TF2 Newbs (Team Fortress 2) Blog

Whoops, I forgot to post the patch update!  It is minor, but apparently one nifty undocumented change has appeared:

Some TF2 Items Are Now “Commodities”

…Do what now?

You may recall that back in June ’14, the option to make Buy Orders was introduced to the Steam Market.  When you place a Buy Order, you choose an item that you want to buy as soon as it hits the Market at or under your asking price. It won’t matter who you’re buying from; whenever an item goes on sale, it will check against all the Buy Orders out there that meet its terms, which can also help you sell an item instantly if you sell it under an existing Buy Order’s asking price.  You can have as many Buy Orders as ten times your Steam Wallet’s current value.

Before this week, the only Commodities–items you can buy with Buy Orders–in the Steam Market were the following:

• All Steam Trading Cards and Trading Card Booster Packs
• All Emoticons
• All Profile Backgrounds

Obviously, they were probably testing the Market functionality for several months with items that had both little value and a high volume of existing items.  They must be happy with the results, because they are now increasing the number of items that are Commodities, and therefore can be bought with Buy Orders.  All of the new items are tools, and this is significant:

• Mann Co. Crate Keys (!!)
• Mann Co. Supply Crates and Summer Claim Checks
  • I am unsure if this includes Mann Co. Select or Salvaged crates or not.
• Robot Parts
• Strangifiers, Strange Parts and Strange Filters
• Piles of RoboKey Gifts and Piles of Summer Cooler Key Gifts
  • But single Mann Co. RoboKeys and the nine colored Summer Cooler Keys do not seem to be commodities yet.
• Decal Tools
• Gift Wrap
• Backpack Expanders
• Upgrade to Premium Gifts
• Summer Starter Kits and Summer Adventure Packs

So for example, you can set a Buy Order for Crate Keys for $2, and as soon as one goes for sale at $2 or less, you (and anyone else that has a Buy Order) that qualifies can be sold the keys that go for sale as soon as they hit the market.  Valve doesn’t say whether the “oldest” Buy Order goes through first, or some other random method, so don’t assume that you will get the first item to be placed on the Market for that price. But at least in the case of keys, if you’re patient, eventually someone will quicksell a key for your asking price if you’re sane about it.

In economics, a commodity is something that is always in-demand–such as pork bellies, wheat, or even skilled labor–but in plentiful enough supply that they see frequent trade.

Meanwhile, a currency is something that is assigned an arbitrary value to act as a middleman for trading wealth.  For the last few years, metal, keys, earbuds and certain hats like Bill’s Hat have been acting as a currency, i.e. tradeable items have been valued in terms of these currencies, like “this unusual hat is worth 1.5 buds”.  But since some items being traded also have their own useful function–i.e. keys can be used on crates, and they can be bought through the Mann Co. Store with almost no real limit to supply–then tool items, like keys, are really more of a commodity.

Full Patch Notes

• Dedicated server performance/stability improvements
• Added a new startup music track from Expiration Date
• Added missing photos/thumb images for koth_badlands
• Fixed a client crash related to the snd_restart command for Linux clients
• Fixed a dedicated server crash related to arrows
• Fixed the Bolt Boy using the wrong material for the Blu team
• Improved memory usage for Linux clients
• Updated the Restart Game and Scramble Teams votes to always have a mandatory cool-down period
• Updated sv_memlimit to not be marked as a cheat convar
  • Added sv_minuptimelimit and sv_maxuptimelimit to manage the server restart window
• Updated the equip_regions for the Mustachioed Mann, Ze Übermensch, and Vive La France
• Updated the localization files
• Updated pl_cactuscanyon
  • Removed rollback leading to the final capture point in stage 2
  • Reworked fence position on forward spawn building in stage 2
  • Expanded back alley near the final capture point in stage 2
  • Expanded back pathway near the final capture point in stage 1
  • Added small room inside building half way up the zig-zag in stage 1
  • Adjusted health kits and ammo packs
  • Adjusted spawn times in stage 1 and 2
• Updated rd_asteroid
  • Widened left side spawn exit
  • Players can no longer build inside the staircase near A robots
  • Fixed sticky stair collision when coming out of the water near B robots
  • Changed medium health kit near the C robots to a small health kit
  • Removed aQ2W3″alert” from voice over lines that announce your team has dropped the reactor core
  • Fixed missing patch overlay under small health near center bridge

Undocumented changes

• Several items are now marked as Steam Community Market commodities.^[1]

References

1. ↑ Mann Co. Supply Crate Key, Mann Co. Supply Crate, Robot Parts, Paint Can, Strange Part, Strangifier, Strange Filter, Pile of RoboKey Gifts, Pile of Summer Cooler Key Gifts, Decal Tool, Gift Wrap, Backpack Expander, Upgrade to Premium Gift, Summer Starter Kit, Summer Adventure Pack, Summer Claim Check

[N] Obey

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 9th, 2014 at 8:58 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.