Trade Post

Before you can fully participate in a TCG, you will need a website or web page to host your cards, currencies, etc. This is what we call a Trade Post or Card Post!

While many players will have theirs hosted on a personal domain of their own or someone else's (which is why you may see trade posts at links like www.cassidy.milkbaeri.net), another alternative is to host yours on a site like Dreamwidth or Neocities if you aren't familiar or experienced with coding (or in the case of Neocities, you have some experience with coding but maybe not PHP or other stuff). Both are acceptable so choose whichever one you find easier to use, or suits your needs!

You can always ask for help from other players (our Discord is a great place to easily get in contact with many of them) if you need further assistance, such as where to find and how to use certain scripts and the likes once you become more familiar with them, or if you just have some questions and need a little extra guidance along the way.

TRADE POST SECTIONS

Now what do you put on this trade post? How do you organize it? The bare minimum we ask of players is to have the following sections: player stats, currency, collecting decks, future/keeping decks, trading decks, and detailed logs. It seems like a lot but we'll break down what each section entails!

You can have these sections all on a single page or post, but you can also split them up into separate pages and posts if your main trade post ever becomes too long or you just want to organize it that way. Just make sure to link to each page if you choose to do that so the sections are still accesible!

SECTION	DESCRIPTION
Player Stats	This is basically a mini profile of sorts that states your personal player info! You would include your player name, the date you joined the TCG, your current level (and level badge), a total count of how many cards you've collected, a total count of how much those cards are worth, and any additional info you want to add. The ones mentioned are only the primary details you need to provide!
Currency	This is to display the TCG's currency you've earned so far! All you need here is a total count of how much of each currency you have. In Sakura's case, you would need a separate count for Sakura Flowers and one for Sakura Petals! You can also keep track of the coupons and any other TCG items here, which may also need a total count of each depending on the TCG.
Collecting Decks	These are the decks you are prioritizing first over anything else you want, so players know which decks they should focus on offering cards from first before others! On the members list, we also list a collecting deck which allows players to easily and quickly see which deck you want the most.
Future/Keeping Decks	The two names are interchangeable as players will refer to these sections in both ways but their meaning is the same; essentially, they are decks you are keeping and plan on collecting in the future so you WON'T trade away at the moment! They are also usually decks with the next highest priority after collecting decks, which again, helps players know what to offer you first.
Trading	The last card section we'll cover here is for the decks that you do not plan on collecting or keeping at all, and are free to be traded away! Players will NOT offer you cards from any decks found in this section, unless you allow them to offer "randoms" in which anything is okay – but more on that in the trading with others section of this guide!
Detailed Logs	As the name suggests, we ask players to keep an updated log for both their activity and trades made, in order to track all cards and currencies earned or lost. This is to prevent cheating and to hold players accountable for their progress, as well as provide a back up because while the TCG also saves most of your activity on-site, it does not track everything! We go more in-depth about what we expect for these in the detailed logs section of the guide.

In addition to the above sections, as players become more familiar and experienced with a TCG, they may begin to further organize their trade post with more sections! For example, with the Future/Keeping Decks, some players will separate their cards into different priorities such as 1st/high priority, 2nd/medium priority, 3rd/low priority, and selective/"pretty" keeping – these are just sections to tell other players which decks they'd prefer more over others (for the specific priorities) and which are just select/single cards they like but don't necessarily want to collect the whole deck of (for selective/"pretty" keeping cards).

Also, again, these names are interchangeable and some players may even have different names entirely for some sections as it's really up to you and your personal preference when it comes to further organization and customization of your trade post! But as a new player, you don't need to worry about these details unless you want to; some veteran players aren't even as detailed either despite how long they've played! Once you find what works for you then you don't need to do anything differently unless you want to.

For more inspiration or to use as a reference, feel free to look through our current members' trade posts to get a better idea on how a trade post can look like! if you need any extra help getting things set up or just have questions prior to joining, you can also contact either of the admins or join our Discord first and ask there.

SAKURA RELATED SECTIONS

Now that we've covered the basic sections a trade post needs, we'll go into some additional sections that would be good to have specifically for Sakura (although some sections are also transferable to other TCGs with similar features/additions)! We won't go into too many details about these sections as you can find more information about them in the actual guide but we will summarize them to give you an idea. There may be terminology used that might be confusing or unfamiliar to you too so if you want clarification on anything, feel free to ask!

