Guild Wars 2

is there a logical reason we don’t have this?
every other mmo i’ve played has had both face to face trading as well as auction houses, so after two years i’m still seriously confused.

3. We don’t need people spamming up local advertising their stuff. It’s already disallowed on the forums.

“Pssst. Hey buddy. I got some nice Ectos that fell off of the back of a Dolyak I can let you have cheap.”

Really looking forward to that times 100.

There is the tax, gold sink.

And there is the problem with scamming with face to face trading. I saw some pretty big game company which can’t even make proper trading windows.

Spam.
——————————————————————————————
They might as well disable sending mail if they dont’ want people to trade.

On a business point of view, you spend ALOT less employee time on customer service for scamming tickets(no responsibility to check for scamming, who is right and who is lying, who deserves to get his item/gold back etc. this kitten just wastes alot of time because someone is stupid enough to get scammed)

On a gaming point of view, 5-15% gold sink depending if transactions are completed or listed only via TP.

I think the lack of chat box spam in this game would be enough of a reason and pretty obvious.

eithinan.9841:

I think the lack of chat box spam in this game would be enough of a reason and pretty obvious.

really? that’s not a problem in other games. at all. don’t want to see it? change the chat filter. i said logical reasons. at least the first reply made sense. then again, almost all trading scams are incredibly obvious and count on the ‘victim’ not having a shred of common sense.
the reason it would(is) be useful, is that there are sometimes items in a game that are so outrageously overpriced(precursors, usually) that you might be able to cut it down a little bit by making an offer.

Lightsbane.9012:

eithinan.9841:

I think the lack of chat box spam in this game would be enough of a reason and pretty obvious.

really? that’s not a problem in other games. at all. don’t want to see it? change the chat filter. i said logical reasons. at least the first reply made sense. then again, almost all trading scams are incredibly obvious and count on the ‘victim’ not having a shred of common sense.
the reason it would(is) be useful, is that there are sometimes items in a game that are so outrageously overpriced(precursors, usually) that you might be able to cut it down a little bit by making an offer.

I find the mystic forge to be pretty reliable for getting precursors. The hard part is getting the mats for the first one.

OT: I think chat spam is a very valid reason not to have p2p trading. sorry this isnt obvious to you, but I like being able to read map chat and say chat without having to be interrupted for commercials for crap I dont want.

do you think there are less scamming because there is no face to face trading?

there are probably more scamming. Just that Anet will tell people that’s non of their business if people are stupid enough to send item through mail.

laokoko.7403:

do you think there are less scamming because there is no face to face trading?

there are probably more scamming. Just that Anet will tell people that’s non of their business if people are stupid enough to send item through mail.

If you are sending via mail it is much more obviously an at your own risk type of thing than via face to face because that way you could claim oh i was tricked because anet used the same icon on items x and y etc.

Plus and this is for me the biggest reason against face to face trading is all the chat spam. wtb this wts that blah blah blah blah blah. As evidenced in GW1 even having a dedicated trade chat option did nothing to curtail the spam in normal chat and it was a nightmare trying to talk to anybody in any of the major cities, especially kamadan

Lightsbane.9012:

is there a logical reason we don’t have this?
every other mmo i’ve played has had both face to face trading as well as auction houses, so after two years i’m still seriously confused.

In GW1 (early, first 2 years, dunno about after that period) scamming was widespread and fairly dominant. The team of devs were constantly getting input on the various methods to scam involving the trading panel/window and constantly having to resolve any issue they could or just put out warnings (which really doesn’t help the new player). I believe the headaches involved in all that led to the current system of the Trading Post or trade by mail completely at your own risk.

I dont’ see the big deal with trading spam.

Most games with well designed trading system actually dont’ have much scam. The few ones with bad programmers got pretty bad.

but whatever, it’s probably best for Anet not to have a trading system, so they dont’ need to spend money on customer support.

Lightsbane.9012:

almost all trading scams are incredibly obvious and count on the ‘victim’ not having a shred of common sense.

That’s not accurate in my experience: not every “scam” is obvious. Regardless, player-to-player trading allows those with greater market savvy to take advantage of the ignorance of others.

But even if you were absolutely correct (that the “victim” is always at fault), games that have a built-in player-to-player trading UI mean 1,000s of tickets for Support. GW2’s system means that there’s no room for misunderstanding and therefore no possibility of scamming.

This might not be a big deal for subscription-fee games — they can afford more staff. But it means that GW2’s support team can focus on helping people with the game, and not with trying to untangle he-said/she-said trading disagreements or have to evaluate whether someone was or wasn’t scammed.

Plus, it’s extremely hard to overemphasize the importance of the gold sink from the 15% that Evon takes from every transaction. That does more to sink gold from the economy than any static system (e.g. trait unlock fees, commander tags, cultural armor skins, and waypoints) — wealthier players pay more, power traders pay more, and more gold is removed as the economy grows.

I admit that I miss the social interaction that trading requires: nearly all my closest friends in GW1 were people I met through trading (or people I met via my trade partners). But there are lots of other ways to socialize in GW2 without trading.

Lightsbane.9012:

is there a logical reason we don’t have this?
every other mmo i’ve played has had both face to face trading as well as auction houses, so after two years i’m still seriously confused.

Is there a logical reason we should have this?

Counter-points.

1. It’s already possible to do “non-TP” trades through the mail. Why would there suddenly be a massive influx of spams about selling items if a better, safer system was put in? Besides, they could cut out the projected spamming significantly by not putting gold as tradable in the trade window. After all, if you want to give someone gold, you can already through the mail.

2. A well-built trading system does not allow for scamming except through practised carelessness (which doesn’t need to be investigated). For example, a “lock” step for trades where once you accept the other side’s offer, they cannot change it before you accept the full trade negates someone quickly removing something just before you click it, as well as gives you all the time you need to ensure you’re getting the right items or amount. By only offering the current system for giving items outside the TP, it actually makes it less secure if someone wants to trade through there, item for item instead of item for gold then gold for item. So yeah, a properly built trading system means that they can simply say “If you get scammed, it is your own fault”, regardless of reused icons. That lock step makes it so that you never have “not enough time” to look at what you’re trading before accepting.

3. Why put it in? Well, it might be unnecessary if it wasn’t super inconvenient to trade things through the mail, blocking you from “spamming” someone if you need to send more than two mails. Also, let’s say I get the Heavy version of the Dry Top goggles and someone else needs that but I need the Light version and they have that and don’t need it. A direct, item-for-item trade system would be better, in that case, than selling my goggles at a loss and then buying another set of goggles, having to make up the difference. Or say I get one of the new kites but want a different colour. Then it gets even more annoying if you’re dealing with more expensive items. If I’m wanting to trade a precursor for a precursor, I’d have to foot a difference of more than 100 gold depending on the specific one by selling mine and then buying the other.

So, any logical refutations that don’t rely on a presupposed massive influx of blockable spam?

Filaha.1678:

So, any logical refutations that don’t rely on a presupposed massive influx of blockable spam?

Implementation costs for example. All this feature seems to do is give people a way to avoid the tp fees and taxes, so why dedicate dev time to it?

Wanze.8410:

Filaha.1678:

So, any logical refutations that don’t rely on a presupposed massive influx of blockable spam?

Implementation costs for example. All this feature seems to do is give people a way to avoid the tp fees and taxes, so why dedicate dev time to it?

Did you read my counter-points?

Because I did, in fact, point out reasons for it.

Namely that it’s already possible to “trade” through the mail to avoid TP fees and taxes, except it’s easier to scam people, the current mail system blocks you from sending more than two mails in quick order, making it inconvenient if you are trading a large amount of things (I frequently give away food I make through leveling cooking), and it’d be more convenient for item-for-item trades instead of having to sell your item (probably at a loss) on the TP, then buy the item you wanted, having to foot the difference.

Again, if you remove gold from the trade window, since you can already give gold through mail if you want, and if you want only gold, you can sell it on the TP, then there is no avoidance of TP taxes, except for item-for-item trades, which you can unsafely do now.

