Trade System Reform — Updated 12/6/2014: Publicly displayed Trade Boxes in Trade Tab (images inside)

Currently, the idea has been floating around (there are variants of it) to be able to place items on sale at a vendor in your Hideout in which players wanting to buy something from you will have to travel to your Hideout in order to buy items from that vendor. Therein lies the problem. Going with that approach to a Trade System does not make for a very open Trade System.

In fact, it is a very closed Trade System open only to those you have in your Guild or your Party who have access to your vendor selling your items. In addition to that, this Hideout vendor Trade System is based on pricing your items with currency. What if you wanted something else for your item(s)?

You see, there is really no bartering factor in that kind of trading system because it is very automated, and the developers of Path of Exile do not want anything automated so as to do away with bartering and socializing with other players during trade sessions.

At 23:35 in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmKcEkzSo0k Chris Wilson (developer of PoE being interviewed about Patch 1.3.0) talks about how he does not want such a Hideout vendor Trade System in Path of Exile, anyway, for reasons already stated.

Instead of trades being in the Public Parties Tab, trades will show up in the Public Trades Tab.

This is where you post your items for other people to see. They can then CTRL + ALT + CLICK on your items to send items they like to you in Whispers.

When you place items in the Trade Box, there will only be copies made of your items in which items are not really being taken from your inventory. This then does away with the exploit of players using their Trade Box to stash away their items for more space.

That's what Stash Tabs are for!

When players open your Trade Box in the new Public Trades Tab, this is the window they'll see.

In addition to that, when players click the 'Close Trade Box' button, they will go back to seeing the trade boxes of other players within the 'Public Trades' Tab.

The perfect fix for Trade List spam and how to stop it:

1. To prevent the 'ME FIRST' competition between traders, when players Update their trades in the Trade Tab, instead of players being put at the TOP in the trade list every time, they will be placed at the bottom of the trade list under every other player. Therefore, whoever is first, second or third in line on the trade list remains first, second or third in line on the trade list until they update their trade in which they are kicked out of their position and placed at the bottom of all other players, and so on...

2. The ability to view anyone's Trade Box by clicking the 'Trade Box' Button in the 'Public Trades' Tab.

3. Like updating your Party message line, traders have the ability to update their trade message line in the 'Public Trades' Tab.

4. Like in the current 'Public Parties' Tab, trade messages can be seen by everyone in the 'Public Trades' Tab.

5. When you place items in the Trade Box, there will only be copies made of your items in which items are not really being taken from your inventory. This then does away with the exploit of players using their Trade Box to stash away their items for more space.

That's what Stash Tabs are for. With that in mind, other players would still be able to send items they like you have on display through whispers by doing CTRL + ALT + CLICK.

6. Players cannot place items over the Orange separator lines. However, if players try to place items over the lines, there won't be an annoying message saying so. (refer to the images)

7. Like players who buy a lot of Stash Tabs at the Shop, players who have the Social Panel open have the ability to access every tab by using the Left or Right arrow buttons. There is also a Drop-Down Button to access other Tabs quicker.

8. If a trader logs out, their trade is removed from the trade list. Traders can also end their trades by clicking on the 'End Trade' button.

'Your Trade Box' Tab FEATURES:

1. When someone looks inside your Trade Box, they have the ability to CTRL + ALT + CLICK to send what items they're interested in to you through Whispers. (this would be very helpful!)

2. Besides Quest Items, the ability to send ANY item to your Trade Box (like you do your Stash) for anyone to view in the 'Public Trades' Tabs.

3. Like naming your own Party, the ability to name your trade for everyone to see like players currently do in using the 'Public Parties' Tab for their trading. This makes it so players do not spam the 'Public Parties' Tab with trade-related messages.

4. The 'Low-End,' 'Negotiable' and 'High-End' columns makes it easier for viewers to look for what they're looking for in their budget. This also does away with unnecessary resources and programming used to implement an Auction House with a filter system.

The idea for a better Trade System is to make it user-friendly, effective, and simple for developers to produce opposed to other intricate ideas in more complex trade systems.

Note: When a trader invites another player for trading, that player will not show up in the 'Public Trades' Tab. Instead, the current 'Public Parties' Tab will record this information.

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Gravis wrote:

There are few problems, I do not have the time now, so I'll just skimp through them, but I am sure they're easily fixable if this was ever to be implemented.

1. You could use the extra inventory of the Trade Box to have twice the inventory space while farming and then just take items out back to stash or leave the better ones for sale when in town.

Pardon the late reply. What you point out will not be a problem. When you place items in the Trade Box, there will only be copies made of your items in which items are not really being taken from your inventory. This then does away with the exploit of players using their Trade Box to stash away their items for more space.

That's what Stash Tabs are for.

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Gravis wrote:

2. People would endlessly spam this as well, refreshing their trade boxes whenever they possibly can, with hopes that being at the top will make their stuff sell faster.

All that has to happen is when players Update their parties (slash) trades, instead of players being put at the TOP in the list, they will be placed at the bottom. Whoever updates their post first in the list is first in line. Players after that are placed under another player, and so on, in the list. Therefore, anyone in the list at top remains first in line until they update their post again, which then puts them at the bottom.

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Gravis wrote:

3. This idea simply reminds me of Ragnarok Online or Lineage 2, where you could leave merchants or dwarf boxed characters with shops open in town, so people could buy stuff off you. However, both of those were MMO's and to add up the merchant/dwarf way did not had the above problems I named.

I updated the OP. The problem(s) you mention(ed) should no longer be a problem.

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Gravis wrote:

4. I'm sure people would just start making box characters for these tabs, so they can sell things easier/faster when they're not playing. Lets assume I am watching a movie or making a meal or so. I can have multiple boxed characters up at all of those times with the PM sound at max volume so I can know when someone wants to buy something from me. I am sure with time people would adapt to point that they'd just have a 24/7 char(s) up and just check it periodically if anyone messaged them or so.

This would only happen if someone has multiple computers using two different accounts. Otherwise, players can only have 1 Trade Box up at a time. On another note, if you log off, your trade ends, which is a detail I included within the OP by saying, "If a trader logs out, their trade is removed from the trade list. Traders can also end their trades by clicking on the 'End Trade' button."

The reason for this is it's absolutely no fair whatsoever for your Trade to be present in the Public Trade Tab if you're not online. In addition to that, it takes up more space in the Public Trade Tab when you're offline.

Furthermore, the current trading that goes on in PoE is not truly global, anyway, in which you'll never see 1,000 people at once putting up trades. There are only so many people that are on per server the servers can support.