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Premium Sharks


Julia Gillard the Honest

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Without naming names, we all know that the biggest sharks of TF2 use backpack.tf premium searches. Of course, premium membership itself isn't a direct invitation to shark but it certainly does make their jobs easier. Meanwhile, Outpost has banned people (example: http://www.tf2outpost.com/user/73150 ) for creating blatant shark guides. There is that broad line between offering backpack searches and giving full diognoses of TF2 hours, friends etc. Premium searches are useful for tracking items/sales and also for collectors (example: I think Shadow used to use it to find Noh Mercy owners) but it's just something to think about.

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I use premium search quite regularly just to see what new things have been unboxed. I even report users to outpost that appear to have sharked from some newbie. It cuts both ways. 

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Bp.tf premium can also allow people to get to newbies and tell them the value of their hat before they get sharked.

 

...but then some people still get sharked because they are just dumb.

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sharking is immoral but are the same ppl that suffer from that as those that will sell a burning flames hat for 0.03 on market.

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The most you can do about sharks is get to them before the sharks. Sharking will happen even without BP.TF. It will just be a bit slower. There are other (more expensive) item databases made for sharking which do exactly the same thing as BP.TF premium just with a added hour counter. You can shark using Steam trading so should Steam trading be removed? Only way to stop them is to remove the database.

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Fiskie could whip up a bot that adds every account that unboxes an unusual hat just to tell the unboxer what their unusual hat is worth.

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Fiskie could whip up a bot that adds every account that unboxes an unusual hat just to tell the unboxer what their unusual hat is worth.

no

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Fiskie could whip up a bot that adds every account that unboxes an unusual hat just to tell the unboxer what their unusual hat is worth.

 

why

 

Sadly because people are scared enough of phishers and having an bot randomly add a random person who just unboxed an unusual will only make it worse. It wouldn't really help. They will just end up blocking the bot.

 

Also, not to mention...Many unusuals are outdated constantly. Not sure how the bot can give an estimation of a correct range.

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why

How would you value unpriced hats? What if a hat just went misc and you unbox it? To a noob, the number that would be given will mean absolutely nothing. Also having another human tell you a hat's value is better than having a bot tell you something.

 

And not to mention what plaxorous said.. Unboxers accept adds at a pretty low %.

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How would you value unpriced hats? What if a hat just went misc and you unbox it? To a noob, the number that would be given will mean absolutely nothing. Also having another human tell you a hat's value is better than having a bot tell you something.

 

And not to mention what plaxorous said.. Unboxers accept adds at a pretty low %.

For hats that are not  priced or have an outdated price, the bot could link to the backpack.tf page for all effects of that unusual hat so the unboxer can determine a value on his own. A hat becoming a misc can be coded into the bot quite easily. I would put any hat that becomes a misc into the 'outdated' price category within the bot's instructions.

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For hats that are not  priced or have an outdated price, the bot could link to the backpack.tf page for all effects of that unusual hat so the unboxer can determine a value on his own. A hat becoming a misc can be coded into the bot quite easily. I would put any hat that becomes a misc into the 'outdated' price category within the bot's instructions.

Do you really think someone who has no clue how much their hat is worth will be able to determine values on their own?

 

Take the burning polar pullover for example: The guy listed it on scm right under killawatt, which is only 150+ buds less than what he actually could have got.

 

What about rare hats that never sell. Burning brainiac was unboxed last week and the guy sold it for 32 pure. He probably thought he was getting a really good deal since the bp.tf price is ~25.

 

And once again: You're expecting people to accept friend requests AND be willing to be helped and taught about values. Both of those happening at the same time is on the rare side from my experience.

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Do you really think someone who has no clue how much their hat is worth will be able to determine values on their own?

 

Take the burning polar pullover for example: The guy listed it on scm right under killawatt, which is only 150+ buds less than what he actually could have got.

 

What about rare hats that never sell. Burning brainiac was unboxed last week and the guy sold it for 32 pure. He probably thought he was getting a really good deal since the bp.tf price is ~25.

 

And once again: You're expecting people to accept friend requests AND be willing to be helped and taught about values. Both of those happening at the same time is on the rare side from my experience.

I'm sure the bot can explain what buds are and how much they are worth in keys and USD. It may not save everyone from being sharked, but if even a few people are saved from being sharked, then I think it's worth it.

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I'm sure the bot can explain what buds are and how much they are worth in keys and USD. It may not save everyone from being sharked, but if even a few people are saved from being sharked, then I think it's worth it.

Then the first scam in the books happens.. People trade their unusual first for paypal. 

 

There's just too many flaws with creating any sort of bot. The few people being saved would be rather low compared to the amount of people hurt.

 

And again: You can't teach most unboxers values. They never listen and then go on and get sharked. I've seen it happen numerous times from when I added unboxers. 

Recent example: GE vive la france. Guy was willing to take $100 originally. A couple members on the forums spent a good 15-20 minutes convincing him that his hat was worth much more. Even after that, they weren't sure whether the lesson stuck. 

 

Unboxers never listen, no matter how obvious it is you're trying to help. 

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Unboxers never listen, no matter how obvious it is you're trying to help. 

How often is helping actually helping, though? Not saying it's not, just posing a question to think about.

 

Speaking from experience, as a trader who started at the bottom with no idea what anything was worth, unsolicited outside "help" has always (Much more so when I was just starting trading) just confused things for me by imposing others' priorites on my trading, and was often irritating. In fact, I can't recall any single instance where someone swooped in, unbidden, and saved me from a bad deal, and it actually made me happy.

 

And this makes perfect sense, really, because "value" of an item is determined by how much people want it, in general. So, telling someone how much they should want their hat is kind of absurd. It can come across as something like, "Hi! You don't know me, but you should want this virtual item that you own approximately as much as you want one month's rent plus half a grocery bill. And you should want it that much because these three other people whom you've never met want their similar virtual items approximately that much. So don't sell it for less than that. If you do sell it for less, you're a dunderhead and you should feel bad, and I'll keep pointing out exactly what you did wrong until I'm positive you feel exactly as bad as I think you should."

 

Of course, if someone asks for help determining a hat's market value, that's completely different, in the obvious sense that it's not unsolicited advice. Helping when someone asks is wonderful, but I'm not sure that helping is such a good idea if you haven't been asked. Even with the best of intentions --which I am assuming-- it may not always do any good.

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