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Do Market Bots exist?
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Dinsdale Pirannha
Pirannha Corp
#1 - 2011-11-01 20:56:13 UTC
I know all about mining/missioning bots, but do market bots exist, and how do they work.

It seems most every large market I look at these days orders are turning over literally in seconds, and I can't imagine there are dozens of people glued to their screens 23/7 in each market.
Netheranthem
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#2 - 2011-11-01 21:16:13 UTC  |  Edited by: Netheranthem
Yep, but they have little to no impact on the market.
There aren't a few people logged in 23/7, but a whole lot logged a few hours.
Dinsdale Pirannha
Pirannha Corp
#3 - 2011-11-01 21:28:44 UTC
Netheranthem wrote:
Yep, but they have little to no impact on the market.
There aren't a few people logged in 23/7, but a whole lot logged a few hours.


I dunno...I have been in a pitched battle for a couple weeks now in a couple markets.
Quite literally, by the time I type in an order change, flip to another screen, come back, and my order has been trumped not once, but twice. I am talking within 40 seconds.

I am an unemployed slob who I guess is obsessive-compulsive about some orders.
I guess it would be reasonable to assume there are others like me, but some of these order changes are just too damn fast for humans.
Traska Gannel
Pyke Syndicate
Solyaris Chtonium
#4 - 2011-11-02 03:01:38 UTC
Yes .. I believe market bots exist though the only direct evidence I have is anecdotal ... observations of extremely quick market adjustments by the same characters at any time of the day whenever their market order is not on top. There is also indirect evidence from websites claiming to sell such bots. Building a market bot is probably as easy or easier than a mission/ratting/mining bot and all of these are believed to exist.

As far as these bots not having an impact on the market ... I would have to disagree ... certainly for the people using such bots it is profitable until they are caught. Bots may not drive direct market manipulations but they will certainly funnel market share to the user in highly competitive markets and as such will have an impact. Presumably, however, a frequent trading pattern will be identifiable by CCP should they choose to do anything about it.
Lord Jita
Lord Jita's Big Gay Corp
#5 - 2011-11-02 04:27:16 UTC  |  Edited by: Lord Jita
Yes they exist, I had direct experience with a very stupid market bot back in January. I can tell my story now since he has since disappeared, not sure if he was banned or just stopped playing but I never reported him because i was making a massive amount of isk off it, and CCP at the time didn't seem to care about bots or Eve anyway.

I used to make some T2 rigs that needed current pumps so I had a buy order up. I then noticed another guy would NOT let me outbid him, and this guy played 23 hours a day, every day for over a week. So I assumed it was a bot. What I did next was awesome. I bought out the entire market and put up a small buy order for increasingly outrageous amounts, 100k, 250k, 500k, this bot seemed to outbid me no matter what, it had no upper limit. It took a few days of experimenting, then I waited for him to put up a large quantity buy order and proceeded to spend several hours and managed to push his buy price up to 1 M, which I immediately dumped my stock on it.

THEN, after I sold him all my stock for whatever price I pushed it up to, I put up a single current pump SELL order for a LOW price, and the bot would then SELL what I had just sold him for UNDER what I listed mine for, so I bought them back for dirt cheap!

I found 1 screenshot I took back then, check it out (start at bottom). I did this to him several times but he finally caught on when I pushed his buy order to over 1M and made a few billion that he stopped trading in current pumps. Also if you look at market history in game it will confirm what you see here back in January with the price spikes, volume, etc.


http://i44.tinypic.com/mb6f48.jpg

This only worked because current pumps were not a very active market allowing me large stretches of time to play around with the bot unmolested. ( and that bot probably chased any other traders away.) Doubt I will ever run across such a stupid bot again.
I caught him trading some other modules but there was too much inventory and activity for me to do it to him there (like 1mn mwds)
Companion Qube
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#6 - 2011-11-02 08:31:18 UTC
There are no market bots.

There are no mission bots.

There are no mining bots.

There are no ratting bots.

There is no way to automate industry.

There is no way to automate science.

There are no warp to zero autopilot hacks.

There are no super scanner hacks.

There is no way to cloak yourself from entering local.


Oh, wait.
Akrasjel Lanate
Immemorial Coalescence Administration
Immemorial Coalescence
#7 - 2011-11-02 09:55:42 UTC
Companion Qube wrote:
There are no market bots.

There are no mission bots.

There are no mining bots.

There are no ratting bots.