One could make the argument that the new traits system did nothing except make things more of a hassle for people and didn’t functionally change anything for the better, yet dev time was spent on it. Why would a more useful and safer trading system be a bad use of it?

Filaha.1678:

Counter-points.

1. It’s already possible to do “non-TP” trades through the mail. Why would there suddenly be a massive influx of spams about selling items if a better, safer system was put in? Besides, they could cut out the projected spamming significantly by not putting gold as tradable in the trade window. After all, if you want to give someone gold, you can already through the mail.

2. A well-built trading system does not allow for scamming except through practised carelessness (which doesn’t need to be investigated). For example, a “lock” step for trades where once you accept the other side’s offer, they cannot change it before you accept the full trade negates someone quickly removing something just before you click it, as well as gives you all the time you need to ensure you’re getting the right items or amount. By only offering the current system for giving items outside the TP, it actually makes it less secure if someone wants to trade through there, item for item instead of item for gold then gold for item. So yeah, a properly built trading system means that they can simply say “If you get scammed, it is your own fault”, regardless of reused icons. That lock step makes it so that you never have “not enough time” to look at what you’re trading before accepting.

3. Why put it in? Well, it might be unnecessary if it wasn’t super inconvenient to trade things through the mail, blocking you from “spamming” someone if you need to send more than two mails. Also, let’s say I get the Heavy version of the Dry Top goggles and someone else needs that but I need the Light version and they have that and don’t need it. A direct, item-for-item trade system would be better, in that case, than selling my goggles at a loss and then buying another set of goggles, having to make up the difference. Or say I get one of the new kites but want a different colour. Then it gets even more annoying if you’re dealing with more expensive items. If I’m wanting to trade a precursor for a precursor, I’d have to foot a difference of more than 100 gold depending on the specific one by selling mine and then buying the other.

So, any logical refutations that don’t rely on a presupposed massive influx of blockable spam?

Anet is a business and it is good for them to not support out of TP trading, people are stupid and will always be stupid and get scammed.

No matter what fancy trading system Anet spends on, people will still get scammed and file tickets/complain to Anet claiming this and that. I have friends who work for another gaming company’s Customer Service department and you wouldn’t believe how much employee time they waste investigating scamming claims. The time/money used to investigate these claims is an unnecessary expense for Anet.

Gold sink, go look it up in google. 5% listing fee and 10% selling fee helps keep the economy healthy. You wanting to trade an item for an item is good an all but that isn’t the only concern when trading.

Izaya.2906:

Filaha.1678:

Counter-points.

1. It’s already possible to do “non-TP” trades through the mail. Why would there suddenly be a massive influx of spams about selling items if a better, safer system was put in? Besides, they could cut out the projected spamming significantly by not putting gold as tradable in the trade window. After all, if you want to give someone gold, you can already through the mail.

2. A well-built trading system does not allow for scamming except through practised carelessness (which doesn’t need to be investigated). For example, a “lock” step for trades where once you accept the other side’s offer, they cannot change it before you accept the full trade negates someone quickly removing something just before you click it, as well as gives you all the time you need to ensure you’re getting the right items or amount. By only offering the current system for giving items outside the TP, it actually makes it less secure if someone wants to trade through there, item for item instead of item for gold then gold for item. So yeah, a properly built trading system means that they can simply say “If you get scammed, it is your own fault”, regardless of reused icons. That lock step makes it so that you never have “not enough time” to look at what you’re trading before accepting.

3. Why put it in? Well, it might be unnecessary if it wasn’t super inconvenient to trade things through the mail, blocking you from “spamming” someone if you need to send more than two mails. Also, let’s say I get the Heavy version of the Dry Top goggles and someone else needs that but I need the Light version and they have that and don’t need it. A direct, item-for-item trade system would be better, in that case, than selling my goggles at a loss and then buying another set of goggles, having to make up the difference. Or say I get one of the new kites but want a different colour. Then it gets even more annoying if you’re dealing with more expensive items. If I’m wanting to trade a precursor for a precursor, I’d have to foot a difference of more than 100 gold depending on the specific one by selling mine and then buying the other.

So, any logical refutations that don’t rely on a presupposed massive influx of blockable spam?

Anet is a business and it is good for them to not support out of TP trading, people are stupid and will always be stupid and get scammed.

No matter what fancy trading system Anet spends on, people will still get scammed and file tickets/complain to Anet claiming this and that. I have friends who work for another gaming company’s Customer Service department and you wouldn’t believe how much employee time they waste investigating scamming claims. The time/money used to investigate these claims is an unnecessary expense for Anet.

Gold sink, go look it up in google. 5% listing fee and 10% selling fee helps keep the economy healthy. You wanting to trade an item for an item is good an all but that isn’t the only concern when trading.

They don’t need to investigate anything if they adopt the stance that if you get scammed, it’s your own fault. As I said in the very post you quoted, a properly built trading system removes the possibility of scamming that is outside of the control of the scammed. A simple lock step makes it so that once you accept what the other person is offering, they cannot change it. So if you think it’s the right things and click “Accept”, then it locks it, and they cannot change it and you have the time to double-check the items to make sure that they’re the right items, even in the case of reused icons. Then, once you make sure it’s what you wanted and you are satisfied, you hit “Confirm” to finalize the trade.

That one step makes it so that the only reason anyone would get scammed is an intentional carelessness, which doesn’t need to be investigated. There is no “investigation time” that has to be allowed for, because they can literally just adopt the stance that if you got scammed, it was because you didn’t utilize the safety feature given to you.

I know what a gold sink is. I don’t feel that I, or anyone, should have to lose money on a simple item-for-item trade which shouldn’t involve gold at all, though. There’s a line where “It’s a gold sink for the good of the economy” becomes “It’s an unnecessary cost and an inconvenience to a player who isn’t even trying to spend any gold at all”.

And, again, if I want to skip the TP fees, I can do it now. Unsafely. The only options for the convenience of their paying customers should not be “Pay gold you shouldn’t need to spend while trading an item for an item” and “Roll the dice if the person you want to trade with is trustworthy”.

Convenience and caring about customers. Go look it up on Google.

Filaha.1678:

Izaya.2906:

Anet is a business and it is good for them to not support out of TP trading, people are stupid and will always be stupid and get scammed.

No matter what fancy trading system Anet spends on, people will still get scammed and file tickets/complain to Anet claiming this and that. I have friends who work for another gaming company’s Customer Service department and you wouldn’t believe how much employee time they waste investigating scamming claims. The time/money used to investigate these claims is an unnecessary expense for Anet.

Gold sink, go look it up in google. 5% listing fee and 10% selling fee helps keep the economy healthy. You wanting to trade an item for an item is good an all but that isn’t the only concern when trading.

They don’t need to investigate anything if they adopt the stance that if you get scammed, it’s your own fault. As I said in the very post you quoted, a properly built trading system removes the possibility of scamming that is outside of the control of the scammed. A simple lock step makes it so that once you accept what the other person is offering, they cannot change it. So if you think it’s the right things and click “Accept”, then it locks it, and they cannot change it and you have the time to double-check the items to make sure that they’re the right items, even in the case of reused icons. Then, once you make sure it’s what you wanted and you are satisfied, you hit “Confirm” to finalize the trade.

That one step makes it so that the only reason anyone would get scammed is an intentional carelessness, which doesn’t need to be investigated. There is no “investigation time” that has to be allowed for, because they can literally just adopt the stance that if you got scammed, it was because you didn’t utilize the safety feature given to you.

I know what a gold sink is. I don’t feel that I, or anyone, should have to lose money on a simple item-for-item trade which shouldn’t involve gold at all, though. There’s a line where “It’s a gold sink for the good of the economy” becomes “It’s an unnecessary cost and an inconvenience to a player who isn’t even trying to spend any gold at all”.

And, again, if I want to skip the TP fees, I can do it now. Unsafely. The only options for the convenience of their paying customers should not be “Pay gold you shouldn’t need to spend while trading an item for an item” and “Roll the dice if the person you want to trade with is trustworthy”.

