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By: hamtastic, Erik Friborg
Mar 11 2011 12:42pm
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Editorial Section:
So I'm still enamored with mulitplayer formats like five player Commander,  Archenemy, etc.. and I keep being disappointed in the way that MTGO really handles pretty much all of that.  Even back when V2 was around, there were just some horrible inefficiencies that reared their head that Paper players just get to bypass via verbal and visual communications.  Things like player 1 saying "if I'm not being attacked I'll just sacrifice my (Sakura Tribe-Elder) before my turn to search for a land".  This is doable because he can look around the table for confirmation or rebuttals, and even say something along the lines of "if I'm attacked I'll block and sac my Elder" and take care of business on his opponent's turns.  These little efficiencies add up drastically over the course of a five player game that might run into solid double digit turns. But what can MTGO do about this?  

What if... what if... what if MTGO had a scripting language?  Something along the lines of:
AT END OF <PLAYER2>'S TURN
   IF NOT ATTACKED THEN
       SACRIFICE <SAKURA TRIBE-ELDER>
   END IF

That's ridiculously simple, and would need to have a very simple "wizard" interface that could be done on the fly and with minimal clicking, but scripting would be ridiculously effective for multiplayer games once you know your deck and know your plays ahead of time.  Of course, this has some technical hurdles that would have to be overcome in order to be even remotely feasible.  

First of all, it would need to have a lot of communication between the client and the servers, since it would have to hook into details on the client and send them to the server, and would have to have triggers that are being checked and handed back to the server where all the actual game state interactions are checked since the local client is for all intents and purposes a dummy client that displays the results of what the server says is happening.

A benefit to something like this would be the eventual scripting of loops on MTGO... something that has also been missing from MTGO for a while that Paper players get access to.  Things like:
WHEN <X> ENTERS THE BATTLEFIELD
    TAP <Y>
    TARGET <Z>
        WHEN <X> LEAVES PLAY
           TARGET <X> IN THE GRAVEYARD
           PAY <Y>
        WEND
WEND

Would illustrate a simple infinite loop-esque routine and would allow for everything to loop.  There would need to be a loop counter or break out condition of some sort of course, which would then allow it to adhere to the "arbitrarily large" loop nomenclature that MTG technically uses in paper Magic.  A wonderful possibility would be that you could save and load these files so you could just have them loaded with a deck and once you get to the proper point you could just execute a script to "go off" and do a loop for a while.  I actually wrote a simple mouse driven script for creating Centaur Tokens via Centuar Glade on V2, but that was a while ago and was terrible, all things considered.

There are of course concerns that certain individuals would use these things for nefarious activities.  So there'd have to be a way for an opponent to not get hassled by someone just trying to waste turn cycles and eat up clock resources with extraneous activations of their permanents... like using a Voltaic Key to untap itself a million times and making the opponent sit through that. 

The benefits of a simple scripting language tied into the client go far beyond mere multiplayer expediency. And I'll take a working Multiplayer experience on MTGO as a huge first step until then... but I'd love to see some strides being made to bridge the efficiency gap between the two formats.
 

Discussion Items:
"Free" tournament
Coming up at the end of March is a first chance to use up some of those Warmarks that you've been accumulating in Mirrodin Besieged Release events or Block Constructed 2 man queues.  We use the word "free" because, well, the only way to get these is by paying money for the events, but regardless, it's a way to play more if you're playing more, which I guess is pretty good.

Adjustments to K-Scope? -
For those of you who remember the old kaleidoscope format (aka, how to sell more Alara singles for a format that required multicolored cards), it seems like it might just be getting a tweak or two someday.  

Card Price Discussion:
Turns out a good answer to a lot of U/W Caw Go or Caw-Blade decks is a little deck called Red Deck Wins.  With old cards like Searing Blaze, Koth of the Hammer, Staggershock and so on.  Turns out that replacing Wall of Omens with Squadron Hawks makes Searing Blaze a worthy choice... and Staggershocking out a hawk is a good way to answer that silly card advantage they tend to get... and Red is the only color NOT granted protection by a sword right now, which makes it ridiculous against the deck.  that's why Inferno Titan, Koth, and the Red/X fetches have climbed up of late... they're just solid against the current control deck in the format, which makes them ridiculously good overall.  Speaking of the current control deck... Gideon says hello.  

