Guild Wars 2

I would like see a player to player trade system in beacuese I tryed buy some thing from a player today and got ripped off for 25 gold this would not have happned if there was a player to player tardeing o system or a COD on mails sent in the game

They do not want to add in player-to-player trading. The only hint of a reason we’ve got is to prevent scamming. There may or may not have been an economy-specific reason as well, I can’t recall.

I’d really appreciate an in-depth reasoning from whatever developer decided this was a good idea. I’ve tried to fathom a moderately logical reasoning for this, but alas, I am unable to. If it’s just simply “players can scam other players with a trade system”, that’s bologna – a player-to-player trade system can and has been designed to make it virtually impossible to not understand what items/currencies you are giving and receiving to/from the other player.

ArenaNet is full of really intelligent developers, especially their game designers. I imagine there has to be a very good reason that player-to-player trading was excluded, and I’d love to hear it.

It was stated at some point prior to release that they want everything to go through the trading post, thus making at least a half decent international economy.

franks

this would not have happned if there was a player to player tardeing o system

It also wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t sent him any gold.

How the heck did you get scammed? If you played the trust game with mail, then that was a dumb move. The reason there is no trade system is because there’s no need for one, you can see the lowest buying prices and highest selling prices on the Tradepost.

if you get scammed in trade it’s because you were stupid. just saying…

yes it was stupid of me to trust that someone would keep there word. They did have trade in GW1 I thought worked fine

I think it has something to do with “WTB” and “WTS” spamming in the general or “map” chat. I guess they’d rather have it be a social experience as opposed to seeing your chat box being spammed up with useless items for sale at a ridiculous price.

If they are so hell bent on making sure we can’t trade person to person, they could at least fix their anti-spam mechanism so that you can send more than 2 mail per few minutes to someone who is a mutual contact (aka- we both have each other on our friends lists). Trading items in bulk should not be this difficult in a 2012 game…

The gold sink (tax & listing fee) is in the TP for a reason.

I doubt they will decide to add a trading system to help people avoid it.

Not having trade is idiotic. But also supports all other claims that GW2 is in any way forcing ppl to buy gems. Like everything i seen so far is purely focused to GW1 fans (im not i think it was terrible game) and Gem store. But since there are ppl willing to trow away 700$ on gems, oh well ….

vespers.1759:

if you get scammed in trade it’s because you were stupid. just saying…

Ending your brilliant contribution with “just saying” does not make you look very cool either.

franks.1430:

yes it was stupid of me to trust that someone would keep there word. They did have trade in GW1 I thought worked fine

Yes, it worked so fine that they had to incorporate a lot of extra safeguards because people still get ripped of in GW1 as well….

Massi.1608:

vespers.1759:

if you get scammed in trade it’s because you were stupid. just saying…

Ending your brilliant contribution with “just saying” does not make you look very cool either.

What he said is right. Raw truth.

Effect.6408:

I think it has something to do with “WTB” and “WTS” spamming in the general or “map” chat. I guess they’d rather have it be a social experience as opposed to seeing your chat box being spammed up with useless items for sale at a ridiculous price.

Not an excuse. A trade channel could be made and use of it could be enforced.

Jestunhi.7429:

The gold sink (tax & listing fee) is in the TP for a reason.

I doubt they will decide to add a trading system to help people avoid it.

Also not an excuse. Auction houses always have extra fees because of how much easier it is to use to buy/sell in most scenarios compared to normal trading. The auction house would still be used a lot, and it would still be a noticeable gold sink. Player to player trading works quite well alongside an auction house.

kiranslee.4829:

Not having trade is idiotic. But also supports all other claims that GW2 is in any way forcing ppl to buy gems. Like everything i seen so far is purely focused to GW1 fans (im not i think it was terrible game) and Gem store. But since there are ppl willing to trow away 700$ on gems, oh well ….

Hrm? I don’t see how a player to player trading system has such a direct relation to the gem economy. Could you elaborate?

Kaizer.7135:

How the heck did you get scammed? If you played the trust game with mail, then that was a dumb move. The reason there is no trade system is because there’s no need for one, you can see the lowest buying prices and highest selling prices on the Tradepost.

