Instructions:Newbie Guide
From TCGwiki
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| Congratulations! If you're reading this, you've just become a member at tcg_exchange! But before you delve right into the exciting world of collecting and trading cards, there are many things for each player to learn. This guide is designed to help you make the most of your time while playing the game. Although this guide is organized in a step-by-step format, each step does not necessarily need to be followed in this exact order. They are listed in this way because I feel that this is the most logical progression from getting started to becoming comfortable with the game. A TCG IS simply a trading card game, but with pixel graphics mocked up to be trading cards. These cards are themed, in our case primarily after anime characters. These cards make up a deck, typically of 20 cards. The objective is to earn cards as well as trade cards with other players to obtain more desired cards. Signing Up. Obviously you must start the game by signing up at the sign up page. But first you must decide on the decks to collect! When you've decided what decks you'd like to start off collecting, fill out the form on the sign-ups entry to get your starter kit. Note that you will be asked for the names of the decks you want to collect, not the characters/series. You can get a total of 4 cards from any assorted normal decks that you wish to start off with. Note that the special decks with the larger cards and retired decks do not qualify for the 4 starter decks. A more detailed run-through on Card & Deck basics:Now that you're up to speed with that, let's move on to the fun stuff: getting started. Ok, so you've signed up, created your card post, and gotten your 12-card TCG_Exchange starter kit. Whew, job well done! So... now what?! Have no fear. Newbie Survival Guide is here to.. umm, guide you, for lack of a better term. From this point on you can let loose and start playing. |
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Before doing anything, you should familiarize yourself with everything about the community. This trading card game is the first of its kind, so chances are you've played nothing like it before. A great place to start is at the community's profile, which lists all of the community's important pages. Be sure to read the introduction, rules, FAQs and guide. These pages explain exactly how the game works. Card Exchange. I also recommend checking out the other game pages listed on the profile, because it's nice to be able to see exactly what the instructional pages are referring to. Learn the exchange rate at the card exchange. The card exchange allows you to either exchange cards for new random cards, or exchange a set number of cards for new choice cards. You can use this center once a week. Like with the cert redemption entry, a "New Week" line will be put down by a mod to signal when you can request your next exchange. Options are as follows:Certificate Exchange. Know the difference between a Rank B certificate and a Rank R certificate. You can redeem a total of 2 certs for each running week. You may also upgrade 2 Rank C for 1 Rank B once a week. Upgraded certs cannot be used the same week they are received. Watch for the "New Week" comment from one of the mods to signal when you can request your next round of redemption. All of the certs can claim any viable card at any time except for Rank R certs. Rank R are limited to retired cards only. Any other cert can claim either normal or retired cards. When you use a certificate to directly enhance your deck (instead of trading the certed card away) you forfeit no-cert mastery (explained later). If you use the certificate exchange to get a card to trade for a card you need, you do not forfeit no-cert mastery. Certificates can be obtained by reaching certain benchmarks like 50+ trades, gaining a level, the lotto, or through winning the weekly contests run by rashiea at the main community. Card Shop & Donation. Keep an eye on the card shop for when free cards are available. Read the entry carefully before commenting to get your cards. These cards are donated by members of the community who are level 9+. Upon reaching level 9 (with the exception of the two spirits, members are allowed to donate cards to the card donation in exchange for prizes. Lotto. The lotto is announced through the main community. However it is run at tcg_lotto. You may purchase a total of 5 tickets per week. Tickets cost 3 cards each. As with any other exchange, 2 normal cards can be substituted by 1 special card for your purchase. Like with any lotto though, winning is all in the luck of the draw. Remember to record your purchase, any prizes you may win, and adjust your card count accordingly. Moderators. Learn who the moderators are. See who else is playing the game. Leave no stone unturned! :D Events. Events are run periodically through the main community. Watch the community for announcements concerning new events. The event entries themselves are hosted at exchange_events. Prizes from these events usually consist of new event cards. Event cards are specialized cards that are usually part of their own sets and can be redeemed at the event exchange for their corresponding prizes. There are also prizes you can claim at the event badge entry for completing event sets. Check the event cards page for exchange and set values. There is no set trade value if you want to trade your event cards. Trade value is determined by each individual player. Some event cards are only available during a particular event and some event cards are avaliable year-round. The only exception to this rule is masterball which only comes when you receive a random event card due to a prize. You cannot claim this particular card as a choice event card. Spirits. Spirits are TCG specialist that live with rashiea and mobiuswolf. Like normal players, they can do what