I don’t understand why this game insists on removing all the social trappings of the genre. Sure, the Trade Post makes a lot of player to player trading unnecessary, but to not have it as a feature is a bit alarming. I think they should at least institute a cash on delivery system for Mail if they aren’t willing to compromise. I’m aware that they neglected to put it in to prevent scamming and gold selling, but i don’t think it’s going to deter that action in reality. I’ve gotten hundreds of messages from bots trying to sell gold to me and i’m pretty sure if someone had a couple accounts and acted fast enough, they could get away with it. The point is, why can’t we have direct trade? Maybe i wanna give a staff to someone in exchange for a sword. I don’t know them, so i’d rather not risk giving the item through mail and then not receiving what he was supposed to give. Maybe i don’t want to hassle with the numbers and impersonal Trade Post, so i’d rather just trade items with someone. Why can’t players do this?
I don’t understand why this game insists on removing all the social trappings of the genre. Sure, the Trade Post makes a lot of player to player trading unnecessary, but to not have it as a feature is a bit alarming. I think they should at least institute a cash on delivery system for Mail if they aren’t willing to compromise. I’m aware that they neglected to put it in to prevent scamming and gold selling, but i don’t think it’s going to deter that action in reality. I’ve gotten hundreds of messages from bots trying to sell gold to me and i’m pretty sure if someone had a couple accounts and acted fast enough, they could get away with it. The point is, why can’t we have direct trade? Maybe i wanna give a staff to someone in exchange for a sword. I don’t know them, so i’d rather not risk giving the item through mail and then not receiving what he was supposed to give. Maybe i don’t want to hassle with the numbers and impersonal Trade Post, so i’d rather just trade items with someone. Why can’t players do this?
It is an unnesssasry nuisance not to have a trade option. So i’m with you on this. Though I have to say, the economy on this game is pretty robust. I sold all 400 of my copper ore today in a matter of seconds after putting each stack of 100 up. It was insane.
I disagree. By not having personal trade it is harder to scam others. And what happens when you get scammed, you run to the mods to get your item back, which takes time and effort they can put somewhere else. By having a unified trade system they only need to manage that. So you either trust the other player or use trading post.
You pretty much answered your own question in the original post. They’ve stated before that trade was left out in favor of the instant-mail system in order to cut down on scamming. They also felt that it was a waste of their development time to implement a trading system that requires multiple layers of anti-scam checks.
Not saying I agree with the decision, but there it is. Personally, I dislike that the mail solution makes bartering with strangers pretty much impossible. Want to trade your rare plate chest drop for my rare leather tunic drop? Sure, you mail me first.. >.>
That said, most of the time I would use the mail system to make trades because I like that I can send something off without being held up by how quickly the recipient can interact with a trade window, or meet up with me somewhere.
well because of this ‘mail me’ bs i got scammed and theres no way i can do anything about it, even with screenshots of conversation and agreement etc
just cant trust humans, go figure.
for anyone unsure, just save yourself the drama and merch the gear, 2 silvers better than a fat lie from a stranger.
since there no cs for this kind of game design, should we start a name and shame thread with screens?
This is the internet where anonymity makes people not responsible for their actions. The lack of a direct trade feature is easily exploited by our fellow players as has already been stated through the “mail me” crap. You cannot trust anybody behind the avatar.
It was amazing that in this day and age of MMO’s, this concept was left out. Definitely a feature needed…
Item trade by mail works with people you trust. I trust my guild mates, we use it as intended.
If I want something other than that, then I’ll use the trading post.
If you try to use the mail system for unintended use (trading) and you get scammed, the only thing you can blame is yourself.
Its just a case of a few ruining it for everyone and its a shame but one has to wonder how much resources are wasted in having to go through all the information when an account is hacked? How many accounts did they trade with and if it was more then one then how many of those accounts need to be investigated. Its much easier to track these items down and return them to their owners (or Replace them) if all their account shows over the few days its under another persons control is trading post activity and vender sales. Less risk vs reward might make a difference in the fight against these businesses
There’s no point to face to face trading when everything is a commodity. Nothing you have to trade is unique, so put it on the trading post. Don’t like the prices on the TP? Vendor it or come to grips with the fact that what you have isn’t worth as much as you wish it was worth.
What possible reason is there to trade face to face that doesn’t involve taking advantage of someone? If you want to hand your friend the awesome weapon you just found that your profession can’t use, right click on their portrait and mail it to them. They get it instantly.
Don’t ever think you know what’s right for the other person.
He might start thinking he knows what’s right for you. —Paul Williams
I am not buying the anti scam reason for a lack of direct trading. What I see is a complete lack of interaction between characters AT ALL. You cannot inspect another player….cant trade them something as simple as a piece of food…..this is just an unfinished aspect of the game and concern over trade scams is a cop out.
