I should give up.

[Larry]

Once in a while ill get a nice find or a great deal on a trade. Though by shear unluckiness or my nature ill do something stupid and either end up with less then i started with or what ever i gained in the trade will be traded away in a even worse trade. maybe i should give up. Example: i recently got two hats for one crafts hats, then i proceded to trade both of those away to start out with less then i had due to my lack of item knowledge, what ever happened to ill give my wep for your wep? Something a little bit more simpler then ohh just casuse i say your wep is worth 2x less then mine it is. Or selling a a weapon for 2 Weapons? I refuse to give 2 for 1 casue it makes no sense. I blame my ragin' on boredom and having nothing else to do. Though maybe once in a while i'll venture out in to what you humans call "Outside"...

[THE Flying chihuahua]

I traded genuine PvZ hats for a Blighted Beak.

The trick is to never regret anything.

[Clay Pigeon]

The trick is to only pay with metal and to only accept metal in trade for non-metal you trade away.

[Will T.]

My advice regarding trading: Now that you're here, aim to trade within The Ville, and only within The Ville. The so-called "TF2 trading market" is loaded with arbitrary "prices" on items and people whose only real goal is to cause grief for others, when they aren't out to make a profit for themselves regardless of who they take from. (Not to say there aren't legit folks, but there's a lot of ugliness with "This costs 4 earbuds" and the like - seriously, why? You can't even use more than 1 of a single item at a time...)
People around here, on the other hand, are genuinely looking to help each other out and strive to make mutually beneficial exchanges. There are enough people here that chances are someone's offering what you want. If not, give it time and it'll pop up.

Also, if TF2's got you feeling down, definitely do go do something else for a while. A game should never make you depressed or angry (well, maybe a little angry when it's a SP game and the computer's clearly cheating ), and taking a break is the #1 cure for that awful feeling. I know one day I walked away from TF2 when I realized it was making me rage on a regular basis, and I got into other stuff and didn't end up touching it again for almost 12 months. An extreme case, but the point still stands...


If you're ever looking for weapons, check out page 1 of my pack. If you see something you like, ask away and I'll give it to ya 1:1.

[Nezer]

But that means yo know how much an item is worht in metal to being with, I don't know what a doctors bag is worth do you?

[YoullNeverWalkAlone]

Trading with people you trust is the best way to go. There are enough people on this site who have enough extra stuff to trade, and you know that people here aren't going to try to take advantage of you. Heck I've found people willing to be very generous to a noob like me, and I've looked to try to pay that forward as well.

[TheCarpe]

The trading market is a scary and ever-changing beast, always out to get as much as possible for as little as possible. Someone can offer two weapons/hats for one weapon/hat because someone, somewhere, will really want that weapon/hat and is willing to overpay. Some things are worth more based on their game usefulness (which is why a Strange Rocket Launcher or Scattergun goes for far more than a Strange Razorback or Conniver's Kunai), rarity (Vintage Fan-O-War's can get into hat or even Earbud values, simply because there was only about a two-week window when they could be crafted, and were expensive to do so), or simply coolness (This is why Unusuals get so ridiculous, but that's a whole other monster).

If you want to feel better about a bad trade, my example is classic and much-ridiculed, so I'll share it again. In the early days of trading, I traded my Max's Severed Head (which is now highly valuable) for an Old Guadalajara (a now common and relatively valueless hat). I had no idea such an ugly thing would go on to hold such value, nor how common Guadalajara's would be (Crates were also new and mysterious during this time).

Sometimes you get a bad deal, but in the end, it's just pixels and polygons

[Boss Llama]

A couple thousand years ago, Publilius Syrus wrote "Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it." That holds true in the TF2 market as much as anywhere.

The real question you should ask yourself is "Why am I trading?"

If the answer is that you are trading because you want to get certain items to keep and use, then do not let yourself worry about market value. If you find somebody selling something you want, at a price that is worth it to you, go for it! In the first couple weeks of trading, that's what the entire market was like - everybody could trade for things they wanted, using things the other person wanted, and nobody gave a darn about market value. As a result, everybody was perfectly happy. It's only when people convince themselves things have some numerical value outside their own pleasure in it that this becomes a problem. If you like wearing a given hat or shooting a given gun, it's irrelevant whether it's worth 1 refined, 1 earbuds, or 1,000 dollars. You like it, so you use it, and to hell with the rest.