Force of Will drops to a scant 108 tickets from its 110 peak of last week.  Extended and Besieged cards are also amongst the droppers of the week, which should have no surprise to anyone really.  

Card Price Tables:

Card This Week Last Week Value Change Percentage Change
Elspeth, Knight_Errant 11 6 5 83.33%
Gideon Jura 35.95 31.75 4.2 13.23%
Inferno Titan 7.5 3.95 3.55 89.87%
Candelabra of Tawnos 4.5 1.25 3.25 260.00%
Koth of the Hammer 18 15 3 20.00%
Scalding Tarn 8.25 5.25 3 57.14%
Arid Mesa 7.95 5.25 2.7 51.43%
Lion's Eye Diamond 77 75 2 2.67%
Liliana Vess 4.25 2.5 1.75 70.00%
Baneslayer Angel 10.5 8.95 1.55 17.32%
Card This Week Last Week Value Change Percentage Change
Candelabra of Tawnos 4.5 1.25 3.25 260.00%
Pyromancer Ascension 1.95 1 0.95 95.00%
Stirring Wildwood 1.75 0.9 0.85 94.44%
Archive Trap 1.15 0.6 0.55 91.67%
Inferno Titan 7.5 3.95 3.55 89.87%
Elspeth, Knight_Errant 11 6 5 83.33%
Chandra Nalaar 2.5 1.4 1.1 78.57%
Mindslaver 2 1.15 0.85 73.91%
Eye of Ugin 1.3 0.75 0.55 73.33%
Liliana Vess 4.25 2.5 1.75 70.00%
Card This Week Last Week Value Change Percentage Change
Sword of Feast and Famine 15.5 25 -9.5 -38.00%
Thrun, the Last Troll 5 8 -3 -37.50%
Blightsteel Colossus 3.25 6 -2.75 -45.83%
Mirran Crusader 3.95 6 -2.05 -34.17%
Figure of Destiny 15.5 17.5 -2 -11.43%
Phyrexian Dreadnought 24 26 -2 -7.69%
Force of Will 108 110 -2 -1.82%
Twilight Mire 12 13.95 -1.95 -13.98%
Prismatic Omen 15 16.95 -1.95 -11.50%
Contested War Zone 1.85 3.5 -1.65 -47.14%
Card This Week Last Week Value Change Percentage Change
White Sun's Zenith 0.35 1 -0.65 -65.00%
Phyrexian Rebirth 0.25 0.7 -0.45 -64.29%
Spine of Ish Sah 0.3 0.75 -0.45 -60.00%
Phyrexian Revoker 1.15 2.5 -1.35 -54.00%
Shimmer Myr 0.35 0.75 -0.4 -53.33%
Contested War Zone 1.85 3.5 -1.65 -47.14%
Blightsteel Colossus 3.25 6 -2.75 -45.83%
Slagstorm 1.75 3 -1.25 -41.67%
Sword of Feast and Famine 15.5 25 -9.5 -38.00%
Bonehoard 0.5 0.8 -0.3 -37.50%

Card Price Graphs:
elspeth, knight_errant chart
gideon jura chart
inferno titan chart
candelabra of tawnos chart
koth of the hammer chart
scalding tarn chart
arid mesa chart
lion's eye diamond chart
liliana vess chart
baneslayer angel chart
candelabra of tawnos chart
pyromancer ascension chart
stirring wildwood chart
archive trap chart
inferno titan chart
elspeth, knight_errant chart
chandra nalaar chart
mindslaver chart
eye of ugin chart
liliana vess chart
sword of feast and famine chart
thrun, the last troll chart
blightsteel colossus chart
mirran crusader chart
figure of destiny chart
phyrexian dreadnought chart
force of will chart
twilight mire chart
prismatic omen chart
contested war zone chart
white sun's zenith chart
phyrexian rebirth chart
spine of ish sah chart
phyrexian revoker chart
shimmer myr chart
contested war zone chart
blightsteel colossus chart
slagstorm chart
sword of feast and famine chart
bonehoard chart

33 Comments

Loops by Lythand at Fri, 03/11/2011 - 15:53
Lythand's picture
5

I always said that MTGO should have a looping system. I envisioned it like this.

