MTGO Library Bot 10.93

The new Magic Online version, released today, requires a ML Bot client update. We have just released the update (ML Bot 10.93) and stopped the launch of the previous versions. If you run an older version you need to update the bot to 10.93. The bot should automatically update, but you can still download the installer from the Online Control Panel.

Please also note that WotC changed the way the "Submit" button behaves. The button does not blink anymore when the buddies submit the trade, and thus there is no way to recognize the submit action. We will try to read the "Trade Submitted" flash message to recognize the action, even if the message fades in few seconds. For now the bot will only recognize the "done" written in the chat, like the old MTGO v3.

Later today or tomorrow we will also release another update, supporting the new set, SOI.

MTGO Library Bot 9.93

ML Bot 9.93 introduces the "market share" info boxes on the Online Control Panel, on the dashboard, right below the central graphs (scroll down if you have a small screen).

What is there? The market share boxes tell you how your bots are doing in the Magic Online market, with reference to the number and the value of the trades. In the example below, the bots did trades for 0.91% of the value of the market in the last 7 days, and 0.89% in the last month (the bots basically earned a 0.02% share).

The idea is to give you a measure of "how much" you are performing compared to other bots, so you can answer questions like: "this week I did well: is this because my bots are doing well, or is this because the overall MTGO economy is doing well?". And viceversa: "this month I had few trades: and I losing trades and market share, or is the overall economy slowing down a bit?" 

MTGO Library Bot 9.80

ML Bot 9.80 is a minor update containing improvements on the speed of the trades. We worked on the "central part" of the trade, when the bot reads the cards, quotes them and picks the tickets, and made it 2x faster. You won't probably notice any difference on fast computers (because that part was already fast), but you should be able to see a difference with mid and low-range hardware.

MTGO Library Bot 9.61

With ML Bot 9.61 we fixed some minor problems related to the Card Transfer trades.

• administrators are now able to send bot-specific commands such as |AT|#refill#4 . You don't really need these commands in order to operate your bots, but now you can use them.
• we found a problem with the MTGO timed restart every "x" hours and fixed it. Very busy bots were unable to restart MTGO because the restart was triggered only after 45 seconds of idle time - (45 seconds without any trade request).
• we added a new type of "administrator users", the "accept and confirm trades from". These users are NOT bots - they are meant to be human that should be able to take cards from your bot while not administrator. This is useful if, for example, you sell cards via eBay and you need to deliver them. You don't need to list there your bots.
• fixed a problem with card transfer where 12am was taken as noon instead of midnight

MTGO Library Bot 9.32

ML Bot 9.32 is a major bot update introducing stability fixes and new features.

• The tracking of the inventory and of the tradable items has been rewritten. This was necessary because 3 weeks ago MTGO changed the way it handles the collections xml files and the bot needed to adapt.
• We added the removal of multiple cards in buying mode, for example by typing "1 3! 5" in the chat.
• We added to command "type 0 to remove all" in buying mode
• The bot now detects faster the blinking of the submit button
• On larger screens, the lateral Info Panel will expand till 500 pixels, for better readability

There are many other little things we did under the hood to improve performances and stability - we are sure you will like ML Bot 9.32 and that it will lead to better businesses.

MTGO Library Bot 8.69

ML Bot 8.69 contains a number of fixes. In particular:

• fixed a crash on Windows 8.1 when loading the prices
• fixed a crash on "LauncherGUIChecker.exe"
• the click on the "confirm" button in final confirm window is now more reliable - sometimes the bot was unable to perform the trade because MTGO "missed" the click on the button (probably due to a lag in the game)
• fixed a problem with the login screen, probably introduced with Wednesday MTGO update
• fixed the % loader of the Collection, no more going to 150%

MTGO Library Bot 8.65

With ML Bot 8.65 we slightly changed the automatic OPEN | BUSY messages to better uniform them with the Classified standards.

The new OPEN | BUSY messages now look like these:

using the forest and the fireball symbol to make the bot status more prominent.
Please note that you can create your customized OPEN | BUSY message simply by unchecking the option "automatically prefix BUSY | OPEN " in the "Messages Tab".

We also changed the messages given in a trade, working especially on the card list to make everything more readable and less verbose

Strategies for trading and negotiating in general - Part 3

Next, I want to talk about the "throw in" guy. When I was younger, I traded often as my funds were very limited and it was hard for me to acquire new cards by means other than trading. I found that there were some people who would trade fairly and some that wouldn't.

The most unfair deals ended up being with the people who would say things like, "That's almost fair, can you just throw in some stuff?" Ultimately it ended up with both of us "throwing in" several inexpensive cards worth very little.

What I realized they were doing was getting incremental advantage by choosing my "throw ins" that were of higher value than theirs. By the end, they had a much better deal. As soon as I realized this, I found that when I would take the value of my "throw ins" they exceeded the value of a "good" card that I wanted from the other person. When I suggested them keeping their throw ins for another good card, they said no. This was to ensure they got a good card for another good card and ended better than they started.

My advice is to avoid throw ins at all costs. If you have to trade more than one card for a card, you're trading up, that's good a lot of the time, but when you both have lists of cards it tends to be less good of a deal. If your trade with someone and they insist on "throw ins" I recommend not trading with them. There are a lot of people to trade with especially on Magic Online, you'll certainly find someone who doesn't need "throw ins".