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 that look like www.cassidy.milkbaeri.net or www.tcg.milkbaeri.net), another alternative is to host yours on a site like Dreamwidth if you aren't familiar or experienced with coding or Neocities if you have some experience with coding but maybe not PHP or other stuff. Both (or other similar alternatives) 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. Members of SPARKLING! would need a separate count for both Ribbons and EXP each! 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. Typically, players WON'T trade away cards from these decks unless stated/allowed otherwise (it varies by player)! 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 up-to-date log of every activity and trade made including any gifts, 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 an off-site back up because while the TCG does 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 an admin or join our Discord first and ask there.

SPARKLING! RELATED SECTIONS

Now that we've covered the basic, more general sections a trade post for any TCG needs, we'll cover some additional sections that would be good to have specifically for SPARKLING! (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, take a look through our SPARKLING! Glossary and/or feel free to ask an admin, another member, or in our Discord!

PRODUCER CARDS As a reminder, SPARKLING!'s member cards are called "Producer Cards" to match the TCG theme but they serve the same purpose as any other TCG's MCs and thus can also be called one interchangeably. When you trade with other players, you can collect their Producer Cards as well so having a section to display them is encouraged! It can also be used as a visual tracker for which Producer Cards you have and don't have yet, as you can receive rewards for collecting sets of unique Producer Cards. Training IDs are smaller versions of our Producer Cards so if you want to use those to help track Training Journal rewards for Training Logs but don't want to use the graphic tracker, you can make a section to store/display the IDs you collect during the month and use that aas a tracker instead!

MILESTONES Another common feature in TCGs are event cards but SPARKLING! has two kinds: Site and Player Milestones. While you can also make a section to display them just like you would for collected Producer Cards, we recommend having separate sections for them! Site Milestones are, as the name implies, site-wide and can be taken by any member if they meet the requirements to. You can also receive rewards for collecting sets of unique Site Milestones! Player Milestones on the other hand CANNOT be used in these milestone sets as they are unique to each member, are are of personal milestones they acheive rather than site-wide milestones.

COUPONS We have a handful of different coupons here which you can begin to accumulate a lot of over time, especially if you're not a frequent user of them. As such, you may want to make a separate section to keep track of/display them all or include it with your currency/other TCG item counts! Displaying them as is fine, but for any that require proof of obtaining them, members may want to link each coupon to that proof or keep a note elsewhere of the associated activity log. You can display each copy of a coupon obtained individually, or use a general total count for each coupon type and keep a note elsewhere of the associated activity log/link proof of obtaining it!

TRAINING JOURNAL Because we have two types of trading rewards at SPARKLING!, how you display and keep track of your trades may slightly differ to other TCGs. As we have both an Audience Cheering graphic to count how many cards you trade/gift away, as well as a Training Log Tracker, you will want to display either or both of them depending on which ones you do/don't use! Some may make a separate section for these while others may include it with their player stats or currency/items section! Some may opt out of using the graphics altogether, and just keep track of Training Activity with a simple numerical count and Training Logs with a text list of names; it's up to you!

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 so of course, those will usually get their own sections as well! Regarding Dream Festival 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 too. For the standalone cards, you may want to create a separate section for them as they are worth 0 to your card worth count so including them with your regular cards if using eTCG will wrongfully inflate your count!

OTHER ITEMS While we don't have many miscellaneous items aside from what has already been mentioned, the ones that we *do* have can be displayed in their own section, such as custom graphics like profile badges, which players also like to show off. If we ever add more features that fit under this section, you can display everything on the same page in their own sections - but feel free to sort and display them as you like! Some members may display them on the same page with the other custom graphics they receive from our various activities, for example. Custom Master Badges on the other hand, can be displayed on your regular masteries page, as they would be replacing the default badge of the deck(s) you redeemed one for!

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!

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 & logs 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 (and mentioned several times throughout our SPARKLING! Guide), 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!