51

(4 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

After looking at it again, it may be sorting by rarity then color, with commons showing up first sorted by color, then uncommons sorted by color, then rares sorted by color.  As I was noticing 'chunks' of a color within a set, but not a complete color sort.   If it sorted by color, then alphabetical that would be fine also, but as it is, it makes it a bit odd looking at a visual spoiler. 

This rarity sort becomes more obvious when looking at it in list view.  I often use the spoiler mode view.  It would be easier for me to skim over the set looking for a card that way than it would be to remember what rarity it was printed at.  It would make the visual spoiler mode more logical to me as I'm browsing.  In fact it would just be nice to be able to define the secondary sort.

52

(4 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

What I don't like is when you sort by edition, they are no longer in a logical order.  It used to sort by set, then alphabetical, but now the secondary order seems random.

53

(2 replies, posted in Decks and Deckbuilding)

Maybe some mana rocks like Thran Dynamo to power out bigger X spells?  Also Heartless Hidetsugu loves a Basilisk Collar or Loxodon Warhammer

Fissure is also useful at dealing with creatures you can't burn to death, or problem lands.

Bump.  Managed to pick up 3 of the 4 factories.  Now seeking Winter.

55

(10 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

Kizudarake wrote:
Pewter wrote:

What does anyone else think about using bitcoins for purchases? No paypal fees. Fast transaction times. No messing around with different currencies. Easy to implement and easy to use. Personally, I would love if this site would/could implement bitcoins as an alternative to fiat currencies.
Thoughts, comments?

Bitcoin is ridiculous and nearly impossible to transfer from fake money to money backed by real governments. At least you can spend money acquired from PayPal in real stores.

Seriously, try changing your Bitcoin to dollars.

Why do you need to?  ABU games takes Bitcoin.

I got used to the ad on the main profile page telling me what cards were available for sale from my lists... This appears to have been replaced with a generic ad that my adblock is blocking.  This means I may now actually have to start using the 'interesting cards from sellers' stream, but I noticed that that stream doesn't list the edition or the condition icons of the 'interesting cards'.  Can we get that added?

These all sound like positive changes.  Thanks for the update. smile

58

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

elpablo wrote:

On building the Deckbox brand...

  • Another idea for making money: sell Deckbox-branded merchandise, e.g. t-shirts, sleeves, playmats, DECKBOXES, scorepads, pens. Maybe only the strongest supporters will buy it, but it will also help get the Deckbox name out there to players at LGSs and kitchen tables.

  • Give some sort of bonuses for building up user scores. People love "leveling-up"! This could mean free Premium, exclusive subforums, etc.

  • Communicate better. You don't have the time, so get volunteers to do this for you. Send out the missing newsletter and have a presence on Facebook and the like - especially Reddit!

I'd buy some deckbox sleeves, box and dice. smile

These kinds of things can be filled on demand to as long as the customer understands the lead time.

I would totally buy into premium if A) it cost a little less, and B) let me "level up" to some benefit.  Maybe, you could get "free" merchandice by making sells/purchases through deck box like game stop does with their power up rewards.  Come to think of it... they give you a full magazine and access to lots of discounts for only $10-$15 a month.

I know i know you're only one guy, but other businesses have set a precedent for what's expected from premium memberships. Right now the offerings are not up to par so people aren't sure what to do.

Maybe this has changed, but to get custom sleeves is one of the reasons that PucaTrade had to do a kickstarter type project.  At the time they had to order a pretty large quantity in order to get their brand on them.

Chessex will make custom dice.

59

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

sebi wrote:
AsymptomaticPyrexia wrote:

PucaTrade recently made some big changes involving international trades. They are reserving international trading for Uncommon and Rare tier members only. The difference is that they raised the conversation in a podcast, received lots of feedback from their users, and then they sent out a mass email letting everyone know ahead of time when the changes will take place. This allowed their users to make whatever preparations they needed to make for a smoother transition.

Under email notifications, I've always had the box next to "I want to receive Deckbox newsletters" checked. I've been using Deckbox for years and have never received a single email regarding Deckbox updates or changes. I think this may be one of the things that users would appreciate. A little warning could go a long way.

I appreciate that and you are completely right. I applaud PucaTrade for their efforts too. But please take a look at their about page: https://pucatrade.com/about

I am a single guy operating a website that covers perhaps half of the number of trades that they do, with many more features, free for all users, and I don't even have an income for myself. They have 9 employees.

I just cannot do what they do, humanly I cannot do the work of 9 people.

