Pricing (Scripts and Notes)

[woogerboy21]

Hey Wooger,

Thanks for all the great work you've done on these scripts and continue to do on these scripts. I have a couple more sites I'd love to have pricing scripts for. They are as follows:

http://www.gonetoplaid.com
http://www.matchplay.com
http://www.capefeargames.com
http://www.ccgbot.com
http://www.gamersinnaz.com

These are the sites I find myself buying from most often so it would be great to have them added to Magic Album. There's no rush on them it just would be nice to have. Once again thanks for your great continued work on these pricing scripts!:)

Added the sites to the first post under requests. I probably will be releasing an update to all the scripts shortly for capturing sets up through FTV:Relics, as well as basic land and multicard versions. I'll then look into getting more of the requested sites scripts created.

edit:
I dont know why i find it amusing but all the sites you requested all use the same database / formating as sites such as http://www.oldschoolgaming.net and http://www.channelfireball.com . So creating scripts for them will be fairly easy. The problem with these sites is the content displayed changes based on quantity in stock so you run into issue's with one week a card may get a price and the next it may not depending on stocking levels. I don't personally like that but to each there own.

an example of what i am talking about is one day they may have an english form in n/m condition and the pricing scripts will collect a price. but the next they may only have a used or played form of the card and the third day they might only have no stock at all. each condition creates a different set of formated html text and parsing such text isnt difficult but makes wondering what type of value you want returned into the price field. I havent put the logic in yet but currently the script only looks for either n/m condition and out of stock. if there is a "played" condition and neither of the other two conditions no price is set. I am thinking that it should be changed to if there is no n/m or out of stock condition but there is a played condition to use the played condition value. Problem with that logic is using that value now messes up the "high/avg/low" logic of the application...... which way would you have it work?

[woogerboy21]

Alright version 1.3 is released. Alot of changes to most (if not all) the pricing scripts. They should be able to collect multiversion and basic land prices now. I have an idea on how to implement promo's but not certain I really want to until I can query the DB and get a set listing. Also I worked on troubleshooting many of the scripts I did early on for cards that were missing prices but as I worked on others I relized troubleshooting each one for missing prices would cause the release to be pushed off so far it out I didnt want that to happen. So I will continue to troubleshoot missing prices on various sites but if there is a site you would like looked into first let me know.

Notes I took during the recent update are:
channelfireball, MTGFanatics, OldSchoolGaming, and Gamingetc site does not always contain an english listing or near mint listing of cards. it appears there websites output changes based on stocking levels. many cards that contain a value one day may not the next or vice versa. when reporting an issue verify there is an english near mint price listing for a card.

[moviemadnessman]

Alright version 1.3 is released. Alot of changes to most (if not all) the pricing scripts. They should be able to collect multiversion and basic land prices now. I have an idea on how to implement promo's but not certain I really want to until I can query the DB and get a set listing. Also I worked on troubleshooting many of the scripts I did early on for cards that were missing prices but as I worked on others I relized troubleshooting each one for missing prices would cause the release to be pushed off so far it out I didnt want that to happen. So I will continue to troubleshoot missing prices on various sites but if there is a site you would like looked into first let me know.

Notes I took during the recent update are:
channelfireball, MTGFanatics, OldSchoolGaming, and Gamingetc site does not always contain an english listing or near mint listing of cards. it appears there websites output changes based on stocking levels. many cards that contain a value one day may not the next or vice versa. when reporting an issue verify there is an english near mint price listing for a card.

ABU Problems:
>Lands from Alpha and Beta
>Plains from all sets seem to not get any prices (All Base sets, Anthologies 5-8, Champions of Kamigawa, just to name a few)
I will upload an inventory file for this one, to save time.

CardKingdom Problems:
>Planechase cards "The Aether Flues" (ae is probably the problem), "Turri Island", and "The Great Forest" lack prices.

SCG Problems:
>All Basic Lands lack pricing
>Several other cards ... too many to list, so I'll include this inventory as well.

T&T Problems:
>Your Puny Minds Cannot Fathom from Archenemy still lacks a price. Direct Link: http://www.trollandtoad.com/p296454.html
>Basic Lands - In some cases it is all, in some is is only Plains. Must have a thing against white land . I'll include and inventory.

All in all, looks like you are really moving the scripts along ... can't wait until I can actively get prices for all cards in existence

Now we just need MA to include an "Update All" feature ...

EDIT: No need to re-upload a new version just for these changes: they can wait until you want to upload a new version for all site scripts. I was just pointing out what I saw for the main scripts I use, but basic lands shouldn't be the top priority if you have other scripts to work on.

[woogerboy21]

1.4 notes:
A number of the scripts that were created with this release appear to only list prices for cards in stock. You will see a large number of cards without prices due to this.
Currently GamerSinnaz CCGBot, CapeFearGames, MatchPlay, and GonetoPlaid script only looks for N/M and foil pricing, if anyone is wanting any additional pricing conditions let me know.

