Guild Wars 2

Zaxares.5419:

but most analyses by game designers have all accepted the primary cause of D3’s runaway hyperinflation to be the lack of an adequate, omnipresent gold sink.

Which sounds like they had more problems than merely an untaxed P2P trade system.

That being said, Diablo 2’s “economy” revolved around using various items as currency simply because gold was worthless due to a lack of worthwhile things to spend it on entirely. So historically, the series hasn’t exactly been known for good economies.

GW2 has gold farming bots too, and I must assume that Blizzard is as strict on cracking down on bots as ANet is, so why did the two economies end up so different?

GW2 is an MMO. D3 isn’t. That means at any given time, a potential number equal to the entire game could stumble across a botter and report it. Assuming that it’s as easy to avoid other people as it was in D2 (again, I haven’t played D3 so I don’t know if they’re still doing player-created instances), it’d be nearly impossible to catch botters without being able to detect the bot in the first place (in which case they clearly know how they could just block it).

I also would wonder about the relative amount of gold able to be farmed by something simple like a bot, since the bot could probably not reliably run dungeons.

game-wide, there are actually more Precursors being generated each day than people tend to think. John Smith once posted data that said that within a 24 hour period, 50+ Dusks were traded, at almost the same ratio of unique buyers and sellers too.

Define traded.
Also, are those unique Dusks or unique traders? I’d imagine not unique Dusks, because there’s only 27 on the TP right now. That’d be a lot of hoarding if 50+ unique Dusks were being traded with only 27 currently available.

I’m actually partially with you on this. I’ve always advocated for a completely free market in GW2, being able to buy and sell ANYTHING. So your suggestion for being able to buy/sell dungeon weapons and armor on the TP? I’d totally support that.

Well, it wasn’t necessarily to be able to make them tradeable, but purchasable from a vendor for gold, in the manner of Cultural armour, potentially for equivalent values. One could still choose to farm the tokens for free, or they could spend the gold, removing it from the economy. There are a few armour sets which I would love to get from dungeons, but haven’t the drive to farm the dungeons for them (more out of lack of reliable partners).

As for making BLTC weapons and armor skins directly purchasable, I’d like this too, but I think it’s probably safe to say that ANet has looked at the numbers, and this current system is far more profitable than offering them for direct sale at lower prices to capture wider market share.

Oh, I wasn’t making the suggestion of necessarily making the ticket skins purchasable by gold, but possibly instead of solely making new weapon skins earnable with tickets, how about some gold sink ones too?

Of course, if they made the Ticket Skins accessible for gold, they could try to figure out a way to balance it. Make it cost enough gold that it’d be an effective sink, little enough that it’s accessible to more people, but increase the drop chance of tickets in the chests a bit so that it’s an alternative choice to spend the money on the chests for a good chance at getting it “free”. Or put alternate things into the chests which are enticing enough to not need the tickets.

Bear in mind that I, personally, don’t quite like this system either. It feels vaguely predatory to me, preying on players who are more susceptible to impulsive purchases or gambling urges. But at the end of the day, ANet IS a business. They will do what will make them the most money.

I’ve seen worse, to be honest. At least I’ve gotten a fair amount of tickets from my chests. (haha, I’m never going to visit Vegas because I’d go broke)

Actually, no, the gold you get from selling gems on the exchange isn’t freshly created. It comes from gold that was farmed in-game by other players. No new gold is actually being created.

Then allow me to rephrase more accurately. While I cannot simply create the gold, I can pull gold which has been removed from circulation back into circulation, partially negating what is, presumably, an otherwise effective gold sink.

Except the exchange is more of a sequestrating of gold as well as a sink. The sink is the difference in exchange rates, a 27.75% gold sink.

So cumulative gold on all players plus gold in the exchange is the total gold supply. The gold growth rate is gold from drops, vendors and the like minus the sinks, primarily the TP and WP system. The trick is not let the growth rate to go negative but also not going too positive. Everything else is simply transferring gold between players or the exchange.

Filaha.1678:

Which sounds like they had more problems than merely an untaxed P2P trade system.

From what I heard, it appears that Blizzard apparently expected a lot of players to use the Blacksmith to forge items (with the Blacksmith being the game’s primary gold sink), but as it turned out, players simply skipped him and used the abundant drops available from the AH instead, negating the gold sink.

I also would wonder about the relative amount of gold able to be farmed by something simple like a bot, since the bot could probably not reliably run dungeons.

In the early days of GW2 the bots used to be mainly farm bots that harvested nodes non-stop and just sold them on the TP to buy prices. They depressed mat prices for a long, long time doing this. These days you don’t really see farm bots anymore, but I have still seen the odd kill bots in quieter zones. I don’t know whether they’re selling their loot on the TP or just vendoring it all, but I’m inclined to think it’s the former, because you could get lucky, get a Precursor and sell that immediately for a sell price in the hundreds of gold.

Of course, a lot of times the gold farmers get their gold simply by hacking into accounts and stealing everything they find.

Also, are those unique Dusks or unique traders? I’d imagine not unique Dusks, because there’s only 27 on the TP right now. That’d be a lot of hoarding if 50+ unique Dusks were being traded with only 27 currently available.

He said unique traders, but don’t mistake the current TP supply for the true supply of an item. At any moment, there are potentially tons of a good being sold immediately to buy or sell orders. These transactions go unnoticed by websites like gw2spidy or gw2tp, which is why those websites are not the complete picture for the trading velocity of any item.

Furthermore, the experience of multiple traders on the forums has shown that there is usually a vast “hidden supply” of any item lurking in player’s inventories. Rule of thumb is that whatever supply you see available on the TP, assume that there is at least 10 times that amount being kept in player banks, by players who are actively hoarding, keeping it just because “I might need it one day”, or simply tossed it in there and forgot about it.

Well, it wasn’t necessarily to be able to make them tradeable, but purchasable from a vendor for gold, in the manner of Cultural armour, potentially for equivalent values. One could still choose to farm the tokens for free, or they could spend the gold, removing it from the economy. There are a few armour sets which I would love to get from dungeons, but haven’t the drive to farm the dungeons for them (more out of lack of reliable partners).

Mmm, but could you not simply buy those armors from another player who loves doing dungeons then? It would satisfy your demand for easier access to armor, as well as further incentivizing that player to keep doing what he loves. In essence, making previously account bound skins tradable means that players could profit from their “skill”. For instance, I love JP’s and loved doing SAB, but the SAB skins are a bit too 8-bit for my tastes, and I’d love to sell them if I could. Likewise, I’m sure there are fashionistas or collectors who want to acquire the skins, but don’t like doing SAB.

Oh, I wasn’t making the suggestion of necessarily making the ticket skins purchasable by gold, but possibly instead of solely making new weapon skins earnable with tickets, how about some gold sink ones too?

They already are though, in that you can buy the weapon skins on the TP. Again, this would let players who like gambling on keys the ability to feel like they’ve gotten a windfall, while at the same time letting players who want the skins, but don’t like gambling on chests, a means of acquiring them. And in using the TP, both players pay out taxes and help keep the economy healthy.

Then allow me to rephrase more accurately. While I cannot simply create the gold, I can pull gold which has been removed from circulation back into circulation, partially negating what is, presumably, an otherwise effective gold sink.

