Buy from specific mall store

P

Paragon

Member
Is it possible to buy items from a specific mall store? For example, if i wanted to make my buy script always buy from my mall muti store if the item is available there how might I go about doing that?
 
I guess I didn't think of it that way, I just thought that since we can have a mall multi whats the difference between unstocking an item and sending it back to your main vs. buying from you mall multi.... but maybe your right.
 
Paragon said:
Iunstocking an item and sending it back to your main vs. buying from you mall multi
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The former is almost certainly multi-abuse (since the main benefits) unless meat is sent in the other direction, in which case buying is less likely to be seen as abuse because the transaction is more transparent. The latter is less likely to be abuse under the presumption that the multi benefits no matter who buys the item. It might be reverse multi-abuse if the main purchases from the multi at prices so high no one else would pay them.
 
Emphasis on "mall multi", i.e. a character who has no assets of its own, and only serves to sell items for a player who is currently in-run and cannot stock his/her/its store from Hagnk's otherwise. This is not considered to be multi abuse by TPTB.

I imagine visit_url bans mallstore.php (or whatever the relevant URL might be)? If not, that's probably the easiest option.
 
Thanks for the clairification, it's there in black and white. I won't do this... it just seems odd that If char A has an item that he sends to a mall multi to sell he can't get it back... but he can get the meat for selling it.
 
Hmm. #6's post there didn't say anything about the case where it's your mall multi. We might be taking this out of context; I'll send #6 a PM to clarify.
 
heeheehee said:
No, but I imagine there should be an exception for this case (where said multi happens to be your mall multi).
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I.. don't even know how to respond to this?

If it's just someone's multi it's obviously not multi abuse. That's the whole point of mall multis. If it's your multi it obviously is multi abuse. Because that's what the linked thread was discussing, and #6 gave a black and white answer.
 
It's simple:

  • If mafia notices that your multi's store is the one it would buy from, then it isn't multi-abuse.

  • If you have to direct mafia to purchase from your multi's store (presumably because you want to keep your meat "in the familiy"), then it is clearly and unequivocally multi-abuse. You can argue that your store is tied for cheapest price and simply has less advertising (or however ties are settled), but you're still trying to get mafia to behave abnormally just for your benefit, so it is not a good thing.
 
roippi said:
I.. don't even know how to respond to this?
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Mall multis aren't regular multis. They don't spend turns, except to get level 5 or 9 or whatever you need to own a mall store. They don't progress, they don't do any actions. They are just a storage place for things you want to buy/sell/loan while your main is in HC.

That's why Paragon wants to "buy" things from his mall multi's store: it's a simple way to transfer items from his mall multi to his main, without having to log in the multi.

I really don't know where #6 stands on buying from your mall multi's store though.
 
slyz said:
Mall multis aren't regular multis. They don't spend turns, except to get level 5 or 9 or whatever you need to own a mall store. They don't progress, they don't do any actions. They are just a storage place for things you want to buy/sell/loan while your main is in HC.
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Ah. I guess that paragon is making sense then. Since you are allowed to send meat and items from your mall multi to your hardcore character, then it isn't really multi-abuse to purposefully buy from that store, but only if you are purchasing from the character who is attached, not another character.

I wouldn't recommend this as a feature of mafia though because it is begging people to abuse it by buying from other sorts of multis.
 
I am familiar with what a mall multi is. It is still multi abuse. Creating phantom sales can influence the market in lots of ways, subtle and not so subtle. And even if the effect is utterly infinitesimal, "There are situations where the effect you are having is negligible, but it is still abuse."
 
I guess I can see that argument, but I think the link you posted is mostly useless for supporting that point since it was clearly not considering mall multis.

Edit: Or maybe multi czar had it in mind when he made the post, based on reading a bunch of the thread, but it isn't really clear.
 
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There are almost certainly no posts I can link you to on the official mall multi ruling, since mall multi rules are kept extra +1 vague on purpose. I'm still 99.1% sure that it's not kosher to purchase from one's mall multi, under any circumstances.
 
In other words, you should just send the stuff back to your main character via kmail, instead of buying it from your mall multi.

As for answering the question. If, for example, I wanted to buy from Bale's store because I think Ayukawa Madoka provides excellent customer service and I'm willing to pay a bit more for that, I could do something like:

PHP: 
visit_url("mallstore.php?whichstore="+get_player_id("Bale")+"&buying=Yep.&whichitem="+$item[1337 7r0uZ0RZ].to_int()+to_string(price, "%09d")+"&quantity="+qty)

There's two caveats here, you have to know what the item is they're selling and you have to know what the price is. I have not worked out a way to do this in the current build and if I did, I'd probably report it as a bug.
 
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Catch-22 said:
There's two caveats here, you have to know what the item is they're selling and you have to know what the price is. I have not worked out a way to do this in the current build and if I did, I'd probably report it as a bug.
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Scrape the player's profile for a link to their mall store. If that method can violate any of KoLmafia's intentions against mallbots, I'll thank you for rooting that bug out. :)
 
nworbetan said:
Scrape the player's profile for a link to their mall store. If that method can violate any of KoLmafia's intentions against mallbots, I'll thank you for rooting that bug out. :)
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I'm not sure what you mean. Figuring out the mall store link is trivial (as above mallstore.php?whichstore="+get_player_id("Bale")), it's knowing what they are selling and for what price that's the tricky part. I happen to know that "1337 7r0uZ0RZ" are currently being sold in Bale's store for 260 meat, so the above snippet will work until that changes :)
 
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