbarron · Apr 06, 2006, 09:49 PM // 21:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tainek

Ive been toying around with macro maker, and i have made a little macro, it takes a screenshot, crops it to a certian size, then uploads it Via FTP to a website,

Hmm.. How about a Lion's Arch ID1 webcam?

LAMS3K · Apr 06, 2006, 10:09 PM // 22:09

17. Is referring to the actual packets that are sent to and from the servers. It can refer to modifying the data client side(that may modiy the data sent to the server), but does not refer to retrieving the information from your computers memory. Although, a transmission might be able to be interpreted as the information sent from the server and stored in the clients memory. In which case...

If the information in the RAM is not encrypted then the decipher portion does not apply, as this would likely be in reference to network packets. I don't see why ANet would waste CPU cycles deciphering information in the RAM everytime it is accessed, in which case there will still be an unencrypted copy of the data somewhere in memory or in the CPU registers. Now onto, "hack into"

Quote:

Originally Posted by m-w.com

4 a : to write computer programs for enjoyment b : to gain access to a computer illegally

definition a. does not apply
definition b. I don't see how I can access any part of my computer illegally, considering I own it. I'm not a lawyer though, this is just my analysis of the rule.

20. Does not apply considering the way I would do it.

Program grabs the data, stores it in a database, when queried a CGI program would send out the webpage with the data on it. Only the data gathered from the program would be distributed, not the actual program.

To you people who say that in-game gold is worthless(it actually is considering it can be spawned), consider this: everything in the real world has no value because an objects value only exists in the mind.

To the Original Poster, this is a cool idea. Just a screenshot would not be very helpful but a history would be useful. As for Optical Character Recognition I've never even trifiled in the matter. However, I do have an idea on how this can be done.

Requirements for the screenshots:
1. Items must be in the same place everytime a screenshot is taken.
2. Preferably the background should be dark.
3. Screenshots need to be the same size everytime.
4. Text needs to be the same size everytime.

First you would have to know the bounding box of the areas around the numbers and then you need to have an image of each number. You compare each number to each slot where a possible value can be, if they match then that is the correct number. Of course looking at the screenshots to find the coordinates for the bounding boxes would not be very fun. Extracting the data from RAM is probably the best way. To get the current price would actually be the easiest, as the price always appears in the same place everytime.

You would have to write a macro that clicks the get current price button and then the program needs to know when that has happened so it can grab the value. If you were to do the current price by screenshots you would need a screenshot for each material.

I’m going to play around with this, I’ve been looking for something to program for a few days now.

I have too much time on mine too. Online college classes rule.

Tainek · Apr 06, 2006, 10:24 PM // 22:24

Well i have been playing around with it, at first, i would get this:

-------- b-vb---- >.. -- (and so on)

now, i am getting:

i'll have it finished in a few hours, i need to sleep (been at work for 12 hours, uhh)

snikerz · Apr 06, 2006, 10:42 PM // 22:42

ahh nice work taineck, if i wasn't a bum who plays gw all day, i'ld probably do something like that.

eudas · Apr 06, 2006, 10:45 PM // 22:45

yeah the screenshots thing would be a real PITA.

the other option i was thinking of was a wiki-style community input page, but then you have to deal with griefers who think it's funny to mess with you by inputting wild values.

so then you are just left with being the sole source of input, probably doing it manually, which is a pita. the goal is automation.

i can guarantee though that if you are able to program something of the sort, and esp if you are able to obtain permission to put the web page up for the community to use, you will see one metric ass-ton of traffic stampeding to your page. set up your paid advertising now!

eudas

LAMS3K · Apr 16, 2006, 06:06 AM // 06:06

What I have so far.

What you don't see. It saves the prices it grabs to files(one for each material) The price is saved with the date and time it was grabbed from memory. I'm going to work on retrieving the sell prices and generating an HTML table for the information after this post.

fenix · Apr 16, 2006, 01:48 PM // 13:48

This seems pretty cool, it would help Pre-Searing players from being scammed out of expensive dyes!

Sereng Amaranth · Apr 16, 2006, 02:47 PM // 14:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by LAMS3K

What I have so far.

What you don't see. It saves the prices it grabs to files(one for each material) The price is saved with the date and time it was grabbed from memory. I'm going to work on retrieving the sell prices and generating an HTML table for the information after this post.

That's pretty sweet. I can see this evolving into something like X-Fire's status box.

This kind of stuff is very interesting to me, taking information from one source and repurposing it thru different technologies. Nice Job.

LAMS3K · Apr 16, 2006, 10:13 PM // 22:13

I left it running this morning. It ran for four hours and gathered 48 pieces of data(checks every five minutes,both buy and sell prices). It ended when GW got err=59. Attached is two of the data files.

The format is as follows:
[Day of the week] [month] [day] [year] [hour(GMT)] [mins] [seconds] [buy] [sell]

Tainek · Apr 16, 2006, 10:48 PM // 22:48

Very nice LAMS3K , exactly what i had in mind

i havent had time to work on it myself (college work ftl >.<)

*edit*

Me an LAMS3K are working on the project together, expect a page soon

lyric · Apr 17, 2006, 12:19 AM // 00:19

hmmm..

actually. what i think would be an awesome thing to have available would be the possibility for guilds to place a code on there website that would have a constantly updated roster...

since the members in guilds change so often, this would be a great thing to have available.. just dunno if its even possible to accomplish.