As Behellagh says, the currency exchange is a partial sink. The exchange rate between gold and gems is not equal; if you bought 100 gems with gold, then sold those 100 gems back immediately, you’d actually lose out on ~27% of your money. (This was done so that players could not game the exchange and essentially earn free money by trading between currencies.) The exchange still is a gold sink, just a more subtle one.

@filaha

After reading this thread since the beginning, and pointed out Anets offical response on the matter, and that response confirmed by John Smith. It would appear that you willfully ignored their decision on the matter, choose not to accept it, or just like to argue the point. There have been several people who have given many examples of why this would not be a good idea, and most of the information given has come from conversations with the games economist, John Smith. You repeatedly used other games as an example of why it would work, but forget one major thing. This is GW2 and not those other games. The economy wasnt designed for p2p trading. While it works (and even thats debatable) is because the economy for those systems was designed with that in mind.

Overall ive come to the conclusion that you are not interested in hearing any other opinion but would rather just stubbornly insist that you are right regardless of what is presented. Of course it is done in (what ive seen) a thinly veiled disguise of a meaningful discussion. That being said, having an open mind and being able to see both sides of the issue will go a long way in attempting to convince your opposition to this proposal.

pdavis.8031:

@filaha

After reading this thread since the beginning, and pointed out Anets offical response on the matter, and that response confirmed by John Smith. It would appear that you willfully ignored their decision on the matter, choose not to accept it, or just like to argue the point. There have been several people who have given many examples of why this would not be a good idea, and most of the information given has come from conversations with the games economist, John Smith. You repeatedly used other games as an example of why it would work, but forget one major thing. This is GW2 and not those other games. The economy wasnt designed for p2p trading. While it works (and even thats debatable) is because the economy for those systems was designed with that in mind.

Overall ive come to the conclusion that you are not interested in hearing any other opinion but would rather just stubbornly insist that you are right regardless of what is presented. Of course it is done in (what ive seen) a thinly veiled disguise of a meaningful discussion. That being said, having an open mind and being able to see both sides of the issue will go a long way in attempting to convince your opposition to this proposal.

This +1 billion g

Question for Filaha: are you a actually a highly specialized artificial intelligence with the capacity to nitpick logical fallacies and respond to arguments by ignoring reasonable assertions and demanding nonsensical evidence? I might have an application for such software

This brings to mind the “That’s illogical for reasons stated above” or the infinite variations thereof.

@Filaha, every server in the EU shares a single linked market. I believe the NA is linked to the EU market as well (can someone confirm that?). China is on its own set of servers. Thus every player in the EU has access to every item that all other players put up in the TP. The single biggest advantage of the TP is that you have enormous numbers of players competing to sell stuff. Competition keeps price fluctuations, not necessarily prices themselves, low. There’ll be outlier spikes here and there but for the most part, as long as supply is stable the prices won’t drift too much.

Now lets compare this to a p2p trading system. Having played Gw1 I, and I’m sure many other posters here, can tell you that market fluctuations were wild simply because you could go from district to district and sell your wares and people would pay. It was a sellers dream because you could literally charge any price and because there was no centralised repository of prices, buyers could only go on what they felt the item was worth. There was a lot of bartering for sure which is neat but uncontrolled. I did a lot of trading back then buying stuff in one town then moving on to another town and selling it for profit. I raked in a couple hundred thousand gold doing that for a while. The problem GW1 was the p2p trading system. The “market” was limited to what you saw in the town/district you happened to enter. So unlike the millions of items the TP has to offer, you could only see barely a snap shot of the market. Imagine GW2 where the only items available were only those that were with players in the area you were in. No one is going to have 100 Dusks on them. If they were the only person in LA with Dusk, they could charge a much higher price than if they had to compete with others on a trading post.

Azrael.4960:

It was a sellers dream because you could literally charge any price and because there was no centralised repository of prices, buyers could only go on what they felt the item was worth. There was a lot of bartering for sure which is neat but uncontrolled.

This is the main reason why some players want this to be an “official” part of the game. You can make a huge profit, for example, selling crafted rares and exotics for a huge profit to players who don’t know their market value. Or buy precursors for a steal from someone who got a random drop and doesn’t know what it is.

Zaxares.5419:

From what I heard, it appears that Blizzard apparently expected a lot of players to use the Blacksmith to forge items (with the Blacksmith being the game’s primary gold sink), but as it turned out, players simply skipped him and used the abundant drops available from the AH instead, negating the gold sink.

Which is weird that they’d think that since Diablo 2 had a player-decided economy and that didn’t even have an auction house. It’s like they didn’t pay attention to their own previous game.

I don’t know whether they’re selling their loot on the TP or just vendoring it all, but I’m inclined to think it’s the former, because you could get lucky, get a Precursor and sell that immediately for a sell price in the hundreds of gold.

In which case it could be less noticeable since they’re not introducing gold, but introducing goods.

He said unique traders, but don’t mistake the current TP supply for the true supply of an item. At any moment, there are potentially tons of a good being sold immediately to buy or sell orders. These transactions go unnoticed by websites like gw2spidy or gw2tp, which is why those websites are not the complete picture for the trading velocity of any item.

Well, to buy orders, anyways. Sell orders are the stock that’s on the TP. I wasn’t suggesting that the current supply was the true supply, though. However, I do doubt that there’s 50+ unique Dusks being traded a day (and by unique, I don’t mean each day). So the statement of 50+ unique trades doesn’t necessarily give us a good view of actual stock in any chance.

That being said, the fact that the current TP stock isn’t indicative of the total supply in the game actually helps my argument in the sense that many people were suggesting that a trading feature would create hoarding (for some reason which I still haven’t had explained to me). But clearly hoarding is already going on. Or, if not hoarding, trading which is not being added to the generally available supply.

Mmm, but could you not simply buy those armors from another player who loves doing dungeons then? It would satisfy your demand for easier access to armor, as well as further incentivizing that player to keep doing what he loves. In essence, making previously account bound skins tradable means that players could profit from their “skill”.

No, I’m not arguing that they couldn’t (alternatively) be tradeable either. My example was more in the vein of specifically gold-sinking. I’ll go into more depth in response to the next point.

They already are though, in that you can buy the weapon skins on the TP. Again, this would let players who like gambling on keys the ability to feel like they’ve gotten a windfall, while at the same time letting players who want the skins, but don’t like gambling on chests, a means of acquiring them. And in using the TP, both players pay out taxes and help keep the economy healthy.

The suggestion was, as said above, more in regards to efficient gold-sinking, though.

For an example, I’m going to use the Lovestruck weapon skins. The Lovestruck Call (horn) skin is going for 180G at the moment, 6 listings. If someone wanted one right now, they would need to be willing to spend nearly 200G on a single skin. That is a price high enough to turn off most people for a simple skin. Granted, if someone does buy it, that’s an extra 27G taken out of the economy (counting the already-spent 5%). Then we see the Lovestruck Protector skin, 38G, 111 listings. Easily more affordable and accessible and more tempting to drop some money on it, although it’d only remove, in comparison, almost 1/5 the gold, at 5.7G.

Now let’s say they were both available from the game vendor for 30G. Infinite copies, for a more affordable price than both, and each purchase would remove more gold from the economy, from a slightly unremarkable extra 3G to 24.3G more.

It adds accessibility to everyone, adds affordability and interest, and is more efficient as a direct gold sink because it removes more gold per transaction. It’s more convenient to the players and more efficient for a gold sink. The only one hurt is Anet’s bottom line unless they were to make keys have other, more tantalizing prizes to balance out the less people buying them for skins.