If you have a loop, you press a button called "Loop". You perform the motions of the loop 3 times. This allows your opponent to respond. If you opponent does not respond, the game then stops and asks you if you would like to do a continuoues loop. If so, how many times. You type in say 100 times. The game will tell your opponent that you are attempting to do the loop 100 times and if you wish to respond anywhere in the loop. You can say yes I want to respond on number X of the loop, or say no I don't want to and then you come to an immediate game state after the 100 times.

I hate that idea. I have sat by Paul Leicht at Fri, 03/11/2011 - 17:20
Paul Leicht's picture

I hate that idea. I have sat through games (and won them) where my opponent was forced to iterate his combo until he got bored and then passed priority and then I ruined his plan. If he had not gotten bored he could have won by sheer weight of numbers. Approaching infinite can be too much to come back from. Making it easy on the combo artists means they merely have to HAVE the combo available and not worry about screwing it up or running out of patience, clock etc.

Unfortunately the lack of a by ShardFenix at Fri, 03/11/2011 - 20:24
ShardFenix's picture

Unfortunately the lack of a loop system is what hinders combo online. IN paper magic once you demonstrate that a loop is infinite you can just pick a number...
As someone who enjoys combo decks this is one of mtgo's biggest downfalls.

You don't hate the idea, you hate combo by Godot at Mon, 03/14/2011 - 20:38
Godot's picture

Paul, come on. Combo is a legitimate way to play this game that many players love. In real life at your kitchen table, if your opponent demonstrated an engine and said, "repeat that a million times," you wouldn't say, "No, you actually have to execute it manually with the cards," would you?

The lack of engine macros on MTGO shuts off an entire class of deck from viability online that is totally fine on paper, and that's a shame. You hate the idea of giving players the same tools to play a combo deck online that they have in real life, presumably because you don't like combo? That's just being selfish...how about supporting the idea of combo macros to further allow the online game to mirror the paper game, and then put "no combo, please" in your game comments. :)

I am selfish, no doubt. I cop by Paul Leicht at Mon, 03/14/2011 - 22:15
Paul Leicht's picture

I am selfish, no doubt. I cop to it. Also I am not anti combo. I am anti infinite engine. If you can pull off a combo that doesn't go infinite I am all for it. I am not so happy about infinite (or arbitrarily large numbers of) turns for example. If you want to show you can break the game and make it unfun for everyone fine but don't expect me to be cheering.

As always an awesome article :-D by PatrykG at Fri, 03/11/2011 - 18:00
PatrykG's picture
5

Thanks to Hammy, I have made easily 30~40 tickets off of buying low and selling high, watching his trends and also some good guesswork :-D

I personally like the loop thing, although I think they could also do with a "Default Actions" link. So, for instance, I can make the Default Action when a Solemn Simulacrum is cast to allow it to happen always. That way, between games, or even in the same game with recursion or multiple players, any casting of a Solemn Simulacrum uses my Default and therefore doesn't bother me. Same with him dying and me having to accept the player drawing a card.

If something like this were implemented, a LOT of the tedium would be removed, without needing the "loop" idea. For instance, the Default Action of "Sakura Tribe Elder" could be set to sacrifice at "end of turn before my turn".

I think the first suggestion by GGG at Sun, 03/13/2011 - 19:27
GGG's picture

I think the first suggestion (do 2 times, then ask how many times and ask when to interrupt) is pretty cool and should not be too hard to implement.

The scripting for multiplayer is very hard though.. it may be easier to add audio-video support and play as you could play on a table:) that would be quite cool! I mean multiplayer games online are there for the fun of it so they may as well be less restricted in the rules, you just have begin turn-end turn, all the rest happens freely and you can communicate with voice to the table.

Scripts seem like the thin by wrongwaygobk at Sun, 03/13/2011 - 22:12
wrongwaygobk's picture

Scripts seem like the thin end of the wedge for playing bots.

One can hope by JBK at Mon, 03/14/2011 - 18:22
JBK's picture

You can hope you will get changes to MTGO, but they still have to fix the shuffler and they should be on MAC. Any changes to the game are almost an impossibility unless people stop playing the current game. It seems the admins care more about whether or not your name is appropriate then if there is changes needed.

And it's funny. I wrote an article for this site about MTGO prices and they banned it because it shows how bots rip people off. I don't understand how you could possibly quantify prices when the prices are determined by bots, otherwise known as a "conflict of interest".

The funniest part of any MTGO card price is that the more the card gets used, the lower the price, which seems like the exact opposite of basic economics. And with no official numbers on how many cards are printed, prices are manipulated and therefor irrelevant.