Hey Wooger,

Thanks for all the great work you've done on these scripts and continue to do on these scripts. I have a couple more sites I'd love to have pricing scripts for. They are as follows:

http://www.gonetoplaid.com
http://www.matchplay.com
http://www.capefeargames.com
http://www.ccgbot.com
http://www.gamersinnaz.com

These are the sites I find myself buying from most often so it would be great to have them added to Magic Album. There's no rush on them it just would be nice to have. Once again thanks for your great continued work on these pricing scripts!:)

I created the first version scripts for the sites you have requested. They look like there going to be tricky to troubleshoot since most (if not all sites) only list prices for cards in stock. Check them out and let me know if I missed any sets or you see any obvious prices that should be there but aren't.

ABU Problems:
>Lands from Alpha and Beta
>Plains from all sets seem to not get any prices (All Base sets, Anthologies 5-8, Champions of Kamigawa, just to name a few)
I will upload an inventory file for this one, to save time.

CardKingdom Problems:
>Planechase cards "The Aether Flues" (ae is probably the problem), "Turri Island", and "The Great Forest" lack prices.

SCG Problems:
>All Basic Lands lack pricing
>Several other cards ... too many to list, so I'll include this inventory as well.

T&T Problems:
>Your Puny Minds Cannot Fathom from Archenemy still lacks a price. Direct Link: http://www.trollandtoad.com/p296454.html
>Basic Lands - In some cases it is all, in some is is only Plains. Must have a thing against white land . I'll include and inventory.

All in all, looks like you are really moving the scripts along ... can't wait until I can actively get prices for all cards in existence

Now we just need MA to include an "Update All" feature ...

EDIT: No need to re-upload a new version just for these changes: they can wait until you want to upload a new version for all site scripts. I was just pointing out what I saw for the main scripts I use, but basic lands shouldn't be the top priority if you have other scripts to work on.

Things should be fixed from what you listed (with the exception of a couple tokens if I remember correctly.) Check things out and let me know if there is more or if I managed to miss something else.

[moviemadnessman]

ABU Problems:
>Lands from Alpha and Beta
>Plains from all sets seem to not get any prices (All Base sets, Anthologies 5-8, Champions of Kamigawa, just to name a few)
I will upload an inventory file for this one, to save time.

CardKingdom Problems:
>Planechase cards "The Aether Flues" (ae is probably the problem), "Turri Island", and "The Great Forest" lack prices.

SCG Problems:
>All Basic Lands lack pricing
>Several other cards ... too many to list, so I'll include this inventory as well.

T&T Problems:
>Your Puny Minds Cannot Fathom from Archenemy still lacks a price. Direct Link: http://www.trollandtoad.com/p296454.html
>Basic Lands - In some cases it is all, in some is is only Plains. Must have a thing against white land . I'll include and inventory.

All in all, looks like you are really moving the scripts along ... can't wait until I can actively get prices for all cards in existence

Now we just need MA to include an "Update All" feature ...

EDIT: No need to re-upload a new version just for these changes: they can wait until you want to upload a new version for all site scripts. I was just pointing out what I saw for the main scripts I use, but basic lands shouldn't be the top priority if you have other scripts to work on.

Things should be fixed from what you listed (with the exception of a couple tokens if I remember correctly.) Check things out and let me know if there is more or if I managed to miss something else.

You got it. Here's the new list:

ABU:
>Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, and Revised basic lands. The problem seems to be on ABU's end, though. I gather the reason is that cards are differentiated in a different way on the site. For example, in MA, Alpha swamps are Swamp 1 and Swamp 2. On ABU, they are Swamp - A Light and Swamp - B Two Branches. Which I think would mean coding each of the lands specifically for that script according to the site name (42 lands).
Odd, though, is that it gets the prices for both Alpha forests, though they also have custom naming. I don't know if that is a lucky fluke or not.
>Planechase cards "Turri Island" and "The Great Forest" lack prices. Ironically they were fixed from Card Kingdom's issues, but popped up here.

SCG:
>Only 4 cards here, all from Betrayers of Kamigawa: "Ward of Piety", "Waxmane Baku", "Yomiji, Who Bars the Way", and "Yukora, the Prisoner"

CardKingdom and T&T are complete (well, complete as in problems are either known already, or the cards are promos which aren't done yet)




All in all, these 4 scripts look almost as done as they can be (until promo work is done, of course). Two thumbs up

[woogerboy21]

ABU:
>Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, and Revised basic lands. The problem seems to be on ABU's end, though. I gather the reason is that cards are differentiated in a different way on the site. For example, in MA, Alpha swamps are Swamp 1 and Swamp 2. On ABU, they are Swamp - A Light and Swamp - B Two Branches. Which I think would mean coding each of the lands specifically for that script according to the site name (42 lands).
Odd, though, is that it gets the prices for both Alpha forests, though they also have custom naming. I don't know if that is a lucky fluke or not.
>Planechase cards "Turri Island" and "The Great Forest" lack prices. Ironically they were fixed from Card Kingdom's issues, but popped up here.