Convenience and caring about customers. Go look it up on Google.

Scammed people will file tickets and someone has to go check those tickets before they get closed. More people will be demanding support for getting scammed (out of TP trade is already not supported and seeing people complain or filing tickets when they get scammed is normal now, you can expect a higher volume of people getting scammed if you facilitate trading and a higher volume of tickets).

Again I’d like to reiterate you wanting to trade an item for an item is good an all but that isn’t the only concern when trading.

Lets say you have Dusk and you want to trade it for Dawn.

That removes 1 Dusk(1500g) and 1 Dawn(1200g) from the market and eliminates a potential sale of each item on the TP.

Now there are several possible effects for this.

One is less money is removed from the game contributing to gold having less value faster over time.

Another one is less supply on the TP of those two high demand items translating to higher prices for those items.

Item to item trade may be good to you but it isn’t for others.

Izaya.2906:

Scammed people will file tickets

Prove it.

It’s all well and good to make the claim that it will happen, but you don’t actually have proof that it will, do you? Isn’t it also possible that if they do get reports of being scammed now, those will go down if a secure trading option were to be put into the game?

So prove your assertion over mine.

That removes 1 Dusk(1500g) and 1 Dawn(1200g) from the market and eliminates a potential sale of each item on the TP.

Hold on here. Let’s fill out the whole scenario here.

I have Dusk. I want Dawn. I will trade Dusk for Dawn, because I don’t want to pay a fee on the TP simply because I want to trade an item for an item. It will not go onto the market for absolutely anybody to buy in any scenario, because I will be trading it item-for-item.

Under the current system: I have the option of trading through the mail, risking that someone is going to run off with my Dusk without sending back Dawn.

Under a proposed secure trade system: I have the option of meeting up with the person, offering my Dusk for their Dawn with the ability to check and doublecheck they’re the right items, and we are both guaranteed the item we wanted.

Now there are several possible effects for this.

And this is where your argument becomes fallacious by ignoring the crux of the matter, i.e. that the item will be “traded” to a specific person.

One is less money is removed from the game contributing to gold having less value faster over time.

Except no money is removed from the game in either case, because I don’t want to spend the fees on something that I shouldn’t have to pay fees on, because no money is being spent in either case.

Another one is less supply on the TP of those two high demand items translating to higher prices for those items.

Except there is no lesser supply because my Dusk and the other person’s Dawn were not going to be put on the TP in any event.

Even if I were to put it on the TP now, and the other person bought it from me, and I bought their Dawn, it still wouldn’t affect the general supply because our respective items are not being applied to the general supply. Because we could set a specific buy price that the other party sells directly to, nobody else can possible get their hands on the items.

The only thing that gets affected is that now I had to pay a couple hundred gold in order to do a simple item trade that is absolutely free in practically every other MMO.

Item to item trade may be good to you but it isn’t for others.

Except if I’m going to trade item-for-item, it won’t affect “others” in any case, because nobody else is going to see my item except my prospective trading partner. Since the items are going to go specifically to each of our hands, nobody else will be affected by a decrease in supply, and since no gold is changing hands, gold isn’t being devalued. It’s a net zero. It is neither going up nor down in value.

Let’s put this in a real world situation.

Let’s say Person A has a motorcycle that they don’t want anymore, because now they have a family and need a car in which they can drive their kids. Let’s say Person B claims to have an extra car they don’t need, but would love a motorcycle.

Current system:
The government says that you shouldn’t trade things directly, so A has two options. The first is to just leave their motorcycle in a parking lot while B leaves their car in a different parking lot, and A has to go to that parking lot after leaving his motorcycle at its lot for B. This forces him to trust that B is honest.

The other option is to take the motorcycle to a dealer and sell it to the dealer while B sells their car to the dealer, both less a 15% cut, and then each party has to buy their respective vehicles from the dealer with the funds they just got (plus filling in any shortfall with their own money). However, the dealer is selling the respective vehicles at the price they paid to the person plus that cut.

Prospective system:
A now has the option of just driving to the same parking lot as B, with a police officer waiting there for the two of them, and each hands their keys to the officer. The officer then walks to both vehicles and tests the keys in each one to ensure that the keys work in their respective vehicles, then hands the happy new owners their keys.

Now let’s assume that the motorcycle is only 75% the value of the car. That means A now has to not only spend the money he made off selling the motorcycle to the dealer, but also the extra 25% difference plus the 15% he lost to the dealer. All to do a simple trade with one, single, specific person.

Seems a little bit ridiculous to me.

If they’re actually worried about the devaluation of gold, there are other ways they can make gold sinks. For one thing, they shouldn’t have removed the repair cost.

Filaha.1678:

Namely that it’s already possible to “trade” through the mail to avoid TP fees and taxes, except it’s easier to scam people, the current mail system blocks you from sending more than two mails in quick order, making it inconvenient if you are trading a large amount of things (I frequently give away food I make through leveling cooking), and it’d be more convenient for item-for-item trades instead of having to sell your item (probably at a loss) on the TP, then buy the item you wanted, having to foot the difference.

So just because you want to send mail at a quicker rate to give away your food stuff, you want Anet to implement direct trading?

IF you trade item-for-item, someone will get the shorter end of the stick, unless you take away the fees and taxes.

Supported direct trading will never happen in this game, John Smith already stated that.

Filaha.1678:

-snip-

Again, you’re talking about what you will do.

Given the current system, people who want a secure transaction will sell off their Dusk on the tp removing 225g from circulation and 180g for the Dawn seller and satisfying people with gold on hand’s demand.

Now if you facilitate a trade, those people will not list it on the TP allowing 405g to circulate just for those 2 items alone.

Those people who were willing to pay for Dusk/Dawn will continue to farm gold and increase what they are willing to pay in gold for Dusk and Dawn.

I hope you see the big picture instead of just the factors involved in a single person to person trade.

eithinan.9841:

Lightsbane.9012:

eithinan.9841:

I think the lack of chat box spam in this game would be enough of a reason and pretty obvious.

really? that’s not a problem in other games. at all. don’t want to see it? change the chat filter. i said logical reasons. at least the first reply made sense. then again, almost all trading scams are incredibly obvious and count on the ‘victim’ not having a shred of common sense.
the reason it would(is) be useful, is that there are sometimes items in a game that are so outrageously overpriced(precursors, usually) that you might be able to cut it down a little bit by making an offer.

I find the mystic forge to be pretty reliable for getting precursors. The hard part is getting the mats for the first one.

OT: I think chat spam is a very valid reason not to have p2p trading. sorry this isnt obvious to you, but I like being able to read map chat and say chat without having to be interrupted for commercials for crap I dont want.

it’s not an obvious reason to me because in other games i turn world/map chat off. have you never played a game with that function?

@Filaha – If they did everything you suggested in making a reasonably unscamable UI for Player to Player trading and skill took their 15% (or 10% sales tax) if currency is part of the transaction, would that be unacceptable to you?

See I don’t know if the motivation behind this is to avoid the fees and tax or simply trading to specific players at amounts below the current TP level.

Lightsbane.9012:

eithinan.9841:

Lightsbane.9012:

eithinan.9841:

I think the lack of chat box spam in this game would be enough of a reason and pretty obvious.

really? that’s not a problem in other games. at all. don’t want to see it? change the chat filter. i said logical reasons. at least the first reply made sense. then again, almost all trading scams are incredibly obvious and count on the ‘victim’ not having a shred of common sense.
the reason it would(is) be useful, is that there are sometimes items in a game that are so outrageously overpriced(precursors, usually) that you might be able to cut it down a little bit by making an offer.

I find the mystic forge to be pretty reliable for getting precursors. The hard part is getting the mats for the first one.

OT: I think chat spam is a very valid reason not to have p2p trading. sorry this isnt obvious to you, but I like being able to read map chat and say chat without having to be interrupted for commercials for crap I dont want.

it’s not an obvious reason to me because in other games i turn world/map chat off. have you never played a game with that function?