He got scammed because he was using the mailing system as a trading system. There are reasons for a trading system.

Example: You, Player A just finished an explorable dungeon with a PUG, and thus you haven’t known anyone in the party for more than maybe an hour. You have Item X that Player B wants. Player B has Item Z that you want. Although you don’t really want Item X, you could get some okay money for it on the trading post. You really want Item Z, but you don’t trust Player B to give you Item Z if you mail Item X first, and rightfully so. Likewise, Player B doesn’t trust you enough to mail Item Z, but also wants really wants Item X. You’ve both hit a crossroad. You have three choices:
1) Risk getting scammed and mail Item X first.
2) Try to get Player B to mail Item Z first, albeit Player B knows they would risk getting scammed.
3) Back out and sell Item X on the trading post. You don’t get Item Z.

This is just one example of many as to why there should be a player to player trading system.

Its simple, more money you lose (TP, BLT…) higher chance wil lbe for you to buy gems and exchange for gold.

franks.1430:

yes it was stupid of me to trust that someone would keep there word. They did have trade in GW1 I thought worked fine

Lots of people got scammed using that system Ice for instance could be used to scam people trying to buy sapphires because it had the same skin same goes for lilac eyes and rubies . never mind running scams or other various kinds . So you can argue it worked fine all you want but it didn’t

I agree entirely with TimeBomb’s post. One of the things that frustrates me about trading in this game is that you are forced to give up some of your profits to the TP. With other player to player trading systems, players who are willing to invest time in selling/buying items they have procured on their own can make a higher profit. I am happy to pay a TP cut for the ease of just chucking it up and waiting for the money, but the fact there isn’t any viable option for selling things manually is frustrating. I would also like to see some sort of official response for the design reasoning behind having no direct player to player trade system.

@kiranslee That argument makes no sense what so ever, this is assuming that a vast quantity of players will pay real money to gain a virtual currency when they have to spend a fraction more on the TP… Trading gems for gold does not really give a great return, so unless you have silly amounts of spare cash to be throwing at video games its not really a viable option of making money.

@Adine The trade system in GW1 was pretty solid IMO, main real complaint I had with it was the fact that you could only trade 100plat max and people who wanted to make trades on items with a higher value than that had to resort to a alternative currency (ectos). The scamming problems you are highlighting here are more of an issue with the player base than the system. Provided you check all the items you are receiving are exactly what you are anticipating you should never have any trouble. I personally have only ever had one real close call with scamming in an MMO, and I took precautionary measures to ensure that if I was scammed I had full screenshot evidence to prove the other party involved in the agreed trade did not provide their end of the agreement, which is a very easy case for in game support to solve. For example with your mentioning of the ruby scamming in GW1, you wouldn’t buy rubies off of a random person you had never met before irl because at first glance they looked like rubies, why should this be any different in a video game?

TP sucks imho however my major gripe is that the only way I have to send items to people is via in-game mail which has No Outbox and fails at times with no comeback…..I often get stuff in mail from people accidentally…I am paranoid and never type a persons name but do it via menu or reply and still lose stuff…I lost 5 gold other day..Anets attitude (same as with ANY job/fault logged)…..we don’t have the resources to do anything to help you.

Anet’s service/support is terrible and having limited 1/2 arsed trade systems just exasperate the problem.

Kaizer.7135:

How the heck did you get scammed? If you played the trust game with mail, then that was a dumb move. The reason there is no trade system is because there’s no need for one, you can see the lowest buying prices and highest selling prices on the Tradepost.

You see, some of us have this thing called “friends”. These “friends”, or people that we play with often and may/may not know IRL, tend to like to share things between each other. And generally, that does not involve putting the item they want to share on the tradepost then having the other person go immediately buy it from the tradepost.

Strange concept, I know… but there is definitely an allure to having these “friends”, and in that situation there is definitely a need for a trade mechanic, especially with items in bulk. The mail mechanic, which involved 5 items per mail, a maximum of 2 mails every few minutes due to “message suppression”, does not in any way make up for the lack of one of the most basic MMO features.