The primary reason I think there’s no trade is because they can’t tax a trade. When you put something on the trading post, you pay a listing fee. ArenaNet seems VERY interested in keeping money out of the game (or at least keeping everyone from having “too much” money). Now, leave it up to you to decide if that’s money-grubbing behavior or simply good practice for maintaining a long-term economy, but trades mean bypassing the trading post.
I don’t like it though, because it eliminates the type of barter I enjoy, where you simply shout that you have something for sale and people can buy it.
much more easier to track down bots i think the mail system has feature to tell if the person is trying to sale gold with real money in the mail system
I am not buying the anti scam reason for a lack of direct trading. What I see is a complete lack of interaction between characters AT ALL. You cannot inspect another player….cant trade them something as simple as a piece of food…..this is just an unfinished aspect of the game and concern over trade scams is a cop out.
Wrong… ArenaNet wants to have the players go through the AH. The only problem is the AH isn’t working.
This isn’t unfinished, because they never started in the first place. And who cares about inspecting others?
Because they didn’t want to include a basic MMO feature in a AAA 2012 MMO, and would rather take all interaction out of the game, to add another gold sink to the impersonal trading post.
“We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2,
no one enjoys that, no one finds it fun.” – Colin Johanson
R.I.P. in piece, Guild Wars 2, August 2012 – September 2012
I was surprised there is no direct trade between players. But, I believe it is for two reasons.
1. Without direct trade ability more players are pushed to the Trade Post. This feature is a money sink and increases the amount of items players can find. This supports the economy.
2. Without direct trade there is less possible scams.
3. You can easily mail someone items, especially since the mail system is free and instant.
Anything you do in game can be tracked so I don’t really think that’s the reason. Not to mention it’s just as easy to be given gold by gold sellers via the mail system. I mean most of the gold sellers in other games actually DID use the mail system to deliver it. So my only guess is that they had problems coding it…hopefully they see it’s a wanted feature and add it in. Most of the time mail is fine for me, but sometimes it would be so much nicer to just be able to directly trade it.
Anything you do in game can be tracked so I don’t really think that’s the reason
Yeah I’m sure that ArenaNet’s scam team finds it easier to browse through thousands of complaints of being ripped off when they emailed people items and didn’t get cash through the mail system, than ACTUALLY HAVING A TRADING SYSTEM.
You notice how smooth GW2’s launch was? Their support department couldn’t cope with the bugs, refunds or complaints.
“We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2,
no one enjoys that, no one finds it fun.” – Colin Johanson
R.I.P. in piece, Guild Wars 2, August 2012 – September 2012
Sure, you should be able to walk up to someone, right click the toon and trade with that person. But I can see that the idea is to cut down on real world gold farmers and such. In the end, is ANet going to give the players what they want (or more precisely, what they’re used to in other games) or are they going to stay the course? Personally, it doesn’t bother me all that much.
ArenaNet offered the following explanation on this topic during the beta:
Hey guys,
The no face-to-face trade is a real decision and it’s primarily a question of trust (as many of you have noted). But it’s also a decision to protect players from scamming and protect the economy from black-markets. Let’s run through some quick examples.
1) Give something to my friend. – As several of you noted, target your friend, right click the item and select ‘mail-to…’. Done, this works in contact list, guild list, or in world anywhere without having to ‘meet’ them or ‘catch’ them.
2) Get a fair price for an item (anti-scam). – Because ALL trading goes through the trading post we can guarantee that highest bidder meets lowest seller and we can give every player the benefit of current market information.
3) Barter item-for-item. This is the grey area and also the most risky kind of trade because even with UI many items look alike in icon and many social engineering scams take place in this kind of system. It’s a risky trade environment which is why when you support it you have to have these multi-stage UI’s where everyone double-checks everything, and then eventually get’s lazy and stops double-checking and gets scammed anyways.
In the end we decided with super easy access to mail for trusted trades and trading post for untrusted trades that such a system wasn’t worth the risk, complication, and fragmenting the player market off of the trading post..
In testing we’ve found that mail is easier 90% of the time we’d want trade and the other 10% trading post is far safer and avoids drama and thing like random trade windows being thrown at you and lots of other unsavory hawking in game.
This topic has come up since before BWE1 and I don’t see the reason why.
1) ArenaNet has offered their official stance.
2) More good than harm is done by not incorporating “face-to-face” trading.
3) We don’t have to stand in Lion’s Arch and be constantly bombarded by WTS/WTB spam all the time. This was happening when the TP was down, and abruptly ended when it came back up. Normal conversation (read: character interaction) ensued.
As noted by others in the thread, the development team had their reasons for not implementing it. As such, this thread will be closed, but thank you for your feedback on the matter.