Caveat: This is on the stipulation, of course, that the keys were either purchased through gems or through “earning” them in-game through the normal key-farm methods, rather than transforming gold into gems to buy keys (because I’m not sure why anyone would do that when the odds at profit are significantly low due to the exchange rate). Granted, some may do that, which might skew the numbers.

pdavis.8031:

After reading this thread since the beginning, and pointed out Anets offical response on the matter, and that response confirmed by John Smith. It would appear that you willfully ignored their decision on the matter, choose not to accept it, or just like to argue the point.

Pray tell, how did you come to that conclusion? I hope the answer is:

Also, I clearly don’t care what John Smith said. I’m asking for justification from the players

Filaha.1678:

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.

Filaha.1678:

Which is why I don’t care what he said. Appeal to authority is a fallacy.

Filaha.1678:

At no point was I under the impression that I would convince Anet that it should be done,

because I already clearly stated repeatedly that I don’t care what he, or they, have stated on the matter. Which, of course, you already know, having read the entire thread.

There have been several people who have given many examples of why this would not be a good idea,

Few of which have explained how when questioned.

You repeatedly used other games as an example of why it would work, but forget one major thing. This is GW2 and not those other games. The economy wasnt designed for p2p trading.

Then I’ll pose the question to you, since you’re using that argument.

How is this economy not designed for P2P trading that it would be ruined with P2P trading? I still haven’t gotten an answer to that.

People suggest lower supply due to hoarding, but is that factual? Hoarding already happens now, and in fact, there is more reason to hoard now because of the taxes and the current system. Why sell that BL ticket skin now when you could hold on to it and expect the prices to go up when they’re no longer available for 1 ticket? What additional reason would there be to hoard if you could trade that skin for another skin of equal value directly?

Overall ive come to the conclusion that you are not interested in hearing any other opinion

I’m interested in hearing opinions supported by evidence. Not assertions and suppositions and fallacies. That is why I’m quite enjoying my discussion with Zaxares, who at least came up with an example of a game (even if I don’t agree with the strength of the comparison).

but would rather just stubbornly insist that you are right regardless of what is presented.

I’ve yet to see anybody refute my suggestions of potential (non-intrusive) gold sinks to help offset any asserted or supposed gold sink loss, least of all the people who’ve asked me to come up with them.

Azrael.4960:

@Filaha, every server in the EU shares a single linked market. I believe the NA is linked to the EU market as well (can someone confirm that?).

Before we go further, can you clarify for me first, is this in response to the initial suggestion of having to do it face to face or my evolved suggestion of having an “item for item” trade function in the TP which would give the same scale of availability except that it trades items rather than item and currency?

Having played Gw1 I, and I’m sure many other posters here, can tell you that market fluctuations were wild simply because you could go from district to district and sell your wares and people would pay.

I’m assuming it’s the former rather than the latter due to this comparison.

Regardless, flawed comparison. GW1 also didn’t have a centralized market (which wouldn’t be removed under my suggestions), making the only option in a majority of cases be trading between people with no available “price” to expect. Yes, I played GW1 too. And the system there was terrible. Which is why I’m not suggesting that system.

Imagine GW2 where the only items available were only those that were with players in the area you were in.

I’ve imagined it. But I can’t imagine how that’s relevant to my suggestion since I’m not suggesting to remove or replace the current TP.

tolunart.2095:

You can make a huge profit, for example, selling crafted rares and exotics for a huge profit to players who don’t know their market value. Or buy precursors for a steal from someone who got a random drop and doesn’t know what it is.

Good thing that’s irrelevant to my suggestion then, since not only did my suggestion remove selling things for currency in the item-for-item trade system (since we have the TP already for selling for currency), but also made provisions for a clear spot on the UI showing the person the current prices on the TP so they can’t be tricked.

Filaha.1678:

tolunart.2095:

You can make a huge profit, for example, selling crafted rares and exotics for a huge profit to players who don’t know their market value. Or buy precursors for a steal from someone who got a random drop and doesn’t know what it is.

Good thing that’s irrelevant to my suggestion then, since not only did my suggestion remove selling things for currency in the item-for-item trade system (since we have the TP already for selling for currency), but also made provisions for a clear spot on the UI showing the person the current prices on the TP so they can’t be tricked.

Players already see the current prices on the TP when they sell an item to a buy order – why do they sell for 10%, 20% and often more LESS than the lowest sell order, when they can clearly see that they can make significantly more money?

Players still accidentally delete the wrong item or wrong character even though they have to confirm their decision to a popup that says “Do you really want to destroy X?”

These things will reduce but never completely eliminate these errors, and your idea specifically creates situations where scammers can look for new/casual players who, for example play an Elementalist but received Dusk and offer to trade a much more useful crafted exotic staff for their “useless” greatsword. “Never mind the price thing, it’s bugged, you can’t even sell Dusk on the TP right now…”

tolunart.2095:

Players already see the current prices on the TP when they sell an item to a buy order – why do they sell for 10%, 20% and often more LESS than the lowest sell order, when they can clearly see that they can make significantly more money?

Because it’s guaranteed to be faster and you can’t be undercut by a copper, forcing you to either wait or eat the fee and remove your item to relist it. What does this have to do with my suggestion?

Players still accidentally delete the wrong item or wrong character even though they have to confirm their decision to a popup that says “Do you really want to destroy X?”

Actually, to delete a character you have to type in the name of the character. I’d wager that there is absolutely nobody on this game who has deleted “the wrong character” with that security measure in place, because by the time you have typed in the name, you will have realized that you have the wrong character selected. At least try to base your irrelevant arguments in reality, please. Again, what does this have to do with my suggestion?

These things will reduce but never completely eliminate these errors, and your idea specifically creates situations where scammers can look for new/casual players who, for example play an Elementalist but received Dusk and offer to trade a much more useful crafted exotic staff for their “useless” greatsword. “Never mind the price thing, it’s bugged, you can’t even sell Dusk on the TP right now…”

Really? Is this the only argument you can come up with, that people will see a listing price of 1500G right in front of their face, supplied by the game’s own market, and believe someone that it’s just bugged and that the staff that they put in which is showing up as 20G is also bugged?

At least some of the other people put some effort into it…

@filaha

First, if the economy was designed to support player to player trading, even just for items and no monetary transfer at all, they would have included the mechanics just for that, and they did with the mail system. If you have item A and someone has item B you can set up a trade with the mail system. There is no need for an additional UI to do that. If you want a system that allows to trade item A for X gold you can already do that via mail or TP. Mail opens up the risk for scamming, and the TP has a very effective gold sink to keep the economy from crashing. Now if you were to include that same tax on monetary transfers bypassing the sink no longer becomes an issue. However, even this type of system, with all the safe guards described opens up the flood gates, not only for scammers but gold sellers. Thats why there is a limit on how many messages you can send via mail. Now imagine if you can just open a trading panel, throw in a trash item, say broken lockpick, and recieve 500g in return as part of a “trade”? Even minus a 15% tax thats still a chunk of gold illegitimately obtained, thus adding more gold into the economy, creating inflation. Not to mention the high probability of scams, and chat flooding that can and does occure with such systems. Such chatter tends to bleed out from dedicated trade channels because of the rate at which messages fly. Then the scenario plays out that events are disrupted because commands cant communicate effectively in map. (And before you say that this is all hypothetical, check out chat in town in EQ, path of exile, neverwinter nights, etc trade is not just limited to the trade channels).

