Need a help + some advice + giveway

1. I used it mostly when there wasn’t so many bundles around. Now i have almost every game im at least a bit interested. Otherwise i don’t trade any big games, nor cards or other sh*t. I’m still missing some kind of automated key exchange system, but that is nearly impossible since the steam itself would need to be involved.

2. I’ve seen enough kids collecting money for charity on official events and then some of it being stolen in my school days to not have trust in any kind of charity. And you never see your money put in a good use with your own eyes. I drag that charity slider on bundles to zero every time.

3. Never used one, can’t tell.

4. Its a great marketing trick for people who are those kind of people, so called achievement hunters. It doesn’t bother anyone who doesn’t like it.

1. I use trade pages. it's pretty easy to find people who buy or sell stuff. I take a look at trade pages almost daily. I'd like to see less people trying to impersonate other traders.

2. I think charity's a good thing.. if i got to see with my own eyes that the money went to charity, then i'd probably give more.

edit: forgot 3. Umm.. resting tomorrow would be nice, but i can't rest tomorrow..

I'm interested in helping with #3, resting tomorrow? my advice is do all the work tonight, otherwise people may pester you on your day of rest to get up and finish :(

1: Personally, I don't trade because I'm paranoid about scammers and I have such a BIG backlog of games to play there's no need to trade.

2: Charity in gaming is A-OK by me. You don't really get to SEE where the money goes; we just have to assume it's going to the proper places and hope for the best. I participated in the Extra-Life event this year and our team raised over $500 USD and overall, I think over 3.5$ MILLION was raised through North America.

3: Instead of resting tomorrow, why not powernap and rest today and tomorrow? And don't forget to find time to eat!

1. I just look at the page to see what are the 'trending' trades happening. It happens a lot of scammers there (even the legit traders have been scammed by his trusted source)

2. I live in the the Philippines which we got hit by the typhoon yolanda and we are grateful with the world support. I just hate that some of the officials try to 'politics' the relief that was given to their own agenda. The victims should be taken care of first. I will never vote for them. Only the red cross are untainted which i am grateful that they send the relief as fast as they can. So with this 'charity' will be seldom 100% given to charity... part of the proceeds will be used for expenses and whats left would be for the 'intended' target/victim.

3. Power Nap :)

I do like stuckington's powernap option, go with that. I can admit when somebody's got a better answer than me
edit- and now for the record the current #4 "rest tommorow" was #3 at the time

Fluent English:

Aloha

If you don't understand this text I'll try to fix everything when I wake up.

The giveaway will be created for the people who help me.

I tried to open a new trade page for steam stuff ( don't ask me for the name ) and I want to get some advice from one of the best ( in my opinion ) communities from all the steam pages that I know of.

Questions so far:

1. Want to speak with you about the trades page.
2. What do you think about charity in gaming?
3. What do you think about "trade trainers, middlemen and people who try help from" scamming? Do you have any idea how to create a community without scammers?
4. More tomorrow.

Help needed:

1. Do you use trade pages? Is it easy to do trades and find people who buy or sell stuff? How often do you check these pages? What would you like to see on these pages?

2. What do you think about charity in gaming ( like Humble Bundle )? Do you see where this money goes? If you see where this money goes, "do you give next time something on charity to help people?" And why do you help?

For me, any answer is a source of knowledge that I need in order to create something that people will like. But without you there is no us... Please help. Not for me, for the kids. Because 90% of the benefits from the page will go to charity.

(PS: Not really sure what you were asking on question 3 and on Help 2, so I left them as they were... I marked them with "")

Hey Vic! :D
I remember you wanting to learn new languages! :)

Anyway.

1. I've never used any of those. I've traded games in Steam (gifts) but I've never traded keys with people that I don't know in person... I really look forward to a really working trade system, but this will implies a "restricted" community to avoid scams.