Actually the scripts logic is correct and the hard coding is not required, in regards to the basic lands problem. The issue is the number of pages specified for the set is incorrect . Since abugames has a number of "art" work and other various oddities listed in those sets I needed to increase the page count from 1 page to 3 - 5 pages (depending on the set). Also the two planechase cards are corrected (they needed hard definitions). Though each pricing script is based off the same template custom changes are made to each script per site so I probably fixed the other sites but didnt add the lines to the abugames script. As I mentioned they shold be fixed in the next release.

SCG:
>Only 4 cards here, all from Betrayers of Kamigawa: "Ward of Piety", "Waxmane Baku", "Yomiji, Who Bars the Way", and "Yukora, the Prisoner"

Once again a page count problem. Fixed and will be available in the next release. (notice the foil prices for these cards were collected just not the non-foil. doh!

CardKingdom and T&T are complete (well, complete as in problems are either known already, or the cards are promos which aren't done yet)

Token and Promo card pricing is coming. I have a few idea's on how to implement the pricing but for sites such as abugames its going to be a pain since they have all the tokens and promo cards under one catagory and named all funky.

I want to work out some updates to the tcgplayer.com script first before posting another release.

[moviemadnessman]

*snip*

As I mentioned they shold be fixed in the next release.
...
Token and Promo card pricing is coming. I have a few idea's on how to implement the pricing but for sites such as abugames its going to be a pain since they have all the tokens and promo cards under one catagory and named all funky.

I want to work out some updates to the tcgplayer.com script first before posting another release.

No problem. As mentioned, I only really use the sites I have personally dealt with when it comes to ordering cards ... but if my tearing apart of these scripts has helped the other scripts at all, then it's for the best.

No rush at this point, so just do what you need to do

[woogerboy21]

No problem. As mentioned, I only really use the sites I have personally dealt with when it comes to ordering cards ... but if my tearing apart of these scripts has helped the other scripts at all, then it's for the best.

No rush at this point, so just do what you need to do

Its definatly helped out to advance the scripts. I also greatly encourage the feedback. Without it I can't tell what problems others are experiencing. I started writing these to be a contributor and try to keep the scripts as close to consistant as I can (though each site is different) so others can update them by themselves if they want to learn. Im definatly no expert, infact I just learned LUA for this app. So things probably could be done differently than the way I have them written.

Oh well enough of the tired rambling... thanks again for the feedback. I plan on updating the sites I refer to as non-dynamic before the next release (only a couple more to troubleshoot) Stay tuned.

[woogerboy21]

Alright v1.5 should be up. Updated a number of the scripts to correct some reported problems. Let me know about any problems in the scripts found.

moviemadnessman -
check out the scripts for the sites you use and let me know if I missed anything this time. The one card that wasnt listed properly on the trollandtoad site may be fixed. I wrote them an email about it and they said they were going to correct it.

[moviemadnessman]

moviemadnessman -
check out the scripts for the sites you use and let me know if I missed anything this time. The one card that wasnt listed properly on the trollandtoad site may be fixed. I wrote them an email about it and they said they were going to correct it.

All look good.

Guess I'll wait for the home stretch (tokens, promos, etc). Some are already being acquired, but that seems to be the next logical step for these scripts.

Keep up the good work, and I hope the other scripts are doing as well as these 4.

[woogerboy21]

All look good.

Guess I'll wait for the home stretch (tokens, promos, etc). Some are already being acquired, but that seems to be the next logical step for these scripts.

Keep up the good work, and I hope the other scripts are doing as well as these 4.

Good to hear! As far as the other scripts go I think I am pretty much caught up on almost all of them. Here is the rundown so far of all the script.

I consider these to be dynamic pricing sites:

magictraders
cardhaus
oldschoolgaming
mtgfanatic
matchplay
gonetoplaid
gamersinnaz
channelfireball
ccgbot
capefeargames