If the answer is that you're trading in the hope of making a profit, then it's time to teach yourself about the market and get used to monitoring trends, reading spreadsheets, hopping servers, studying what times of day see demand for what types of items, and haggling, haggling, haggling. Like entering the stock market, or trying to start a business in a crowded field, very few people are going to try to help you out of the goodness of their hearts, especially not your competitors. One seller will buy things from another seller, mark them up, and resell them again if possible. Buyers will spread rumors about value drops to try and get a better deal. You need to be firm in your valuation, and ready to say "no" to a dozen buyers before finding the right one, or else the market isn't a good place for you to be.

TF2 is a speculative market, and is driven by fads and trends like you wouldn't believe. Some of them are long lasting, others will come and go in a day, or even just an hour or two. Sometimes an item is worth two or three times as much on one trade server as another, or at one time of day as another. You have to either pay no attention to these things, or pay incredible amounts of attention to them. Half-way will just leave you feeling bad.

[One_Medic_Army]

I stopped caring about values a long time ago.
Once you have a copy of each weapon that has unique statistics (easily do-able with crafting, Flash's Random Weapon Exchange, and drops) everything else is optional.
If there's one hat/misc item you really want to have, post it up on the trading forum here, and you might get one.

You wouldn't believe how long it took me to get a blighted beak, but eventually another villun traded me one since he knew I was looking. (I think it was Bronze Fox).

Be patient, don't feel that trading is competitive, and ask your fellow villuns if there's something specific you really want to get.

[Zork Nemesis]

I'm all for trading among friends, and the same is true here for anyone at TheVille. Anyone who's dealt with me before knows I cut steep discounts for anyone I know (like, Strange Mediguns are listed as worth 4+ refined somewhere, I sold them for less than 10% of that value). I don't care about getting a good deal in return, all I care about is that all my extra stuff ends up in the hands of someone who acctually wants them (again, the people who bartered my mediguns wanted them, and I already had one to my name), and i'll take small amounts of metal for just about anything, even stuff that's listed as highly sought after and valuable.

Your enjoyment of TF2 should not revolve around your cool stuff. Believe it or not, a lot of Ville players were playing TF2 long before there were alternate loadouts, days before a trading system. We're still having as much fun now as we were then, the trading and loadouts is just extra that bears no weight on gameplay and fun.

In my opinion, trade servers are the pits, you'll never find a more wreched hive of scum and villany on the internet (yes, I stole that from Star Wars). I avoid them whenever possible because there's no fun there, it's just people trying to get everything they want with no consideration for what you want, and people aren't often shooting at each other and playing the game either.

Tip: If you play to play and not to trade, you can disable trade requests from people you don't know (or disable them entirely so they won't go through unless YOU initiate) in the advanced options menu. I do that and only conduct business with people I know, not some random pubber who wants to try and rip me off in an effort to get my Big Kill or Maul.

[MateoTheBold!]

f you want to feel better about a bad trade, my example is classic and much-ridiculed, so I'll share it again. In the early days of trading, I traded my Max's Severed Head (which is now highly valuable) for an Old Guadalajara (a now common and relatively valueless hat). I had no idea such an ugly thing would go on to hold such value, nor how common Guadalajara's would be (Crates were also new and mysterious during this time).

Haha, I remember that. Someone had just unboxed it on warpath right? I can remember you getting all excited about it and I was quite jealous at the time of your new shiny guadalajara. I don't remember the name, but it was a girl right? I don't think she realized what a good deal she got either.

To your topic Larry, as many have noted, stick to trading here on the ville if you are simply trading for utility. Have you ever been to a dinner when an uncle or aunt comes into town and your family fights about who picks up the tab for the rest of the group? That's what a lot of trading is like here.

If you are interested in doing it semi-serious, follow Alizee's/Pigeon's advice regarding metal/trading servers. One drunken evening I even followed Alizee into a "wretched hive of scum and villainy" as Zork put it. It was pretty interesting and felt like I was watching a modern day tulip craze. Two hours later my watch was missing and I had signed the title of my Honda over to nubPwnerSk33zy99 for a vintage crit cola and a ball of yarn, so be careful.

[One_Medic_Army]

As someone who spent way too much time in public trade games/trade channels back in the days of Diablo 2 I can assure you that trading is only loosely associated with the actual game it occurs in, and can safely be ignored for the most part by anyone who wants to play the game.
It is, however, interesting from a psychological and economic perspective.