2. Charity in all its form is good. Gaming charity is one of its kind, where everyone should be happy about it, both givers and receivers. I'll gladly help mainly because poor people aren't poor by birth, 75% of the time they're put in that condition by an over-exploitation issue.
   As for the money question... No, I don't feel so confident in charity if I don't have "bills" and "transactions" and public stuffs where I can check if mine (and others) money are well "spent". I'm Italian, unluckily I know a lot about these things.

Hope I helped in some way. :)

Ps. Is there someone willing to help me with the fluent English thing? :P

What do you think about charity in gaming?

Charity's great. If people can donate while getting/playing games they like then good for them.

What do you think about "trade trainers, middlemen and people who try help from" scamming? Do you have any idea how to create a community without scammers?

Trusted middlemen, like those on SteamRep, are pretty useful during high profile trades involving things outside the Steam system. It's impossible to create a community without scammers because scamming comes from greed, and greed is sort of inherent.

What do you think about achievements in page and lvl. system like steam have ?

They're cool, and serve as a sort of incentive/bragging rights to show how much time you've invested in a game. Using Steam Achievement Manager is cheating though.

What do you think about charity in gaming?

It's an awesome thing, seeing that much people are doing events for children, for example one month ago some Minecraft guys did a charity stream.

What do you think about "trade trainers, middlemen and people who try help from" scamming? Do you have any idea how to create a community without scammers?
Trade trainers? never heard of them but actually middlemen can help you not get scammed. Hmm, no idea on how to create a community without scammers, I actually think it's impossible to do.

What do you think about achievements in page and lvl. system like steam have ?

Well I actually think that achievements are showing people's talent who can do something in games not just idle.

1. I normally only use trade pages around the holidays or during sales. Normally it is to get better prices than even the sale can offer.

2. Charity is a good thing, the more we help charities the better.

3. I don't lurk the trade pages enough to help new people but if I am doing a trade with someone and they are new I will answer their questions if they have any.

4. Achievements and levels are gimmicks use to lure people into something. I think that is what sold a large portion of the xbox 360 community when it came out. I do not think the steam achievements are as big of a gimmick as the xbox ones are though because they are not so blatantly posted on your profile and there isn't a point system for them.

I only use trade pages occasionally, but when I do it's because it's sale time and things are usually even cheaper on there.

I love that we can give to charity with bundles. Don't get me wrong, I think the devs still deserve a little something, but it's nice that they offer up some of their profit to charity like that.

I think the middleman idea is great, but I wish it didn't have to exist. There wouldn't be a way to have a community without scammers though. You'd just have to have them banned when they scam. People will always try to take advantage of others. It's just important that the people maintaining the site keep up on who is scamming and keep them banned. Things like checking steamrep (maybe a script that automatically will) and not allowing people who have really bad rep or scammer rep register for a site. People who help out newbies when it comes to trading are great. So long as it's trustworthy people of course. I know I wouldn't have traded at all in the past if it weren't for a few people who helped me out.

Achievements are pointless, honestly. It's just a way for people to show off their epeen. That being said, it attracts people to a site. People love to see some sort of gratification in anything they do, and achievements give them that. However, that doesn't mean I don't enjoy them also. They may be pointless, but I do like getting them.

1) Yes, I use steamtrades and Team Fortress 2 (TF2) outpost primarily.
I find it much easier to trade on these 2 websites than, let's say, Steam community hub's "Trading" subforum. Basically, there are a lot more people viewing the websites at any moment so you match up with interested traders faster. I check these pages daily (when I log in to steam, chances are, I will check these 2 sites as well) since I am trying to sell my TF2 in-game items.
Hmmm, I would like to see an "instant trade" feature (similar to the "trade offer" system on steam trading forum in community hub). A trader just puts up the item(s) he has, and the item(s) he wants. Anyone can just come and accept the offer if he wants to trade, and the transaction is completed automatically by a bot/server. This way, there's no waiting.