Knowing full well the sequence of events, its Anets fault you gave someone gold first and got nothing in return?

franks.1430:

yes it was stupid of me to trust that someone would keep there word. They did have trade in GW1 I thought worked fine

You took an action that had two possible outcomes
1: You get the item
2: You do not get the item.
Either you were stupid and didnt understand #2 was a possibility or you were stupid in not being prepared for that potential outcome.

1) ArenaNet didn’t want to deal with Trade window “scams” which are caused by slight of hand and clicking reaction time. Technically the scammers didn’t do anything illegal, even though they essentially have. In far too many MMOs that I’ve played, Customer Support has always got bogged down by these issues. That’s their officially stated reason for not having a Trade window in GW2.

2) The whole point of the BLTC auction system is to act as a Gold Sink to remove money from the economy as a means of preventing inflation. If ArenaNet were to create a Trade system that was user friendly, then that would encourage people to bypass the BLTC (and thus lead to more currency inflation). As a ripple effect, ArenaNet might then feel compelled to raise the Gold Sink costs on other game aspects like the Waypoint travel system. People already complain that Waypoint travel is far too expensive, so increasing those costs would just cause an even bigger set of problems.

3) Back during Beta, ArenaNet basically said that player to player trades were a complete gamble. If a player did get ripped off through an attempted Mail trade, then ArenaNet wouldn’t feel responsible to help the “scammed” party because that player voluntarily ignored ArenaNet’s anti-scamming system of the BLTC. (The fact that the BLTC imploded for a couple weeks after the game launched is rather ironic after ArenaNet put so much importance on the system during Beta. However now that it’s functional, their original philosophy should apply.) Since the game has gone live, ArenaNet has backpeddled from their original stance and claim that they will “try” to help the injured party. However I still swear that I once saw a dev refering to Mail trades as a game of Russian Roulette. I really think that ArenaNet is claiming to help Mail suckers as a means of PR and not out of a genuine desire to protect people from their own gambles.

It doesn’t make much sense to NOT have a trade system.

People are saying it’ll cause everyone and their mother to bypass the BLTP, which is not the case. To bypass the TP the seller would have to sell their item cheaper than the TP which may or may not be worth it. The only time I see it being truly worth it to bypass the BLTC is with items that are a multiple tens or hundreds of gold.

People saying trade systems can cause you to get scammed, yes that’s true… Usually to the fault of the party getting scammed not checking the items/gold they are receiving. As for the “faster reflexes/clicking speed” there are many MMOs that handle trading by forcing both parties to not only hit accept trade but hit confirm trade, essentially locking in their items before hitting the final “Trade” button. It doesn’t make scamming impossible but the old “put in real item, take it out/replace it at last minute” is infinitely harder to do if both parties take their time to check the opposing parties items. These systems where you “lock in” your trade also automatically unlock the other parties trade lock once you change the contents of your trade window as to not allow someone to switch and lock in their trade without the other person’s knowledge should the trader already have locked in.

Example of said system: Player A wants to trade his Fancy Top Hat for Player B’s Magic Pants. Player A and Player B go into the trade window and both place their items in, both players check the items and see that they are indeed a Fancy Top Hat and a pair of Magic Pants. Both players then lock in, no one can change the contents of the trade window. At this point either player still has the option to hit “cancel trade” rather than “confirm trade” in case B decides his Magic Pants aren’t worth a Fancy Top Hat or vice-verse. But since both A and B are upstanding players and not trying to scam each other and they both still want the items they both are trading they hit “Confirm Trade” and the items are swapped.

In this example if B wanted the Fancy Top Hat but did not want to give up his Magic Pants and tried to switch out his Magic Pants for Normal Pants that had the same icon A’s “trade lock” would have been undone alerting him to a change in the trade, A could then check the item to make sure it was still Magic Pants, realizing it was Normal Pants he could then cancel the trade and basically tell B to screw off or report him for attempting to scam.

