Suggestion: Mann Co. Supply Crate Key at 3.88–4.11 ref

Also, "The Circle Jerk theory" has been disproven, Keys have already been sold for 4.22-4.33 Refined, even though bp.tf hasn't raised prices above 4 ref.... (So much for the bp.tf+1 scrap theory)

I don't know what you're saying. But I remeber when my friend stroked my neckbeard and invited his friends and we all circlejerked to /h/

that's a hell of a point you make.

Finance is reading over 4, yet bp.tf says 3.88-4.

In other words, the average trade is just over 4, yet the all-knowing, key price-dictating website says "all keys shall go for 3.88-4."

Can't be bp.tf's fault if average sales are above reflected price, right?

(inb4flurry of dislikes)

Your logic is too logical. Stop it.

Sorry, would you rather me say the suggester is only doing this to raise his BP value?

Isn't that the only obvious reason? :P

Of course, not because of the trader links posted above.

No, that would be a silly reason.

I agree. Backpack.tf isn't responsible for the price increase in keys. This website merely reflects what they're sold for and tries to keep up with displaying the right price. Keys are simply going up, and that's not happening because this website says so. There are multiple reasons involved:

1. The start of keys rising occurred on the most recent Halloween event. New unusual effects = everyone is going to unbox for them.

~~2. Steam market. Why buy keys for $2.49 in steam when you can buy them for about $1.00 less with the exact same currency and means of purchase? (Steam)~~ oops

3. Refined metal has lost value. Probably due to idling, but hell, unusually the income of metal is matched by the output of metal via crafting hats. That, and refined has been losing some value in ~USD as I've been noticing.

If that doesn't explain why keys are rising and why it's not backpack.tf's fault, I really don't know what is. http://i.imgur.com/FhQ6CQg.png

Awesome Meme :D

And at your second point, there is a slight issue, which is a pretty big counter argument against key increase (although its not very accurate)....

The supply is actually greater now than before the market place (meaning people are still buying from the store). But how many of those keys are sold for Cash and how many for Refined, so while the supply isn't technically lower than it was before, the supply being sold for Ref has decreased.

The second point that you made has some gaping holes in it. Obvious gaping holes. Obviously for such a remark, you do not pay attention to the Meet the Stats website. If you did, you would notice that keys have surpassed 480000 in total, with it reaching 500000 long before this month is finished.

Why by keys when you can buy them for cheaper on Steam? Maybe because there is not much of a difference between the Market and Mann Co prices? Or maybe they don't want to deal with key sellers that sell for money or refined? Or maybe the vast percentage of the TF2 Community does not give a shit about buying keys directly from the source?

He was on the right track, just focused on the wrong part.... the amount of keys that is being sold for Ref has decreased with the advent of the marketplace, theres no denying that... otherwise, the marketplace would have no keys for sale.

also, there are now more restrictions on who can sell and buy in the steam market. don't know how many of you have noticed but steam now requires that you've made a purchase (unknown what that means at the moment) in the past year with the first at least 30 days ago. and i meet this criteria (i bought the cave on january 17th) and am not allowed to sell/buy on the market so something is still buggy or the murky description is wrong.

to make a long story short (too late) - the steam market may have less impact in the future.

The market will have more of an impact in the future, since more and more accounts will be allowed to use it as time passes.

so is this restriction not new? because i was able to sell/buy from the market for months and now i cannot.

Nope, that restriction has been around since its introduction.

i guess i have to wait to hear back from steam support then (filed a ticket 2 days ago) because i don't understand what criteria i am not meeting :/

i don't really know how this will affect prices..what i have find out personally is that you buy for keys cheap in trade post and you sell for what ever price you want in steam market. within reason of course!

i haven't sell a single item outside steam market except tools an i have stop using promos that are not marketable maybe we will notice in the near future less need for promos.

Denial is the first step in admitting the truth.

Please do tell, i have explained time and time again how bp.tf is NOT at fault for the increase...

bp.tf didn't start the fire, but it sure as hell is throwing gasoline on it.

Well, thats a bit iffy. Bp.tf is NOT causing the increase, but whether or not its speeding it up or not is a different story, and the only way to truly show that it is/isn't speeding it up is to watch key prices claim without bp.tf updating prices...

But the fact that people have increased their prices twice since the last update indicates that people are raising prices with or without bp.tf

"Buyers are to blame as much as the sellers"

Yes true in a way.. But its because of the "scare".. and it was created by the circle of websites IMO. (mainly bp.tf since it does the price changing.)

It's a dumb idea to let people continually vote on key prices.. Even if they are selling for that...

Seriously this voting isn't helping the market stabilize at all.. Here is why..

All it's doing is making people more worried and making them buy and buy.. (sellers sell for more because the buyers are buying instantly at high prices & its only because they are so scared of the price rising again..)

Then it all gets used as evidence to rise them further.. (buyers get more scared and continue buying for more..)

So IMO until the voting stops this 'scare' will continue and people will keep buying for more and more.

Key suggestions should've never been allowed in the first place.

Since we have finance, Why do we need key suggestions to track the price..?

My solution: Either leave key price blank until it stabilizes..OR maybe link key price to finance average.. not sure how that would go but we need to try and stop this idiocy.

Note: I personally could not care, some people take my posts the wrong way. Hopefully this explains my reasoning as to why its mainly bp's fault and hopefully you can see the point's I'm making ..as they are very realistic.

If it was bp.tf that started this circle then how come it happened when it did, and not sooner? bp.tf has been the go-to site for quite some time now...

I've got an alternative theory for you......

Halloween 2012 comes around, demand for keys increase, key prices go up, and the supply starts to get smaller. Immediatley after Halloween comes the introduction of the marketplace. People feared the worst and assumed noone would ever buy keys from the store ever again (and therefore key prices would increase). Speculators went out and started buying up keys (driving the price up), this continued until now, and is still driven by speculators who belief that prices will continue to rise.

Buyers are buying and sellers are selling at a price no matter what bp.tf says.... bp.tf has left keys at 3.8-4 ref, yet people are succesfully buying/selling at 4.22+ Ref (clearly not bp.tf since keys jumped twice since the price was set, 4-4.11, and then 4-4.22)

And as for the purpose of key suggestions.... A key suggestion that is completely against TF2finance would not pass....And not allowing key suggestions would make bp.tf appear to be "controlling" certain items (in this case, keys).

The problem with leaving key prices blank

Its the newer trader that relies on bp.tf for all of their prices, and there the ones who'll end up selling keys for 2 ref (or something very low), or end up paying too much.

@awsome

"If it was bp.tf that started this circle then how come it happened when it did, and not sooner? bp.tf has been the go-to site for quite some time now..."

Backpack wasn't as popular back a while ago, it became much more popular after the botkkiller thing on spreedsheet, and the keys did not always go up because there was never another point when WE could vote on key prices so...Freely, spreedsheet never alowed that, and the times when keys went up were indeed around halloween, but then they STAYED at that price to STABALIZE, we have to let the price stablize, other wise we get...Well look around.

I can't reply to your other comment so I'll put it here.

You say that people feared no one would buy from the store any more?

Well why is there more keys now then at halloween.. The number is not declining? .. From what I can remember they were down to around 350,000 or a little higher (though my memory isn't the best so I could be off on that, but it was indeed a lower number than it is now).

Infact it seems their are more keys now than like 5 hours ago.. (3100 more.. Now that's not a small number for 5 hours..).

This was posted 5 hours ago by [WDZ-RR] Poncho Eastwood

"At the time I am posting this, there is 1237701 refined in the TF2 Community, whilst there is 480031 refined in the market." - he ment keys for the 480,000.

I understand what your saying about leaving keys blank.. but something must be done and personally taking the price off keys or linking key price to tf2 finance is alot better than letting people constantly vote on them and continue to scare the market into buying. (which is exactly whats happening).

Also just to address your comment about the circle jerk 1 scrap more comments again, It's only happening because of the "scare" - refer to my first comment.

Edit.. Refined has only risen 1300 in the past 5 hours. So right now it seems keys are increasing in supply faster than refined.

