14 replies to this topic

[Nemecek]

If you've been following my posts you'll know that I've recently found out how to send requests over the internet. Since then I've developed a program that purchases things for me through the shop wizard.

 

I was wondering if there would be any interest for a program that mimics the Super Shop Wizard (SSW)? For those who don't know the program would allow you to search for any item and then return to you the cheapest price you can get for that item. It would also include a simple buy button that when clicked would buy the item for you if desired. 

 

I know this site uses Python and everything I program is in Java so maybe for that reason alone it's of no use but I thought I'd see what people said.  

[KaibaSama]

Yes, I would love a program like that. I used to have premium, and I miss the SSW. A program for it, without having to pay for premium, would be amazing to have. I could finally price my shop better, and make sure I get the best prices on everything. Plus, you could use it for sniping too. 

[Aarrdvarrk]

how exactly does it work for finding the best price?  I'd be worried about getting wiz banned pretty quickly if it's only using one account.  Just curious about the inner workings to prevent that if there is any?

[Nemecek]

how exactly does it work for finding the best price?  I'd be worried about getting wiz banned pretty quickly if it's only using one account.  Just curious about the inner workings to prevent that if there is any?

 

As many know the regular shop wizard will only return to you a subset of the market every time you search. Users are placed in these subsets based on the first initial of their username. Each subset with contain 2 or 3 letters of the alphabet, an underscore or digit. So for example if I search for "baby paintbrush" it may return to the subset A-N so only users starting with the letter A or N are displayed.

 

In order to get the best price I need to get all subsets and to get all subsets I need to continuously search the shop wizard until all subsets have been found just as you would if you were trying to get the lowest price manually.

 

I have no idea on how many searches it takes on average to search the entire market. Nor do I know how many it takes to get banned. The worst case scenario is that you'll be able to SSW one item per hour which sucks but sometimes you might just need the cheapest price.

[Waser Lave]

As many know the regular shop wizard will only return to you a subset of the market every time you search. Users are placed in these subsets based on the first initial of their username. Each subset with contain 2 or 3 letters of the alphabet, an underscore or digit. So for example if I search for "baby paintbrush" it may return to the subset A-N so only users starting with the letter A or N are displayed.

 

In order to get the best price I need to get all subsets and to get all subsets I need to continuously search the shop wizard until all subsets have been found just as you would if you were trying to get the lowest price manually.

 

I have no idea on how many searches it takes on average to search the entire market. Nor do I know how many it takes to get banned. The worst case scenario is that you'll be able to SSW one item per hour which sucks but sometimes you might just need the cheapest price.

 

The problem is that depending on how random it is it could take hundreds of refreshes to get every subset of results. You're probably better off just getting like 5 results than aiming to simulate the Super Shop Wiz.

[Florg]

The problem is that depending on how random it is it could take hundreds of refreshes to get every subset of results. You're probably better off just getting like 5 results than aiming to simulate the Super Shop Wiz.

And on top of that, the regular SW is limited in it's searches per hour, so you would often be hitting your limit after just a few searches.

[Nemecek]

The problem is that depending on how random it is it could take hundreds of refreshes to get every subset of results.

 

Lol k I think hundreds is probably an exaggeration but I'm pumped  to do it. I want it for myself anyways so I'm going to go code it and I'll report back with my findings. 

[Dan]

Realistically you'd need multiple accounts searching every item all of the time to accurately simulate the SSW.

Lol k I think hundreds is probably an exaggeration but I'm pumped  to do it. I want it for myself anyways so I'm going to go code it and I'll report back with my findings. 

 

Sorry - it's not... Go perform some searches for something common on the SW, and take a look at the usernames of the shops.

 

Notice a pattern?

[Waser Lave]

Lol k I think hundreds is probably an exaggeration but I'm pumped  to do it. I want it for myself anyways so I'm going to go code it and I'll report back with my findings. 

 

I wasn't exaggerating.

[Nemecek]

I wager 1000np! it will be less than 40 searches. I'll be back soon.

[Waser Lave]

I wager 1000np! it will be less than 40 searches. I'll be back soon.

 

I said could take hundreds of searches, it could also only take a much smaller amount, that's how randomness works.

[Dan]

Also, who wants to use up all of their SW searches per hour on one item?

[Nemecek]

Hey so I'm back with some results.

 

These are the number of searches needed to complete each run:

 

97, 24, 24, 36, 58, +18 searches from a run that didn't finish

 

This is a very small sample but whatever the average is 48 searches.

I was able to complete 5 complete SSW searches and was shop wizard banned after a total of 257 searches.

 

These are my thoughts:

 

-it's definitely possible however you get very few uses out of it. 

-It's slow. Especially if we need it to appear human.

-It's possible that you get shop wizard banned without completely a single run. 

 

At the end of the day though there are times when I desperately want to know the cheapest price and this program allows me to do that so I think it's great just to have as an option not replace the existing shop wizard. 

 

Anyway so maybe it's not something that's worth releasing but it's definitely possible. 

Edited by Nemecek, 14 December 2013 - 03:10 PM.

[Dan]

Hey so I'm back with some results.

 

These are the number of searches needed to complete the each run:

 

97, 24, 24, 36, 58, +18 searches from a run that didn't finish

 

This is a very small sample but whatever the average is 48 searches.

I was able to complete 5 complete SSW searches and was shop wizard banned after a total of 257 searches.

 

These are my thoughts:

 

-it's definitely possible however you get very few uses out of it. 

-It's slow. Especially if we need it to appear human.

-It's possible that you get shop wizard banned without completely a single run. 

 

At the end of the day though there are times when I desperately want to know the cheapest price and this program allows me to do that so I think it's great just to have as an option not replace the existing shop wizard. 

 

Anyway so maybe it's not something that's worth releasing but it's definitely possible. 

 

How are you checking that you've grabbed all of the 'subsets' that we were talking about earlier?

 

Interesting project, anyways!

[Nemecek]

How are you checking that you've grabbed all of the 'subsets' that we were talking about earlier?

 

Interesting project, anyways!

 

Not sure how specific you want me to be but i'll give you all the details. 

 

After I search for item x I parse the html to get the first username and store it as a string.

I then get the char in position 0 of the username string. 

 

I create an int array the size of the number of subsets (13)

The idea is that the first int in the array is for the first subset, the second int for the second subset and etc.

If the int value in the array is 0 that means subset 0 hasn't been checked and onces it checks it gets changed to a 1.

(The first subset is A-N)

 

so when i get a username like "airdare" I get the char 'a'

In ascii this is represented by the int 97 so i use mod (%) 97 to give me a int pos = 0 and 

if position 0 in the int array is 0 I make it 1 because I have now found that subset

 

to check if I have gone through all subsets I simply add up the int array and if it gives me 13 I know I've found them all. 

 

if the first user name was "nairdare" the char would be 'n' and once i mod 97 i get pos= 13 which would return a nullpointerexception because the array only goes from 0 to 12 and because A and N are the same subset I simply have a condition that says if pos > 12 then pos-=13 giving me once again pos = 0 which is exactly what i need. 

 

A few more conditions are added for underscores and digits.

 

Lol that was probably a bitch to read. Hopefully you could follow. Thanks for your support.

Edited by Nemecek, 14 December 2013 - 03:55 PM.