For what it's worth PucaTrade is a great site, but I really prefer trading on Deckbox most of the time.   They are both great sites, and I use both of them, but I spend a lot more time on Deckbox even with your team of one, and it feels more like a community to me.  I was also on PucaTrade before they did their indiegogo or kickstarter or w/e it was to raise funds, and their site was really a lot more low budget/scaled down then than what it is now.   I don't think their premium features are worth $5 either, but I've paid it a few times when I needed to send someone points, but I also always cancel it before the next month.  I really think there's a sticker shock there when the site costs more than a booster pack in Wal-Mart.   If your premium was  $10-15 a year and also had some cool new features, I would consider it a lot more reasonable.

60

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

sebi wrote:

True, that is pretty important. They can do that I think because they collect the money from buyers first hand and then issue payments to the seller later when all has cleared.

They charge you another set of paypal fees for this I assume, on top of the fees for the first paypal transaction, and their 10% commission. Which means sellers get way less money, but buyers are more confortable placing orders.

The problem is, when we launched, people even complained of the 6.9% we charged - which was already less than everything else, if we had another set of paypal fees, feedback would have been even worse.

Hard to enter that market, and also listen to your users. Tcgplayer can afford to bully everyone since they are the big dude in the room. (like they repeatedly threatened to sue me after we opened the marketplace because we were still using pricing data from them - which incidentally is public on their website smile ).

Also they have employees and much, much much MUCH more money than deckbox has (because deckbox has none) smile and an existing gigantic customer base of buyers. If they please them, they can ask for whatever they want from the sellers.

That's my take on it at least, not sure how much I'm right about that.

I have a level 3 seller account on TCG player, so I can shed some light on how their process works.  They do not charge you the PayPal fees on top of their fees,  but rather all PayPal payments (from buyers) are made to them directly and their fees are passed on to you as a seller in TCG's percentage.  Their fees are slightly less than or just on par with the combined fees of PayPal + eBay.  The money is then held until the items are confirmed to have been delivered (via tracking or x number of days).  Once the items have been delivered to the customer they will pay you for those items, but they only pay out once or twice a week meaning a significant delay between the time that you sell and the time you get paid.  They pay you by directly depositing the money into your bank account.

When you aren't using a premium service like the crystal commerce site to list on TCG player you have to list each item individually.  This is done through a very clunky interface where you search for the card you want to add, then bring up the page for the exact edition you want to list, then price each copy of that card you have based on condition.  If you want to clear your inventory you have to do it one card at a time by loading that card's page and hitting clear all prices for this card.  When viewing your inventory they do not list out these prices, so to even view what you have a card listed at, you have to bring up the page for that card. 

Then they enforce very strict numbers on how many cards you can list based on your seller level.  All the information for how this works is public on their page if you go looking for it, and doesn't seem too bad until you get up to listing more than 100 items at a time.  Keeping that inventory manually synchronized with trades on deckbox, even for a user with slow sales is a lot of work, and is the primary reason I stopped selling there.  The time investment in listing all of my cards through their interface which was not as nice as deckbox was just not worth it.   However if my primary focus were selling and not trading/inventory management I would have chose TCG player, because it is much easier to make sales there.  So the best way to compete with them is not to try to get sellers to move from one site to the other, but provide a way where they can sell the same inventory on both.

Large vendors with a real store inventory manage it with the third party tools which allow them to sell the same inventory on multiple sites without overselling.  There are at least two sources for this as they are both listed on TCG player's page about listing items.

61

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

sebi wrote:

Merged and reopened this thread.

gumgodMTG, I did not abandon the marketplace, and will continue to support it. I thought it will be much bigger too, and there would be no need for premium accounts. Sadly, that was completely false.

We do have one big store selling there already http://deckbox.org/users/adventureson

I have bought from them several times, and they are why I think this feature would work.  They have more items available than most regular users, and great shipping prices.  With the auto match of cards on my wish list I'm able to quickly find more cards that I need and add them to the cart.  Having one site (deckbox) with my wish list organized is an amazing way to shop, I just wish there were more vendors here to order from.

62

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

sebi wrote:
elpablo wrote:

On another note, have you thought of selling the site (or a portion of it)? to get the capitol you need to build a team and "do this for a living"?

Nobody will pay for the website, and then also pay me money to do what I do now for free, when the website has negative profits, and its features are seen as not worthy to be paid for by its user base.

There are a ton of features on this site that make it awesome, but I think that monetizing it through the market place was a better plan.  Keeping it free for your users allows you to expand your user base easier.  You really should look into getting more large scale businesses selling on deckbox.  More competition is very good for the market, and more transactions would bring you more income. 

