| Trading Card Games 101 |
What are TCGs?
TCGS stand for Trading Card Games, created by Calico back in 2002. Ever seen Sailor Moon trading cards like these? TCGs are online version of that - You get cards, and trade with other people in order to get all the cards from a set. The only difference is that you earn them by playing games and participating in various activities instead of using money. Personally I prefer this way since it keeps you occupied, and you make many friends through TCGs! The TCG world today consists of many types of TCGs to suit different people's tastes. You can access them through a TCG directory such as TCG-licious.org.Giving your Trade Post a Home
One requirement for all TCG players is to have some sort of webspace to showcase their card collections. Many people own TCG collectives (Such as mine at Koi Hanabi) to put them, but if you don't have your own domain free webhosts would work as well. Try NOT to signup with hosts such as Angelfire as they give you limited amount of space and bandwidth, not to mention all the pop-ups!Therefore for those with no hosts I suggest setting up your own Livejournal account, and use each journal entry as a post for one TCG. It is extremely convenient to use as long as you have some HTML knowledge to organize the cards. You don't even have to know how to make your own layouts! For an example of a basic Livejournal TCG post, check out Kaori's TCG Journal =)
Another alternative is that if you can make your own layouts, there are domains dedicated to hosting TCG games and trade posts such as clavis-sama.com ♥
Trade Post Specifics
For each card page there should be a few basic categories to organize your cards in, outlined as follows. They are ordered according to priority:| Cards Collecting | For cards you are mainly collecting at the moment and will be reluctant to trade away. People usually won't ask to trade for these cards unless they're really desperate. |
| Future Collections | Cards that you will be collecting after finishing up your main collections. You may decide to trade them away if someone offered you a card from your main collections or one that you absolutely love. |
| Random Keeps | Individual cards that you decided to keep "just because", but you are not going to collect the entire set. They may be tradeable if someone offered you a card from a set you are collecting at the moment. |
| For Trade | Cards that you do not plan on keeping and are available for trading with others. |
| Pending Trades | Put cards that either you offered to someone and is waiting for a reply. That way other people won't ask to trade for the same card and cause confusion. |
And since some TCGs may have different card types with different sizes (ex: Genki Beam has several card sizes already!), within each category above you might want to subdivide your cards according to card type. Not only it makes the page look more uniform by grouping the same size cards together in filename alphabetical order, some people may only want a certain type of cards and thus makes it easier for them to navigate through your post.
Some TCGs may not only give you cards, but miscellanous goodies such as coupons, currency, raffle tickets, lotto tickets, or shop items as well. If that is the case you may want to have a separate section to put them.
I also advise that you organize your cards in alphabetical order by filename under each category, keeping cards from the same set together. Sometimes people just scatter their cards all over, when other members (who may have something you want!) look at the postt, they thought you may not have a card they want so they don't ask you for trade when in reality they come later on the page.
Your Trade Log
Another major requirement is to have trade logs on each card page that track what cards you traded and earned, and through what activity. Nowadays TCGs require you to track almost everything, from trades with other members to specific cards you got from which game, because TCGs became so complicated xD. Below is a sample:| June 20th, 2006: Traded East012 for NebulaChain's Koha003. June 18th, 2006: Got Mikitty001, Koikana018, and Goto Maki Chip from playing Blurred Vision |
Having a detailed trade log makes member checks easier, and is easier for you to record your own cards. Sometimes you have TOO many cards and it can gets confusing XD
Get trading!
Now that your trade post is all set up and you are officially on the member list (some TCGs ask you to give them a shout when you put the cards up before you do anything else), you may start looking through what other members have and ask them to trade! Before you give them your offer, please look carefully what they would and would not trade away in order not to waste both of your time XD Unless you have some special arrangements of course ;)And note that everyone trade their cards differently, meaning not everyone has a trade form, some ask you to email them or comment on the entry if they have a Livejournal trade post.
When you contact them, simply ask politely whether they will want to trade away their card ### for your card ###. Give them the URL to your trade post as well so they can look over your collection and find something they want to trade with. If they agree to your trade, you can either tell them to take the cards off your site, or send the cards to them as email attachments.
While you wait for a response, you can put any cards you saved for a trade into a Pending trades section so other people won't ask for them.
If they refuse it's OK too, no need to be upset. After you received your card from the other member, take down the card you traded away to them and put up your new card in the appropriate category, then mark the trade in your trade log. You're all set! =) pt:HaloScan('oxhuntbkox3');" target="_self">