I wish my article was allowed on this site because it shows how prices are quantified all wrong and there could be a real market instead of a fake market made up by the buyers and sellers. And the article also shows how bots very easily rip people off. Whether its a dollar here or there, their profit margins are ridiculous.

So how can you say there is a price when there is no supply numbers, no demand numbers, and the market is stagnant. How can you say there are changes in the price when if a card goes up or down, when dealing with a bot, you are still paying less than the value, and buying for more. So you are just giving a value to what you have, but not the actual market.

If you want to try to find my article on this site, search for "MTGO: Salvation".

But its fun ripping off the bots. During the releases nothing is better than a desperate bot. I sold 10 Swords of F&F for $25 because equilibrium was 12-15, 4 Thrun the Last Troll for a nice amount, and I sold my foiled rares for what looks like 3x the amount they are going for now.

Agree with a lot of the post by greyes3 at Mon, 03/14/2011 - 19:21
greyes3's picture

Agree with a lot of the post above. Until we get a reasonable trading system in place where humans can trade fractions of a tickets, or set prices for items in their collection allowing for personalized, and/or AFK buying/selling to a larger degree, the classified section is going to remain one big mess.

I like the script ideas as well, but am not optimistic about seeing any changes anytime soon.

What? by Godot at Mon, 03/14/2011 - 20:14
Godot's picture

JBK, you call into question your credibility right out of the gate by citing the need to "fix the shuffler." I would love to see your conclusive statistical research proving insufficient MTGO randomization.

Can you cite some examples of in increase in card use (how are you measuring that anyway?) leading to a decrease in price (that is not clearly attributable to another factor, such as new-set prices dying down as supply increases)? My observation has been that an increase in a card's demand due to the start of extended season or the card's inclusion in a hot new deck is that the price goes up, and I've speculated successfully many times based on that observation.

On the one hand you say bots rip people off, but then you gloat about ripping bots off. I would say a bot has only "ripped someone off" if they it successfully sells a card for way more than others are selling it for, or buys a card for much less than others are paying for it. In either case, the "victim" should have price checked more thoroughly.

If your logic in this post is indicative of your logic in your "banned article," perhaps it wasn't banned, but just rejected. Then again, maybe I just don't understand your summary in the comments, here. Why don't you put it up somewhere for us to see? Maybe if I read the whole thing your points would make sense. It would take under five minutes to start a blog, paste in your article, and give us a url...

How about this old guy who by JBK at Mon, 03/14/2011 - 21:11
JBK's picture

How about this old guy who should be taking care of his kids instead of playing MTGO. If you haven't noticed, there is a direct correlation between the use of a card and the price. You can look at the use of a card and the price going up or down, where down is the higher use of a card, and the higher is a lower use of a card.

And here is one simple way bots rip off people.

Bots sell in increments. That means that if they sell a card for anything outside of 1 ticket increments, you lose money. Like something that is 1.6 means that you are losing 0.40. Even if you deal in credits, a lot of people don't go to the same bot or can find the same bot.

And the article was banned. I was talking with the editor and he said it would be up to the owners of the trading website, and they didn't like it.

But the biggest thing, and the funniest thing GoDot? Which is a gay name regardless, the website that owns bots is also a price guide. That means they do things in their own interest, and not the interest of the people playing. And guess what, if you hurt your customers over the long run, they don't come back.

But that's cool. I only dropped out of college to open a hedge fund, something you could never say. So I know a little bit about economics, and from what I can see, this is a conflict of interest. It is as close to insider trading you could get in something that doesn't have an actual market.

Its very simple to quantify a market for a true price. Its more difficult to get that message out. I tried this website because it was established. I am not great at HTML, and I'm not great with making websites. It would be better because its already out there. Starting something new would take work, something I don't want to deal with because I have a life.

really? by StumblingMonkey at Mon, 03/14/2011 - 21:55
StumblingMonkey's picture

"How about this old guy who should be taking care of his kids instead of playing MTGO." I stopped reading right here. You "sir", are an a$$. Ad hominem arguments are absurd, useless and only go to show how witless you really are.

