Path of Exile - New Trade Website

@MassivelyOP Path of Exile now has a trading website.

One of the few features Path of Exile has traditionally lacked is an “easy” trading feature like an auction house, and that was by design: Grinding Gear Games feared bot farming, lowered drop rates, and high gear disparities between players, to say nothing of the lesson taught by Diablo III’s original launch. But players always find a way around the design, and as in many auctionless MMOs, players resorted to forum sales and whole websites devoted to facilitating the buying and selling of in-game gear.

“That’s where we are today,” GGG writes this week. “It’s easy to list items for trade, easy to search for items, and is often quite frustrating to complete a trade. This remaining frustration is the only thing standing in the way of trades being basically instant. While we understand that this sounds like a positive thing, we are very concerned regarding what will happen if that does eventuate. We have to prioritise the long-term health of Path of Exile.”

Consequently, the studio has now created its own version of the trade sites already run by players, though of course GGG’s is safer. It isn’t a full-fledged auction hall, however.

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More information.

I truly don't see the point to this. So they basically took what was already available elsewhere and simply rehashed it with absolutely nothing new added to it?

Like they said:

[it] is often quite frustrating to complete a trade.

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Understatement of the game's history; this is the single biggest annoyance in the game right now. You basically sit around for half an hour at a time sending tells to to 2-3 dozen people with no response when all you want to do is trade your currency for another type of currency. WHAT IS THE POINT OF THAT???

The devs seem to think it's all or nothing. Either you list everything on an auction house and completely ruin the social aspect of the game or you have nothing whatsoever available for a quick easy trade. It was ~20 years ago and Guild Wars 1 had a dynamic pricing system in place for commonly traded items (currency, armor augments, etc); these items were bought and sold using in-game vendors, and prices would dynamically update game-wide based on supply and demand.

Why can't GGG implement something similar to the above for quick trades of common currencies and other comparable items? Why must players continually be subjected to what I like to call Path of AFK when it comes to completing trades for basic items? I'm not in any way advocating for rare or otherwise highly sought-after items be available from a vendor or auction house, but this all or nothing approach is so gdamn annoying in an otherwise fast paced game.

Instead we get them reinventing the wheel with this web site. I can only hope its the precursor for something more useful. In its current state, it's pretty insulting.