2) Charity in gaming is of course wonderful :) Charity by itself is a good deed and charity in gaming is an even greater deed.
Do I see where the money goes? Not exactly. I mean, of course, the several "socially responsible" companies claim that $XXXX will be sent to XXXX foundation as charity, but do we really have solid proof? Who knows, they could take a certain percentage off for other purposes and most of the consumers won't even know. Still, we (or at least, me) like to believe they will not go back on their word.
Even if not all of the money goes to charity, I still help because even 1 dollar is a treasure to those in need. It's better than not donating at all. I am a Buddhist and it's a Buddhist belief that even charity is worthless if you don't have the right intention. For example, donating millions of dollars isn't a good deed if you are planning to use that to gain a "respectable" image to cover up other evil deeds like corruption.

3) Well if they are doing it genuinely, I respect them. If they are just helping out so that later, may be, they ask for "rewards" from those new traders in return for their help, then I wouldn't respect them so much, but start to dislike them. Even then, these kind of "helpers" are crucial to the community as most beginners are clueless as to where to start off, and guides on "how to prevent being scammed" etc. definitely helps.
Personally, I started off by myself in TF2 outpost. I just generally read guides on TF2 trading on the Internet, and didn't specifically ask a person to help me. (I'm more of an independent person and I prefer to rely on myself than on other people)

4) Achievements? Hmmm, from my perspective, they are generally a "good" thing. I mean, they help function as "rewards" for gamers who have managed to pull off a fascinating feat in a game. Personally, achievements fuel me to attempt completing certain levels, or collecting "hidden" items. Without achievements, I may still try to complete the game on harder difficulties, but I would be less motivated to do so. So yeah, generally, these "achievements and levels" constitute an effective mode of motivation and reward.
So long as it's not exploited :D

1. Yes, I do use trade pages because trading items and winning games here is the only way that I can get Steamgames. I use them a quite often and it's preety easy to find a appropreate deal. What would I like to see? Umm, I don't know. Most of those pages dont have "clean" search system, so I would like to see improved and easy search system.

2. I support charity in games. 90% of the trader's money (back in a days when you could trade Humble bundles on forums.steampowered.com) were going to charity. I don't see where the money goes, but I'm happy to help people in trouble.

3. As I said, it's always nice to help someone unless you are not using them (example: someone is asking you for a price of your 1 key item and you say it's about 6 keys) . I've helped alot of people about the trading. It's always nice to give newbies some tips and advices about trading.

Well, that's it from me. Good luck with your new trading site!

Questions:

1. Let's talk about trade, baby

2. Personally I prefer to choose the charities I give to myself. Having said that, anything that promotes charity, and encourages donations from people who may not otherwise do so has to be a positive, provided that the causes are worthwhile.

3. Castrate them all, so that they can't breed, and pass on their twisted scammy genes to future generations.

4. Don't care either way, but some people clearly appreciate them, so why not?

Expanded questions:

1. Yes. Sometimes. I only ever check the pages if there's a game I want which is unfairly [IMHO] priced locally. If the NZ price is the same as other regions such as US, I'll gladly pay full price, but if not, I'll take the Russian version and "stick it to the man"...

2. As above, I'd rather choose my own charities, so tend to leave the sliders untouched. Humble get a bit of money for whatever charity they choose, but I'd rather focus my giving on causes I'm genuinely passionate about. Personally I don't really consider this giving to charity, since I'm only paying the price of the bundle, and letting Humble divvy up my money as they see fit. It wouldn't make me any more or less eager to buy the bundle if they removed the charity section, since I'm really only ever motivated to buy these bundles for the games. As I say, there are charities I'd rather give to.

3. If you need a trainer to trade, there's every chance that you could be taken in by a scammer offering "training" services. Educate yourself by googling and reading up on the hazards of what you are doing.

(expanded ones)
1- I only use steamtrades and tf2outpost, I use them everyday to bump my trades, since I rarely buy games from other trades (not because I dont like, just because I dont buy games at all). If there is a search button, then it's fine.
2- I obviously dont see where the money goes to, I dont really pay attention to the charity things, and when I buy a humble bundle I usually give it all to humble tip or developers (not always, but most of the time).
3- I didnt get help when I started trading, I did some stupid trades by looking for price games on Steam only, and not considering sales at all, but that happens to everyone. It would be good to see people helping other people who dont know how to trade yet.