they please with their cards and they do have specific cards that they are trading for. Unlike other players, they do not make offers on your card posts and they can summon new cards for their trade piles whenever they feel like it. They can be fickle creatures when it comes to keeps or future decks they may or may not accept. If you get a spirit card in any of your claims, you get that card plus the set prize amount. For example, you get a choice of 1 out of 3 cards for voting at an icontest. If one of those three cards is an Alana card, you can take her card plus one card for your normal prize. Offering a spirit card to it's corresponding spirit guarantees that you will get the card you are asking for. Offering any other game card is accepted or rejected as the spirits like. Alana doesn't like Uri cards though, and Uri doesn't like Alana cards, so we wouldn't suggest trying those. Images. All images in the community should always be official art. Fan art or wallpapers from fansites do not qualify as official art. You'll notice all decks are made from official art only. So should all badges as well. Any other linked images will be asked to be changed. |
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An "outsource community" is an LJ community in which you archive your mastered decks, trading logs, activity logs, and anything else that doesn't need to be on your main card post. If you intend to play this game for a long time, you will need an outsource community. Cards and logs pile up fast, and your f-list may not appreciate you constantly making tcg-related posts, especially if they're not interested in playing. I call the archive community an "outsource community" because typically a player will use his or her main journal for the main card post. There is nothing wrong with creating a community for everything related to tcg_exchange, including your card post, and some people have done this. However, it is my personal opinion that putting a card post on your main journal is more likely to draw the attention of your f-list, and there are rewards for referring people to the game ;) |
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It's easy to be overwhelmed in this game if you're not organized. Here are some tips to stay on top of things: Bookmark important pages. There are certain pages that you'll be visiting more frequently than others, so make it easier on yourself by making them a simple click away. I definitely recommend bookmarking your own card post, the Affiliate List, Card Exchange, Certificate Exchange, Event Badges and Deck Mastery. Use tabs. You might want to have your card post handy while you're browsing other players' posts. Browser tabs make it easy to have multiple pages open at once. Organize your cards. Community policy requires you to save your cards and upload them onto either your own server or a free image sharing site like Photobucket. So when you save your cards, put them in a place you can locate easily. You might want to create folders for the decks or series you are collecting; whatever works best for you. The same goes for uploading; sites like Photobucket often let you organize your images with folders, so make sure you have a separate folder specifically for your cards. |
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If people are going to be looking at your card post frequently, don't you want to make it as easy as possible for them to find what they need? Here's how: Watch your colors. Avoid super bright colors in your table. It's hard to read anything if the background is neon green. The standard template has a gray color scheme. You might not find it very exciting, but notice how easy it is on the eyes. 1. YOUR NAME. Self explanatory! Also, you can find a template for a player badge on the same page as the card post template. |
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exchange_trade is the official trading community where players can list the decks that they are collecting. It is very helpful for finding other players who need/want the cards that you have to trade, and it helps other people find their way to you. Make sure you join and watch that community! When posting: Use the tags. List all the decks you are collecting in the tags field. That way, when someone goes to the master tag list and clicks on the name of a deck you are collecting, your post will show up. Don't forget the link! Sometimes we get so excited about what we are collecting that we forget to include the link to our card post. Don't forget ;) Keep it updated. Make sure the list of what you're collecting stays current, especially if you list the specific cards in a deck that you're missing. Few things are more disappointing in this game than thinking that you have a card to trade and, upon going to the card post, finding out that the person already has the card. Re-post sparingly. In the interest of saving every member's f-lists, avoid repeatedly posting to exchange_trade. If you've used the tags, someone with the cards you need will find you. Instead, edit your old post when you make changes and include a note that states when you last updated. If you feel that a new post is in order because your interests and/or priorities have changed, make sure you delete your old post. Make Use of the Tag List. There are definitely other ways to organize yourself, but the tag list really helps when you are doing prize claims, and none of the cards are from decks you are actively collecting. You can simply check the tags and perhaps choose the cards from claims based on what others need (and maybe you can make a trade!). |