As the current system is the TP provides a safe, secure, and quick place to buy and sell goods without any type of chat spam, possibility of scams, etc. And you can trade items as desired through the mail system. With these things in place, as designed, ANET saw no reason to put in place a player to player trade interface. After the bad experience of what happened with gw1 and other games that have such a system and the potential for abuse.

pdavis.8031:

@filaha

Let me start by saying that you suggested you had read the whole thread.

I am disappointed in you lying to me.

First, if the economy was designed to support player to player trading, even just for items and no monetary transfer at all, they would have included the mechanics just for that, and they did with the mail system. If you have item A and someone has item B you can set up a trade with the mail system. There is no need for an additional UI to do that.

There is for security, to avoid a large portion of scams that people want to avoid. I’m confused why people are worried it will cause scamming when the current system of out-of-TP trading offers increased opportunities for scamming.

However, even this type of system, with all the safe guards described opens up the flood gates, not only for scammers but gold sellers. Thats why there is a limit on how many messages you can send via mail. Now imagine if you can just open a trading panel, throw in a trash item, say broken lockpick, and recieve 500g in return as part of a “trade”?

Gold sellers can use the mail now, and if they’re expecting a lot of purchases in a short amount of time, I’d expect they also have a lot of accounts (many of which are probably stolen), which means limiting mail means little.

Also, my suggestion, as you would know had you read the entire thread as claimed, would remove the inclusion of monetary trades, being a solely item-based trading system, which means gold sellers couldn’t use it.

In addition, I also suggested it could be added into the current UI for the TP as a separate section (tentatively titled Item Trading Post). This means that if someone were to try to “sell gold” by, say, putting up a trade request for a Dusk in exchange for a Broken Lockpick, it can easily be tracked and flagged as being highly suspicious.

And further to that, there was also the further suggestion I made that it could automatically restrict deviation in value of items by a certain percentage, meaning that people couldn’t even put up that order. This also partially prevents people from trading less expensive items for more expensive items in order to make a profit, by limiting the difference in prices, potentially to a percentage where it would be in the person’s best interest to trade it through the TP and then buy the cheaper item even with the tax. (Why would one trade Dusk for Dawn if they could sell Dusk for more money than Dawn costs and still have gold left over?) If that percentage happens to be 15%, that means that the person with the more expensive item would get more bang for their buck if they sold their item and bought the less expensive one, protecting them from being “scammed”.

chat flooding that can and does occure with such systems.

Again, my suggestion of using an ITP-style interface would also mean that trade spam would be limited by the fact that the person could more efficiently put their requested trade up on the ITP where everyone can see it rather than a maximum of whoever is in the zone. What’s stopping people from chat spamming to sell any items through the TP except that it’s more efficient to just list it on the TP and wait?

With these things in place, as designed, ANET saw no reason to put in place a player to player trade interface.

And that’s their choice. I’m looking for people to prove my idea is bad, not whether it will or will not be in the game.

After the bad experience of what happened with gw1 and other games that have such a system and the potential for abuse.

GW1’s economy had more flaws than just having a trade system, the biggest being a complete lack of a global trading post entirely, making costs be impossible to objectively judge farther than what the person is trying to sell it to you for.

Filaha.1678:

Really? Is this the only argument you can come up with, …[/quote]

Nope, that’s as far as I’m going to take the “debate” because I can’t bring myself to actually take anything you say seriously.

@filaha

So now I am a liar? No need for personal attacks man.

So just to clarify, you want a item to item TP that can only support trades of equal or similar value? And you want people to prove that your idea is bad?
Everything ive seen in this thread are very legit reasons why its bad. Yet you continue on the same line of arguments, outright disregard as fallacy, or ignore when facts, and evidence is presented. Its been shown many times, in all the various p2p threads as well as this one why it would be a bad idea. The devs have stated why it would be a bad idea, yet you continue to insist that having such a thing is not a bad idea. So far, as you are the one to provide the evidence as to why and how this is a good thing, despite what the games economist, or the devs, say on the matter, I havent seen any actual facts or information that proves anything.

Im going to have to join tolunart on this. It seems that you dont want to have an actual debate, but would rather just point out how the devs, and everyone is wrong that p2p trading is not good for this game.

To be fair to Filaha, I have previously tossed the idea in my head of a sort of trading post in the sense that people post items up, much like a classified section of a newspaper, and ask to trade for certain other items. There would of course be a fee for the use of this option. As a percentage fee can’t be applied to a item(s) for item(s) swap, the fee would have to be a flat rate, set to a value that ensures a sufficient gold sink but low enough to be a viable alternative to the main trading post.

Many posters have posted objections to a direct p2p trading system, which given the issues, scams, spam, etc in numerous other game environments is understandable. But I certainly do believe that an indirect anonymous p2p system routed through the BLTC could be viable.

As an example, for some players the price disparity between T6 materials means that selling off surplus of one type will mean that they will not get back the same quantity of the another type. Crystalline dust, for example, is worth more because of its rarity so you could sell of a batch and get back a higher quantity of blood or fangs, but obviously this doesn’t work in reverse. For some players who are just wanting to get enough mats for a legendary it would be beneficial to have a facility where, for a fee, they could trade an amount of one material in return for a like amount of another material. In this situation, both players win and the gold sinking isn’t compromised.

The BLTC provides a secure facility to do gold for item trading, there’s no reason to indicate that an item-for-item trade run through the same facility couldn’t work and retain the same safety and security.

Filaha.1678:

-

Given that only partial fees taken out of the total tp fees will be affected, can you prove that your suggestions will be enough to cover it or at least project the effect of your suggestion(how much trades will be done instead of listings by actual players) and that your suggested gold sinks can cover it fully?

Edit:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/feature-packs/

Anet may have figured something out for a working trading feature, we’ll only find out what it really is at last week of August at the earliest

Zaxares.5419:

Yes, that happens when I can freshly introduce into the game 1,000+ gold a week simply by clicking “Confirm” on the “buy gems” page and then converting those gems.

Actually, no, the gold you get from selling gems on the exchange isn’t freshly created. It comes from gold that was farmed in-game by other players. No new gold is actually being created. Likewise, players buying gems with gold aren’t actually supporting ANet financially either; the vast majority of the gems on the TP were originally bought by someone with real money. (I say the vast majority because it is possible to get free gems through AP chests, but this is like a drop in the ocean.)

Well, the first few gold→gem and gem→gold exchanges were either “pre-defined” or “free” in some direction.

Esplen.3940:

Well, the first few gold->gem and gem->gold exchanges were either “pre-defined” or “free” in some direction.

John Smith stated the exchange was seeded with a small amount of gold and the huge amount of gems which is why it was roughly 30s per 100 gems at the beginning. The gem to gold rate has always been 72.25% of the gold to gem rate.

Actually, the gem to gold to gem OR gold to gem to gold rate has been 72.25% because it’s a 15% tax going both ways.

The mathematical equation would be 0.85^2 = 0.7225 because it’s an equal “taxed” rate in both directions.

Morsus.5106:

Brother Grimm.5176:

This argument / discussion has been done multiple times in the past. The fact of the matter is, the game was designed from the ground up to NOT support player to player trading. Get on with your life.

The game was also designed not to have a dedicated healing class, but we still have people trying to roll a healer.

….and how does a healer and mail trade work out? Again, move on….

