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so why no player to player trading?


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Janson Smalling ANet

While we understand the want for P2P trading, we feel that the Trading Post works well for accomplishing fair deals and keeping individual users protected from those with less-than-pure-intentions.Again, while we know that the majority of players would use a P2P system within its intended design, creating this system may place the global economy at risk, as well as some players..

John Smith AnetUsing the trading post is a safer method of trading and simultaneously makes the game more robust. We believe that between mail and the trading post the game is much safer and still contains all the functionality needed.

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Player-to-player trades are good for individual players with certain preferences:

  • Specialized roleplaying.
  • Love bartering or the social interaction.
  • People trying to avoid the taxes.
  • Scammers.
  • One of the two people trading, who is offering less than market value -- it's not scamming, but it depends on one person being ignorant of the market (and that happens all the time with person-to-person trading -- can't tell you how many times I saw people offering GW1 ecto for below what the NPC was offering...or selling for well above the NPC's prices).

And player-to-player trades are bad for everyone else:

  • Risk of scam
  • Non-global market, means supply & demand might never find an equilibrium point.
  • Non-global market means arbitrageurs (people who flip items) will hurt the market, rather than help it reach equilibrium.
  • Less stability, especially for low ticket items.
  • More effort for anyone not interested in RP/barter/scamming/etc.

A lot of people underestimate the value of GW2's truly global market: it's all players in all zones, all servers, all regions. That means that every item can be bought or sold at any time, as long as one is willing to pay the WTS or take the WTB price. Make it easier to trade 1:1, and the truly global market is damaged, especially for tiny-supply items (like legendaries) or high-traded commodities (like ectos). That's bad for the majority of players.

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The mailbox system could easily be adapted to allow direct trading by allowing COD trades, ie you get sent an item, but you cant take it unless you pay the COD.Both WOW and Lotro allow COD mail, and it works very well.But for GW2 the 15% tax would still have to apply, as trading is the main gold sink so has to stay.

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@"mauried.5608" said:The mailbox system could easily be adapted to allow direct trading by allowing COD trades, ie you get sent an item, but you cant take it unless you pay the COD.Both WOW and Lotro allow COD mail, and it works very well.But for GW2 the 15% tax would still have to apply, as trading is the main gold sink so has to stay.

But why would ANet want to? GW1 had "CoD", but it didn't stop scams (including item swapping, selling to or buying from people less market-savvy, or any of the other forms of folks taking advantage of the laziness of others to get better-than-market rates for their items). There's already a working system in the game for exchanging good; there is already a thriving grey market of folks who want to avoid fees, using reputation & middleman services.

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The other point not mentioned here is that chat is not filled up with messages of people trying to make deals, like it was in GW1.If P2P player was supported, you'd probably get lots of people trying to set those up in chat to save save the TP tax, so chat in any of the major towns would probably be useless.

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@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"mauried.5608" said:The mailbox system could easily be adapted to allow direct trading by allowing COD trades, ie you get sent an item, but you cant take it unless you pay the COD.Both WOW and Lotro allow COD mail, and it works very well.But for GW2 the 15% tax would still have to apply, as trading is the main gold sink so has to stay.

But why would ANet want to? GW1 had "CoD", but it didn't stop scams (including item swapping, selling to or buying from people less market-savvy, or any of the other forms of folks taking advantage of the laziness of others to get better-than-market rates for their items). There's already a working system in the game for exchanging good; there is already a thriving grey market of folks who want to avoid fees, using reputation & middleman services.

The Guild Wars Trade interface has a place for items, and a place to insert coin. Yes, it did not stop scams. The seller still had to verify that the buyer was sending the correct amount. I know of one player who agreed to sell a black dye for 10 Plat, who did not verify the amount. The buyer of the dye inserted 10 gold, and got away with a steal (for those who don't know, 1000 gold + 1 Platinum in GW).

In the WoW/LotRO CoD interfaces as Mauried refers to, sellers insert the price they are asking as the delivery condition. The game subtracts that amount from the receiver's funds when s/he accepts the trade. While the seller could still make a mistake, the buyer cannot attempt to dupe the seller, since the coin subtraction is outside of the buyer's control. While GW's trade interface meets one definition of CoD, it is not as good at eliminating scams as the CoD interfaces referred to.

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@IndigoSundown.5419 said:

@"mauried.5608" said:The mailbox system could easily be adapted to allow direct trading by allowing COD trades, ie you get sent an item, but you cant take it unless you pay the COD.Both WOW and Lotro allow COD mail, and it works very well.But for GW2 the 15% tax would still have to apply, as trading is the main gold sink so has to stay.