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I suppose this is another way to say "follow the rules and don't cheat," but being fair also involves playing the game in a way that gives every player equal advantage when trading. As indicated in the previous step, exchange_trade is a good way to find people who need cards you have. You can also manually navigate to different decks by checking out the player list [link]. Finding Cards You Want. You can browse each of the member's page with the link above. In this way you can get an idea of what cards you're collecting are actually out there. For people who have cards you want, you may want to take note of the decks that they're collecting, so you can get the cards they need through claims! |
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Be Polite. Pretty straightforward, play nice! Not everyone will want to go through with every trade. Also make sure to try to read what people say in regards to what they're actually accepting, and try to offer people higher priority cards whenever possible. Good manners can go a long way when you're dealing with people. It's not necessary to say "May I please trade this x card for your y card?" In fact, it's pretty much considered standard in this community to simply say "X card for y card?" when offering a trade. However, it's a good idea to say thank you when a trade is completed. Not only is it polite, but it lets the other person know that you acknowledge the completed transaction. And when you request something at the Card Exchange, Certificate Exchange, or Card Shop, it doesn't hurt to say please. :) Patience is a virtue! I have found the mods here are exceptionally fast considering the amount of work they do to keep this place running, but if things are taking a couple of days, just remember that things come up and they'll get to your claim, badge, etc. asap! In general for all members don't expect all trade offers or all prize claims to be answered immediately after you post them. Note: If the last card you need for a mastery, is pending at the Card Exchange or Certificate Redemption, you can still claim the mastery, while providing a link to the pending card. This only applies as long as it is your own cert or exchange comment though! It does not apply if someone else is getting the card(s) for you. |
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The way to get more cards for trading is to contribute to tcg_exchange's affiliated communities. Remember: The more you contribute, the more cards you receive. So whenever you're in need of more cards, what should you do? Contribute! Know your limits. Of course, we can't expect you to participate in everything every week (but if you can, that's great!). Rather than making icons for 15+ communities one week and then none the next week because you're burnt out, pick out a few communities that you would like to participate in regularly. This way, you'll have a steady flow of cards coming in every week. Also, remember that most affiliated icontests offer cards for simply voting, which takes much less time and energy than making icons. While the prizes for voting are generally smaller, it is better to get some cards than none at all, so if your time is very limited you can focus on voting in more communities instead of submitting to a few communities. Note: You do not have to be a graphic maker to participate in tcg_exchange, as simply voting in these communities' contests rewards you cards! In fact, in this past week, I earned 23 cards by voting alone!BE TIMELY. "On time" means putting your prize claims in before the "New Week" comment appears on the affiliate's prize page. In other words, the time to put your claims in for a particular week in an icontest is while the week is still open. An icontest week lasts from the beginning of the submission period to the end of the voting period (when results are posted). I cannot emphasize this enough. LATE IS BAD. Imagine you have just finished washing a mountain of dishes. You are relieved that you have finally finished the job, when someone walks up to the sink and drops in another dirty plate. It's irritating, isn't it? It's the same when someone submits a claim for a week that has already ended. Please don't do it. The only exceptions are prize claims for winning in icontests, since those do not need to be confirmed by affiliate mods. Submitting claims early is also not a good idea. Mods will not answer your early claim until the correct week anyway, which makes it more likely for your claim to be overlooked because it will be buried in last week's answered claims. If you're new to the community and have been participating at affiliates, we're sorry that those activities can't be claimed. Only participation dated after the date of your sign-up is viable for prizes in our community. From there on out, you're good to go. Having trouble claiming on time? Here's a tip: Fill out your claims as you contribute. Open up notepad or other text-editor and make a template for your prize claims, like this:
...and just fill in the sections as you go so that you can just copy and paste the claims into the prize pages right away. Another tip: Make templates for every community and every type of contribution within each community. That way, all you have to do is copy/paste the link and change the week number and date. Then just copy/paste into the correct affiliate prize page! Doing this as you do the contributions ensures that you will never put in a late claim. Every claim should have the following: Be accurate. Typos happen; it's a fact of life. It's always a good idea to double check your claims before hitting that "Post Comment" button. Always check that the community for which you are posting, week number, contribution and contribution links are correct. If you make a mistake on the date, don't worry about it, it's not super important. If you're claiming a choice card and you want to change your choice after positing your claim, try to do so before the week ends. Once the prize has been handed out, your choice cannot be changed. Also, please edit/re-post claims sparingly. Every time some one edits a comment, mods get an extra notification in their email inboxes that doesn't thread with the rest of the prize claims. |