Esplen.3940:

Actually, the gem to gold to gem OR gold to gem to gold rate has been 72.25% because it’s a 15% tax going both ways.

The mathematical equation would be 0.85^2 = 0.7225 because it’s an equal “taxed” rate in both directions.

Yea, I know.

Zaxares.5419:

but most analyses by game designers have all accepted the primary cause of D3’s runaway hyperinflation to be the lack of an adequate, omnipresent gold sink.

Then most analyses by game designers are wrong.

They’re wrong that they didn’t even laugh at the premise. D3 had hyperinflation? Surely you jest. D3 suffered from hyper*deflation*.

How seriously are we supposed to take analyses that can’t even identify which way the arrow is pointing?

pdavis.8031:

So now I am a liar? No need for personal attacks man.

It’s not a personal attack. It’s a statement based on the apparent evidence.

You made an attempt to argue my suggestion. Your argument was directly based off of something that would have been impossible under my suggestion (namely people setting up trades for 500G for a broken lockpick) on multiple levels (that my suggestion didn’t allow for currency in the trades and that the lockpick would need to be worth a certain range near 500G).

Had you actually read through the entire thread, as you claimed, you would have read those two aspects of my suggestion and therefore not have attempted to make an argument that was already pre-thwarted.

The only conclusions that I can draw are that you either lied about having read the entire thread or you intentionally ignored my actual argument to make an irrelevant argument.

Considering your response to that is the same old “It’s been proven, but I’m not going to say how it’s been proven or show how it was proven in any way”, it might just be the latter.

Nobody has actually shown that my method would be bad. At best I get assertions and suppositions that bad things will happen, but not actually any proof. I still don’t know why people would think it would lead to hoarding, and nobody will answer me when I ask how. Heck, I asked someone who said they could think of multiple ways they could easily exploit it how they could exploit it, and never got an actual answer.

Every time I ask someone to back themselves up, I get nothing but “It’d just be bad and they said they wouldn’t so deal with it.”

Why should I accept everyone else’s arguments when half the time my actual questions requesting explanations of their vague assertions go unanswered?

Azrael.4960:

To be fair to Filaha, I have previously tossed the idea in my head of a sort of trading post in the sense that people post items up, much like a classified section of a newspaper, and ask to trade for certain other items. There would of course be a fee for the use of this option. As a percentage fee can’t be applied to a item(s) for item(s) swap, the fee would have to be a flat rate, set to a value that ensures a sufficient gold sink but low enough to be a viable alternative to the main trading post.

Actually, if it were to go through a UI based in the entire BLTC UI, and it would be pulling the numbers for highest buy order and lowest sell order regardless so people know the value of the item to avoid scamming, it would be feasible and, IMO, acceptable to make a percentage based on the current price at time of putting it up, paid upon placing the trade, but at a significant discount to the 15%. It’d still have a gold sink, but it should be at a more reasonable rate considering you’d be asking for a specific item. You’d be taking a risk that nobody has or wants to trade that specific item for your specific item, so that you could still do secure trades if you do wish to set them up in advance, or you could take a shot that someone might want to trade their Lovestruck skin for your Ley Line skin, or their Dusk for your 100 Damask.

Izaya.2906:

Given that only partial fees taken out of the total tp fees will be affected, can you prove that your suggestions will be enough to cover it or at least project the effect of your suggestion(how much trades will be done instead of listings by actual players) and that your suggested gold sinks can cover it fully?

Of course not. I don’t know how many people would be interested in purchasing dungeon skins for gold rather than farming the tokens, I don’t know how many people would buy “Ticket” weapon skins for gold instead of having to rely on RNG to potentially get nothing, I don’t know how many people would pay to reset Ascended item stats, and I don’t know how many people would donate to a Lion’s Arch gold sink in exchange for rewards, be it for Karma or other things (or how about a Dry Top donation sink that increases favour, making it still plausible to get higher tiers when novelty fades?). Considering that it hasn’t been implemented in the game, it is, of course, impossible to prove.

That’s why I asked for opinions regarding those to see if anyone could reasonably suggest how it wouldn’t be used by a significant amount of people.

But by the same token, my suggestion hasn’t been implemented either, so I don’t know why people think their own suppositions are inarguable proof of why it would cause huge problems.

ANet has, on various occasions and in various ways, said that they are happy with the way the Trading Post works. Therefore, it is incumbent on those wishing to change the system to point out why it would be worth ANet’s time to implement a system that competes with the TP. So far, I haven’t seen anyone make that case.

Yes, we are missing a component of trading that is extremely fun for a subset of the players. And yes, it can be inconvenient to send stuff through the mail. And yes, there’s no direct way to trade one item for another; you have to go through the TP and pay the fees.

Outside of that, the current system already covers everything else:

• Scamming is impossible.
• Market-savvy players cannot take advantage of others, because they have to compete with the rest of the market.
• Everyone can see market prices and will only ever pay market prices for an item.
• People trade with everyone in the NA and EU regions, rather than the small subset of people in the same map instance.
• No one has to stop playing in order to find a trade partner.
• The enormous size of the TP ensures that no one can dominate any single niche for long and that markets will come to equilibrium quickly after changes to the game.
• The TP fees create one of the few MMO gold sinks that scales with the economy: it sucks more coin from the economy when people have more coin to spend. This reduces the rate of inflation better than any type of traditional (but static) gold sinks.
• And yes, it almost completely eliminates trade spamming, something that a lot of players seem to be happy about.

One additional question that ANet would need to address: if they do decide to add P2P trading to the game (with all the bells & whistles and anti-scam systems), what other features will they have to postpone or never consider for the game?

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

One additional question that ANet would need to address: if they do decide to add P2P trading to the game (with all the bells & whistles and anti-scam systems), what other features will they have to postpone or never consider for the game?

Great post. I can answer the last question though. They will postpone(HA!) or never consider anything for WvW.

Zaxares.5419:

Two reasons.

1. Any face-to-face trading, no matter how many checks you put on it, has the possibility of people getting scammed. By forcing all trade to go through the TP, you reduce the number of people getting scammed, as well as extra work your Support teams have to do investigating these claims.

2. The TP is the single biggest gold sink in the game, and all accounts show that it’s extremely effective in controlling inflation. If you allow face-to-face trading, you’re allowing players to bypass this sink, which will then result in said inflation. (And let’s be honest. The only real reason people want a face-to-face trading interface is so they can avoid paying the TP taxes.)

Tax is one annoying song of a b***h. xD I understand the reason behind 5% tax as it prevents players from using TP as their second bank. What I don’t understand is the reason behind 10% tax? Could the funds be going towards socialized healthcare and to feed hungry, disabled tyrians who cant work. And not to mention to get Queen Jennah that new designer collection she likes very much.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Morsus.5106:

Brother Grimm.5176:

This argument / discussion has been done multiple times in the past. The fact of the matter is, the game was designed from the ground up to NOT support player to player trading. Get on with your life.

The game was also designed not to have a dedicated healing class, but we still have people trying to roll a healer.

….and how does a healer and mail trade work out? Again, move on….

I’m just saying that some players won’t move on. They’ll keep begging for it or trying to find a way to do it.

As amusing as this thread is, this really boils down to ‘Anet has the final say.’ That simple.

…and they have said that they won’t be implementing this, for assorted reasons which that have clearly stated time and time again.