I have played that type of game because I play this game. Chat options are nice to have but I would rather not have to turn one off because it is being spammed with wts/wtb listings. When that happens then all of the public chat channels are going to get spammed, happens every time. Really this is all that needs to be said on this topic. QOL.

eithinan.9841:

Lightsbane.9012:

eithinan.9841:

Lightsbane.9012:

eithinan.9841:

I think the lack of chat box spam in this game would be enough of a reason and pretty obvious.

really? that’s not a problem in other games. at all. don’t want to see it? change the chat filter. i said logical reasons. at least the first reply made sense. then again, almost all trading scams are incredibly obvious and count on the ‘victim’ not having a shred of common sense.
the reason it would(is) be useful, is that there are sometimes items in a game that are so outrageously overpriced(precursors, usually) that you might be able to cut it down a little bit by making an offer.

I find the mystic forge to be pretty reliable for getting precursors. The hard part is getting the mats for the first one.

OT: I think chat spam is a very valid reason not to have p2p trading. sorry this isnt obvious to you, but I like being able to read map chat and say chat without having to be interrupted for commercials for crap I dont want.

it’s not an obvious reason to me because in other games i turn world/map chat off. have you never played a game with that function?

I have played that type of game because I play this game. Chat options are nice to have but I would rather not *have to turn one off because it is being spammed with wts/wtb listings.* When that happens then all of the public chat channels are going to get spammed, happens every time. Really this is all that needs to be said on this topic. QOL.

i guess it’s really that difficult to fiddle with chat settings, true. then again there’s a reason to keep them on: you may find it cheaper, which i think i said in my original post.
scenario: you’re looking for an item, it’s 50g on the BLTC. someone is ‘spamming’ in general/map chat selling the item for 41g. how do you take advantage of this deal? do you…turn off the chat or pay attention to the offer?

Lightsbane.9012:

eithinan.9841:

Lightsbane.9012:

eithinan.9841:

Lightsbane.9012:

eithinan.9841:

I think the lack of chat box spam in this game would be enough of a reason and pretty obvious.

really? that’s not a problem in other games. at all. don’t want to see it? change the chat filter. i said logical reasons. at least the first reply made sense. then again, almost all trading scams are incredibly obvious and count on the ‘victim’ not having a shred of common sense.
the reason it would(is) be useful, is that there are sometimes items in a game that are so outrageously overpriced(precursors, usually) that you might be able to cut it down a little bit by making an offer.

I find the mystic forge to be pretty reliable for getting precursors. The hard part is getting the mats for the first one.

OT: I think chat spam is a very valid reason not to have p2p trading. sorry this isnt obvious to you, but I like being able to read map chat and say chat without having to be interrupted for commercials for crap I dont want.

it’s not an obvious reason to me because in other games i turn world/map chat off. have you never played a game with that function?

I have played that type of game because I play this game. Chat options are nice to have but I would rather not *have to turn one off because it is being spammed with wts/wtb listings.* When that happens then all of the public chat channels are going to get spammed, happens every time. Really this is all that needs to be said on this topic. QOL.

i guess it’s really that difficult to fiddle with chat settings, true. then again there’s a reason to keep them on: you may find it cheaper, which i think i said in my original post.
scenario: you’re looking for an item, it’s 50g on the BLTC. someone is ‘spamming’ in general/map chat selling the item for 41g. how do you take advantage of this deal? do you…turn off the chat or pay attention to the offer?

Why would he offer it at 41g if he gets 50g on the tp?

Offical responses on player to player trading.
“While we understand the want for P2P trading, we feel that the Trading Post works well for accomplishing fair deals and keeping individual users protected from those with less-than-pure-intentions.
Again, while we know that the majority of players would use a P2P system within its intended design, creating they system may place the global economy at risk, as well as some players.”
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Player-to-Player-trading/first

Also, on the same thread,
“The developers have stated the position on this issue. You might not agree with the stance, and we understand that. At this time, there are no plans to change it.
Thank you all for your feedback.”

Wanze.8410:

Lightsbane.9012:

eithinan.9841:

Lightsbane.9012:

eithinan.9841:

Lightsbane.9012:

eithinan.9841:

I think the lack of chat box spam in this game would be enough of a reason and pretty obvious.

really? that’s not a problem in other games. at all. don’t want to see it? change the chat filter. i said logical reasons. at least the first reply made sense. then again, almost all trading scams are incredibly obvious and count on the ‘victim’ not having a shred of common sense.
the reason it would(is) be useful, is that there are sometimes items in a game that are so outrageously overpriced(precursors, usually) that you might be able to cut it down a little bit by making an offer.

I find the mystic forge to be pretty reliable for getting precursors. The hard part is getting the mats for the first one.

OT: I think chat spam is a very valid reason not to have p2p trading. sorry this isnt obvious to you, but I like being able to read map chat and say chat without having to be interrupted for commercials for crap I dont want.

it’s not an obvious reason to me because in other games i turn world/map chat off. have you never played a game with that function?

I have played that type of game because I play this game. Chat options are nice to have but I would rather not *have to turn one off because it is being spammed with wts/wtb listings.* When that happens then all of the public chat channels are going to get spammed, happens every time. Really this is all that needs to be said on this topic. QOL.

i guess it’s really that difficult to fiddle with chat settings, true. then again there’s a reason to keep them on: you may find it cheaper, which i think i said in my original post.
scenario: you’re looking for an item, it’s 50g on the BLTC. someone is ‘spamming’ in general/map chat selling the item for 41g. how do you take advantage of this deal? do you…turn off the chat or pay attention to the offer?

Why would he offer it at 41g if he gets 50g on the tp?

i think you missed the point entirely.

I think one of the problem is there really isn’t too many gold sink in this game, trading post fee is pretty much the gold sink.

If they would to allow peer-to-peer trading, they would have to design more than just the trade window, they have to redesign the whole economy.

That’s pretty much what the dev’s post says.

The thing is, there is no need for face to face trading. You could literally just add a section to the TP where you could put item-for-item trade offers. That would also eliminate the concern about being scammed.

However, that will never happen. Simplest reason is that item-for-item trading cannot be taxed in any sane way. However, you can achieve the same effect and get taxes by making the player trade their item for gold and then trade that gold for the other item.

The TP is the most effective coin sink in the game because most goods that you might want to buy can be found on the TP and everything on the TP is taxed. The goods that are not on the TP are non-tradeables, lot of which are bought from NPCs, so they are already doing their part. Any suggestion that would hinder the TP as a coin sink is insanity.

Lightsbane, I think you’ve misunderstood the opposition to spam because you’re not seeing any other use for map chat except for trading.

It’s used for idle banter at times, for coordinating zone fights such as in Dry Top, calling out events, asking questions about how to do certain things, finding help with a tricky vista, etc. If all these communications get drowned in constant WTB/WTS yammering, the social game experience suffers. Solution is a Trade Channel, perhaps? No dice, the would-be trader gets spammed away in that specified channel and trots over to the general chat tab to look for commerce and boom, we’re back to the Times Square Ad Blitz.

We don’t want to miss all the social stuff, so turning off the chat is not an option. Far better to not have trade spam in the first place.

I think that the TP is there for good reason. But I also do think there are items that you should be able to mail such as skins, boosters, and SOME account bound/soul bound on acquire skins, and minis. Plus you don’t need the face-to-face trade. Just deal with the tax, vendor it, or break it bro.

Donari.5237:

Lightsbane, I think you’ve misunderstood the opposition to spam because you’re not seeing any other use for map chat except for trading.

It’s used for idle banter at times, for coordinating zone fights such as in Dry Top, calling out events, asking questions about how to do certain things, finding help with a tricky vista, etc. If all these communications get drowned in constant WTB/WTS yammering, the social game experience suffers. Solution is a Trade Channel, perhaps? No dice, the would-be trader gets spammed away in that specified channel and trots over to the general chat tab to look for commerce and boom, we’re back to the Times Square Ad Blitz.

