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Monday, August 29, 2011

New poll

Speaks for itself.  We all hate converting Bill/Buds to refined and noone trades them that way anyways (even though they can trade more than 8 items rather easily with the new Steam trading beta).  And since we started putting Max/HOUWAR/Medals in terms of buds why not switch to keys?  Your opinion counts.  Let us know.  Be well.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Our methodology.

On occasion there are inquiries about who the heck makes this little spreadsheet full of pretty colors.  To satisfy curiosity without giving up too much about us we created this post.  We are a handful of experienced TF2 players and traders.  We have many thousands of hours of in-game play as well as trading (if we could only get that time back and use it to save the world, alas).  We also rely on you to tell us if we err.

Our actual methodology is using as many different, credible sources of information that are available.  With the changes in trade chats recently our job is even harder so we try to check, and re-check prices on as close to a daily basis as is possible.  What is credible?  Actual trades we do, actual agreements on prices we witness, specific offers on items, specific asking prices for items.  These all give us a range of buying/selling and we try to reflect that market in the spreadsheet.

How do users know that we aren't manipulating prices?  We take the integrity of the spreadsheet and our reputation seriously.  We have many players who rely that we are giving them accurate pricing.  The best way to answer is that if you are concerned then check a price out yourself.  If you think we're off, tell us.  We have no pride on the line.  Sometimes the market changes and a price changes before we witness it.

Poll closed, you've voted that you are undecided!

So we could see where things were going with our poll regarding % of items vs. the old # of items.  From the start it was a horse race and didn't let up until the end.  The "# of items" choice ultimately won out by a mere 19 votes.  Because we appear to have a split we will keep the % of items and re-add the # of items column while doing all the math for you.  The only caveat is that we want to use accurate data on how many actual TF2 players there are currently - which we will attempt to get in good faith and with haste.  When we get that mystical # we will re-add the # of items back.  Fear not.

I like % ownership, it's more accurate
  140 (39%)
 
Go back to # of items owned, its not perfect but I like a number
  159 (44%)
 
I don't care.
  55 (15%)
 

Votes total: 354

Thursday, August 25, 2011

A link is a link

We added "Links we like" to the right column at the bottom.  These are a few that our editors consult with daily.  If you see one that you like, leave some feedback.  If you have a killer link we overlooked, let us know.  That is all.

Continued price flattening in the TF2 economy

If you could visualize the prices of all the TF2 items out in the marketplace (and there's a LOT) as the horizon, you would see a panoramic of hills and valleys and some very tall peaks.  With the height of the hill or mountain representing the value of the item.  The highest peaks would represent items like Max/Buds/Bills (we're not considering unusuals here because of their subjective values).

Over the past six months the average height (value) of all those peaks has flattened towards 1 ref.  No matter how "hot" the hat was, it's hill is shrinking.  That's pretty simple to visualize and understand in economic terms.  That is, with such a broad number of items, and with most widely available (except Genuine Maul maybe) their price always goes towards the lowest common denominator - the craft hat.  Without the influx of thousands of F2P players, and some converting to paid players, the price flattening would have been even more severe.

Max/Buds/Bills on the other hand are all seeing a resurgence.  Their peaks in our mountain example look even slightly taller and thinner now.  Their actual values in $ terms has only come down modestly.  Now they appear to be heading back up.  With black market keys/refined metals (thanks sourceop) creating the market's REAL dollar values - at $2 a key and every seller asking for 5+ keys - a Bill's hat is a good investment again.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

It's Drop Wednesday, do you know where your weapons are?

Most of the regulars to the spreadsheet probably know all about the drop system.  Just for a graphical  refresher from the main tf2 wikipedia site.






You're not strange anymore!

So we've stopped neglecting the strange weapons and added individual pricing and percentage owned (where available) on each and every one of those oddities.  It looks like a lot of crates have been opened and keys have been used!

A few observations:
  • Scout, Spy and Pyro crates look to be the most widely opened, however its early and the sniper crates are very popular.
  • You will notice the % owned column lacks information for several items, that is because the data isn't available from tf2stats at this time.  When it is I will include it.
  • Engie crates are the loneliest ones so far, but as I said its still early so buck up little camper....that Strange Wrench can still be yours.


New website compatibility

Most of the feedback I've received has been very positive.  Thanks!  99% of you have no viewing issues with the new site.  I've gotten some feedback on specific issues that I wanted to address workarounds for:

1) Steam in-game browser - if you view the site in the in-game browser, the scrollbar for the spreadsheet doesn't work.  Instead, use the up/down arrows on your keyboard while the mouse is over the spreadsheet.  This functions the same.

2) Ipod Touch/Iphone/Ipad users - while viewing the spreadsheet, the scrollbar is greyed out and non-functional.  Alternately, touch one side of the spreadsheet and hold...at the same time sweep-touch the other side of the sheet and it will scroll either direction.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Free party hat!

TF2 birthday tomorrow (Wednesday).  Free party hat and noisemaker when you sign into your account.

% Ownership of items vs. # Ownership of items

So thank you all for making the way over to our new home.  A lot of comments, keep them coming!

I want to address the new column "% Ownership of Items".  The reason this has been changed is that tf2stats.net changed their sample size from around 90,000 players to 20,000 players.  They get this data directly from Valve so this is what they get.  Does this mean that suddenly there are only 20K TF2 players?  No.  It means that Valve has chosen to send less data to tf2stats.

There are more than 20,000 TF2 players so getting a specific "count" of items with the current data would be an estimate (as was the old data but at least it was 90K unique users albeit with tf2stats' tinkering).  So, keep a percentage or go with a specific # (although inaccurate)?  Comments welcome, vote to your right.



Monday, August 22, 2011

TF2 Google Spreadsheet has moved!



Yes.  The spreadsheet has a new home.  While editing the latest item count percentages which replaced the item counts, I realized that there is never enough room for commentary on the items or what is happening in the TF2 marketplace.  This will allow the spreadsheet to remain the most important item but also to make commentary on the TF2 marketplace possible.  It will also allow more information on statistics to see where people are coming from to see the spreadsheet.