..Awaiting your reply

Just for reference.. (stats,tf)

Current refined - 1,238,697

Current keys - 483,108

I never said the number was decreasing, but right when the market was introduced thats what people believed (and thats what set this whole thing in motion)

True you didn't exactly say that.. but backpack.tf is continuing to keep the scare alive by allowing people like long to vote on key suggestions. (sorry long but everyone uses your name so wth).

You can all say 'we just try to reflect what the market is paying' but in reality the market is only paying that because they are scared of further price rise.

So yes, I do believe its mainly backpack's fault for allowing this idiocy to continue.

(don't get me wrong I like this website, but something needs to change.)

Except key prices are raising even without bp.tf bumping the price.... bp.tf is speeding the process up at best....

Buyers are willing to pay whatever sellers ask because they know keys will continue to go up (which inevitably causes keys to go up).

What happens: Sellers ask for 3.55 Ref, They sell enough in a short enough period of time and say, "Well that was easy, lemme try asking for a bit more."

And 1 seller at a time bumps the price to 3.66, other sellers see their success, and bump their price, and finally buyers see the price rising and start buying even higher...and the cycle repeats...

Exactly its the 'scare' that has been created. - I have only mentioned it in every single post.

Anyways good chat.

just another data point: bp.tf almost trippled its unique user visits in november of 2012 which is when the ramp up started.

You just perfectly described the feedback loop. Don't worry. The site will catch up to those suggestions and strengthen that theory.

a direct feedback loop is only necessary for a short time. eventually the buyers and sellers get used to the climbing price of a commodity with the sellers pre-emptively raising price while the buyer are pre-emptively resigned to it.

please mention the alt account metal theory again tho - i miss that part :)

I have read the linked thread, and I would like to answer to some of the questions in it:

"BUT, why don't you explain why keys need to stop rising"

The Once and Future King already answered this in the thread. (me too at the previous key suggestions)

"The Once and Future King: Well you talk like the value of items isn't changing, but for someone who sells items for ref/keys/money and then uses the re/keys to acquire money to get more items then the value is going down for anything valued in ref. Craft hats have gone down alot, and I used to sell a lot of craft hats for paypal."

Uranium235's answer to him:

"Uranium235: Not in terms of Metal, the "currency" they are traded for. In terms of $ and Keys, yes. But nobody sells craft hats for $, and everybody can adapt to a new Key price (higher or lower) in Metal, so who cares?

Other comment from Uranium235:

"My point being: who (besides you obv) cares about the value of Refined (or craft hats) in real money? Inside the TF2 economy everything is fine."

Uranium's argument is irrelevant.

There ARE people who sell/buy craft hats for real money via PayPal (including myself). And in $ these items' price dropped a lot (more than 1/3 of their worth), so the "who cares?" opinion is dumb as an argument. Ignoring something is not the same as if it doesn't exist.

Also, I know it is not exactly the same, but there are "craft hats" (genuines) on the steam market. Like the stahlhelm, nanobaloclava, or pilotka.

How could it cause a crash? For e.g. villain's veil worth now 1 key (~1.35$), and if im right its price was also 1 key when the keys were 2.66 ref (so the same in $, around 1.35).

So it kept its own price (in $) during the ref inflation, but now you have to pay ~62% more in metal if you want to get one, compared to the old price.

Meanwhile an average craft (1.33ref) now worths 0.46-0.47$ while it was ~0.65$ before, in the 2.66 era. The gap between the items growth from 1.33 to more than 2.66 (if I value a key as 4 ref). In an economy, (almost) everything effect each other prices, so the "Craft hats, And most hats will never be affected." as an argument is invalid. With a too large gap, the items in ref could pull down (crash) the 1-2 key priced items too. For e.g. If a key will be 6 ref, why would anyone pay 6 ref for a "better" misc/hat, while is it still an unique cosmetic item like the other hats? Even if it is a bit "rarer", it couldn't worth 4x more.. More expensive item = even larger gap: between a 1 and 2 key worth item will be a huge gap in refs aswell. And there will be an issue with the 1.5-2.5 keys worth stuffs too, if we wont have any stable minor currency.

I still waiting for a rational explanation, why the key-ref exchange rate is it still rising. I mean, now. Not at halloween, or when the steam market came out.. (no one cares about those events anymore, it's already March.) Get something better reason than "they are still paying this price" People will pay any price for keys. They have to if they want to get an item in 1 key worth, since no one accept refs for these stuffs anymore.

Key/Ref ratio according to stats.tf: 1key = 2.58 Ref

including scraps and reclaimeds: 3.42 Ref

This ratio was EXACTLY the same 4 days ago. So the incoming refs, and keys still equal, or more like "balanced". (in ratio, of course) So why the refs dropping even more? Is it useless? Probably.. But wasn't it useless when a key was 2.66? No one complained about this that time.

Anyway, did anyone else notice the low volume of keys at tf2finance? Meanwhile the price skyrocketted 1 whole scrap in a short time.. (*Price manipulation conspiracy!*)

good point on trade volume on tf2finance. this is a good sign. of course the way bp.tf proofs are done it won't make a difference since that is not taken into account.

Here's my 'rational take' on what's happening.

Everyone knows that keys are rising. Therefore, people assume that if they pay 4.33, keys will reach 4.66 and they'll make a 'profit'. Therefore it becomes easy to sell for 4.33 and impossible to buy for under that. Therefore we change the price, because we want to accurately reflect what keys are being traded for.

>This ratio was EXACTLY the same 4 days ago.

This ratio was exactly same whole year.

I'm on a train and on my phone so I can't provide counterproof at this moment in time but 16 links is just not enough. People provide more proof with 2 ref hats.

http://puu.sh/2eluf

HOW HIGH WILL IT GO

Guys don't worry, I invested in keys and with my luck it will crash in about a few days now

When 1 person asks for 1 scrap more people will all raise. Of course the price will rise. Everybody will sell it for the raised price. People will have no choice but to buy @ the price. The life cycle is complete.

Oh, theres new wave of recording.

I'm not going to vote/get involved in anyway because I'm far too tired at the moment, but I really want to say that it's a once-in-a-lifetime sight seeing your suggestion, and then beside it seeing a tag saying that you own 151 keys. I haven't even looked at the comments but am guessing already that that has been mentioned. :P

If you look at the graph on tf2finance, then you'd see that keys actually dipped in average selling price yesterday.

Before getting aboard to a rocket-ship and taking off.

Except that is one hourly reading as opposed to a whole days worth of trading. The price of keys fluctuate on tf2finance. It is the average over time that matters.

Yeah, I'd want to see it stable for at least 24 hours before putting in a change. That's how I've typically approached it in the past.

but then we would miss the 2 day cut off :<

Good solid evidence. Although, personally, I don't think keys need to go up in price any more.

3.88 Hard to buy, sad but true

because this has so much to due with the new price

x.x those keys suggestions killing me

Downvote, Greedy assholes on outpost is bad evidence to me. Watch, when key goes 4.11, everyone will sell for 4.22-4.55, and it will repeat.

...Keys have already sold for 4.22-4.33 DISPROVING the circle jerk theory...

So enough... stop bringing it up...it's clearly not valid.

yeah, it doesnot have to be +1 scrap, some idiots blatantly sell it for +1 rec.

My point being that backpack.tf does NOT cause the increase....

The increase is happening either way...