Nowhere was it ever said that someone who has kids can't have hobbies. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've read in Godot's articles that he's included his children in his hobby. You need to grow up and stop accosting people anonymously on the internet. This isn't 4chan and I, frankly, won't stand for this. You can go ahead and flame back all you want but the fact of the matter is Godot expressed his opinion and you just went ahead and baselessly mocked the man. You may disagree with him but he never said that you were a bad person,bad father or some other nonsense.

You need to grow up and get a life, something that Godot apparently does have...as evidenced by his family.

How can I argue with that logic? by Godot at Tue, 03/15/2011 - 16:48
Godot's picture

JBK, opening with shuffler-fixing demands immediately called into question the legitimacy of your opinions on Magic Online in general. The shuffler has passed every serious, statistically-relevant test of its efficacy, so saying, "The shuffler is broken; now believe me about the MTGO economy because I say so" is like saying, "The earth is 6,000 years old; now believe me about climate change because I say so." It's not *impossible* for you to be correct about the second thing just because you are so clearly misguided about the first, but it certainly requires a lot more than your word that your subsequent claims are true.

I pointed that out, then asked reasonable, straightforward questions regarding your theories and claims, giving you a chance to provide valid arguments and support for them; I even suggested a simple way to share your article, on the assumption that it would help us better understand your position.

You respond with vicious, ham-handed ad-hominem attacks, more unsupported, suspect claims, and awkward badge-flashing (if you are at all representative of hedge-fund managers, it certainly goes a long way towards explaining the financial crisis). You have completely discredited anything useful you might have had to say on MTGO economy issues with that response.

In the time it took you to compose that reply, you could have posted your article to blogspot or the like without being "great with making websites" or knowing a lick of html; you just have to be able to cut and paste. In fact, I'll do it for you. Send your article to: jbksarticle@gmail.com. I can post your article to a blog in under five minutes, and share the link here.

At any rate, until you are ready to engage the conversation respectfully and present compelling arguments supported by evidence instead of making crazy-person rants and hurling insults, you're just embarrassing yourself.

This says it all by Lythand at Tue, 03/15/2011 - 18:04
Lythand's picture

JBK said it all himself.

I quote " So I know a little bit about economics, and from what I can see, this is a conflict of interest." So his first post go on about how he knows about the econimics of magic, then he makes that statement. He's just some kid trying to look impressive.

Umm..... by oraymw at Wed, 03/16/2011 - 02:28
oraymw's picture

#1 - Godot is an awesome name. If you don't get why, it is because you are an uncultured, illiterate barbarian.
#2 - All evidence shows that Godot is an awesome dad that puts in a lot of time with his kids.
#3 - You didn't drop out of college and start a hedge fund. That is obvious, because you are a moron. Or maybe you did, which shows us why the economy is in the crapper right now. Thanks for your wise insight.
#4 - Ryan is completely capable of making equally impressive statements, and he wouldn't even have to lie.
#5 - On top of that, you are completely incapable of communicating in a way that other people can understand. That and the fact that you have incorrect information was probably the reason why your article didn't get published.
#6 - Only a moron makes ad hominem attacks against a member of the community that is generally well liked, on top of being talented, intelligent, and prolific. Also, he has a pretty big fan base.
#7 - You smell bad too. I only know that because of a cool new iPad app that finds out how everyone smells and makes a complete registry that you can look through instantly. So... You smell bad. :P

Obvious trolls make me sad. by ShardFenix at Mon, 03/14/2011 - 22:02
ShardFenix's picture

Obvious trolls make me sad. What had to the days of people actually trying.

Mtgo bot prices might not be by protocol_7 at Mon, 03/14/2011 - 22:20
protocol_7's picture

Mtgo bot prices might not be the most fair price but it's much better than paying the paper price. Common to most rare cards are dirt cheap and mtgo is a incredibly cheap experience if you stick to budget cards. That's because of the drafters dumping their cards and tourney players picking out the top cards. Bots go in the middle and make profit. Also mtgo bot prices does somewhat run on supply and demand. People buy up high price rares much akin to future expectation of stocks.

Also, constructive criticism only please.

If you run a hedge fund, you by protocol_7 at Mon, 03/14/2011 - 22:25
protocol_7's picture

If you run a hedge fund, you should be familiar with basic random numerical number generator. Pseudo-random number generators are "random enough"to the degree of 10ˆ31 using a widely used method. With the computing power these days, it's not even hard to code this up. The only problem could be from how mtgo labels individual cards and keeps track of it.