Also, the whole trading post fills the need for trading is a complete fallacy. Some players do not want to or have the gold to spend on X item yet they know someone who has X item and would like their item Y. With the current system a player would have to sell Y to get gold to hopefully buy X. Also, what if the guy with X item would rather have Y item than gold, but no Y’s are on the TP but he know’s someone who has a Y and is looking for X. Trading items via the trading post can be cumbersome at best if you are trying for specific players if not totally impossible.

And as mentioned before, implementation of a /trade chat would eliminate the “clutter” of WTB WTS WTT from /map, /team, and /say if properly enforced.

In closing, there are reasons why almost every single MMO, and some non MMOs, have a trade feature it’s because it’s a much easier method of player interaction on an individual basis in regards to items and it saves a lot of grief that players may have. (as shown by the multitude of threads that pop up from time to time and the in-game complaints.) Even if it’s just for convinace sake, we should have a direct player to player trade function.

Edited to make it easier to read

Wiser with Age.3714:

1) ArenaNet didn’t want to deal with Trade window “scams” which are caused by slight of hand and clicking reaction time. Technically the scammers didn’t do anything illegal, even though they essentially have. In far too many MMOs that I’ve played, Customer Support has always got bogged down by these issues. That’s their officially stated reason for not having a Trade window in GW2.
Like I said, this is no excuse. Making a trade system that makes it easy to notice what you are giving and receiving as well as when the other player changes one item in the trade window with another is very simple. Add a ready button and a trade button and a confirm trade window; all three have to be approved by both players before the items are traded. Make sure the items being traded have all the detail as if they were in your own inventory. If either side changes the items in the trade window, then unready both sides. They could even show the buy/sell price of the items in the trade window from the TP.

2) The whole point of the BLTC auction system is to act as a Gold Sink to remove money from the economy as a means of preventing inflation. If ArenaNet were to create a Trade system that was user friendly, then that would encourage people to bypass the BLTC (and thus lead to more currency inflation). As a ripple effect, ArenaNet might then feel compelled to raise the Gold Sink costs on other game aspects like the Waypoint travel system. People already complain that Waypoint travel is far too expensive, so increasing those costs would just cause an even bigger set of problems.
The auction system is a fine gold sink. Trading systems are free because it takes a lot more time to find a buyer/seller than an auction system. If ArenaNet was really worried, they would add a tax, probably based off TP prices, to the trading system.

3) Back during Beta, ArenaNet basically said that player to player trades were a complete gamble. If a player did get ripped off through an attempted Mail trade, then ArenaNet wouldn’t feel responsible to help the “scammed” party because that player voluntarily ignored ArenaNet’s anti-scamming system of the BLTC. (The fact that the BLTC imploded for a couple weeks after the game launched is rather ironic after ArenaNet put so much importance on the system during Beta. However now that it’s functional, their original philosophy should apply.) Since the game has gone live, ArenaNet has backpeddled from their original stance and claim that they will “try” to help the injured party. However I still swear that I once saw a dev refering to Mail trades as a game of Russian Roulette. I really think that ArenaNet is claiming to help Mail suckers as a means of PR and not out of a genuine desire to protect people from their own gambles.
I haven’t seen them do anything about scammers. At all. A trading system doesn’t have to be a scam-heavy system if it’s built smart. A mail system being the only alternative to a trade system can be and is indeed a scam-heavy system.

My responses are under yours in bold.

sometimes it is worth the risk to avoid the potentionally STEEP 15% rake from the TP…there will come a time when there will be people who will build good reptuations as a neutral 3rd party and facilitate trades…like a broker

most games that i’ve seen, like UO, that don’t have a person to person trading system eventually spawns brokers to facilitate high dollar item trades

this game will be no different

I think a #1 priority for ArenaNet/NCSoft was to set up this game to have the least possible customer support.

Leaving out trade is one very good money saver on their part. They never have to adjudicate accusations of scamming, cuz the default response is it’s your own fault.

Kinda like their policy of never reimbursing anyone for anything even if it’s ANet’s fault. No, it doesn’t lead to the best experience for players, but it saves them a boat-load of labor.