I know backpack.tf is not to blame, backpack.tf needs to hop off the outpost.tf dick

Well, the problem is that OP represents the vast majority of key sales, so it really can't be ignored... (Also, tf2finance tracks OP and a bunch of servers, and tf2finance is equally as important as OP)

i wouldn't call the sellers idiotic, its the buyers causing the price to go up. If they didn't give in to the sellers price, and waited for people to sell it to them for lower, the price would undoubtedly go down.

so many questions!!but who benefits most from the rise the sellers? or the buyers?

i am always quick buying keys i don`t really care for the price and what is 1 scrap more to pay ?either way that will be used as a proof and the keys will rise if you have a desent backpack the smallest amount of rise in price of keys will rise my backpack too! so you cares for scrap !! i am only buying the most expensive keys i can! i want this to happen!its not something that just happens!

the seller will profit a scrap yes sure mkay. but he is stuck with metal!

and misses the rise of the keys if he doesn`t restock in time!to restock in time means before the next suggestion! that is why everyone cruy about givving the suggestions a cool down! that is something we should avoid by the way you cant cool down the economy you have to follow the prices in real time if thats esay then we might get a chance no to talk about currencies!

the buyer is chill spend more and win more!

rise for keys its a win for buyers and not the other way around

yeah i agree, thats why i stopped dealing with metal, only selling stuff for keys ^_^ and i am going to hold on to my keys, just scared that it'll become too unstable soon tho :/

A sad but true upvote for me. The real question is when will it all come crashing down? It's not like the real stock market economy where their is a "Fed" (Valve, Robin?) to regulate and influence economic factors such as interest rates, bank lending, etc. All we have to deal with is supply and demand right now. Their seems to be a steady supply of keys still being purchased from the Valve store, so really this comes down to the fact that many more people are farming weapons and are getting metal easier, so the value of metal is decreasing more than the fact the price of keys is rising. The biggest question of all is what could even possibly bring all this crashing down? Valve would have to get sneaky (lower the price of keys?) or have less drops of weapons per week for this to change, otherwise the onward and upward cost of keys will never end.

IK right? I've been wanted to get invested in keys, but I'm always afraid about when they'll crash unexpectedly. It's nightmare-ish, (When people will pay 5 ref for a key today, then 1 scrap tomorrow.)

TF2 Bank? :O Wow this economy is growing

who do you think the cheap keys first victim is mate!

valve

what steam market did made keys 4 ref how buy putting less keys for ref and more for steam wallet

why

bacause gabe needs cash to pay us taxes

so the tux wasn`t coinsidence!!

no its gabes way to say to hell with ya i am going to use linux as my os for steam box and i am throwing in my own tuxes!!

Tux marketable fees from tux to valve ! the only currency allowed in steam market !

if you can read this and understand it (in a way) you are my hero!

valve wins

*implies that linux promo will become curriency*

Can I borrow your cyrstal ball?

upvote i can't wait to sell my keys for 5 ref each

Why go as low as 5 ref go for more (:

youre upvoting for the wrong reasons :/

right*

were not here to manipulate the price for our favor, well, at least I'M not..

If you take Andy seriously, you're doing it wrong.

your*

At this point, I really don't care to argue about key prices anymore. I'll just leave this here. http://i.imgur.com/d4Vi1.gif

Another key suggestion, another step towards a crash.

It hurts to watch.

What exactly is going to happen in an economic "crash"?

Don't worry about it, this guy obviously has taken high school econ and knows what he's talking about.

that's probably the very highest level he has taken, because he has no idea what he's talking about. And in an economic crash, nobody can know what exactly will happen, but there will be a great panic and people will lower their Key prices drastically in order to get rid of them..consider something like this: Valve decides to introduce a 4th metal (3 Ref for 1 Ubermetal), that will allow you to unbox crates with twice the chance of getting an Unusual. People would try to get rid of their Keys as quickly as possible in order to get as much Metal as possible, that's a panic and that's what causes a crash. But that is not gonna happen without any drastic actions.

expensive hats and promos will become cheap.and everyone will try to sell them before they lose the ref value.

the best countermeasure if you think a crash is about to take place is to turn your backpack all ref and after the crash you go and buy the keys that everyone will sell for cheap!if and when that happen .

but for that to happen keys must overcome in quantity refs!

thats when the clock will start to count backwards!

Please explain how higher key prices (technically lower metal costs) results in a market crash...

Eventually people wont buy at a certain price; just like what happened to earbuds when they crashed.

Simple logic.

No currency is crash-proof either so these people saying keys wont crash don't know basic economics.

at which point keys will level off......

Also, when buds dropped the market didn't crash, just bud prices did, and they returned to normal pretty quickly.

But keys are a BASE currency, there's a big difference here.

Almost everything traded through tf2 at one point always involves a key.

If the key crashes, the market crashes.

In fact, this video sums up whats happening right now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqHZWdFVyyQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

What the hell did I just watch?

And the market won't crash. Keys will just stop rising. If no one buys, then they'll go down to the highest price where people will still buy. (And that's a high price-people are desperate for keys)

Yep, because inflating key prices for no reason whatsoever will have NO effect on the market when the currency does crash.

Keep wearing those rose-tinted glasses, son.

Oh, that's what a crash is considered. Thanks for confirming that.

keys in analogy to the players actually are less than they used to!we will need a currency for the 12-13 keys or the keys + buds+unusual will crash really hard!

but that`s not so bad actually!ppl will get the chance to buy expensive items for cheap and new traders to grab some hard to get promos!!

but i really think ppl will just turn to steam market as it is a completely free market where you post the real price You think its fair!

and you dont get others to price yours !! quicksell in steam market gets a new meaning!!!

vintage bill`s for 0,04 euro Oo

and some other odd things i have faced the last month!

its so open in profit that the 200 limitation per calendar year just push you in creating more and more accounts.mannconomy will survive this keys might even reach 10 ref each ! so be it. we will devaluate the promo unusual and everything and price them in ref!!! everything in tf2 will be cheap thats a good possibility! and i love to see it happened!now that linux have enter the tf2. its time for some open os attidute!!free hats to all crash keys crash mannconomy!

I'm a student at the best Economics University in Germany and one of the best in Europe and I am telling you right now that there is no valid point that would justify a crash at this point. A crash means that they will drop to something like 2.33 Ref, the level they were on for a very long amount of time, within a matter of weeks, that just won't happen, because there are too many people who are willing to catch the Keys once they start dropping..it can very well be that they drop to something like 3.44-3.66 in 6-7 months time, but that's not a crash, that's just a steady decline..I understand that many people today love the word crash because it's all over the media concerning real estate prices and stock markets and currencies, but that's in far more complex economies, TF2 is just way too simple (even though it is built by very advanced economists) to crash. Valve could change something in the crafting or dropping system, creating a panic that could result in a crash, but nobody else can create that panic.

Just reading all of the hidden comments. Why was this one disliked?

Bc i made it.....(Pretty much all my comments get disliked to hell)

Stop making suggestions noob, The last one was accepted 4 days ago.

Don't talk kid

*noob*

are you new the the internet or what?

Yes you noob.... There's no need to make a new Suggestion, If ew accept that price sellers are gonna sell their keys for 1 or 2 scrap more thant the marked price... And then another idiot is gonna make another suggestion with a new price. Is the same everytime.

bought 7 for 3.88 2days ago, sold 5 for 4.11 today. Looks correct, but i´m a little fish....

Dammit, backpack.tf! You had one job!

ONE! JOB!

And it's working how it should...

cause 2 key raises a week is so neccesarry

http://www.tf2outpost.com/trade/9092876

don't tell me you posted that link as counter-evidence..please GSC, you should know better by now

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3090386

huehuehuehuehuehuhuehue

Reposting because I am unoriginal and I lack the rage to write something like this again.

So, everyone knows tf2finance.

Have you noticed the little chart below the main chart? That's the price of earbuds throughout TF2 history. Go find the time between February and March of 2012. A sharp decline in price! From 26 to 19 keys, over a quarter of price decrease! Sure, the price of buds is back to 27 keys now, but there was a year for it to rise slowly. That's the burst of a bubble.

We all know that the drop system, by giving every person ~10 weapons each week, increases the metal supply with no increase of demand, therefore lowering the value to the metal. In a way, metal is slowly becoming worthless. Keys get consumed and turned into stranges, unusuals and other uncrated items, while many forget the purpose of metal is to craft, therefore keeping metal in the market with no decrease in supply. Keys come in and out of the market, while metal comes every day with little decrease in number. That contributes greatly to the decline of metal value,

A bubble burst refers to when people realize that they have been paying over an item's intrinsic value. There will always be demand for keys, yes, but will you be willing to pay 5 refined for a key? 6 refined? 7? When the day people no longer want to pay the high price for keys, the bubble bursts. People expect the key prices to rise with no bound, suddenly finding themselves without any buyers, either because no one is willing to pay the price or unable to afford the high prices. Keys are supposed to be a currency, and not a luxury item. Right now, the key prices are following what is called the "Greater fool theory", which means people know that keys aren't worth above, say, 3 ref, but is still willing to pay 3.66 for one because they know there will be a "greater fool" out there that pays 4 ref for their key. The cycle only ends when the seller fails to find the fool. Right now, there are a lot of fools running about and they unknowingly contributed to the rise of key prices. We can only wait until the day people start realizing that they are overpaying and refuse to pay more. That's how the bubble bursts. It will be damaging to the economy, yes, but less damaging then unbounded growth.

tl;dr Stop buying keys at ridiculous prices

Provided to be a pretty good read, thanks.

