TF2WH

[MateoTheBold!]

So is TF2wh permanently dead? Its had an error message for a number of days now. Thankfully I didn't have that many credits in my account if it is....

[Fraulein Arztin]

I've been wondering the same thing..... I hope it is not dead.... I've been saving up for a strange kritzkrieg for awhile now.

[Will T.]

The problem is that the guys running TF2WH have no idea how to run a website. They take the "We have real lives to worry about" excuse when pressured to fix it, of course ... but if you have so much real-life stuff to worry about that you can't run a website, then why are you running a website??

One day when I was feeling particularly malicious I (not-so-seriously) considered finding out how to submit a report to the Better Business Bureau citing the site as a scam site due to its "Premium Account" system (pay a little bit of cold hard cash for some preferential treatment, but the site doesn't work and the admins have no intention of fixing it, therefore you are paying for false promises, i.e. it fits the definition of a scam). I've never done it, but it's still tempting sometimes... At least I haven't wasted my money on them.

[Chaka of the Pakuni]

What is/was TF2WH?

[Larry]

It started out as you traded a bot your items for credits, then you found what you wanted, clicked buy, traded, and got what you wanted. But, the problem was that they were taking in so many items, that it was getting overstocked. I think a little bit ago, it was almost impossible to get them to take you'd items. So in a way, people who wanted to buy the overstocked stuff couldn't because they couldn't trade their items in cause of overstocks.

[Plinko]

The fundamental problem is that the prices of the stuff they have is too high, no one has enough credits to buy what they want, so none of the items move. The prices of most items are not moving according to the supply and demand. If they have 50 stainless steel pots and no one is buying them but lots of people want to sell them, then they need to cut the selling price until they start moving.

Now, they keep breaking their database and I suspect the game is over, but even if they fix that problem, their model will continue to be broken until they lower the prices for stuff to the point it actually moves.

[ketchuo]

Well plinko is right, it's like consumer demand for a new product so they overproduce it. However, the consumer do not have enough money or in this case credit to purchase the item. So they overstock and now the website is crashing or down for a long time.

[Boss Llama]

Trying to build a supply and demand economy on a functionally limitless supply and a meaningless currency is definitely a bit of a challenge.

They could function well enough as a trading website, but because they insist on turning a "profit" on exchanges (they buy for fewer credits than they sell for) the whole thing is borked. There's no point to them retaining profit - the credits have zero cash value - and the economy therefore is functionally lopsided - the community could never purchase back everything it has sold.

[MrBlah]

Trying to build a supply and demand economy on a functionally limitless supply and a meaningless currency is definitely a bit of a challenge.

They could function well enough as a trading website, but because they insist on turning a "profit" on exchanges (they buy for fewer credits than they sell for) the whole thing is borked. There's no point to them retaining profit - the credits have zero cash value - and the economy therefore is functionally lopsided - the community could never purchase back everything it has sold.

This is really the entire reason...

Trying to profit from a meaningless currency the website creators themselves created. Trying to profit from a limitless supply. Sure, you come out on top with a lot of stuff. But what are you going to do with all of it? If the owners actually did something with their excess, like crafting ALL of the excess(that is every amount above a certain baseline that you keep to maintain proper stock of items), then they would be able to maintain a worthwhile inventory.

[OmgOhnoes]

It works fine, just not during peak hours.

I was using it all last night to unload my refined and purchase keys.

That being said the price of the #30 stranges is crazy high right now so probably not the best deal. I sold the Strange Holy Mackrel for twice the credits i paid for it. Won't unload my Strange Kritzkrieg though since it's unlikely to come back into stock at a reasonable price.

As for the people complaining about "for profit" and whatnot, the "plan" is to sell credits. Creating credits causes massive inflation so the best way to keep it in check is to simply make a "profit" off of their items and sell the excess "profit." They have to have some sort of income and i doubt the subscriptions are paying for the server costs.

I'm fine with it, i take it as it is and haven't had to buy keys since it launched so it's saved me a bunch IRL.

[Boss Llama]

I'm not complaining about the profit, just pointing out it's why the model doesn't work. If they add a system to purchase credits (and can actually keep their site up) it will work much better.

[MrBlah]

Yeah, they didn't really think through everything, I imagine.

[One_Medic_Army]

I remember when the inflation was at like worse than -40%, meaning that if everyone pooled credits they could only buy back 60% of the stuff on tf2wh.
That shows there's a serious issue.

[black_and_blue]

They still want 840 credits for a spy-cicle. The item's been out for almost 5 months now, you'd think it would be down to a scrap (450 credits) by now...

And on top of that, it's been overstocked for a very long time, so they're no accepting sales of it. You'd think they'd take the hint and lower the price.

[TheCarpe]

I'm not complaining about the profit, just pointing out it's why the model doesn't work. If they add a system to purchase credits (and can actually keep their site up) it will work much better.

Then it seems like you'd be getting into possibly messy territory with the site essentially accepting money for people to get TF2 items. I could see Valve and the Mann Co. Store not being fans of that idea.