Just look up ran2 function from numerical recipes. hell. ran1 is enough for the sake of mtgo really.

As a hobbyist coder I can't by Paul Leicht at Tue, 03/15/2011 - 00:49
Paul Leicht's picture

As a hobbyist coder I can't disagree more. The algorithms used by MTGO reflect a random (if sometimes disagreeable) draw. If you and those whose anectdotal stories being referenced, are experiencing fluctuations in the draw that deviate vastly from the norm, all I can say is you probably have a great love life. :) I know from bad shuffling (irl it is so common it is disgusting) and I know from bad draws (again disgusting.)

The one thing I have observed (so anecdotal evidence only here) is that it(the shuffler) seems to start at a fixed index with a new deck list which means that your first few draws after building a list may seem very unrandom. It takes a few shuffles before the draws become "truly" random. Which is to say: shuffle up.

This is something WotC could fix by including a shuffle button at the pre play/draw stage of the game, but I doubt they consider it a problem at all much less something in need of a fix.

Meantime if you are having bad draws mulligan more aggressively, brush up on deck building (everyone can improve in this area), and ask others for their advice on your deck. It could be your curves are consistently too high for the meta you are in.

"How about this old guy who by MMogg at Mon, 03/14/2011 - 23:49
MMogg's picture

"How about this old guy who should be taking care of his kids instead of playing MTGO."
"Which is a gay name regardless"

Kewl dood. you can trollz on dem interwebz. U Am mah hero.

Anyway, back to the topic that ISN'T troll bait, there are plenty of tutorials and ways to make bots, and there is nothing to stop people from doing so. Often times the "human" labelled classifieds have buy prices below bots and sell prices higher than bots. A case in point is a hard to find Scent of Cinder promo, which is my favourite art. I found two in bots for 1.9 and 2.3 cents respectively, but I have only seen humans selling this card for 2-3 tickets. It's too easy to paint all bots as evil. They are what they are. No one in MTGO is altruistic and just handing out free tickets and everyone wants a good deal. Nothing wrong with that when you have the free will/choice to choose whatever bot/human you want.

Re: bots keeping the change... just buddy bots you have leftover credit from and use them the next time you want to buy some random stuff. Better to buy from them for regular market value than to lose that credit altogether.

As per usual, well said. by Paul Leicht at Tue, 03/15/2011 - 00:48
Paul Leicht's picture

As per usual, well said.

This is jiving off topic a by greyes3 at Tue, 03/15/2011 - 01:34
greyes3's picture

This is jiving off topic a bit but I just want to add one more thing.

I agree with what you said, but let's be realistic here. A lot of users online would love to have a bot but don't have the time or the knowledge required to write them. The market would be better off if everyone could buy and sell cards on equal an footing, and there's no reason this can't happen. It would be better for the game and the market in the long run. How much of the MTGO population now do you think owns and operates a bot? Around 10%? ~10% of the population can trade cards at a fraction of a ticket. There is something wrong with that in my opinion.

But how much of that is the by MMogg at Tue, 03/15/2011 - 05:53
MMogg's picture

But how much of that is the "me" generation that wants everything served to them on a silver platter with a minimal amount of sweat on their part, and how much of it is simple inability? There are programs and tutorials out there to help you get your own bot up and running. If people don't avail themselves of that it's because they either don't think it's worth it or are too lazy. Either way, I don't think it's a big problem of accessibility and I don't think it's a problem that necessarily needs fixing. Implementing a better Classifieds search function would go a long way to improving the usability of person-to-person exchange.

I guess I just think panning bots (not that you did, but others do oh so often) is such low-hanging fruit when in reality the serve a pretty good function.

I think the easiest would be by protocol_7 at Tue, 03/15/2011 - 08:23
protocol_7's picture

I think the easiest would be to have a functional auction system. Just posting a card up in a server and putting it up for a sale is always nice. Wotc could take a fraction of the sale too. But it would never happen. It's obvious that wotc puts very very few people towards client development side. I understand the problem too. They need to literally check and code 100's of cards every few months. Cross checking them against older card is a daunting task. Not to mention the strict deadline they have to follow.

auctions exist by torerotutor at Tue, 03/15/2011 - 17:42
torerotutor's picture

type /join auction in any chat box, you'll go to auction room, no wotc fees.