But why would ANet want to? GW1 had "CoD", but it didn't stop scams (including item swapping, selling to or buying from people less market-savvy, or any of the other forms of folks taking advantage of the laziness of others to get better-than-market rates for their items). There's already a working system in the game for exchanging good; there is already a thriving grey market of folks who want to avoid fees, using reputation & middleman services.

The Guild Wars Trade interface has a place for items, and a place to insert coin. Yes, it did not stop scams. The seller still had to verify that the buyer was sending the correct amount. I know of one player who agreed to sell a black dye for 10 Plat, who did not verify the amount. The buyer of the dye inserted 10 gold, and got away with a steal (for those who don't know, 1000 gold + 1 Platinum in GW).

In the WoW/LotRO CoD interfaces as Mauried refers to, sellers insert the price they are asking as the delivery condition. The game subtracts that amount from the receiver's funds when s/he accepts the trade. While the seller could still make a mistake, the buyer cannot attempt to dupe the seller, since the coin subtraction is outside of the buyer's control. While GW's trade interface meets one definition of CoD, it is not as good at eliminating scams as the CoD interfaces referred to.

Ah good to know.Well that's one scam mechanic down, only all the others left to prevent.

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@kharmin.7683 said:

@Solvar.7953 said:The other point not mentioned here is that chat is not filled up with messages of people trying to make deals, like it was in GW1.

And yet, I saw someone in Divinity's Reach posting WTS Silverwastes shovels in map chat just last night. (sigh)

But thats only a proof for the point because shovels can't be sold on the tp.

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@kharmin.7683 said:And yet, I saw someone in Divinity's Reach posting WTS Silverwastes shovels in map chat just last night. (sigh)

You probably do not know what this request is about. First of all this has nothing to do with the P2P trading issue in the first place. As the others said, account bound stuff.

When you own a guildhall and build upgrades, you need plenty of common and uncommon materials. Those have to be put into the material-storage for guild-upgrades, which works similar to the guild-bank but is irreversible. Whatever you put in there, remains there for eternity. However certain upgrades require account-bound materials and items, which one player has to sacrifice. The Arena upgrades for example require Celestial Inscriptions, which are 100 % account bound. One player has to farm Quartz Crystals, convert them (25 per day) into Charged Quartz Crystals, where you need 5 of these to craft one of those Inscriptions. Then he has to put those into the guild-upgrade-storage of the guildhall. It is as fun as it sounds.

Certain players in the game hoard all sorts of useful and useless materials in their vaults. Especially the Charged Quartz Crystals, but also the Silverwastes Shovels, which are required for the Guild Mine upgrades. Oh btw, a few upgrades also require those expensive PvP potions you get from the dailies.

So yeah, this is account bound stuff which is required for certain guildhall upgrades. It has nothing to do with P2P trading in general. The items go from your account to a material-vault no one can access. The moment you put it in, you can only watch it or use it for guild upgrades.

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@Solvar.7953 said:The other point not mentioned here is that chat is not filled up with messages of people trying to make deals, like it was in GW1.If P2P player was supported, you'd probably get lots of people trying to set those up in chat to save save the TP tax, so chat in any of the major towns would probably be useless.

This... a thousand times this. And the bots. People who think botting is bad in GW2 should have been there in GW1's heyday.

Something else I like about the TP is it lets inexperienced players quickly see the value of their items. Easy as 2 mouse clicks.

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@Stand The Wall.6987 said:curious as to why anet went this route. whats wrong with having both?

It requires additional resources to deal with scammers. The TP helps avoiding that.

@Etterwyn.5263 said:

@Solvar.7953 said:The other point not mentioned here is that chat is not filled up with messages of people trying to make deals, like it was in GW1.This... a thousand times this. And the bots. People who think botting is bad in GW2 should have been there in GW1's heyday.

Agreed. It was quite a pain to sell stuff that way, which is why I appreciated that the biggest German forum at the time had a Trading Post where you could offer your items; then all there was left to do was the in-game transfer.

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ok I will attempt to address all answers.

scamming - mousing over the item(s) in question to verify no same icon switcheroos will solve this. its the buyers prerogative to verify the contents.global economy at risk - unless the TP tax is being used to fund the defense of LA I fail to see what exactly the p2p option would do in terms of risk. we are talking about a video game here with fake moneys.equilibrium - every market has some degree of volatility. its normal. for example in gw1, ectos sell anywhere from 14-20 for 100k. people will sell what they think people will buy for, that's what its all about.chat spam - this is a non issue. obviously there would be a separate chat channel for wts/wtb people like there is in gw1.