There is no way to automate industry.

There is no way to automate science.

There are no warp to zero autopilot hacks.

There are no super scanner hacks.

There is no way to cloak yourself from entering local.


Oh, wait.


Then send me all your ISK.

CEO of Lanate Industries

Citizen of Solitude
Companion Qube
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#8 - 2011-11-02 10:11:47 UTC  |  Edited by: Companion Qube
Akrasjel Lanate wrote:
Companion Qube wrote:
There are no market bots.

There are no mission bots.

There are no mining bots.

There are no ratting bots.

There is no way to automate industry.

There is no way to automate science.

There are no warp to zero autopilot hacks.

There are no super scanner hacks.

There is no way to cloak yourself from entering local.


Oh, wait.


Then send me all your ISK.

When CCP extends the contract system to allow you to felate me in exchange for isk, alright.
warsong nerds
Mars Industrial
#9 - 2011-11-02 22:26:02 UTC
there are jita markets bots
i reported them but ccp didnt do anything, i still see them -.-

.
Kara Books
Deal with IT.
#10 - 2011-11-03 11:52:19 UTC  |  Edited by: Kara Books
Superscan hacks?

First time iv heard about that one.

I don't think its a hack thought, if your really really creative and have 10 or so accounts then yhe...

but since CCP now allows multiple accounts at the same time, its no longer a hack.

Market bots exist, they are rampant and make the market aspect of the game feel like some one added a drop of crapp to this keg of honey.



as for market bots, yes CCP is fully aware. they actually admit it, hidden from potential new customers in walls of text, conveniently far far away from new potential players/customers.

as for market bots, yes they exist, there's 2 active in amarr, one of them is on and off posting 1 item at a time (very annoying and very random) and one of them is dealing navy and pirate battleships, its online 24/7

with my limited currency the only thing I can do is to jack up its buy prices and mess up its sell prices, otherwise, considering the volume and exposure of the items the market bot is dealing in, there's just no possible way for a human to actually manipulate it into heavy losses.

The worst part is, some dev's are gonna read your text, then my text and just move on like, whatever, here is a copy paste of what you should do if you suspect...


thats my 2 cents.
Dinsdale Pirannha
Pirannha Corp
#11 - 2011-11-03 16:16:21 UTC
Yeah, I am seeing this more and more in Jita since I first posted.
I put up a buy order for one item.
Was trumped 3 seconds later.
That order was then trumped itself 33 seconds later.

No wonder I can see people succumbing to the reality that you needs bots to trade in large trading centers.
Barakkus
#12 - 2011-11-03 16:52:34 UTC
You'd probably make more money faster selling outside of trade hubs at the same price. A lot of people like me for instance will buy outside tradehubs at a small mark up to avoid going to the trade hubs, and it's more convenient sometimes too.

http://youtu.be/yytbDZrw1jc
Dinsdale Pirannha
Pirannha Corp
#13 - 2011-11-03 17:10:41 UTC
Barakkus wrote:
You'd probably make more money faster selling outside of trade hubs at the same price. A lot of people like me for instance will buy outside tradehubs at a small mark up to avoid going to the trade hubs, and it's more convenient sometimes too.


Yeah, agreed on most of what you say. I do that now for some items.
My biggest issue is volume. A lot of what I want to buy/sell can't support the volume I require.

But more and more I am becoming disenchanted with markets and leaning to getting back to straight missioning/Incursions to generate ISk.
Kara Books
Deal with IT.
#14 - 2011-11-04 01:35:29 UTC
Barakkus wrote:
You'd probably make more money faster selling outside of trade hubs at the same price. A lot of people like me for instance will buy outside tradehubs at a small mark up to avoid going to the trade hubs, and it's more convenient sometimes too.


My initial aims before starting this game where to have fun playing the market games here in eve.

My first run into a bot was about 5 weeks into my gameplay, I had 300M to play with and I began trading ships and T2 faction items in Amarr and I did incredibly well, but I believe after I actually chased away one of the competitors he turned a bot on to chase me away.

So if I get bored should I do the same?, there is no market regulation, I guess any one can get away with this with absolutely ZERO market regulation.

I have a simple fix.

CCP can hire/Assign duty to an employee for just a few hours a week to maybe take care of these bots, not all of them, but get a few per week just to at-least make it look like your against Automated programs being created for the intention of acquiring ISK or otherwise tangible goods with no participation from an actual player.