/thread

and what if you just want to give an item to someone else or is this game made for the greedy?
i sometimes have a weapon that is way to low level for me but a different player can use this weapon right now, if i could simply give the weapon it would improve socialization, for now all i can do is mail the weapon in the hope that given player is planning on wasting X copper/silver for a weapon.

sorudo.9054:

and what if you just want to give an item to someone else or is this game made for the greedy?
i sometimes have a weapon that is way to low level for me but a different player can use this weapon right now, if i could simply give the weapon it would improve socialization, for now all i can do is mail the weapon in the hope that given player is planning on wasting X copper/silver for a weapon.

Nothing it stopping you from mailing them that item…which is free. If the person is in your guild, drop in the guild vault for them. My husband and I mail stuff back and forth between our accounts all the time. Guildies regularly leave things in the vault for other guildies. Its not like there aren’t other options when you want to just pass something to someone else.

Now, admittedly, if you’re trying to mail 10 people, that’s a touch more difficult. I’ve said before, and I’ll say again, I think they went overboard with the suppression.

I miss the ability to drop things for others to pick up, it was so much faster in situations where you’re trying to say… share a consumable with your party members. You’d see this often in things like UW or DoA runs.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

sorudo.9054:

and what if you just want to give an item to someone else or is this game made for the greedy?
i sometimes have a weapon that is way to low level for me but a different player can use this weapon right now, if i could simply give the weapon it would improve socialization, for now all i can do is mail the weapon in the hope that given player is planning on wasting X copper/silver for a weapon.

Nothing it stopping you from mailing them that item…which is free. If the person is in your guild, drop in the guild vault for them. My husband and I mail stuff back and forth between our accounts all the time. Guildies regularly leave things in the vault for other guildies. Its not like there aren’t other options when you want to just pass something to someone else.

no wait, i was confusing GW2 mailing system with the one in LOTRO and rift.
still, if i could at least drop my stuff outside cities (so it doesn’t clutter the city to much) then it makes sharing stuff allot more fun.
also, if i have something that is dirty cheap but i want to get rid of it, i rather drop it so someone else might have a use for it.
i just find keeping stuff a bit greedy when i have no use for it, there are even boosters i find completely useless yet all i can do is ether use it or destroy them, if i could drop them for someone else to pick up then i would gladly drop plenty of them.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

ANet has, on various occasions and in various ways, said that they are happy with the way the Trading Post works. Therefore, it is incumbent on those wishing to change the system to point out why it would be worth ANet’s time to implement a system that competes with the TP. So far, I haven’t seen anyone make that case.

The ONLY reason that is needed is one of operating COST (actual REAL money).

Player to player trades would generate MANY tickets and claims (false or otherwise) of scamming. NO system can be set up to protect ignorant players from savvy ones, so the argument that a “good” system would prevent this is false…..even valid trades would generate players that were unsatisfied with the results and a ticket would need to be addressed by Customer Service.

NO (perceived) convenience by any player is worth the cost (REAL $) Support would generate to manage a player to player trade system. Even evaluating or discussing adding such a system is pure wasted revenue when the current system works perfectly fine. No player is suffering for not being able to obtain items they want or need (that are currently available for sale).

TLDNR: not needed and would cost Support time and effort to police….not gonna happen.

Brother Grimm.5176:

TLDNR: not needed and would cost Support time and effort to police….not gonna happen.

Especially since this is the main “official” reason why it wasn’t carried over from GW in the first place. The devs already considered this idea, and rejected it, long before the game was launched. The situation hasn’t changed since then, so unless you can bring something completely new to the table it’s not even open for discussion as far as the devs are concerned.

The RNG reward system, the TP and the TP gold sink are all tied together. I think you can have a player to player system but only if the gold sink applies there as well.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Therefore, it is incumbent on those wishing to change the system to point out why it would be worth ANet’s time to implement a system that competes with the TP. So far, I haven’t seen anyone make that case.

I’ve yet to see any refutations of my suggestion that it could potentially bring product back into circulation, rather than cause hoarding. Someone might be waiting for a price hike to sell something in order to make back money on a mistaken purchase or just they were hoarding it for when the price goes up and might not want to take the loss that selling (or re-selling) the item would bring. However, if they could trade it for something else of equal value, they just might, which brings it into circulation rather than just sitting in someone’s bank.

Alternatively, maybe someone has an item or items that sell slowly or not for the price they quite want, and would rather trade it for something that’s easier to sell, while someone else might want that item in the first place.

Can you refute that it couldn’t possibly cause more supply to hit the market and circulate, even if only from people who might want a better exchange rate between their item(s) and the item(s) they want?

Outside of that, the current system already covers everything else:

• Scamming is impossible.

Not if you want to do item for item trades.

• Market-savvy players cannot take advantage of others, because they have to compete with the rest of the market.
• Everyone can see market prices and will only ever pay market prices for an item.
• People trade with everyone in the NA and EU regions, rather than the small subset of people in the same map instance.
• No one has to stop playing in order to find a trade partner.

Hence why my particular suggestion suggested to make it go through the BLTC interface with a game-wide item trading post where you aren’t limited to solely who’s in the same map as you.

• And yes, it almost completely eliminates trade spamming, something that a lot of players seem to be happy about.

Technically, this system doesn’t inherently do that. People could still spam in chats that they’re willing to sell something for a lower price than the current lowest price, or to set up a trade through the mail. They just don’t.

One additional question that ANet would need to address: if they do decide to add P2P trading to the game (with all the bells & whistles and anti-scam systems), what other features will they have to postpone or never consider for the game?

That all depends on them. However, nobody could say whether this would result in something good or something bad. I personally would have rathered they add in a trading function (like the one I suggested) than change the way traits work, for example.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

As amusing as this thread is, this really boils down to ‘Anet has the final say.’ That simple.

So? That doesn’t prevent people from having debates or discussions from an academic perspective. Whether or not they’ll implement something is, in my view, irrelevant to whether or not it’s inherently a bad idea.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Player to player trades would generate MANY tickets and claims (false or otherwise) of scamming. NO system can be set up to protect ignorant players from savvy ones, so the argument that a “good” system would prevent this is false…..even valid trades would generate players that were unsatisfied with the results and a ticket would need to be addressed by Customer Service.

Then please explain how one could be taken advantage of if the trades worked through the BLTC interface and displayed the relative costs of the item(s) involved on both sides so everyone involved can see the exact current TP value of their item(s) so it’d be right in front of their face if there’s a huge disparity in prices.

Also explain how our current system of “If you want to do item for item trades, do it through an entirely unsafe method” would inherently cause less tickets.

If they make it properly secure and realistically foolproof, they don’t need to police it because they could easily adopt the stance that if you get scammed despite having the game tell you right to your face the relative prices, then it’s your own fault and there’s nothing they can do about it. They could also limit the difference in relative price to prevent slime for diamonds trades, or if they don’t want to do that, have it pop up with an extra warning if the disparity is over a certain percentage.

If I go and delete one of my characters and then put in a ticket saying it was a mistake and deleted the wrong one, should I realistically expect them to undelete it? Not really, since their security measures are pretty dang foolproof in that regard.

Filaha.1678:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

As amusing as this thread is, this really boils down to ‘Anet has the final say.’ That simple.

So? That doesn’t prevent people from having debates or discussions from an academic perspective. Whether or not they’ll implement something is, in my view, irrelevant to whether or not it’s inherently a bad idea.

Except that people have had this same debate….repeatedly. Every time it ends the same way: ANet reiterating why they didn’t, and continue to not, implement, p2p trading.