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Keeping good records is essential in this game. It helps you keep track of what you've done and it helps mods verify your activity when you claim events like trading 2000+ times. Number your trades and contributions. It's a lot easier to number your activity from the very beginning than to go back and count what you've done every so often. Your contribution count is separate from your trade count. You should also know what can and cannot be counted:
Check your card count. You can't exactly number your cards like trades and contributions, so you'll have to count your cards once in a while. Add to your total as you receive new cards for contributing; this is usually a fairly accurate way to keep track of how many cards you have. Tip: Make your card table wide enough for 10 cards to fill one line. It's easier to count things in groups of ten. Level Up. Levels are determined by your pure card count. Pure refers to a single count per card regardless of type. Normal, special, event, and spirit cards all count as 1 card each for your total count. Certificates do not count as anything towards your count. Claim your new levels here to get your prizes. Also note that there is no de-leveling in this game. If your card count drops below your claimed level for whatever reason, you stay at that level still until you reach the next one. You do not reduce your level or re-claim level up once you are back to your previous level again. Example: If you were at level 6 but accidentally dropped down to level 5 because you got rid of too many cards in the lotto, you stay at level 6 until you earn enough cards to claim level 7. Link everything! Each trade and contribution should be linked to the its respective comment thread. This is needed for verification purposes, plus you'll be able backtrack if your mis-typed something in your logs. Keep backups. Make a backup .txt file for all of your tcg-related posts. You never know when browser, computer or electrical problems will interrupt you in the middle of editing your card post. Also, the "Delete Entry" button is dangerously close to the "Save Entry" button. If you're one of those trigger-happy game players Mastery. Mastery is when you complete any given deck that you are collecting. This means you get to go claim your prize and badge here. Remember that all logs must be up-to-date with your claim to prove your mastery as well as displaying the full deck on your entry. Your provided link should be to where the mastered deck is located. Navigation to your card post and logs should be easily accessible to speed up the claim check and getting your prizes. Once you have mastered a deck, you can no longer trade those cards. For this reason, many players create "mastery pages" that they keep their mastered decks on separate from their active card post. You'll also want to keep track of your number of mastered decks. There's another nifty prizes for certain mastery markers at the event badge entry. Collected event sets are the only decks that do not count towards your mastery count for these prizes. If you accidentally request the wrong choice card in your mastery you can change your request only if you can link to proof in your logs of where you got the card you accidentally requested. This proof must be time stamped earlier than your mastery claim. State which card was wrong and what card you would like to replace it clearly with the linked proof. This is the only choice card that can be changed after being handed out, and only under these specific circumstances. The main ways event badges can be earned: |
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Now that you've learned how to play the game (and play it well!), it's important to keep up! While you don't need to be available to trade 24/7, you'll need to be fairly active. If you let trade requests and prize claims build up, it is very time consuming to catch up. People are generally more likely to make trade offers with those who are known to respond regularly. If there are certain time periods when you cannot be present to update your card post and respond to trades, be sure to declare a hiatus. This lets other players know to refrain from offering urgent trade requests. It is also helpful to place a notice on the top of your card page, so other players know that you're currently not active. Some people choose to just go on a semi-hiatus, where they still respond to trades, but don't keep active elsewhere. It's still encouraged to try to respond to trades at least once a week if your status is anything except full hiatus. Other players may need your cards to declare their mastery, so this really helps other players out! Be sure to check in with the mods at the same place to let them know when you come back so they can update your status on the player list for you. Periodically, the community has activity checks. If you do not respond to these, you will be removed from the member list and will have to start all over again if you want to keep playing! Therefore, make sure you are watching tcg_exchange for updates and news. That's about it! If you ever have questions, check the community's FAQ and guide! If you still can't find the answer try one of these pages: FAQ or the guide. If you have a question about your claims or various other things and need a moderator go to the ask-a-moderator page! Have fun! |
credits: hybrid-genesis for textures. characters/series (from top to bottom): purin fon/tokyo mew mew, yukino miyazawa/kare kano, yuki sohma/fruits basket, kahoko hino/la corda d'oro, hagumi hanamoto & ayumi yamada/honey & clover, yuya fukushima/love berrish, maria minamino/minto na bokura, touya/shinshi doumei cross, tamaki suou/ouran high school host club, minako aino/codename wa sailor v, kobato hanato/kobato. all images colored by xx_lotus_xx.