Well said Wolfy. I hope many people read what you say, somehow i think it will be over looked :(

Stop buying keys at ridiculous prices

>implying it's somehow possible to make people stop doing it

It's like gasoline.

Just because the price goes higher doesn't mean people will stop needing it and won't buy it.

also regarding metal. today there are 1236658 refined tracked by stats.tf. 477722 keys. the ratio of metal to key is... 2.59

2 weeks ago it was 2.61. remember, to get metal players have to play. this is a form of real world currency as well: "time". in a way, we get paid to play in metal. therefore metal is not worthless and shouldn't be dismissed as such. in addition, people *do* craft from metal - the hard core traders who nickle and dime and say it's better to craft with two craft hats than metal are a small % of the tf2 population.

crafting have lose ground in campare to trading because the second is more profitable,

when i start trading to craft a hat you need to buy 3 keys dude 1 key per ref.

now you sell a key you craft a hat and you get a ref in your backpack for later use.

well for people to use ref as a crafting material we will have to rise the cheapest hat to 1 key.

then some guys will start to craft again as it will be profitable!

a human as a primitive does not take action that doesn`t bring profit.

my point is, some people don't care. because it's FUN to craft. there's no profit in gambling, and people do it the world over.

thank you, when I was new to tf2 I assumed hats were 2 ref + so I crafted with metal

95% correct, just with the small fault that there is no bubble that is gonna burst because there are way too many fools to pick those keys up when they fall. A steady and long decline is possible and we might even get back below 3 Ref, but that will take a loooooong time and is not gonna happen suddenly. The "Earbud-Burst" is something entirely different, because there are too few fools who have lots of Keys, but pretty much everybody can scrape together about 10 Ref and buy some keys. The amount of fools in the mannconomy is just too damn high for a bubble to burst. That's where you are wrong and that's where you are too influenced by the recent economic events in real life.

Wow, I totally didn't see this coming.

lol @ dislikers

No it wouldn't.....backpack.tf does not control sellers, and they increase their prices on their own....

People were selling at 4 ref, so bp.tf bumped the price to 3.88-4 ref, then the price was left alone, and guess what they're are plenty of successful sellers at 4.11, 4.22, and even a couple at 4.33....meaning that logic is NOT true... Key prices are raising all on their own, and backpack.tf is NOT affecting key prices (whether bp.tf is speeding up the processes or not is still a bit iffy, but it is most certainly NOT creating it)

of course it's not creating it, who said that, it's already been created, ever since the one suggestion a week, and now two a week, why wait to raise? it'll go up a rec in a week and a half

We need an official tf2 bank, mannconomy is growing

Inflation is only happening because of people being greedy. There is no such thing as inflation for tf2, and there will never be a crash because the economy is completely run through websites. prices will rise because we don't know any better and thousands of people with spend their time bitching and moaning. I've already wasted enough of mine.

Upvote for me the best proof is this http://tf2finance.com/keys/

oh my-a key suggestion that isnt one of long's suggestions!

I opened a trade where I'm paying 4 Ref each Key, I didn't buy any Keys from this yet, I hunted the sellers..

Upvote from me, Most people on OP are selling for 4.11-4.22 Ref now.

Only a few ones are 4 Ref and those are sold out in seconds.

*Preparing for the upcoming storm of flaggs*

i missed this so much. 4 days, biggest streak

Obviously, since there is still adamant denial still rampant on this site, and the obvious solution for key sellers towards everyone against the price of keys rising is to ignore everyone else until all criticism goes away, I have to stress the glaring problems of why there is a problem. Aforementioned problem relates to primarily key prices.

1) There is an obvious feedback loop between this site and Outpost - so blatantly and glaringly obvious you would have to be blind as a bat to not see it. So Outpost is now setting it's prices higher than this website? Never fear. Due to the feedback loop, efforts will be made to make the prices comparative to Outpost, proving that this site is establishing prices and further strengthening the feedback loop, to the point that eventually it will be difficult to tell one from the other.

2) There has always been a lot of metal. That much is for sure. But let's throw in some math into the equation, since you key sellers love math. At the time I am posting this, there is 1237701 refined in the TF2 Community, whilst there is 480031 refined in the market. Dividing the refined by keys, and rounding to the nearest hundredth, the end result is 2.58 refined for every one key. Adding to the lack of logic is that refined has magically lost 20% of it's value in USD in 4 months, where the price of keys went up in price 50% in game during the same amount of time .

3) Ah yes, depreciation of refined, the lamest excuse to keep the prices going up. Any depreciation was forced upon by the market and greedy traders . The idle farming, which has been around SINCE THE INCEPTION OF THE FUCKING DROP SYSTEM, is somehow magically an issue 4 years after it's inception. Furthermore, even idlers are calling it bullshit, and they have set up a system with close friends where they can sell at prices lower than the site says, or outpost says.... and they use the keys towards higher paying items instead of doing direct metal to refined sales. Oh, wait, I am assuming that the people supporting these key hikes understand that. How gravely mistaken I was.

4) I pull up these links:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3089590

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3089072

These are pulled off of the Steam forums, and concern the people who view this site from the outside and see something wrong. Of course there will be long winded replies about how wrong I am and how the people on the forums do not think like you do, but the vast amount of people not associated with this site are calling bullshit on this.

5) The overall consensus to the wealth of evidence that people are sick and tired of this bullshit, both on this site and off, is met with inb4 (I thoroughly despise leetspeak), dislike spam, and an overall consensus that "I am right and you are wrong" is heavily implied.

6) Long218. Do I even have to explain how he has thrown nitroglycerin onto the fire?

Each and every single time I have commented on this, all I have been getting is excuses, excuses, excuses, and never the truth, where it boils down to greed.

finally someone with some brains. Seeing this kind of post gives me some faith in humanity, but this will be downvoted so hard because living with a lie is easier than accepting the true

Just to add to point 6 - taken from reddit.

Here's one of the top backpack.tf price contributers trying to up the price tuxes by "offering" 1 bud and then immediately hiding his posts.

[url]http://www.tf2outpost.com/trade/8673397#/30835957[/url]

[url]http://www.tf2outpost.com/trade/8687148#/30835940[/url]

[url]http://www.tf2outpost.com/trade/8639147#/30835921[/url]

[url]http://www.tf2outpost.com/trade/8640044#/30835914[/url]

[url]http://www.tf2outpost.com/trade/8665948#/30835900[/url]

[url]http://www.tf2outpost.com/trade/8650627#/30835882[/url]

[url]http://www.tf2outpost.com/trade/8686865#/30835868[/url]

[url]http://www.tf2outpost.com/trade/8686902#/30835854[/url]

[url]http://www.tf2outpost.com/trade/8638429#/30835850[/url]

All of those posts were made in a two minute time window [url]http://puu.sh/26194/394e7f9c6f[/url], and immediately hidden afterwards. He's banned from here for a reason. Athough he has made over 20 alt accounts to avoid bans.

to be fair those look more like funny trolling attempts. i used to offer my tux on all tux offers...

and btw, my tux has been renamed: http://tf2b.com/tf2/item/76561197960539410/1463543043 :D :D :D

I actually highly doubt that a backpack.tf top contributor would go around offering a bud for tuxes and instantly hide as a "trolling attempt"

.... You're new here?

EDIT (for anyone else): I know that he's not new here. It's a joke.

Y yis i m a niew pirsen hear becas as u cen C iam a f2p

sinse i usad Dwongarde2 F2p itum

That has made me think.

I was banned there because apparently I was "talking down" and evade ban duration because my brother used to shared account with me and he want to cash out for college.