We don’t want to miss all the social stuff, so turning off the chat is not an option. Far better to not have trade spam in the first place.

i guess i give up at this point. it’s something i want but won’t get(like mobility on my necromancer) and i’m fine with it, but i can’t see chatspam as the practical reason why it won’t be implemented, part of it, maybe, but a very small part of it.

Wanze.8410:

So just because you want to send mail at a quicker rate to give away your food stuff, you want Anet to implement direct trading?

Yes, that’s clearly the only thing I said in the thread that has anything to do with reasoning for it. Disregarding everything else I said and the fact that the example of giving things away was more of an example of why the current system is just purely inconvenient rather than reason for secure trading, of course.

Supported direct trading will never happen in this game, John Smith already stated that.

Things are said. Minds get changed. That’s how things grow. If you asked them when the game came out to remove repair fees or the cost of redistributing trait points, what do you think the answer would have been then?

Speaking of which, if the game economy is so delicately balanced right now that it needs gold sinks to not come crashing down around everyone, why were both of those gold sinks removed? And why was a third purchasable crafting slot put into the game when switching crafts would be another gold sink? Hmmmmm.

Izaya.2906:

Again, you’re talking about what you will do.

No, I’m talking about an example. It doesn’t have to be me. It could be anybody who wants to trade item-for-item.

Given the current system, people who want a secure transaction will sell off their Dusk on the tp removing 225g from circulation and 180g for the Dawn seller and satisfying people with gold on hand’s demand.

Which, to be honest, is insulting to the playerbase to make them pay for a secure trade system which is free in practically every other MMO.

Even regardless of how I or anyone would use it, it’s terrible customer care to make it so that your only options for trading are either “Risk easy scams” or “Spend unnecessary gold”.

Behellagh.1468:

@Filaha – If they did everything you suggested in making a reasonably unscamable UI for Player to Player trading and skill took their 15% (or 10% sales tax) if currency is part of the transaction, would that be unacceptable to you?

TBH, I think that gold should not be added into the trade system regardless because if you want gold for your item, you could just use the TP. Personally, I think it’d be more beneficial to have a specifically item-for-item trading system since we already have one in the game, just horribly unsafe.

In addition to not having to worry about if it should or shouldn’t be taxed, it would alleviate a majority of the concerns of “WTS/WTB spam”, because they couldn’t sell or buy things through it. Only trade it. And to alleviate even that, they could, instead of a standard trade UI, put item-for-item trades through a similar service to the TP. So if I want to trade my Dusk for someone’s Dawn, I can just search up Dawn and see if anyone wants to trade for it, or put up a request myself for that trade.

laokoko.7403:

I think one of the problem is there really isn’t too many gold sink in this game, trading post fee is pretty much the gold sink.

Then they shouldn’t be removing the gold sinks they do have, if it’s such a problem.

Olba.5376:

Simplest reason is that item-for-item trading cannot be taxed in any sane way

And it shouldn’t be. If I want to swap Xbox games with a friend, should I have to send $10 to the government?

So more open questions to whoever thinks they can defend it.

What is it about the GW2 economy that makes it so precariously balanced that adding a trade option would destroy everything, yet there are countless other MMOs with trade options which have healthy economies?

As a follow-up, do you not think that a fragile system such as this should be fixed, rather than continuing to rely on such a precious balance?

And as asked earlier in the post and further to those questions, if gold sinks are so necessary and shouldn’t possibly be removed because destruction for everyone’s money, why do you think they’re actively removing gold sinks? Since April, they’ve removed repair costs, they’ve removed trait respec costs, and they’ve offered an extra crafting slot for purchase which, if purchased, allows for an extra slot so that you don’t have to pay to switch up to three professions, for examples. Those are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head.

And finally, why do you accept that you should have to pay for security in trades compared to a vast majority of MMOs which would allow you security in trading as a basic right? Is it solely because you think it’s a necessary evil, or do you really not see a problem in that?

Retraiting/repairs/additional crafting is a drop in the bucket compared to TP fees. Selling a single (<5g) exotic on the TP removes more gold from the game than a person would pay for all 3 of these things in a week. The point of NOT having secure p2p trade is that if you don’t want to get taxed, then you open yourself to the option of being royally screwed and having nobody to blame but yourself. If you don’t want to pay your 15% fee, go ahead, trade on good faith. The choice is entirely yours.

As to your other game question, it’s not a case of the gw2 economy being fragile, but other game economies being crap. Let’s take world of herpcraft as an example. Compare the price of TBC stack of silk to a stack of silk in MoP. A few silver to a few hundred gold. Yeah, no inflation at all. Adding another zero to all the prices for each year the game’s been out is such a great thing, I wish we had it… said no one ever.

Lightsbane.9012:

Donari.5237:

Lightsbane, I think you’ve misunderstood the opposition to spam because you’re not seeing any other use for map chat except for trading.

It’s used for idle banter at times, for coordinating zone fights such as in Dry Top, calling out events, asking questions about how to do certain things, finding help with a tricky vista, etc. If all these communications get drowned in constant WTB/WTS yammering, the social game experience suffers. Solution is a Trade Channel, perhaps? No dice, the would-be trader gets spammed away in that specified channel and trots over to the general chat tab to look for commerce and boom, we’re back to the Times Square Ad Blitz.

We don’t want to miss all the social stuff, so turning off the chat is not an option. Far better to not have trade spam in the first place.

i guess i give up at this point. it’s something i want but won’t get

Donari is correct and said it more eloquently than I did and noone cares what you want.

Filaha.1678:

And as asked earlier in the post and further to those questions, if gold sinks are so necessary and shouldn’t possibly be removed because destruction for everyone’s money, why do you think they’re actively removing gold sinks? Since April, they’ve removed repair costs, they’ve removed trait respec costs, and they’ve offered an extra crafting slot for purchase which, if purchased, allows for an extra slot so that you don’t have to pay to switch up to three professions, for examples.

This is the socialist agenda at work. All those different gold sinks that they took out have helped the masses of players who have any amount of gold while the tp 15% targets mostly the wealthy. In their place they put in heal-o-tron to activate the crown pavilion as a gold sink and I am sure we will find a few other examples of event gold sinks in the future.

Filaha.1678:

And it shouldn’t be. If I want to swap Xbox games with a friend, should I have to send $10 to the government?

The reason it should be taxed is because the most common reason for asking for item-to-item trading is because someone doesn’t want to pay the listing fee for an expensive item, such as as a precursor. And yes, it’s a “want”, not a “can’t”.

What is it about the GW2 economy that makes it so precariously balanced that adding a trade option would destroy everything, yet there are countless other MMOs with trade options which have healthy economies?

As a follow-up, do you not think that a fragile system such as this should be fixed, rather than continuing to rely on such a precious balance?

It’s not that it would destroy the whole economy, it’s that it would remove a lot of items from the taxable items pool. If you think that item-for-item trading would not result in most expensive items being removed from the TP entirely and replaced by trade spam, you’re a pretty big dreamer.

And my experience is that GW2 has one of the healthiest economies I have seen in an online game. Good things are still affordable, while luxuries are expensive but not at a gold cap price.

And as asked earlier in the post and further to those questions, if gold sinks are so necessary and shouldn’t possibly be removed because destruction for everyone’s money, why do you think they’re actively removing gold sinks? Since April, they’ve removed repair costs, they’ve removed trait respec costs, and they’ve offered an extra crafting slot for purchase which, if purchased, allows for an extra slot so that you don’t have to pay to switch up to three professions, for examples. Those are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head.

• Repair costs were a minor coin sink to begin with, so removing that doesn’t really change much.
• Trait respeccing became cheaper for people who retrait a lot of times. For most people, they don’t do that. A lot of the costs for retraiting was put towards the costs of unlocking traits in the first place. For most people, the costs for unlocking all traits is going to be much, much more than they would have ever spent on retraiting, thus making it an effective coin sink.
• Switching your crafting profession wasn’t exactly a major coin sink either. Most people learn crafting professions that fit their character and instead swapped characters for crafting.