1) I do not trade, but I do not have anything against it. With that said, I have no clue what all goes on in this topic.

2) I have nothing against it. If the money helps, even if it is just a little, it helps. At the least, we get cheap bundles because of it. Odds are, it is a huge profit to create these and this is why so many exist. I know nothing about where every penny is going or what is going on, but I do give sites the benefit of the doubt. I will say it hurts the indie game devs to an extent since it lowers their product's value even if they never did a bundle before, but the odds are if their game is really worth buying and they know how to market, it will not effect them.

3) Middlemen are great, but what is even better is having a group of witnesses and a tin foil hat. If you are smart, you shouldn't have a problem in trading without getting scammed. Look for people with high levels of reputation to play middlemen for you on Steam Trades and perhaps use a recording device to show what went down as well make sure the conversations are available for public eye so that the person could be pressured to respond accordingly if they tried to take advantage of you. Unfortunately, it happens too often where a high level rep'd person takes advantage of the lower level ones. Though, this isn't fool proof, the best way to make a community without scammers is have a website with staff that observes the trade take place or involve money where people have to make a deposit. Both are not reasonable since either the site will require more money to maintain or there will be members that cannot make the deposit (for what a realistic deposit would cost, it would be more reasonable to just buy the damn game yourself). So, like politics, there is no perfect system to avoid every flaw. Many humans will always manipulate or take advantage of an exploit for their own gain.

4) It is not only a brilliant way to get people to play (see skinner box) but also a way to show bragging rights. It is like a trophy or a merit badge in a way. The only thing I am against is overly easy achievements like "Oh, you finished the first cutscene!" or "oooh, you bought another game of ours!" (see killing floor). The achievements should be an actual god damn achievement. As for Steam level, I think it is currently broken and meaningless, but the concept is good.

Expanded questions:

1. Yes I do use trade pages. I just use Steamtrades. This is because I do not trade too much, just a random trade here and there. I usually just check the forum only when I am looking for a trade. Usually it is very easy to trade, people who post their stuff there tell you how they want to be contacted and you can easily send your offer to them. if they agree, you can trade throguh steam chat or just the trade option (if both of you are trading gift copies). As to what I would like to see on the page, the page as is fits my needs pretty much, so I can not really suggest something.
2. I believe Charity in anything is very good and its no different in case of gaming. Usually the bundles will tell you where you donations are going, so it is good. as to if I give to charity: I always buy the BTA version and also try to put in a couple extra dollars, if I can afford at that time over the BTA price.My usualy divide is 1/3 to devs, 1/3 to charity(plus the extra dollar or two), rest to other options (like humble tip or gala tip).
3. When I started trading, some people did help me. I found people in the trading forums who had good reputation and asked them for suggestions. almost all the times I got a positive response from the other side. These people gave me tips about the current prices, scams currently going on, and if my offer was good enough or not. i have not used a middleman as of now, but lot of people do. these are usually the people whom a lot of people recognize on these sites. it is a common courtesy to give something as a gift to the person who helped you out. Usually these gifts are cards or TF2 items or sometimes a game key you may just have.
   I have also tried to help someone out if they have messaged me asking regarding a trade. One of my good friends on steam, whom I chat with almost daily, became my friend when he started asking me questions about trading.

Personally I would say, if you are getting into training, Lurk for a few days. Try to learn from peoples replies and messages on the forums. From this you would learn a lot about prices for different items, current scams and the ways of scams, and also about a lot of people as to who are the most frequent traders etc. I did that too before even asking for a single trade or posting.

I hope this answers some of the questions you have. If you have anything else to ask about any of these, leave a reply. I'll try to explain whatever I can.

bump

1 - I don't use these pages so can't actually say what to want from them.

2 - I think it's awesome. Gaming is great, and buying legal games is even better. But if part of the money spent on games goes to people who really need it, it's even better. I don't see where they go, but I saw it once on Kotaku.

3 - It's probably great, because almost every start needs a trainer/teacher right? I don't think I would give anything if someone helped me to start trading.