And If I want to manipulate price, why didn't I offer 1.Higher or 2. Not hiding my offer 3. Offer on more trades. It was because I was wanting one but then my friend hit me up and offer to get a tux for me on my alt account here: http://steamcommunity.com/id/dragonle200/

Let me guess, you don't even have a brother. Well you just fu**ed yourself over there.

Have you even seen how many key Long has? Crikey.

While you might be blinding all the little kids with your fantastic speech and the "Michael-Moore-conspiracy-style", let an economics student and actual grown-up tell you how terribly wrong you are. Your first point was already disproven many times and Earmax already did by showing that there in fact already are buyers willing to pay well above the bp.tf-price. The second point is economic bullshit, it's not at all about rarity or ratios, there's nothing you can really do with Refined except craft some low-value items, Keys open Crates and unbox Unusuals and Stranges. The second link from your 4th point is somewhat interesting, not because there is any amount of truth in it, but because it's funny how little that guy understands about bp.tf. I myself haven't sold a Key for Ref to make profit in about 6-7 months, I don't care what value Buds have, but I stand to every decision on here concerning Keys and Buds (and notice how Buds are now going back down), because they were and still are the correct reflection of the market. If they were incorrect, they would not be accepted, try manipulating the price of any random item, any shitty little item, it can't be done and with so many people complaining about Key prices it can certainly not be done for Keys or Buds either. And the fact that so many people are complaining about Long218 is just another sign how little you guys understand the problem. It's such a shame that you had to put that as an actual bullet point. It just completely devalues your entire speech, he's 1 single guy, he's not even an admin, there's nothing he can do against currently 768 other voters. The only sense you make in your entire essay is when you mention that greed plays a huge part in this. I mean that's like saying sportsmen are too eager to win or most people in the world are just trying to stay safe and not die, that's the most obvious thing ever. Of course Key sellers are trying to make profit, don't tell me you're trading in order not to make profit. This is still capitalism and of course people are gonna try to milk the last scrap of profit out of their Keys (I did the same when I started trading about 2 years ago), but the reason why Keys are on such a quick rise is because there are so many people who are willing to pay the price. I do not understand how there are people willing to pay 4.33 Ref for 1 Key, but there are and as long as people are willing to pay that outrageous price it's gonna keep going up. All you can do is avoid buying Keys and lower the demand.

There is no conspiracy to those that pay attention to the trends of this site, those who are outside of the group and don't like the price of keys going up with no signs of stopping, and what constitutes as a straw man argument And let's be honest: how many people here actually buy keys from Outpost trades anymore? Can you say more people are buying now than they were at 2.66 before this whole fiasco began?

The feedback loop works both ways. Whatever one site has their prices at, the other site either maintains or exceeds the amount. Since this site is more focused on "reporting" (where it is actually establishing) prices, key sellers can spike prices up, knowing full well that backpack.tf will back up their prices. It does not matter if their prices always will be higher than what backpack.tf says, but what does is the fact is that backpack.tf is being used to back up their prices. Also, raising key prices is not capitalism. It is called price fixing.

May I please know how you found out how much refined metal exists? Is that total metal combined or is it just refined?

Also, just a small point: A lot of people would prefer having a key much more than some metal.

Stats.tf, which you can access by using the Meet the Stats link on the community tab.

http://www.tf2outpost.com/trade/9132628 - insta sold in less than 5 secs :3 at 4.11 each xD i agree this really need a bump. Most trades i click on are out of stock at 4.11

you have 151...are you still unsatisfied with how much your bp value rose in the past week?

GOD DAMMIT -.-

This argument is not working and never worked..

Everything what is priced in Keys or above (like buds) will increase in RL-money price! He could own 0 Keys and 1337 unusuals and his BP value would still rise.

your not making any sense...to me at least

You are complaining about the 151 Keys in his BP.

You are doing like "Hurr durr, He is doing this for his own gain, he just want to raise his own backpack value!"

This is not an argument + extremely overused.

And the real part I want to tell:

Everything, what is not worth a single Key (priced in Refined metal), will decrease in price. Everything, what is worth atleast a single key, will increase in price.

And this means that this "argument" makes no sense. He could own a ton of unusuals instead of Keys.

he doesn't have any metal,unusuals, or buds though...

i will try to make this easier to you to get it! your backpack worth 63 refined if the suggestion pass your backpack will worth 69 refined if you get rid of anything that is lower than a key!!

so he is doing it to raise your backpacks value too!

say a thanks to the guy

only ONE buyer at 4.11? Hmm...

Okay, seems legit. Let the inflation continue, I don't see what could go wrong

I bought one at 4.11, because this suggestion scared me that tomorrow keys would be 4.22 :P

true reason for key inflation:

People on outpost who are selling keys will always go for top price backpack.tf reccomends, or sometimes 1 scrap higher if they are highballers.

People on backpack recognize these highball sellers (as if there aren't lowballing buyers to cancel them out), and they vote to raise the price.

People on outpost continue to sell at top reccomended price or one scrap higher if they are high ballers.

Process continues, raising the key value from two to four refined metal within only a few months

It's about the buyers, if people would stop buying Keys for metal the price would slowly crash.

Price is rising on its own, bp.tf is not causing it to happen.... (it might be speeding the process up, but not creating it)...

well, let's not help it speed up.

mama always said, gasoline on fire speeds up the process

Pls no accept going over 4 ref is ridiculous...

try selling a key for 4.11 ref, and see how fast it will go.

Don't actually care for how much you buy or sale 4ref is over da line

watch as sellers are successful over 4 ref, the amount of people that care what you think about the price = 0

I am talking about backpack.tf pricing not for how much people sells/buys at outpost.

Dis site made the mess but i doubt that it will clean it..

yes this site OBVIOUSLY made the "mess" , not the sellers.

If there would not be such thing as backpack.tf we would've been avoided this chaos or at least making suggestion on key price would be removed it would be some progress..

yes it did, had we not changed it in the beging, it MIGHT be 2.77 top 2.66 bottom

*hate incoming, target locked*

Have 150.

Obviously want to manipulate artificial price of keys to artificially profit himself.

Perhaps my sarcasm detector is a little rusty, but I really think you're the last possible person with any right to call someone a price manipulator.

Your sarcasm detector is a little rusty.

The joke was that he has a metric fuck ton of keys and always changes the price and gets called a price manipulator.

That was the joke.

That, and about 20 comments up someone gave proof of Long218 offering 1 bud on multiple tuxes and then hiding instantly to attempt to inflate them.

Sorry long, but you really shouldn't be saying that.

http://backpack.tf/vote/id/5137d681ba25369a08000016

SARCASM

IT'S CALLED SARCASM

WTF

I hate hypocrites with a passion, and that definitely includes you.

I apologize but until I see 20+ links like the other trades I will have to stay neutral. 10 measely links isn't enough to change a currency, in my opinion. I am also startled that the only people making key suggestions are the people with 100+ keys.

He has keys! this makes no difference, If he had no keys his backpack would increase the same. Every item is priced in Keys. So having keys or no keys makes no difference...

not every item is priced in keys and that is what is creating that chaos! everythin everything EVERYTHING must be priced in the same currency!

but no backpack.tf price in ref in keys in buds

its so obvious what is wrong that you just dont see it you sell your hats for 1 ref but you still cant see it! this site is pricing items with diferent currencies! that is eventually going to create a huge gap between ppl that have and cant sell and ppl that want but they cant buy! use 1 currency in suggestion i prefer keys nothing else

as for buds!

really we need to price in buds? promos aint that big of a deal now that steam market is around !+ buds from when they used to be something great they wher 20000 less than it is now!we need a cheaper currencybut only 1 as pricing currency

Owns: 151

Downvote

Okay so if he owned 0 you'd upvote? Great logic there, pal.

Fuck off dude

We got ourselves a fighter.

Downvoting for the wrong reason and insulting others for no reason.

Like a little kid which doesn't that anything changes.

Just get out of trading, it seems like you don't know how the economy works.

This is how the economy works? Seems like a joke to me.

Prices are never stable. Just look at the real world and what happened to gold in the past years.

I'm aware of how economy works much better than you do.

