Trading
 | “Oh dear, I've made quite a mess.” This page has been marked for general cleanup. Reason given: Poor writing, structure, needs many general improvements. Please see Team Fortress Wiki style guide for information on how to improve this article. |
| “ | Another satisfied customer!
Click to listen
— The Engineer on his delivery services.
|
” |
Trading is an in-game system that allows players to swap items with other players, introduced in the Mann-Conomy Update. The system allows players to swap weapons, hats, misc items, and tools with other players. Trades are conducted by selecting the Items button from the main menu, then the trading icon. After this, the player has a choice of trading with online users on their friend list, players on their current server, or a specific user by entering their steam profile URL. Players who have free accounts are limited to receiving items, and cannot give items to other players until they achieve premium status.
Contents
Mechanics
- Up to eight items of any kind can be traded from one player to another in a single transaction. The user's trading boxes are on the upper right side of the screen. The user may select items from their backpack, displayed on the left. The trading boxes at the lower right display the other user's trade offer. The trading window also shows the color of the item's rarity as a background and outline.
- Both users can communicate and determine the trade using the private chat box visible under the backpack. The box will also notify the quality and the default name of the item.
- After reviewing the items offered in the trade, both users must click the "Ready to Trade" check-box. If the offer is changed by either player, the players will be required to click "Ready to Trade" again. Once both users are ready to trade, they can then click "Trade Now" to complete the trade.
Audio cues
There are several small sound files that play to alert the traders to certain events:
- Items in the trade have changed.
- The trade was cancelled.
- Both players have accepted the offer.
- Trade complete.
Steam Trading
Steam Trading is a feature that was introduced on August 9, 2011. With Steam Trading a user is able to trade their in-game items for other in-game items and gift copies of Steam games with other users. A trade can be initiated with anyone in a Group Chat or on your Friends List. Users that opted into the Steam Trade Beta were also given the ability to Tag people on their Friends List and organize them into Common Groups. [1]
Steam Trading was first available as an open beta.[2]
Features
Although at first the Steam Trading program shows 8 slots to trade, when the 3rd slot on the last line is filled, more slots appear. This allows for up to 256 items to be traded at once, completely removing the need for successive trading.
The only fault with Steam Trading is, if a hat is painted a Team color, Steam Trading will show it as if it had been painted black.
Items can also be searched for using the search tool, making trades quicker and easier to conduct. Additionally, the communication feature from the in-game trading system is included, so that traders can communicate both through regular chat messages through Steam, or through chat in the Steam Trade window.
Once a trade is made, items received are placed into your Backpack and Steam Inventory, ready for immediate use.
Items from other games can be used by clicking the inventory drop down menu, and then choosing a supported game's inventory, such as Portal 2, Team Fortress 2, Spiral Knights, or Steam gifts.
Trading tips
- Pay attention to the background color of the items being traded, signifying Rarity.
- Always re-check items being traded before finalizing the trade.
- Trades should be conducted without any pressure. Don't give into another player's pressure if they're pushing you into a trade you're not comfortable with.
- If you feel that you are paying too much, ask a friend or another player.
- Keeping your backpack organized will allow you to easily show a trading partner the items they're looking for.
- Respect goes a long way in a trade.
- Always remember that patience is the key. There will usually be somebody who will want to take your trade.
- Avoid trades in-game involving more than 8 items, split up into separate trades; Use Steam trading instead. For example, if you were selling an item for 19 Refined Metal, a scammer could give you 8 Refined Metal for the item in the first trade and then run away with your item.
- Avoid trades involving cash unless you have a good idea of what you're getting into.
- Be aware of renamed items as a scammer could rename a worthless item as a rare item. Look out for notices in the private trade chat window that tell you if a certain item has been renamed; renamed items always have quotation marks surrounding the name.
- Price-check items before trading.
Tradability
Permanent
<br\> All items in the game are tradable with the exception of the items above and achievement milestone weapons. If Metal is crafted with any achievement weapon, it becomes untradable. Anything crafted with the use of untradable items also becomes untradable. However, most of the above items are gift-wrappable, providing a way to bypass the untradability.
Other items are untradable and uncraftable. This means that they cannot even be crafted to create Metal or slot/class tokens. All items purchased from the Mann Co. Store cannot be traded or used in crafting. Self-Made, Community, and Valve are also untradable and uncraftable.
Temporary
Tools that are bought in the Mann Co. Store, like Paint Cans, Mann Co. Supply Crate Keys, Gift Wrap, and Backpack Expanders, are untradable for a period of two days. Afterwards, they become tradable like other normal items.
Additionally, items that are awarded in Genuine quality for pre-ordering a game on Steam are untradable, but generally become tradable when the game is released.
Update history
- Added trading system.
- The Trading dialog now starts with the chat window having focus.
- Gifted items are now craftable and tradable.
- Community, Self-Made, and Valve items are not tradable or usable in crafting.
- Added some anti-scam advice to the chat window.
- Increased trading slots to 8 slots per person.
- Added item rarity colors.
- Added the item’s original name to the item description.
- Made most tools tradable.
- Fixed Ellis' Cap and the Frying Pan not being tradable
October 27, 2010 Patch (Scream Fortress Update)
- Gentle Manne's Service Medal is now tradable.
- The Earbuds and Gentle Manne's Service Medal are now gift wrappable.
- Added a note in the trading dialog to let you know when your trading partner is typing.
- Updated the RIFT pre-order items to be not-tradable until the RIFT pre-order period is over
February 24, 2011 Patch (Community Map Pack Update)
- [Undocumented] Fixed trades only displaying one of the items traded to the server.
- Updated the Sharpened Volcano Fragment and the Sun-on-a-Stick so they can be traded.
- Updated The Shogun Pack items to be tradeable.
- Hero's Hachimaki now tradable.
May 5, 2011 Patch (Replay Update)
- [Undocumented] The Hetman's Headpiece, the Janissary Ketche,The Dead Cone, and The Brain Bucket were made craftable, tradable, and could be found in drops.
- Made the Three-Rune Blade, Hero's Tail, and Sign of the Wolf's School tradable.
- Made the Conjurer's Cowl and Maul tradable.
- Made the The Original, The Dragonborn Helmet, The Anger, The Pip-Boy, and The Wingstick tradeable.
- Made the Manno-Technology Bundle tradable
- [Undocumented] Item server update made the tournament medals untradable.
- [Undocumented] Made the El Jefe tradeable.
Notes
- When first released with the Mann-Conomy Update, the trading system had 4 slots for players to trade with. This was changed to 8 slots in the October 20, 2010 Patch.
- If you have been scammed, you can file a Steam support ticket and explain the situation. It helps to provide evidence of the scam, such as conversation logs or screenshots/videos of the scammed transaction. Valve has clearly stated, however, that they will not do anything to recover your items if you are a victim of a phishing scam.
- It's possible to continue playing and leave the trading screen in the background by pressing the 'Esc' key. Pressing 'Esc' again returns to the trading screen.
- A player wishing to block all trade requests can do so using the game options.
- There is a 30 second waiting period between unsuccessful trade requests.
- After trades, the transaction details show up on the server messages.
- If a player sends multiple trade requests to another player who denies them, there is a 2 minute waiting period between each trading request to prevent spamming.