And finally, why do you accept that you should have to pay for security in trades compared to a vast majority of MMOs which would allow you security in trading as a basic right? Is it solely because you think it’s a necessary evil, or do you really not see a problem in that?

Security in trading? The games that I have played have had the systems that you think are secure (double confirmation, dialogue boxes listing item names) and I have seen people getting scammed fairly often.

The thing is, the use cases for item-for-item trading are mostly about shady practices (even John Smith has said this in the past):

• Avoiding TP fees on expensive items such as precursors or Legendaries
• Trading a higher valued item for a lower valued item (such as precursor-for-precursor trading)
• Selling an item at a lower price to a person who you don’t trust enough to do mail trading with

SpeedFiend.4521:

Retraiting/repairs/additional crafting is a drop in the bucket compared to TP fees.

Yet they’re still removing them. If gold sinks are so sorely needed, as most people here seem to champion as their reasoning, then removing what is there is counter-productive.

The point of NOT having secure p2p trade is that if you don’t want to get taxed, then you open yourself to the option of being royally screwed and having nobody to blame but yourself. If you don’t want to pay your 15% fee, go ahead, trade on good faith. The choice is entirely yours.

Exactly. Which is insulting to the players at large. If our only options are “entirely unsafe” and “safety for a considerable fee”, they’re denying what should be a basic right.

As to your other game question, it’s not a case of the gw2 economy being fragile, but other game economies being crap.

Let me get something straight here. When I asked that question, the only example I expected to be used would be WoW, simply because it’s the most popular to harp on, while being the worst example.

Let’s take world of herpcraft as an example. Compare the price of TBC stack of silk to a stack of silk in MoP. A few silver to a few hundred gold.

You’re right. That inflation is a lot.

After 10 years. Here’s where we hit your fallacious reasoning.

Did you forget that WoW has been out since 2004? People have had 10 years to amass gold. People in Guild Wars 2 have not had 10 years to amass gold. Give GW2 another 8 years for people to amass gold, and without any additional, large gold sinks, there’s going to be inflation here, too. That’s one reason why your example doesn’t work. You’re comparing huge time differences. Do you have any examples of terrible economies in games which have been out an equal amount of time as GW2, where people have had the same amount of time to acquire currency?

Now let’s go on to another reason why your example is fallacious, which you’d have to keep in mind if you’re even going to attempt giving another example. Remember that this is to do with having a secure trading option, and why other games can have healthy economies while having a secure trading option. So this, logically, leads to this question: Are you suggesting that WoW’s economy is a result of having a secure trading option? Because I can think of several reasons why their economy has nothing to do with having a secure trading option, not the least of which are, as I just pointed out, the game being out for 10 years for people to amass gold, and the fact that with each expansion and each increase in level cap, they also make it easier to get gold by increasing the amount you obtain through quests and otherwise.

If you’re going to compare the cost of items from BC to MoP, you also have to compare the fact that a single quest, while levelling, in BC gave you probably less than a gold, while by Cataclysm, you could get a handful of gold for a “Kill 10 guys” quest. Let’s also factor in that at some point in the game, I believe BC, but maybe WotLK, they also made it so that when you hit level cap, your experience from quests, because you can’t level, translated into extra gold. Add in a huge amount of daily quests, and people are gaining gold at severely increased rates since BC up to MoP.

So that being said, how is their economy’s state relevant to having a secure trading option?

And on the subject of cloth prices, Wool Cloth, in this game, is currently about 3 and a half silver per piece for a scrap, which comes to 7 silver for a bolt of cloth. It takes 24 bolts to make a light armour set, which would equal 1.68G for the cloth alone for that armour. That’s the second tier of cloth. Keep that in mind, that the basic use of that cloth is to make low-level armour. Let’s also consider that you can wait 2 more levels to 32, and get Masterwork rather than Fine quality armour for a quarter of the price.
So consider that the current price of wool cloth makes it unrealistic to actually use as a purchased commodity for what should be its primary use, low level armour. The only uses it has at its current price are for people who have already leveled to 80 and can farm gold easily to buy for alts, or spend real money on gems to trade for gold, or to make Bolts of Damask.

So, given that the cost of a low level material makes it unrealistic to even use it as a low level material, would you consider this economy good as it stands?

And that’s just an example of a larger problem. The cloth market in this game is ridiculous in general. Deldrimor Steel Ingots are 3.8G. Spiritwood is 4G. Elonian Leather is 2G. Damask is just shy of 15G.

Olba.5376:

The reason it should be taxed is because the most common reason for asking for item-to-item trading is because someone doesn’t want to pay the listing fee for an expensive item, such as as a precursor.

Which they shouldn’t have to do to trade an item for an item.

It’s not that it would destroy the whole economy, it’s that it would remove a lot of items from the taxable items pool. If you think that item-for-item trading would not result in most expensive items being removed from the TP entirely and replaced by trade spam, you’re a pretty big dreamer.

I’m kind of getting the feeling you don’t understand what “item-for-item” means.

And my experience is that GW2 has one of the healthiest economies I have seen in an online game. Good things are still affordable, while luxuries are expensive but not at a gold cap price.

Funny, because most MMOs I’ve played have better economies for the same amount of time they’ve been out. GW2 suffers from scaling loot. You can’t get some materials consistently past a certain leveling point, resulting in artificially increased rarity. See my cloth example. Games like FF14 and SW:TOR, though? You can get the same materials no matter how far you are, and SW:TOR probably has the best economy I’ve seen so far, simply because you can get low level materials not only as easily as you can get high end ones, but, in fact, easier with higher gathering professions. It keeps a good supply coming into the game which keeps low level materials low enough that people can afford them for use, but not so low that they’re worthless.

• Repair costs were a minor coin sink to begin with, so removing that doesn’t really change much.

Irrelevant. They’re still removing something that, according to most people here, was part of something really important.

For most people, the costs for unlocking all traits is going to be much, much more than they would have ever spent on retraiting, thus making it an effective coin sink.

Except not necessarily, because people can also unlock them for free.

• Switching your crafting profession wasn’t exactly a major coin sink either.

Again, being “major” is irrelevant. It’s a part of a whole.

Security in trading? The games that I have played have had the systems that you think are secure (double confirmation, dialogue boxes listing item names) and I have seen people getting scammed fairly often.

And? That doesn’t mean it’s not secure, it means people don’t use the security. That’s their fault. Are you saying that having a lock on a car is not security because people leave their cars unlocked?

• Avoiding TP fees on expensive items such as precursors or Legendaries

Which isn’t shady when it’s item-for-item. You shouldn’t have to pay a fee to give one item to another person and receive another item in return.

• Trading a higher valued item for a lower valued item (such as precursor-for-precursor trading)

How is this shady? If I’m willing to trade a Dusk for enough Bolts of Damask to craft a couple ascended armour sets, on whose part is that shady?

• Selling an item at a lower price to a person who you don’t trust enough to do mail trading with

Firstly, again, how is this shady? And secondly, this proves to me that you don’t understand what “item-for-item” trading is, because you’re saying “lower price” and “selling”. Item-for-item trades are not selling. They’re trading one item for another item (or items). For example, 5 Bolts of Damask for 12 Deldrimor Steel.

Also, I clearly don’t care what John Smith said. I’m asking for justification from the players, not from the people responsible for the system who will, of course, argue that their system works. They wouldn’t use the system if they thought it was bad (I hope).

Filaha.1678:

Funny, because most MMOs I’ve played have better economies for the same amount of time they’ve been out. GW2 suffers from scaling loot. You can’t get some materials consistently past a certain leveling point, resulting in artificially increased rarity. See my cloth example. Games like FF14 and SW:TOR, though? You can get the same materials no matter how far you are, and SW:TOR probably has the best economy I’ve seen so far, simply because you can get low level materials not only as easily as you can get high end ones, but, in fact, easier with higher gathering professions. It keeps a good supply coming into the game which keeps low level materials low enough that people can afford them for use, but not so low that they’re worthless.