Except that cards posted on by protocol_7 at Tue, 03/15/2011 - 21:59
protocol_7's picture

Except that cards posted on /auction room usually does not sell. It's populated with people just trying to grab the rares at about XXXXXbot's price *90%. Anything higher it does not sell because there is no competition. It's just a slightly improved spamming system.

What mtgo could use it a persistent auction market saved on the server. You could leave your cards up for awhile and ppl can actually bid for it and price increments smaller than a tix.

I was trying to stay out of by blau at Tue, 03/15/2011 - 12:50
blau's picture

I was trying to stay out of this, but your comments have really bothered me. I must be of those people who you claim is too lazy or wants everything handed to me, I guess. I have wanted a bot on MTGO for a while, but I know nothing of coding or how scripting works. Twice now you have said "there are programs and tutorials for bots," but have not linked to either of those. If it's so easy, why don't you link them? I'm not trying to flame you or be a troll, but I have been looking for a good tutorial and have not found any. Again, it might have something to do with computer illiteracy issues or not using good searches. But I AM TRYING and do not consider myself lazy. I have even posted on MTG Salvation, the WotC message boards, and asked actual bot owners for help, and have gotten exactly ZERO responses on all of them. I would LOVE a nice tutorial or an easy to use software. If you know of either of those, please post them here instead of just saying "oh they're out there." Sometimes I get the attitude that those that own bots don't want to share that information because they are afraid of competition or something. That, too, is the "me first" attitude, the attitude of, "I got mine, screw everyone else."

Well, try mtgolibrary. by MMogg at Tue, 03/15/2011 - 17:30
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Well, try mtgolibrary.

Another issue by MaJellin at Tue, 03/15/2011 - 17:42
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I actually have some programming experience and I have not been able to find any good bot tutorials either. I have seen mtgolibrary but my concern with those types of premade bots is that they can have malicious components which might allow the original programmer to gain access to your account. I would try mtoglibrary but I would much rather make my own to increase security.

To be fair, the mgto api is by Paul Leicht at Tue, 03/15/2011 - 19:00
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To be fair, the mgto api is NOT widely tatted about. There are numerous people who bothered to figure it out but that knowledge has become a business. So I don't think there are tutorials or what not that will be easily accessible to you.

However as Mmogg points out there are relatively cheap alternatives to creating bots yourself. MTGOLibrary is one...or one of the other bot purveyors (there are a few though I think less now than there used to be.)

You could also write WotC and ask them for tutorials/faqs on the MTGO api since it is their baby and they can most easily tell you of the pitfalls and problems with creating a 3rd party bot system. I know expecting an answer might seem futile but hey, it never hurts to ask.

honestly you can't ignore the by protocol_7 at Tue, 03/15/2011 - 08:19
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honestly you can't ignore the cost for leaving a comp on and making sure it stays on. even the electricity cost is hefty really. Using a third party server is not worth the cost for 99% of the people.

JBK is making Econ professors cry by torerotutor at Tue, 03/15/2011 - 17:37
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Seriously, i made an account just to contribute to this troll, which is kind of sad.
But dood, you're telling me that when a card is in HIGHER demand, its price goes DOWN?! Am I reading this correctly? You're telling me, that since everyone wants Jace, the Mind Sculptor, a playset should be 1 ticket? Please explain this. Also please provide said, "article".

To say you know anything about Economics is honestly offensive. This is how Economics works: http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/03/stuck-in-a-bad....
This is a picture of a "fixed supply" curve. Meaning, the number of any given card in the MTGO economy is fixed. What you're describing is a free-market production, where as demand goes up, prices go down, because firms produce more. This is flawed for about 19,876,432 reasons, but I'll name the obvious and important ones.
1) MtGO has no competition. You can't "proxy" online cards, or play a different game in their economy.
This means there is a fixed supply of product, and demand is not linear (see above link)
2) When there is a limited (see: fixed) supply of something, and more people want it, THE PRICE WILL INCREASE (See: Ebay).
3) You said: "Its very simple to quantify a market for a true price." Oh yeah? How do you quantify a market? and what exactly does that mean? Are you trying to assess willingness to pay? Try Ebay, or MTGO traders, or anyother available resource that shows what cards are going for. WHAT PEOPLE PAY FOR THEM IS WHAT THEY ARE WORTH, BY DEFINITION.

4) You mess with Godot, you get the horns bro, he's an authority on all things MTGO. You've dug a troll cave, and now you can sleep in it.