Damn it. Surprise ruined. Pokemon board game.

Has anyone been able to catch a Cornpop yet? It keeps showing up when I check for new posts, but so far has resisted capture.
 

Dave

Staff member
I tried to add a Pokemon called Cornpop using @evilmike 's avatar, but the system gave me an error.

Lotta bugs (no pun intended) in this for a paid app.
 
I don't get a message if I caught or did not catch the Pokemon after an attempt. But I apparently caught one of them! Maybe it is a blocked popup?
 
So, in light of the previous confession, this is the psuedo-code for what I'd do:

Open Visual studio, create a project, add the "webbrowser" control.
Add the api hooks for ajax calls, since the screen updates without a refresh. I'd need this to get the "caught/failed" messages.
Surf to Halforums, open the first thread of the first forum.
Throw pokeballs until I get the "caught" message.
wait 30 seconds (or whatever the timer is)
repeat for the remaining two pokemon on the page.
move to the next post. Each thread has it's own unique set of 3 pokemon (note my testing this theory by going down all of the Supervillainous posts this morning).
Repeat until you run out of posts (like, seriously? Would I ever run out of posts in a 24 hour period? There's a lot of history on this board).
Move to next forum.
Rinse repeat.

I could probably hack this up in less than 2 hours considering that I've done exactly this kind of thing at my job a dozen times by now.

I could do much of the same thing with the MSHTML libraries, but then I'd lose the ability to watch the screen auto-catch pokemon while it ran :)
 

Dave

Staff member
Mine is not fake. If it was it'd be the top one. I've tried for YEARS to get that score and only broke 60K twice.
 
So, in light of the previous confession, this is the psuedo-code for what I'd do:

Open Visual studio, create a project, add the "webbrowser" control.
Add the api hooks for ajax calls, since the screen updates without a refresh. I'd need this to get the "caught/failed" messages.
Surf to Halforums, open the first thread of the first forum.
Throw pokeballs until I get the "caught" message.
wait 30 seconds (or whatever the timer is)
repeat for the remaining two pokemon on the page.
move to the next post. Each thread has it's own unique set of 3 pokemon (note my testing this theory by going down all of the Supervillainous posts this morning).
Repeat until you run out of posts (like, seriously? Would I ever run out of posts in a 24 hour period? There's a lot of history on this board).
Move to next forum.
Rinse repeat.

I could probably hack this up in less than 2 hours considering that I've done exactly this kind of thing at my job a dozen times by now.

I could do much of the same thing with the MSHTML libraries, but then I'd lose the ability to watch the screen auto-catch pokemon while it ran :)
FYI, you can open the "catch" link in a new tab/window, andF5-refresh that one until caught. Might be easier.
 
FYI, you can open the "catch" link in a new tab/window, andF5-refresh that one until caught. Might be easier.
in terms of lines of code, probably not. :) The webbrowser control is really limited, and hasn't really been updated in over a decade. But for simple automation/web-scraping, it does the trick.

I first got into web automation with it in the late 90's, back when the Microsoft Document Object Model (DOM) implementation was undocumented and unspoken of.
 
It broadcasts our browsing history when we catch a Pokemon, So if you don't want your SO to know you've been hanging out in the House of Reprehensible Filth, better just let those Pokemon go right on by. :p
 
It broadcasts our browsing history when we catch a Pokemon, So if you don't want your SO to know you've been hanging out in the House of Reprehensible Filth, better just let those Pokemon go right on by. :p
Screw that, I'm mining the Hall of Shame! Umbreon and Blastoise baby!
 
Could I suggest moving the catchable Pokemon to, say, the bottom of the page? When I load a subforum or a thread, the Pokemon game will load last, and ends up shifting the page downwards, which makes me miss the thing I'm trying to click on, or I click on the wrong thing. It's sort of like when we had banner ads.
 
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Scrolled through nearly 50 pages of history before I found the first Pikachu capture. Still haven't seen one myself. :p
 
It's probably a good thing that this isn't based on geo-location, I'd be seeing nothing but Pidgey, Rattata, Spinneret, and Sentret.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
It broadcasts our browsing history when we catch a Pokemon, So if you don't want your SO to know you've been hanging out in the House of Reprehensible Filth, better just let those Pokemon go right on by. :p
O noes! My visits to the Sexy Gif thread, on display for all to see :eek:
 
I really don't post enough (or make new threads) to get enough pokeballs for this. It's fun but I'm sure I'll just trudge along with it. Also doesn't help none of my mobile devices load the game.
 
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