@Ashantara.8731 said:It requires additional resources to deal with scammers. The TP helps avoiding that.this is probably it right here. most people who buy something for a little more then its worth don't declare its the end of the world. the other day in gw1 I bought an elite ele tome for 3 ecto and a minute later the guy was selling for 2 ecto. dang was the only response I gave. obviously anet cant let legitimate scammers ruin peoples outlook of the game cuz it would be bad for business, but at a certain point its the scamee's persons fault for being ignorant. most adults move on.

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@"Stand The Wall.6987" said:scamming - mousing over the item(s) in question to verify no same icon switcheroos will solve this. its the buyers prerogative to verify the contents.And yet scamming still happens. So why would ANet want to spend additional resources to create a mechanic that creates an avenue for this to happen?

global economy at risk - unless the TP tax is being used to fund the defense of LA I fail to see what exactly the p2p option would do in terms of risk. we are talking about a video game here with fake moneys.I think you'd be better able to tackle this topic if you didn't fail to see how game economies work.

equilibrium - every market has some degree of volatility. its normal. for example in gw1, ectos sell anywhere from 14-20 for 100k. people will sell what they think people will buy for, that's what its all about.The problem is that some people know the market better. A global TP ensures that everyone agrees on "market price." With P2P trading, you have to be extremely well-informed to know what the market is, let alone what a fair price is.

For example, it's not true that ectos sell for 100k for 14-20 at any given moment. There are times when 14-15 is the going rate, times when it's closer to 20. That value is explicitly visible in the TP; it's not in a P2P trade situation.

I lost track of the number of times in GW1 when someone offered far too little (or too much) for items/mats. Personally, I chose to explain the market conditions to my trading partners, but most of the traders I knew (and knew of) didn't have time to do that. (And some were happy to profit off the misunderstanding.) The TP reduces that situation for the vast majority of players.

chat spam - this is a non issue. obviously there would be a separate chat channel for wts/wtb people like there is in gw1.Except people didn't use it all the time in GW1, nor do they in other games. I'm sure someone can figure out a better way to reduce the amount of spam in the general chat channels but ... why on earth would ANet want to spend the energy to do that, when the current system works?

@Ashantara.8731 said:It requires additional resources to deal with scammers. The TP helps avoiding that.this is probably it right here. most people who buy something for a little more then its worth don't declare its the end of the world. the other day in gw1 I bought an elite ele tome for 3 ecto and a minute later the guy was selling for 2 ecto. dang was the only response I gave.That's big of you. But how is it better for the community to allow that to happen even once?

obviously anet cant let legitimate scammers ruin peoples outlook of the game cuz it would be bad for business, but at a certain point its the scamee's persons fault for being ignorant. most adults move on.Or the game can include a global trading post, so that it's a non-issue, because that sort of thing can't happen. The market price is right there for everyone to see.

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@"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

global economy at risk - unless the TP tax is being used to fund the defense of LA I fail to see what exactly the p2p option would do in terms of risk. we are talking about a video game here with fake moneys.

Games have a massive gold inflow and they need equivalent massive gold sinks. A game without sufficient gold sinks will inevitably have its gold become worthless, its prices inflate and new players unable to buy needed items as veteran players amass millions of gold. This is one of the most important functions of the trading post, to act as one of the main gold sinks. Adding p2p trading means that this important gold sink will be bypassed. It’s more important to keep the economy stable than to allow players to bypass a major gold sink for player important reasons.

Information about cases of hyperinflation in games and Extra Credit videos on game economies.Hyperinflation in Gaia onlineDiscussion of hyperinflation in Diablo 3

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i bet its just technically easier for arenanet to control all trades and prices if done by the trading post.you can convert gold to gems so they might want to keep track in an easy way than to do reports about every single player and his/her activity.

i liked the pvp trades in gw1 alot. to enter a city ala „lets see who and what is going on here now“ was always great. it made the cities feel alive and has been good for player interaction.

im tired of all this „we did it for the fairness“ unicorn argumentation. pvp trades helped alot of younger player to learn how to trade with other people (negotiation, price check, item check, etc.etc.) i dont think that anyone trading inside a virtual computer game gets harmed by that. its a simple matter of self responsibility and usual in the real world every day.

i think its the control factor. people usually are more willing to get controlled if a security reason is given in front without thinking about if it makes sense at all.

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@mauried.5608 said:Theres no reason why p2p trading cant simply still require a 15% tax, on whats traded.It could simply be called a security tax for providing a secure method of p2p trading.So the gold sink on trading still exists.

Arenanet could design another way to trade with the same gold sink and with the same level of security so that scamming is impossible or they could stick to the same, safe system they already have.

My vote is for sticking to the same system. Instead of ANet reinventing another way to trade I’d prefer they spend that same amount of dev time and budget making new content.

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