MEMBER IDs Almost all TCGs will have member cards, or some variation of it, so Sakura is no different! We just calls ours "Member IDs" instead but they're basically the same thing. As you trade with other players, you can collect their Member IDs as well so having a section to display them is encouraged! It can also be used as a visual tracker for which Member IDs you have and don't have yet, as you can get rewarded in this TCG for collecting sets of unique Member IDs.		EVENT CARDS Another common feature in TCGs are event cards and since Sakura has them as well, we recommend making a section to display them just like you would for collected Member IDs! You can also receive rewards for collecting sets of unique event cards so once again, it doesn't hurt to have a visual tracker.
COUPONS Coupons are often found in TCGs as well, but Sakura in particular has a wide variety of them in different rarities. As such, you may want to make a separate section to keep track of them all or include it with your currency/other TCG items! Displaying them as is fine, but many require proof of obtaining them and as players may want to keep track of how many times they've used a single coupon (as some have multiple uses per coupon), you can make note of these details on your trade post itself or set up a separate page, document, etc. to do it.		TRADE METERS Many TCGs will have something called a stamp card, trade card, or another name but they all do the same thing: track how many cards you trade out or gift to someone! At Sakura, we call ours a "trade meter" because the design of our graphic is made to look like a meter bar that fills up the more cards you give away. Depending on the design and player, some may make a separate section for it; others may just include it with their player stats or currency/items section! Some may opt out of using the graphic altogether, and just keep track of this with a simple numerical count; it's up to you!
ACHIEVEMENT BADGES Another feature we have here is something that awards members with a personal badge when they achieve certain milestones and accomplishments, as well as when they participate in events and certain games. As there are many ways to earn them, players can quickly accumulate them and since they're meant to be shown off, they will often make a section to display them!		ACTIVITIES We also have three activities here that are optional to participate in but involve custom-made graphics which players will want—or are required—to display on their trade post as well so of course, those will usually get their own sections as well. In regards to Hanami Decks, if a player masters another player's deck then they will likely display it with their regular deck masteries so that is something you can do as well!

If you take a look at Cassidy's trade post, you can see that her index page has all of the above mentioned sections (with the activities on a separate page like so), separated and organized in a way that makes sense for her - but not all other players will format their trade post the same way!

MERCHANDISE & OTHER ITEMS

Lastly, since we have "merchandise" (which are essentially items that can be purchased with sakura petals to decorate your trade post with) available, players who collect them will make a new section for them as well. Within this section (or page), they will likely sort those items by merchandise type as we currently have 5 of them (CDs, DVDs, games, light novels, and manga)! There are also other items like custom graphics, such as past profile badges and level badges, which players also like to show off and display. These can all have their own sections on the same page, like so but feel free to sort and display them as you like!

TRADING METHOD

The final component you'll need for your trade post is a trading method. This will typically be a form players can fill out to submit trade offers, either one of your own creation through code or an external site, or one that's already included with a trade post management script!

Forms are the most convenient and easiest trading method (and if you use a script like eTCG then once a trade form is submitted, it pulls the requested cards from your trade pile and puts it into a pending section, so no other player can request them unless you have duplicates or reject the trade) BUT for those who don't have access to or know how to make one, you can also set up a trade offers post on our forums or a site like Dreamwidth. With this method, other players will have to post in/comment on it with their trade offers and you would have to respond to them manually, then update your trade post & logs accordingly!

Similarly, you can choose to just receive trade offers through a given email address which works the same way as above, but players will manually send an email with their offer instead. You would still need to respond to it and update your trade post & lost manually as well though!

For either alternative method, you could still provide a form that players must copy and paste into their message then fill out but again, it's up to you! It's also possible to receive and conduct trades through Discord or forum PM (or other messaging service), especially for quick trades that both players can then update their trade post & logs with on their own!

easyTCG

If you look at other players' trade posts, you'll probably notice that almost all of those who are hosted on a domain site use something called easyTCG (also known as "eTCG"); this is a script someone in the TCG community developed to somewhat automate the management of your trade posts and make updating them easier!

It's a very helpful resource and, if you end up hosting your trade post with someone else (in the TCG community), they will likely offer to install this for you and potentially also help you set it up. If not though, you are always welcome to ask for help in the Discord as well and there will be people who'd be happy to assist! But please note, eTCG does not work if you have your trade post on a site like Dreamwidth or Neocities, as they don't allow the use of PHP and mySQL which is what this script requires.

However, it's not necessary to use at all if you don't want to for whatever reason! You can still have a hosted trade post and choose to update things manually; it's all up to you!