I have experienced the opposite. In Guild Wars 2, you can get low level items by going to a low level area and killing things. I have been in games where your drop rate of a lower level item approaches zero as your level gets higher. You know, the kind where you have to make an alt if you want to farm mid-level items because your high level character can only get 1 of them in an hour whereas a mid-level character gets 5 times that.

1. Irrelevant. They’re still removing something that, according to most people here, was part of something really important.
2. Except not necessarily, because people can also unlock them for free.

1. The effect of a coin sink is undeniably important. A good coin sink is is unobtrusive while removing enough coin from the pool to be a significant contributor. You’re arguing about the semantics of a coin sink, I am arguing about the effectiveness of specific coin sinks. Please get on the same page with me here.
2. They can, but a lot of people won’t. Personally, I bought all of the new GM traits on all of my characters on the day they were released without even looking at what their effects were.

And? That doesn’t mean it’s not secure, it means people don’t use the security. That’s their fault. Are you saying that having a lock on a car is not security because people leave their cars unlocked?

I am saying that the security measures you put in are irrelevant because there will be people who ignore them. A system that requires human involvement is never truly secure.

1. Which isn’t shady when it’s item-for-item. You shouldn’t have to pay a fee to give one item to another person and receive another item in return.
2. How is this shady? If I’m willing to trade a Dusk for enough Bolts of Damask to craft a couple ascended armour sets, on whose part is that shady?
3. Firstly, again, how is this shady? And secondly, this proves to me that you don’t understand what “item-for-item” trading is, because you’re saying “lower price” and “selling”. Item-for-item trades are not selling. They’re trading one item for another item (or items). For example, 5 Bolts of Damask for 12 Deldrimor Steel.

All three were examples where shady activity can happen. And that’s what makes it shady.

Trading item-for-item directly can result in someone getting less value for their item. That’s an avenue that “crafty” or “skilled” traders can and will take advantage of. Which is quite shady.

The example about trading an item for gold was something that a lot of people who ask for player-to-player trading are making: they want to give a “deal” to someone they don’t quite trust, such as a member of their faction.

The reason I am using the word “item-for-item” rather than “player-to-player” is because the former can be implemented without the latter. Also, item-for-item trading is at least a bit more arguable than player-to-player trading.

Also, I clearly don’t care what John Smith said. I’m asking for justification from the players, not from the people responsible for the system who will, of course, argue that their system works. They wouldn’t use the system if they thought it was bad (I hope).

So you don’t care about what the expert with all the tools and knowledge says because he’s getting paid for his expertise?

I think one of the biggest problems, if item-for-item trade would be implemented, is that it will result in a less efficient economy.

Generally, there are 2 kinds of supply, supply that is listed on the tp for trade and supply in peoples possession. In general, the more of the overall supply is listed on the tp, the more stable the price will be. If there is less supply listed on the tp, prices are more prone to price spikes, for example.

If a decent amount of trading gets done over direct trade between players, the high velocity of the market will also suffer, which is one of the biggest reasons why prices find equilibrium as fast as they do now.

I just dont see how a minor convenience feature for some players would warrant unbalancing the economy.

Olba.5376:

In Guild Wars 2, you can get low level items by going to a low level area and killing things. I have been in games where your drop rate of a lower level item approaches zero as your level gets higher.

I was kind enough to give examples. What are yours?

You’re arguing about the semantics of a coin sink, I am arguing about the effectiveness of specific coin sinks.

No, I’m trying to keep it in the context of my question. To reiterate, if coin sinks are so important, why are they being removed, regardless of effectiveness? Even if only 100G a month is removed through repairs, that’s still 100G not floating around.

Personally, I bought all of the new GM traits on all of my characters on the day they were released without even looking at what their effects were.

That’s you. I now request your evidence that a large amount of people who didn’t already have the traits have the extra money and skill points to simply buy them all, specifically enough to make it “worth” having.

I am saying that the security measures you put in are irrelevant because there will be people who ignore them.

Irrelevant to what?

Trading item-for-item directly can result in someone getting less value for their item.

Can. Except everyone has access to the TP to check the price of the items in question, making it, again, simply a matter of carelessness.

In fact, simple fix to satisfy your complaint of potential shadiness in this regard: Since everyone has access to the TP anyways, have an additional section on the trade UI that shows the current highest buy price and current lowest sell price for the item(s) offered in the trade window. That way, there are undeniable figures put right in front of the person’s face to make sure they know relative values.

Amazing what 10 seconds of thought can come up with.

The example about trading an item for gold was something that a lot of people who ask for player-to-player trading are making: they want to give a “deal” to someone they don’t quite trust, such as a member of their faction.

Which doesn’t have anything to do with what I said, and in fact in this very thread, I said that they could even remove gold from the item-for-item trade system expressly so that people who want to trade for gold cannot skip the tax. I would ask that if you’re going to try to refute my points, you stick to my points, not arguments made by other people.

The reason I am using the word “item-for-item” rather than “player-to-player” is because the former can be implemented without the latter. Also, item-for-item trading is at least a bit more arguable than player-to-player trading.

Which is why I’ve been advocating item-for-item, and have, in fact, made mention that it’d be fine, in my opinion, to not include gold in the trades at all. I also made mention that they could add another section to the TP UI which is specifically for items only, so if someone wants to trade Dawn for Dusk, they can put their Dawn up on the listing asking specifically for Dusk. Then anyone who wants Dawn can look it up in that UI and see what people are offering. This has the added benefit of what I said earlier to debunk your “shadiness” assertion, because in that same UI, you could easily integrate a “price-check” function to show the current TP prices to make sure they’re not asking for a Dusk while trading the value equivalent of 5 Tiny Fangs, and people can easily see the price difference between Dawn and Dusk to decide if a 300G difference is worth a direct trade.

So you don’t care about what the expert with all the tools and knowledge says because he’s getting paid for his expertise?

Correct. Let me put it this way.

If you were debating buying a car but weren’t sure if it was a good buy, whose advice would you seek? A dealer whose job it is to sell you that car and will obviously be saying whatever it takes, factual or not, to make that car look good to you, or people who have actually owned that car?

He works for them. He gets paid by them. To trust that he has the liberty to enumerate any and all flaws with the system is naive. Even if the system was inherently flawed, he is unlikely to have the liberty to say it is, since that would be counter-productive to their marketing. Plenty of people complain about the writing of the lore and story, but do you think the writers will say “Yeah, we’re really just phoning it in now”?

So no, I do not care what someone who is paid to defend their system has to say about it when I’m asking the players, the people actually affected by the system, to defend it, and to not simply fallaciously parrot his information.

Wanze.8410:

I think one of the biggest problems, if item-for-item trade would be implemented, is that it will result in a less efficient economy.

Generally, there are 2 kinds of supply, supply that is listed on the tp for trade and supply in peoples possession. In general, the more of the overall supply is listed on the tp, the more stable the price will be. If there is less supply listed on the tp, prices are more prone to price spikes, for example.

If a decent amount of trading gets done over direct trade between players, the high velocity of the market will also suffer, which is one of the biggest reasons why prices find equilibrium as fast as they do now.

I just dont see how a minor convenience feature for some players would warrant unbalancing the economy.

Evidence?

FF14 and SW:TOR have (or had, last I played SW:TOR) stable economies despite having a player-to-player trading feature.

Do you have evidence that that will happen rather than an assertion that it will despite other games being able to support both?

Filaha.1678:

Wanze.8410:

I think one of the biggest problems, if item-for-item trade would be implemented, is that it will result in a less efficient economy.

Generally, there are 2 kinds of supply, supply that is listed on the tp for trade and supply in peoples possession. In general, the more of the overall supply is listed on the tp, the more stable the price will be. If there is less supply listed on the tp, prices are more prone to price spikes, for example.

If a decent amount of trading gets done over direct trade between players, the high velocity of the market will also suffer, which is one of the biggest reasons why prices find equilibrium as fast as they do now.