It’s not like these are new arguments you’re presenting. You aren’t going to change their mind. Whether you think something is bad idea is irrelevant. Obviously, they don’t agree.

Filaha.1678:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Therefore, it is incumbent on those wishing to change the system to point out why it would be worth ANet’s time to implement a system that competes with the TP. So far, I haven’t seen anyone make that case.

I’ve yet to see any refutations of my suggestion that it could potentially bring product back into circulation, rather than cause hoarding. Someone might be waiting for a price hike to sell something in order to make back money on a mistaken purchase or just they were hoarding it for when the price goes up and might not want to take the loss that selling (or re-selling) the item would bring. However, if they could trade it for something else of equal value, they just might, which brings it into circulation rather than just sitting in someone’s bank.

Alternatively, maybe someone has an item or items that sell slowly or not for the price they quite want, and would rather trade it for something that’s easier to sell, while someone else might want that item in the first place.

Can you refute that it couldn’t possibly cause more supply to hit the market and circulate, even if only from people who might want a better exchange rate between their item(s) and the item(s) they want?

Extremely high value, extremely low supply, very low volatility, items like precursors and legendary items would go up in price and in fact encourage hoarding because players who seek to swap them would dilute the stock available in the gold TP. Thus as the stock in the gold TP dwindles, the price rises. However, this leads to the flip side issue where the price becomes so high no one would buy it and swap trades would be the only way of circulating the items.

Filaha.1678:

Then please explain how one could be taken advantage of if the trades worked through the BLTC interface and displayed the relative costs of the item(s) involved on both sides so everyone involved can see the exact current TP value of their item(s) so it’d be right in front of their face if there’s a huge disparity in prices.

Do you realize how many idiots post sell orders on the TP NOW that are losses to selling the items to a vendor? Again, a fool and their gold are easily scammed…. In addition, why would they put the BLTC info on a player to player trade window? Just because some don’t understand why the 15% tax is needed and want the benefits of the BLTC AND being able to bypass the 15% fee? Not gonna happen.

Also explain how our current system of “If you want to do item for item trades, do it through an entirely unsafe method” would inherently cause less tickets.

1. Only ignorant players (or scammers) try to use mail for anonymous trade. Anyone else that uses it with anyone they don’t implicitly trust is not too bright.
2. If the system were a “legit” trading method, time would be required to investigate the trade and every possible issue involved (like, “he said he was gonna send me another 2g when he sold the item….”)

Filaha.1678:

If they make it properly secure and realistically foolproof, they don’t need to police it because they could easily adopt the stance that if you get scammed despite having the game tell you right to your face the relative prices, then it’s your own fault and there’s nothing they can do about it. They could also limit the difference in relative price to prevent slime for diamonds trades, or if they don’t want to do that, have it pop up with an extra warning if the disparity is over a certain percentage.

If I go and delete one of my characters and then put in a ticket saying it was a mistake and deleted the wrong one, should I realistically expect them to undelete it? Not really, since their security measures are pretty dang foolproof in that regard.

You’d be surprised how many times a week this very thing pops up in the Account forum…..many more likely just send a ticket and never post. You underestimate just how impossible it is to make the system “foolproof”.

Beyond all this waste of my time to explain things you already know, the real question is WHY IS THIS NEEDED? There is a pretty foolproof system already in place. Use it.

@Filaha
“If I go and delete one of my characters and then put in a ticket saying it was a mistake and deleted the wrong one, should I realistically expect them to undelete it? Not really, since their security measures are pretty dang foolproof in that regard.”

And yet people delete characters and then make tickets about it all the time. A few examples.
one
two
three
four

There was even one post where someone contacted support because they salvaged an ecto and they wanted support to send them another one. If people make tickets about one salvaged ecto or about a deleted character where they are warned about what happens if they delete, then they will definitely make tickets when they get scammed.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Except that people have had this same debate….repeatedly.

Are you sure? Or are you considering the general concept of a trading system to be “the same debate”? Could you link me to the other debates where people have suggested exactly what I’m suggesting?

Every time it ends the same way: ANet reiterating why they didn’t, and continue to not, implement, p2p trading.

Which does not prevent people from discussing it from an academic perspective.

You aren’t going to change their mind. Whether you think something is bad idea is irrelevant. Obviously, they don’t agree.

And as I said earlier, I don’t care, nor expect, to change their mind.

Azrael.4960:

Extremely high value, extremely low supply, very low volatility, items like precursors and legendary items would go up in price and in fact encourage hoarding because players who seek to swap them would dilute the stock available in the gold TP. Thus as the stock in the gold TP dwindles, the price rises. However, this leads to the flip side issue where the price becomes so high no one would buy it and swap trades would be the only way of circulating the items.

Yes, that’s the claim people have made, but where is the evidence that this only would happen? Is it not also possible that it could cause already-hoarded supply to re-enter general availability by people being willing to trade them directly for other similarly-priced items or materials? Also, if someone is willing to trade Dusk for 100 Bolts of Damask, then someone, for around the same price as the Dusk, could buy the Damask and trade that. Same amount of gold gets removed from the game because of the purchase of the Damask, plus whatever fee could be applied to the ITP. And then the people selling the Damask would also have their stock move rather than just sitting in the TP. Who doesn’t profit there? Player A gets rid of their Dusk and gets the Damask they want, Player B gets their Dusk for the same price, Players C through whatever get rid of Damask they were sitting on, BLTC gets their fees.

And what about this current system doesn’t already encourage hoarding? I mean, it’s already been put forth as a point that the current TP’s stock is nowhere near indicative of total stock, so doesn’t that mean people are already hoarding, even if it’s just waiting for price to rise due to decreased supply (for example, ticket skins when they increase from the price of 1 ticket)?

Brother Grimm.5176:

Do you realize how many idiots post sell orders on the TP NOW that are losses to selling the items to a vendor?

The current system doesn’t show the vendor price of the item in the same interface as the TP, though. And while it does prevent you from selling something which has a beginning price below what you’d make from a vendor, it doesn’t factor the taxes in. Heck, it doesn’t even stop someone from posting an order for items which are below the vendor price, which it won’t even let you sell to.

In addition, why would they put the BLTC info on a player to player trade window?

Do you mean apart from the reasons I’ve listed so far, such as that it could go through the BLTC interface to streamline it and to help avoid scamming by making the relative prices clear to the users at a single glance?

Only ignorant players (or scammers) try to use mail for anonymous trade. Anyone else that uses it with anyone they don’t implicitly trust is not too bright.

So if people already put in tickets because of mail scamming (which I assume, since you assert people do stupid things and then try to seek compensation), could this not reduce the amount of tickets by reducing those which revolve around “I didn’t know how much this really was and he scammed me” or “He said he’d trade this back, but I didn’t get anything”?

You’d be surprised how many times a week this very thing pops up in the Account forum…..many more likely just send a ticket and never post.

I didn’t ask if it happened. I asked if I should expect it. The answer is no. If I typed in my character name (which you need to do to delete the character), and didn’t realize by the end of typing it in that I was typing in the wrong name, then I should not expect to get it back. You probably overestimate how many of those tickets or posts are legitimately mistakes.

Beyond all this waste of my time to explain things you already know, the real question is WHY IS THIS NEEDED? There is a pretty foolproof system already in place. Use it.

Already went over how it could positively affect the game and market. I’m not going to restate it.