And if we look at real world, yes, It's also fucked up because of people like you

This prize is getting ridiculous. I don't understand why people pay this prize. It's hard to be in the trading right now, since you need so many idle accounts and it's just less and less producing. I have 4 accounts. I get 8 weapons every week on each account and I rarely get anything better than that. It will take years to get keys now.

Key's price increasing in time reminds me of a line from Pillar of the Earth: "You will one day climb very high, only to fall".

Why do people write essays on key suggestions? Like damn...I spend less time on my homework than these people do on key suggestions.

I wish someone who suggest new higher price do it once, instead just posting links on tf2outpost, as usual.

u wot m8?

you only found 16 PEOPLE selling them at that price, there are WAYYY more people selling and buying add proof that you CANT find less than 3.88. I would like to see more links of PEOPLE not the quantity that one person sells at, im receving 200+ keys soon if I sold them all in ref, the value shouldnt increase or decrease because of just my price, I'll price at whatever I feel is right.

On the note of tf2finance:

4.02 ---->4.11? not likely

4.02 ----> 4.00? Much closer

I do not see the point in raising it to 4.11 if you round 4.02 to 4.11.

Second. I know a lot of people are still selling at 4.00 so i refuse to upvote that the highend should go up a scrap.

3.88-4.11 refined would make the mean price 4 refined and therefore closer to accurately showing the price of keys...at least in theory.

Right. In theory. However, it's well-known that there is almost NO difference between a key price of 1ref-4.11ref and simply 4.11ref. So, by accepting these suggestions, backpack.tf is AHEAD of the market every single time, thus actively increasing the key price.

Explain how backpack.tf would be ahead of the market when the average trading price according to tf2finance is above current range.

As I said: The lower edge of the key price range is meaningless. So, this suggestion would increase the price from 4 to 4.11, about 2/3 scrap more than reality (tf2finance). It's a lot better if a pricing site lags behind a bit than when it's ahead of the market, because then it's actively influencing it.

So your suggesting we just make it 4 refined flat? That'd still be lagging behind since tf2finance is at 4.02 refined as of this moment.

4ref is still a shitload more accurate than 4.11.

Then suggest it.

Why should I suggest 4ref? It's no difference to the current price and if this suggestion is accepted, reality will be up at 4.11.

I spend about 20$ on this game every once in a while. Great to know when i buy 8 keys ill be able to sell them for 40 ref, TWICE as much as when i could sell 2 for 5 ref (20 ref). This is going to be interesting.

``applause``

the buyer wins the trader must catch up to him

damn i am paying 10 ref per key from now on if that will make all my keys worth 10 ref!!

i will craft every bloody item there is!! :D

and valve thought tha the can limit our metal back then by limiting the drops..

sarcasm off

well the ref wont be always enough to keep the sellers satisfied as more ref per key is available mor ref will be used in crafts! ref will finally drop to 1:4 and thats when keys will collapse in 1 day back to 2.66

You can still sell them for 2 for 5 refined. Also the price of keys is not 5 refined, so you would be getting double.

Another suggestion about increasing the price on the Key?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umDr0mPuyQc

This can't be happening!

I understand why, but i am not happy with the key rapidly increasing in price.

Why Backpack.tf needs to stop:

-Key prices are too high now. Remember when keys were 2.33? Glory days.

-Rep whores. This is obviously another rep whore. You can tell because he has a lot of rep.

-TF2Outpost is not a trading site. It is all run by several hackers looking to manipulate prices by making every single trade on the website themselves in order to become wealthy on trade servers.

-Anyone who buys for 4 ref is crazy. I only buy for 2.33.

-None of us will be able to afford keys.

-People who suggest key prices are in cahoots with Brad Pitt, another hacker looking to get rich off of the poor by steadily increasing his bp value without trading.

-Unless /every single/ person sells in this range, this range is inaccurate.

-Scrap.tf does not ever actually have any keys to sell. That is why they are always out of stock.

-tf2finance, if you look closely, has listed keys as 3.93. When viewed from a different perspective, this reads 666.

-We can't just consider what people are buying for. We have to consider what people are selling for.

-Key values in metal should be based on the USD value of metal.

-These "proofs" do not include prices on Valve CTF servers.

-Metal should be worth more than keys, not vice versa.

This is satire, for the many who will take me seriously.

It's funny because just saying "Because people are buying for this much" defeats every single argument in this suggestion

Look, I didn't even have to write a bitchy paragraph and I'm still right

It worries me that pretty much the only thing the person making this suggestion has in their backpack is a shitton of keys.

That makes sense actually since most people who trade have keys in their backpack...

No, that the only thing in his backpack is keys.

Oh for god's sake. Keys aren't rising, ref is dropping.

Downvotes because you disagree with me, or just because I disagreed with the hivemind?

Maybe they're dislikes for stating the obvious?

Reason? (need more than 10 char to post)

Look at the USD price of keys. Stable. Now look at the USD price of ref.

I lawl at the fighting. Not even worth the time to type some sort of half assed logic.

I do however see a trend though. Those that have 0 keys and have positive votes on a decrease in key value get closed. Those with over 50 keys that cite an increase in key value and have little positive to a lot of negative votes gets approved...i wonder....

key prices are rising to unbelieveable prices all the people who upvote and suggest the price most likely has at least a key

GOOD LORD THE PRICE FOR KEYS ARE SKYROCKETING!

I've easily bought many keys at the current price in the past few days. No need to change the prices yet, give it another week will you?

Bp.tf is not making key prices go up, but it sure is facilitating it.

Long gave me 4 keys for free today! ^-^

[url]http://i.imgur.com/02o0vI3.png[/url]

Which means that you bought it for 0 ref.

Which means that this is proof that keys sell for 0 ref too. :P

You should sell me some keys for 0 refined in order to help quickly lower the average value on TF2Finance.

4 Free Keys=New Price everybody.

Can someone explain the logic in how keys are 4.11 refined, but the items you can unbox with keys(STRANGES) are worth no where near that much?

Say I give you twenty dollars to gamble. You buy twenty dollars worth in five dollar scratch off lotto tickets. All four of those tickets so happen to be winners.

Ticket one gives back 5 dollars. Ticket two gives back 10 dollars, tickets three and four only give back one dollar apiece.

Make a little bit of sense?

In the crates that cost more, I.E, crate 19, 20, 21, 1, 2, 30, 40, etc etc etc. Your normal crates are the $1 and the crates that are known for winning big are the $20 ones

oh yeah it's the crates :\ I derped out there lol :)

/NOT sarcasm

When will people learn...

Y'all know WHY key prices are going up, right? It's because y'all are still buying them. Stop buying them and prices will go down. Simple adverse effects of the law of supply and demand.

There is no one to blame for the rise in keys but yourselves. Do I hate the key rise? Definitely, it's just foreshadowing the bubble popping. If you want prices to decrease, you need to get roughly 75-80% of the community to back you and push back.

There is no "Halloween Event ruined it all" or "Steam market did this" or "Dicks from Outpost did this". You want to stop it? Man up and get everyone on your side to say "Hell no".

But I'm remaining neutral on this. I'm not going to douse the fire nor am I going to toss gasoline onto it. Too much of a mess as is.

read my post below yours and join me and rally your friends to make bp.tf remove their price checking on keys to let the market ecomomy be free. This problem is not about demand and supply. There is a 3rd party, regulator involved and they are bp.tf, however the regulator is worsening the problem.

You can't ever get people to stop buying keys.

You can't stop the key from going up.

There is no bubble.

What people understand is that there is not value being added to the key.

The purchasing power of the ref has gone down.

Everybody just keep saying that "Oh god, they're making their backpacks worth more."

By the end of the day, if it goes up 1 ref or 40, the "Value" is still the same in the big item game.

Sure, people on the lower end lose because the refined can buy less, but the key is not "gaining" value.

I'm loving the fact that more and more people are starting to understand the real issue.