I just dont see how a minor convenience feature for some players would warrant unbalancing the economy.

Evidence?

FF14 and SW:TOR have (or had, last I played SW:TOR) stable economies despite having a player-to-player trading feature.

Do you have evidence that that will happen rather than an assertion that it will despite other games being able to support both?

Last time I logged into swtor the prices were out of control. Diablo 3 is also an example of the market being a mess.

eithinan.9841:

Filaha.1678:

Wanze.8410:

I think one of the biggest problems, if item-for-item trade would be implemented, is that it will result in a less efficient economy.

Generally, there are 2 kinds of supply, supply that is listed on the tp for trade and supply in peoples possession. In general, the more of the overall supply is listed on the tp, the more stable the price will be. If there is less supply listed on the tp, prices are more prone to price spikes, for example.

If a decent amount of trading gets done over direct trade between players, the high velocity of the market will also suffer, which is one of the biggest reasons why prices find equilibrium as fast as they do now.

I just dont see how a minor convenience feature for some players would warrant unbalancing the economy.

Evidence?

FF14 and SW:TOR have (or had, last I played SW:TOR) stable economies despite having a player-to-player trading feature.

Do you have evidence that that will happen rather than an assertion that it will despite other games being able to support both?

Last time I logged into swtor the prices were out of control. Diablo 3 is also an example of the market being a mess.

When was that for SW:TOR and specifically on what type of items? When I played, the only things that were particularly “over-expensive” were rare items from the hypercrates (which they can fairly be).

Filaha.1678:

I was kind enough to give examples. What are yours?

Unnecessary. I was simply stating that I have experienced games where drop rates truly are worse if you’re killing lower level enemies.

No, I’m trying to keep it in the context of my question. To reiterate, if coin sinks are so important, why are they being removed, regardless of effectiveness? Even if only 100G a month is removed through repairs, that’s still 100G not floating around.

Coin sinks are important, but an ineffective coin sink is just a hindrance to the players. Something that is ineffective and hinders the experience should be removed. ANet made the right choice of removing an ineffective coin sink.

That’s you. I now request your evidence that a large amount of people who didn’t already have the traits have the extra money and skill points to simply buy them all, specifically enough to make it “worth” having.

Go fish. I never said any of those things.

Irrelevant to what?

Irrelevant as “security measures”. They function in an ideal, theoretical scenario. They function if you’re dealing with robots or AI. They won’t function when dealing with humans.

Can. Except everyone has access to the TP to check the price of the items in question, making it, again, simply a matter of carelessness.

In fact, simple fix to satisfy your complaint of potential shadiness in this regard: Since everyone has access to the TP anyways, have an additional section on the trade UI that shows the current highest buy price and current lowest sell price for the item(s) offered in the trade window. That way, there are undeniable figures put right in front of the person’s face to make sure they know relative values.

Amazing what 10 seconds of thought can come up with.

No, still not quite good enough. If you want item-for-item trading, here’s what I would imagine it to be:

• It would be in the TP and would function like the current TP: No seller or buyer IDs visible.
• It would not allow you to place a trade offer that you could currently make in the TP, e.g. trading a Dawn (buy offer 1500g) for a Dusk (sale offer 1400g).
• It would not allow you to trade more than 1 item for 1 item, e.g. you cannot trade a Dawn and 250 Orichalcum Ingots for a Dusk.
• It would not allow you to place a trade offer that would result in a significant loss for anyone accepting your trade.
• Any trade offer would list the prices of the traded items in the same window

What I am getting at here is that you need to make the information visible rather than just available.

Which doesn’t have anything to do with what I said, and in fact in this very thread, I said that they could even remove gold from the item-for-item trade system expressly so that people who want to trade for gold cannot skip the tax. I would ask that if you’re going to try to refute my points, you stick to my points, not arguments made by other people.

If you think that I am only arguing with you, you’re overestimating yourself by quite a factor. I don’t care about what you have said. I care about what you have said. And what you have not said is one of the reasons why people player-to-player trading: to sell items at a “discount”.

Correct. Let me put it this way.

If you were debating buying a car but weren’t sure if it was a good buy, whose advice would you seek? A dealer whose job it is to sell you that car and will obviously be saying whatever it takes, factual or not, to make that car look good to you, or people who have actually owned that car?

He works for them. He gets paid by them. To trust that he has the liberty to enumerate any and all flaws with the system is naive. Even if the system was inherently flawed, he is unlikely to have the liberty to say it is, since that would be counter-productive to their marketing. Plenty of people complain about the writing of the lore and story, but do you think the writers will say “Yeah, we’re really just phoning it in now”?

So no, I do not care what someone who is paid to defend their system has to say about it when I’m asking the players, the people actually affected by the system, to defend it, and to not simply fallaciously parrot his information.

Except that John Smith is not trying to sell you any product. You’re also not forced to go through him to get to the game, whereas you can’t buy a car from a dealership without talking to a salesperson.

And besides, the context in which I have mentioned John Smith here has been the “shadyness” thing. That part represents ANet’s stance on the issue as expressed by their chosen representative on the topic, John Smith.

Olba.5376:

Unnecessary. I was simply stating that I have experienced games where drop rates truly are worse if you’re killing lower level enemies.

Evidence is unnecessary to prove a point? I see.

Coin sinks are important, but an ineffective coin sink is just a hindrance to the players. Something that is ineffective and hinders the experience should be removed. ANet made the right choice of removing an ineffective coin sink.

How is an ineffective coin sink more of a hindrance than an effective one? If I want to trade Dusk to someone for Dawn and have to pay 15% tax (225G) on the Dusk to do it, how is that less of a hindrance to me than having to pay a few silver for a repair?

Go fish. I never said any of those things.

They can, but a lot of people won’t.

Yes you did. You specifically said that a lot of people would spend on the traits rather than working to unlock them. You used yourself as an example of someone who did. So I asked you to prove that it applies to more than you, to a degree where it’s “worth” having, since according to you, they’re only worth having in as gold sinks if it’s a significant amount.

Irrelevant as “security measures”.

Except they’re not. People will download keyloggers and viruses and/or share their passwords. Does that make passwords “irrelevant”?

What I am getting at here is that you need to make the information visible rather than just available.

In fact, simple fix to satisfy your complaint of potential shadiness in this regard: Since everyone has access to the TP anyways, have an additional section on the trade UI that shows the current highest buy price and current lowest sell price for the item(s) offered in the trade window. That way, there are undeniable figures put right in front of the person’s face to make sure they know relative values.

You mean exactly like I suggested?

If you think that I am only arguing with you

If you’re not, you should be. I am not making the arguments other people are making, and I am not suggesting the same thing other people are suggesting. Arguing their points to disprove my suggestion doesn’t do anything in your favour.

And what you have not said is one of the reasons why people player-to-player trading: to sell items at a “discount”.

And why have I not said that? Because my suggestion and argument is not about simple player-to-player trading, but item-for-item trading. Not selling. Not discounting. Trading. Whether it’s equal value or not is, and should be, up to the player.

Except that John Smith is not trying to sell you any product. You’re also not forced to go through him to get to the game, whereas you can’t buy a car from a dealership without talking to a salesperson.

You kinda just stopped at the first paragraph regarding that section, didn’t you? Because I didn’t imply that he was selling anything. The car example was an analogy that someone who works for a company has reason to be biased.

And besides, the context in which I have mentioned John Smith here has been the “shadyness” thing. That part represents ANet’s stance on the issue as expressed by their chosen representative on the topic, John Smith.

Which is why I don’t care what he said. Appeal to authority is a fallacy. A secure trading system does not open up any more shady business than is currently possible in the game. If one could fall for a scam when they have a secure trading option, they could also fall for a scam through mail as well.

They have more reasons to not want to put it in than simply in the interests of the economy, after all. I might trust them more in regards to what’s best for the economy if it wasn’t for the fact that I could drop $100 on the game right now and get 740G. They have financial interest in having more gold be removed from the game in large amounts.