Trading Cards
Basic Trading
How do I trade cards?
How many cards can I trade in a single offer?
How many trade offers can I post?
How long does a posted trade offer last?
Informative
Who is eligible to trade cards?
Which cards may be traded?
Can I undo a trade after it's been accepted?
How much are my cards worth in trade value?
Advanced Trading
How can I transfer a large amount of cards?
What third-party trading tools can I use to make trading
easier?
How can I develop my own trading tool?
Troubleshooting
I received my trading key. Why can't I trade?
I received a blank trading key. What should I do?
Basic Trading
How do I trade cards?
Sanctum uses offline web trading. You use your web browser to post trades,
browse trade offers, and accept trades. Transactions (accepted trades) are immediately
applied to your account.
To trade cards:
- Click the trade
cards link in the menu bar along the left edge of this page.
(The menu bar should always be visible on the left edge of every page at this
site.)
- Sign up for a trading key if you haven't already.
- Log in in using your account name, password, and trading key.
From here, you can do the following:
- Browse all trade offers that have already been posted.
- Accept any trade offers.
- Post your own trade offers.
- Edit or withdraw any offers you previously posted.
You can trade cards from any computer that has a web browser, even if you don't
have Sanctum installed on it.
How many cards can I trade in
a single offer? Each half of a trade offer can list up to 4 different
card types, and up to 9 of each card. So the largest possible trade offer is
36 cards for 36 cards.
How many trade offers can I
post? Each ranked account can have 30 posted offers at any time.
If you already have 30 offers posted, you can't post a new one.
How long does a posted trade
last? Unaccepted trade offers expire after 7 full days.
Informative
Who is eligible to trade cards?
To trade cards, your account must be ranked. All ranked accounts may
trade cards; unranked accounts cannot. (An account becomes ranked when you buy
enough cards for it.)
Which cards may be traded?
Normally, you may trade any cards you own. It's entirely up to you.
All newly purchased cards cannot be traded for a 7-day waiting period. This
is a security measure to limit fraud.
Can I undo a trade after it's been
accepted? No. All trades are final. Posting a trade correctly is
your responsibility.
On your own, you may try to find the player who accepted your trade, and ask
him or her to post the trade backward. He or she is under no obligation to agree.
NIOGA cannot assist you in finding the person, and will not assist you in twisting
the person's arm.
How much are my cards worth in trade
value? NIOGA is forbidden by law to establish any "official"
card values, other than our sale prices. "Officially", we must consider
every Rare to be equal to any other Rare, and so on.
However, NIOGA authorizes some Sanctum single-card resellers, who are free
to set their own prices. In addition, a few player-run sites post their own
unofficial trade values pages. Generally, these sites reflect a consensus
of card values established by players through years of experience. A wise trader
may consult any or all of these sites and form his or her own opinion.
Authorized Resellers will sell you cards at their listed prices. These transactions
are fully guaranteed by NIOGA, so they're as safe as buying directly from us.
(To actually transfer the cards, you must post regular trades, so it does require
a bit of effort on your part.) Note that buying singles from a reseller will
always be more expensive than buying an equivalent amount of random packs
from NIOGA. You pay a premium to be able to choose exactly what you get.
Player-run card value sites are all unofficial. Remember that any values
stated on these sites are the site owners' opinions, not facts.
Advanced Trading
How can I transfer a large amount
of cards?
- You can use the Account Transfer tool to transfer all cards from
one account to another. Drawback: This permanently closes the
source account.
- Or, just post your cards in regular trade offers from one account, then
log in with the other account and accept them. Repeat as necessary. Drawback:
That may be a lot of posting!
Alternatively, you could use Uberduppy's Trade Helper.
It has a feature that automates large transfers between two accounts.
What third-party trading tools
can I use to make trading easier? Some third-party developers have
written their own applications that can "talk to" the Sanctum trade
pages. A major benefit of these trade tools is automatic trade evaluation,
where the tool automatically fetches all trade offers currently posted,
evaluates them according to your own set of card values, and displays the results
in a nice report mode. This makes it much easier to shop
for the "best" trades!
- Uberduppy's Trade Helper. Automatic trade evaluation, automated card
transfers, customizable card values, with a Java Swing interface. All uses
of Uberduppy's Trade Helper are fully guaranteed by NIOGA.
How can I develop my own trading
tool? Briefly, you just need to write an app that can (a) post HTTP
to Sanctum's trade server, and (b) parse the HTML on a Sanctum trade page. All
trade pages are public, so the simplest way to see what format you need to handle
is to just log in manually, visit a page, and View Source. Handling (b) is up
to you.
You may use any programming language and platform you like, as long as it can
do (a) and (b). Successful trade bots have already been written in Visual Basic
and Java under Windows.
See the NIOGA Usage
Agreement for some restrictions on trade helper development.
Troubleshooting
I received my trading key. Why can't I trade?
Only ranked accounts may trade cards.
I received a blank trading key. What should I do?
Do this:
- Go to the trade
cards site.
- Click this link: “If you don't have a trading key yet, go here.”
- Not that link: “If you have forgotten
your trading key, go here.”
You must have done #3 before you ever did #2. Try again, and just do #2.
v2.20.00 Last updated 2009/03/21
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