Astral Projections.7320:

And yet people delete characters and then make tickets about it all the time.

That wasn’t my question. I asked if I should expect them to do something about it. The answer is no.

Filaha.1678:

The current system doesn’t show the vendor price of the item in the same interface as the TP, though.

Yes it does, just mouse-over the icon for the item.

Filaha.1678:

Heck, it doesn’t even stop someone from posting an order for items which are below the vendor price, which it won’t even let you sell to.

Yes it does.

Have you even used the TP recently?

Manasa Devi.7958:

Yes it does, just mouse-over the icon for the item.

Semantics. I think it should have been quite clear that I meant in a place where it’s right in front of the person’s face without having to mouse over the icon tucked over to the side.

Yes it does.

So it does. I don’t tend to place buy orders lower than the vendor price, so that’s not something I’ve come across before. I guess it must have been changed at some point, since I’ve come across buy orders lower than the vendor price (which it has stopped me from selling to).

It, however, does not prevent orders where the tax would reduce it to below the vendor price, which is the more important part and you conveniently ignored, so there’s no need to be rude.

Pretty much the only time to use buy orders when selling or sell listings when buying is when they’re negligible in price or the item doesn’t have much market flow (and you’re willing to cut your losses).

I’ve seen some people on both sides of the spectrum. There are definitely more players that get ripped off, but some just don’t think about it.

On one hand, some players don’t care about “making that extra silver” even though it actually ends up being a gold or two, or more. However, when it comes to the majority of items, they have good market fluidity which means that if you post something within reason to the current market price, it will be sold. If you want it to be sold faster, you’ll undercut for 1c. If you want that extra few copper (2s50c at the most), you’ll list it at the same price. But most players don’t care about that. They’ll sell it at the first number that pops up as a buy order and be done with it. They got their gold instantly and that’s all that matters.

Of course, they’re losing out big and, in some cases, just giving money to a flipper. There are other cases, like Crests, where you end up losing money versus NPCing while, at the same time, giving money to a flipper. (This might not be accurate anymore.)

Those same people will buy from the lowest seller whenever they want anything. They don’t want to wait, even if it’s not going to be longer than 10 minutes (high fluidity items).

And then there’s the other side of the spectrum. The people that ALWAYS list on point with lowest seller and ALWAYS buy on point with highest buyer. These people are also sometimes bad because if the price is a negligible difference (1c between seller and buyer), you’re going to save yourself time and effort by just buying instantly. You might lose a silver or two, but just walk instead of taking the waypoint next time. Of course, these people don’t lose out of money TOO much, but it does happen.

Tl;dr: Always check both prices before deciding what to do/where to place the price.

Filaha.1678:

……
It, however, does not prevent orders where the tax would reduce it to below the vendor price, which is the more important part and you conveniently ignored, so there’s no need to be rude.

This fact makes OUR point….that players are “simplistic” and putting TP data on a P2P trade system is NOT going to prevent “fools and their money being parted”……

There is NO WAY that less Customer Service tickets would result from them putting in a P2P trade system (note ADDED not replacement of the TP system). You can argue this point till you’re blue in the face, but you are just spitting into the wind (and deluding yourself) if you believe it will. I would think VERY few people ever trade (with an unknown) via mail and even fewer do it a second time.

NO perceived benefits to the game or markets would ever be considered over less CS involvement in trading AND the NECESSARY gold sink of the TP fees.

Brother Grimm.5176:

This fact makes OUR point….

Unless your point is that the current TP system is not as secure and idiot-proof as it could be, I don’t see how that makes your point.

I mean, because the current TP allows one to set a price which would result in an objective loss compared to vendoring something, how does that mean that a system that wouldn’t allow that at all would somehow be a problem?

I’m afraid you’ll have to explain that instead of simply stating your assertion… again.

While we’re at it, please show your numbers of CS tickets regarding scamming both with and without the trade system which allows you to assert, for a fact, that having a secure trade system would result in more tickets.

Really, if you can’t provide evidence, you shouldn’t state things for facts. Which is really the general problem with the detractors’ arguments. A majority seem to be claiming that they can see the future and know things as facts, while a minority actually accept possibilities.

You need to post an item at roughly 20% above the vendor price to break even or eek out a tiny profit (17.65% actually, 20% most people should be able to do in their head) on the TP. Currently the TP only requires +1c over vendor to post a bid or sell order.

For instance minor runes have a vendor price of 16c, the TP accepts 17c, you need 19c to make as much as you would from a vendor. Not sure why they didn’t implement the minimum system like that to begin with other than the current way is trivial while a correct system would have to into consideration the rounding rules and minimum that the TP uses. Quantity is also an issue when it comes to the 10% sales tax due to the rounding rules. So if someone buys 10 of something from you at 19c, there is only a 19c tax while if 10 people buy 1 each, you will be charged 20c tax on top of your 10c posting fee which is why it’s listed as estimated profit on the TP.

Filaha.1678:

Brother Grimm.5176:

This fact makes OUR point….

Unless your point is that the current TP system is not as secure and idiot-proof as it could be, I don’t see how that makes your point.

I mean, because the current TP allows one to set a price which would result in an objective loss compared to vendoring something, how does that mean that a system that wouldn’t allow that at all would somehow be a problem?

I’m afraid you’ll have to explain that instead of simply stating your assertion… again.

While we’re at it, please show your numbers of CS tickets regarding scamming both with and without the trade system which allows you to assert, for a fact, that having a secure trade system would result in more tickets.

Really, if you can’t provide evidence, you shouldn’t state things for facts. Which is really the general problem with the detractors’ arguments. A majority seem to be claiming that they can see the future and know things as facts, while a minority actually accept possibilities.

If you read the posts that Gaile had to respond to in GW1 about scams, you wouldn’t be surprised that there are tons and tons of people who got taken advantage of, scammed, or were trying to renege on a deal, claiming that the other party cheated them. People would change the trade offer at the very beginning, so it was hard to tell just when something substantial was changed. There were substitutions, players would agree to terms and argue whether they were fulfilled, people would spam chat accusing someone of being a scammer (and sometimes they were).

All of that is preempted by the TP, so again, if you want to bring back the P2P trade mechanism, even as a thought experiment, you need to be able to better explain the fool-proof system that prevents humans from exhibiting human nature.

Zaxares.5419:

(And let’s be honest. The only real reason people want a face-to-face trading interface is so they can avoid paying the TP taxes.)

The main reason I want to be able to do that is to hand random people treats on holidays, or hand off stuff to friends I actually trust without needing to go through the mail system every time.

However, having seen the myriad scams which were done in the past games? I really am not all that invested in it.

By the way, whomever sent me the mail claiming to be an Elonian prince who needs me to send him 1000 Gold so he can get his platinum exchanged properly and pay me back triple?

That was legitimately funny.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

The main reason I want to be able to do that is to hand random people treats on holidays, or hand off stuff to friends I actually trust without needing to go through the mail system every time.

I’m a bit confused as to how the current mail system might be harder to deal with than a trading system? During Wintersday, I was able to give gifts to friends even while they were offline; I’ve lent money; I’ve given random newbies “care packages;” and, yeah, handed out treats to strangers. From my point of view, that was easier than the typical P2P trade window, because I didn’t have to wait for confirmation from anyone.

I’m asking because it never occurred to me that might be a fringe benefit of P2P trading, but at the moment, I still think the trading system would make those transactions take longer.