If you take a look the majority of these sites contain a standard db and template for there web page. The problem with troubleshooting these sites is that each sites output per set changes with the qty and type of cards they have in stock. So for example if I were looking up an M11 card (say a forest). On monday they may have the english card in stock with a price listed in a nm condition as well as a plaid condition. On tuesday they may only have an english plaid condition in stock. And on wednesday they might have the jap version of the card in stock in nm condition. Then on thursday they have nothing in stock. Since these scripts look strickly for an english form of the card in nm condition or a card that is out of stock if you were to run the script on monday I would recieve a price for the card. If I ran it on tuesday I would not recieve a price on the card (because the site since it is out of the english nm condition it does not display the price). On wednesday the same thing I would not recieve a price on the card (because the site is out of stock on the english nm condition). On thursday I would recieve a price since they have absolutely no cards in stock its listed as "out of stock". With a site that changes like this I generally do not create a "known problems" listing during updates and rely on others to tell me if the prices are not being correctly identified. Whatever the case may be (ex: missing set completly from sites pricing list). These kind of sites are like a hit and miss when it comes to pricing. I haven't come up with a solution for applying a price for cards that just don't get found for these kinds of sites and would really like to hear from others on possible solutions or if they are happy with how they work as they are now.

the sites i dont consider "dynamic" are:

abugames
cardkindom
mtgotraders
starcitygames
tcgplayer
trollandtoad

These sites are pretty easy to troubleshoot since regardless of qty of cards in stock they list the prices for the cards. If they are out of stock the price for the card doesnt suddenly disappear. It simply shows up with a qty of 0 and you can see what they would be selling the card for if they had it in stock. I like these types of sites. This way if I am looking specifically for a card I can get an understanding of how much it will cost me when I do finally get around to purchasing it. The only somewhat odd exception is the mtgotraders site. This site tries to be sneaky and instead of posting there actually prices in a readable format the price is actually an image shown on your screen. That image is a hash that gets sent through a php script they have that converts the actual hash to a price value for when you check out. Kind of sneaky but seems to me to be a whole lot of effort for something as simple as a price on an electronic card. (which by the way there paper card shop is capefeargames if you didn't know.)

As far as promo and token card pricing, as I mentioned previously each site seems to have there own way of listing the cards and will need to be addressed individually. I personally shop at abugames and just have recently started to trade with oldschoolgaming so most likely they will be the first couple scripts I try and get the promo / token card pricing working. Thanks again for all your comments and anyone else that is reading this please post your throughs / comments about any improvements or requests for any of the sites. Without them I can't tell what needs fixed.

Also if there is any site owners that frequent the forums and follow any of these pricing scripts and would like recommendations (such as mislabeled, mis-set identified cards, or complete sets missing from there site) or have any recommendations feel free to contact me.

[dukemb]

When I updated latest price scripts, some prices get value of 100000000,00!
Example: Phyrexian Bloodstock (PS) in GamesSinnaz, and may cards in CapeFearGames. Anyone dicovered similar bug?

[woogerboy21]

When I updated latest price scripts, some prices get value of 100000000,00!
Example: Phyrexian Bloodstock (PS) in GamesSinnaz, and may cards in CapeFearGames. Anyone dicovered similar bug?

Yea this isnt a bug. Sorry for not mentioning it. Many of the sites I listed as dynamic have the price value of 0.00 for out of stock cards. So to troubleshoot the out of stock cards I created a variable you can set a price for out of stock cards. To make sure it wasn't some noticable number I put in a very large value. I tried to set the variable back to nothing before pushing out the update but must have missed some. If you want to correct this yourself open the lua script up in notepad and search for the string [oosp = "99999999"] and change it to [oosp = ""] (leave out the []'s. Ill see about going through and setting them all to nothing and publishing out a new update.

edit:
alright uploaded a version 15a that has the variable set to nothing so it will pickup the sites price. remember though if the site has the out of stock price set to 0.00 ma wont set the value in the application. if you want to set your own value to identify cards out of stock you can change the value in the script to whatever numerical price you want as described above.

[dukemb]

Thanks!

Example: some card is at the given time available (MA picks the price), the next time (on the next price update) the card is out of stock - so the price changes to 0 or stays the same from the first update (this would be better)?

[woogerboy21]

Thanks!

Example: some card is at the given time available (MA picks the price), the next time (on the next price update) the card is out of stock - so the price changes to 0 or stays the same from the first update (this would be better)?

There's no way from the script side to look up an old price and determin if the price should change. I would have to review the code for these sites but I could probably say something like if card value = 0.00 dont change the price at all. This would accomplish the same thing as your looking for. The only drawback would be that if they recieved cards in stock and changed the price on you and you didnt rerun the script to check for updates you would have stale data. Doesn't seem like to big of a concern. The scripts may work the way I described already. I don't know how the function in the MA application is written, if it actually attempts to set the value if its sent a price of 0.00 or if it simply avoids the price setting routine all together if that value is sent to it. If it skips the routine all together than things should be good. The way I can think of to test it right off the bat is to leave the oosp price set to some price you know and then change the variable to nothing and see if the price on the card changes.

edit:
If you want the functionality of the scripts to not change the price if the card is out of stock I can do so. Your the one using the scripts for pricing not me
If thats the functionality you want then I can make it happen.