100% true, even though you are giving your credibility a heavy blow by saying "y'all" all the time :D..but that's exactly the main problem, all the other things (halloween, dicks from outpost, steam market) might not make the situation any better, but they are definitely not the cause of this issue

Y'all is a legitimate word, shortened for you all. So if I simply said you all, my credibility would be increased. Nearly every language has their own pronoun for y'all xD

I don't understand xD It doesn't hinder nor help it, it's simply my way of expressing myself.

nah not that it's not a word or that it's abbreviated, but y'all is just not a very nice sounding word imo

ATTENTION

~~that’s probably an irritating way of attracting attention, but whatever the case if you are reading this sentence it is effective~~ I know its long  please read.

But i hope price suggestors can suggest to REMOVE THE SUGGESTED KEY PRICE ON BP.TF (and state "we do not want to contribute to the speculation of the key prices") and hopefully the most influential spreadsheet will cause other spreadsheets to follow and remove their suggested key price.

This is to let the free market economy run by itself. bp.tf is influencing too much on the key prices (whether it's good or bad, i leave it to readers yourself to decide). Although it might hurt bp.tf's reputation (random guy comment "what! bp.tf is not showing key price, they are lousy!"), but i suppose the aim of this site is to let players with imperfect knowledge of prices know the average prices and not get scammed. However the changes in key prices are changing so rapidly and this is causing a market bubble of people speculating prices and key prices rising unrealistically. When that occurs (it is already ocurring) buyers get desperate and offer higher prices. Sellers target on that and start sharking for more and... ... Bp.tf contributed to this sharking in some way or another, by showing the history of the prices, especially that tiny green arrow pointing upwards - that is the worst disaster.

Pre-requisite information 1:

bp.tf spread sheet is too influential and that also contributes to the steep key rise in price. Imagine am able to bribe the admin and as him to write key prices as. 2.33-2.88 ref and create some fake argument/rumour on the price voting, and 150+ thumbs up vote. And create a small notice, “key prices have fallen. it is not a typing error , we reviewed it several times”

Guess what, no matter how ridiculous the price drops to in the spreadsheet. Some key hoarders will start dumping their keys out cashing for refined. The real key prices will drop. Everyone starts following… That is how influential bp.tf is. Of course I am not suggesting such an artificial way of decreasing key prices; I just don’t want it to contribute to rising key prices.

People are like "oh hey its rising and updated 5 hrs ago!" "let’s sell it higher since its going to rise again" "see it rose again! updated 1 hr ago" and this vicious cycle of speculation continues to push key prices up. But if the supply of keys continue to be low and demand is high price will rise no matter what. Yes but not at this insanely fast rate.

pre-requisite information 2:

Why tf2outpost prices are not that reliable to price check on (this includes all online trade sites, OP is just the most common so ill use it to illustrate). This is absolute statement or in layman terms = biased argument = therefore teh pig is talking nonsense = so don’t believe his retarded idea of removing the key prices = and his tf2op unreliable theory. BUT, continue reading (even murderers have a trial in court, so don’t give me a straight death sentence, without any trial), i'll clarify. Firstly not all transactions can be seen on TF2OP. there are trade servers. and transactions also occur in normal game server. In the first place all your evidence coming from OutPost is already not that reliable!

Let’s go back to the good old days when keys are 2.33 ref. OP was a trade site for FAST transactions. prices where either high (sellers targeted on desperate buyers) or lower than average (desperate sellers wanting to quick sell). and with the bumping and searching functions quick and instant transactions were made.

"that's history and we are talking about 2013 not 2010 or 2011 everything has changed"

Indeed, that was in the past. Many desperate sellers and buyers were in OP last time. Trading on a trade server then would take a long time but at least… fair prices. If you say that now everyone knows about tf2op and they use it for normal trading and not desperate trading anymore. You are wrong. no doubt non-desperate traders are in OP as well, then why are trade servers still have 32/32 players during peak gaming hours? (Think about it yourself)

So i strongly feel that OP is still made out of quite a substantial number of desperate buyers and sellers. Desperate buyers are willing to pay 4.22/4.33 (that we all know) for a key, you just have to wait for such a person to appear! and there are also desperate sellers selling at 3.88 "wait.. WHAT!!! There are players selling for 3.88 and i just bought 10 at 4.11 T.T"

Why do i say players buying 3.88 keys is being desperate.

Look at this perfect example:

in an event of the tradeOP being edited I screenshot it. And uploaded on dropbox.

[url] https://www.dropbox.com/s/y86xr4m65f5osr4/desperatetrading.png [/url]

original link [url]http://www.tf2outpost.com/trade/9119750[/url]

“ill sell you 3 keys”

“ill buy 1 from you”

(top and bottom)

"Dint you just say OP is unreliable, then why that link?"

Well, i recently noticed alot of "key banks" forming IN OP (i have to post an op link).

And i want to show why there are desperate sellers(how is that even desperate…). Just continue reading.

A seller holding onto a key. selling it to a trader for 3.88 (in that post its stated 3.9 and 3.9=3.88 its just rounded up) The post blatantly stated selling at 4.11 and stating that he is making a profit. The seller obviously knows that the key can be sold for 4.11 (but still sells it to him at 3.88) to another person but cant be bothered to find a buyer willing to take it for 4.11. If that isnt called desperate it must be lazy. In any case, anyone selling keys is UNDERPRICING HIS KEYS. and buyers buying the keys also know that keys are sold 3.88 to the trader and are still getting them, again he is either desperate or lazy and then buying his OVERPRICED keys.

Therefore after such a long illustration, i hope everyone starts thinking. is keys really worth that price after all. And yes zooming back to the topic of tf2op prices are fake (there are people transacting at the price!) those people are transacting at an extreme price, whether low or high, they are NOT THE AVERAGE PRICES, but its our main source of price check. Therefore we are checking on extreme prices, NOT on the average prices.

With the 2 pre-requisite information, NOW comes the crux of the argument:

There will 100% be players selling above market price and players selling below market price. OP is now saturated with players selling above market price and when we check on them to "update real prices" it goes up. Sharkers saw that the suggested prices rise. They will NEVER sell at the suggested price range, they will sell higher. We then check the real price again. HAHA. 2.66 became 4 within such a short period of them.

Obviously the key prices are rising like no tomorrow because we are checking on SHARKING PRICES. And sharkers continue to shark higher prices

Therefore the suggested price on tf2op has to be removed in order to break such a vicious cycle. We can’t get the sharkers to stop sharking, it’s their nature. We have to do our part then.

"Its natural high demand low supply will push prices up to reach equilibrium, but now bp.tf is artificially pushing the demand higher by contributing to even higher prices"

*that was 1100+ words. 3 hours thinking and typing. Blood and sweat. If you are like TOO LONG DINT READ, I urge you to relook

you can disagree or agree it’s really not in my control. I am holding onto about 50 keys, some buds and bills if that actually makes a difference to you to believe my argument. Its not simple demand and supply. bp.tf is a 3rd party regulator and it is worsening the problem.

At the end of the day I hope to see price regulators agreeing with me and stop the speculation of key prices by doing their part in removing the suggested key price… stop the vicious cycle.

Here’s a quote from me

An extreme problem requires an extreme but realistic measure to solve it in the shortest possible time effectively.

-teh pig

Constructive comments please.

See my comment above you for counter arguement, however, I do agree with all of your points.

The problem really is that no one is pushing back and everyone is just abiding by the "Oh, prices changed, time to readjust". There isn't anyone jumping ship yet and getting pissed off enough to fight back.

There will be no suggested key price removal. That's counter productive to all of backpack.tf's pricing system. Market bubbles will form and it'll pop. At this point, it's better for it to just pop. We can still save it, but I fear that once we hit 4.55 or so, it's not going to be any good for anyone.

by removing the price check, the bubbles will form and pop now. If we continue like this the bubbles formed might be bigger and the impact will be larger when it pops later.

Then no one knows and random pricing goes everywhere. People will jump to the opportunity to throw up high prices. When people mostly offer higher prices, what does the perceived notion/actual price turn into? A higher price.

For example, if, for instance, we removed currency converters into Euro for ALL currencies, what's the currency of the Euro? We don't know, it could be 1:100 for all we know.

In a nutshell, that will cause mass confusion for all and confusion on prices is NEVER a good thing.

I'm just going to comment here. Really, there isn't a "regulator", it's pure supply and demand. It's not like the government who FORCES us to use this as a way of payment, we choose it. The reality of the matter is that no one wants to fight back, we just accept that the big guys with 600+keys want changes and that's that.

They are influencing peoples minds on prices. Sharkers are using bp.tf as a price guide as well. they dont follow the price. the up the price by 2 scrap or 1 rec. So if the bp.tf price rises to 3.88-4.11 they are going to sell 4.33 and 4.44.

bp.tf isnt a regulator. a regulator uses laws and force to make changes (they use the hard method).

but bp.tf is so influential that. Its washes your brain of the prices, they convince you (they change your thinking from within) making you believe to make changes

i would say that it is even more powerful that a regulator.

Basically, as I summed up before, stage a revolt and things will get interesting from there.

Welp. I am not gonna vote.

http://financialpostbusiness.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/1024depression.jpg?w=620

Here is a good example of the selling market gone too far.

I seriously suggest that everybody bitching about the price of the key adjusting to what it can buy in ref put on their big girl pants and shut their mouths.

Because it really isn't how much it takes a key to buy refined, it's about how many keys it takes to buy refined. Idiots, like turkeys with their heads to the rain, are gonna take that mantra and drown in the "Key up, ref down" when it is really "Ref down, key up".

this was just denied and look 1 day later some guys has the balls to repost huh?

greedy traders

Here we go again....

There goes the drama of "reflecting market price on TF2OutPost" as the excuse for 3.55-3.77, then 3.66-3.77, 3.66-3.88, 3.77-3.88, 3.77-4, 3.88-4......

we all know the drill....

People on Outpost sell keys a scrap higher than bp.tf, then dudes come around and "reflect the market price" and people on Outpost saw new price on bp.tf and sell keys even a scrap higher than before, then dudes come around and "reflect the market price" and people on Outpost saw new prices on bp.tf and....

lol.. i know it.. cant stop laughing ... It remind of me this scene of which people are shouting RISE RISE!

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkMl-ln6y2M[/url]

These people need to come in and sort this out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqHZWdFVyyQ

Nice, you got 150 keys. THIS IS TOTALLY LEGIT AND NON-PROFIT

yes because a tiny raise like this matters a lot

no!!! not again fucking price

Scrap.tf is sold out at 4.11 refined: http://scrap.tf/keys

Several 4.11 ref sellers on Outpost are sold out as well.

scrap.tf is sold out because they almost never have keys.You can't sell something you dont have.

they had some keys yesterday, I was lazy and didn't want to make a post or search so I bought 2 keys from there

can't possibly tell us you are going to accept this suggestion just because You found a little proof, we need counterproof there is none so if you can't find anything less than 3.88 he needs to show us not just a admin saying they found proof and then accept the suggestion, if thats what It will be like then theres no point in other non admins doing it we might as well watch you guys raise the price.

It's been that way since ref started rising from 2.33.You just understood votes are useless around here? All that matters is admin and mods opinions.

Oh no I knew that I was just hoping they wouldn't do the same crap like they do with other key suggestions, "Found people selling for 4.11" gets accepted.

As much as people hate the rise in keys people are actually still buying keys for at the higher price range. upvoted.

I await the day when people realize they are paying way to much for keys and the key market shall crash :)

crash you mean when people stop buying and the price of keys drop to 3 or 2.5 refine in the future?

What we are seeing here is very simply known as inflation. Lets use an analogy and compare keys to gold, and metal to cash. Valve is printing "money" so to say, by issuing weapon drops every week. They do just about the same thing as the Federal reserve does. Prints money, and steals our purchasing power. Whats happening is the creation of refined is happening at a much more rapid rate than the creation (or purchase) of keys. Prices are rising primarily because of people buying keys then selling them for a one scrap profit. After they are no able to buy them at the price they used to buy them at, they will raise their sale price by one scrap, and the other sellers follow suit. Refined doesn't have the same value as keys do because they are generally not used to purchase higher valued items. Just about the only thing you can do with them is craft hats. Keys can be used to uncrate OR buy higher value items. Refined needs more uses than just crafting hats in order to give it more value, and that will cause the prices to go down.

Someone sells keys for a scrap higher than backpack.tf, then another person uses that trade as proof that they sell at that and submits a price increase. backpack.tf then raises the price, and the cyle repeats itself.

Just. No. Downvote.

nice counterproof 10/10

he just want to make his bp worth twice

obviously, right? That's the entire point of this suggestion. Its not the 30th time this comment has been posted

Why this keeps hapeniing? ;_;

LOL

Ask Earmax and Long218. They started it

The community started it by paying higher prices everytime. Don't blame Long and Earmax just because you are mad of the prices.

bring the key back down!!!! 3.66-3.88

Nope.avi

I think we'd all be happier with 2.33 again lol.

WOW thise keys go too hight! This is bad beacouse alot of items will go down in ref!

What I like mostly about this suggestion is that he has 151 keys. Also, the prices are fine right now (IMO).

I haven't bought a single Key through my trade (Paying 4 Ref each Key). I hunted the sellers and most of them sold all their Keys before they accepted my friendrequests. I added all of them within 30 seconds after they posted a trade.

I made a new conspiracy theory!

[url]http://visty.uw.hu/keyprices.jpg[/url]

Note: In the past days, the price rising always went along with a larger volume.

Want Old Prices back 2.55 D: its dubble op so stupid WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

People Stop with the increase of Key prices. Soon it would be impossible to buy because some people are just fucking greedy. Keep it at 3.88.

It won't be impossible to buy Keys for 6 Ref but whatever..

this is what people said at 3 ref.. 3.33... 3.66.. you stop.

Basically what I think of these suggestions http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=UPHuE5pDlEs&NR=1

Finance at 4.04.

I would love to see someone who doesn't own 8 billion keys make a key suggestion. It would give the impression that they genuinely believe the price should increase, not that they just want to profit off of it.

hey that buying for 4.11 is wrong

well, I used to take pride in bp.tf being the good price website. spreadsheet was being influenced by those who have the items, raising them for their own benefit. But i find it hard to see people with backpacks full of keys raising the price. the price isn't 'outdated'. the metal inflation hasnt made craft hats any more expensive! 2 weopons still make a scrap, 3 scrap make a rec, 3 rec make a ref and item drops are still (sort of) random! this site has become a giant pillar of price checking, but is now abusing its power. simply 2 months ago, keys were about 3 ref. then you found outpost highballers actually selling because the buyers predicted this would happen. since when did bp.tf start adhering to OP manipulative trades? Why does the evidence have to come from OP, if i always hear of OP being a a terrible place to get fair trades?!!?!?!??!?

That is why tf2finance is a big influence, a site which takes data from multiple sites and trade servers. Outpost is used carefully in situations like this. Note that there are traders wanting to sell for 4.22-4.33 all over outpost, but they aren't included as evidence or used within the suggested range. Buyer trades are always needed, as it gives an indication of what any key seller will likely take without even needing to start their own trade.

If outpost was the ONLY source, the range would likely be 4-4.11- there are so many people willing to buy as many keys as they can at 4, it doesn't seem to make sense to include 3.88. But tf2finance's average indicates that for every trade happening at 4.11, there are roughly equal amount happening at 3.88, with 4 being the most common transaction.

So, no. It's not all Outpost, and it's not based on 'highballers'.

I think this is the first key suggestion that has been open for more than 24 hours :O

My key suggestion have the most voters after 2.5 days. And it passed too :D

I think it's time to stop the idiotically fast-raising price of the key. Keys were always stable until fall 2012, when people started trying to make money off of them. They sold them for one scrap more than the market price, some idiot here posts one of those trades as proof, price gets accepted. People stat selling for 1 scrap more than the new price, and there you go again! The whole metal inflation thing is just complete and utter stupidity, as keys have risen 75% in the time it took metal to drop 15%. Please, stop being idiots and avoid an upcoming huge market crash!

Alright. Enough with the keys constantly raising in price, seriously. You've got proof, but you can't just raise the price because of a few highrollers. Take into consideration that other people are selling lower... Don't just pick out all the ones selling for high. This shit is starting to piss me off.

Try to find someone who is selling keys at a lower price.

much rather bring down the key price to be round 3.66 ref to be honest. It seems like an honest fit to it.