I have sold on TCG player, and their interface for listing items is terrible.  Managing more than 100 items using their web interface is enough to give you migraines.  I don't believe the sellers that are successful there are listing thousands of items using their interface, but rather are synchronizing their inventory using a third party such as http://www.crystalcommerce.com/  This means that if you can get those third party sync sites to incorporate your website into their sync service then sellers that are already using their service can easily list their thousands of items here too.  I'm sure this would be some work for you, but I think it is something worth looking into, and a way to help you better compete with big vendors like e-bay, amazon and tcg player. If those same sellers that are selling on e-bay/tcg/amazon are also selling here, then I'd rather buy here and have it automatically enter those items into my inventory.

63

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

Personally I think the site should focus on recruiting more sellers.  I often check deckbox for a card before checking TCG player, but many times TCG player will have the card, or will have it substantially cheaper (usually due to shipping charges). I find this odd as deckbox typically has lower fees than TCG player, and the money is transferred instantly to PayPal as opposed to the approximate 1 week wait on TCG, also it's so much easier to manage your inventory on deckbox as an individual user than it is on TCG player as an individual seller.  I do understand that there are premium services that will sync your inventory with TCG player for you, if Deckbox could add (or advertise if it already exists) compatibility with these same services (think http://www.crystalcommerce.com) I think they could get a lot more sellers on here.

64

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

9700377 wrote:

The auto trade is apparently something about automatically adding cards to your trade list, not... automatically trading your cards.

I'm still not interested.  I think this is something you should survey users on.  The way I build decks and use the site may be different than the way others use it.  But to me this feature would add nothing.

I feel that a move like this alienates users as even though features were not specifically removed from free users, free users will now feel like they are lower priority.  This is creating a caste system of users if you will, and makes it seem like the updates that have been promised for so long (like notes on cards) will not actually be given to them (free users) since they are no longer the priority.   I understand Deckbox wanting to make some money, but $7 a month is too much.

more edits:
I know I am always vocal about the changes, but usually I'm very positive about it.  I don't particularly like this change in focus for the site.  I do wish you'd bring back flags mattering on the 'interesting cards for trade' stream.

65

(179 replies, posted in Announcements)

I understand the need to monetize the site, but I thought that was what the marketplace was supposed to do.  I've been buying and selling cards on here, and I paid the deposit for the option to sell.

I've seen the ads return (when surfing on my ipad - I have adblock on all my other devices) and I didn't say anything about that.  But why are you now trying to push users to pay you more?  And why is it so expensive? $6.99 a month? really?  The ability to add some notes to cards is not worth that.  Also there are other sites for private deck lists for free if someone really needs that feature.  There's nothing advertised on the premium page that justifies that price tag to me.   

Also since I saw it on the page, I feel the need to say that I don't think I'd want auto-trade either.  That sounds like a mess.   It almost makes sense on Pucatrade where you would get credits for cards, but cards for cards?  Nope.  That's why I sell cards, that's auto trade to me.  - Cards auto trade into money, then I use money to buy cards I want.  Deckbox takes a cut (possibly both ways depending on if I can find the card on here or not).  To put some perspective on this,  I've canceled 17 trades in the past week alone due to not being things I was prioritizing/just didn't want to trade x for y even though values were similar.  Unless you mean you're calling the auto match feature auto trade and making it only available to people who pay, that would be really sad.

I'm disappointed by this change.

66

(2 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

Clicked on each card, and they all seem to be modern legal.  I made a copy of it and it came up as a modern deck, so maybe use the tools to make a copy and delete the original?

http://deckbox.org/sets/855551

Discuss with seller option on orders that haven't been placed yet seems to no longer be available.  So if I want to ask about a card before ordering it seems that I have to go to that user's profile and use the e-mail feature which is far less convenient.

I'm looking for some old school stuff, but mostly the original English Antiquities Mishra's Factories for my Antiquities set.  I still need one of each illustration.  Looking to go by TCG mid (or appropriate matching condition) on them since they do not have proper pricing on deckbox (Each illustration should have it's own price as they are different rarities and vary significantly in value).  I am ok with some play wear, but may adjust the price depending on condition. 

I also still need Hurkyl's Recall, Candelabra and Workshop, but I don't expect to get those last two any time soon (Though I'd probably throw a Time Vault at one of them if anyone wants to move one).

I would also really like to own a Chaos Orb or Unlimited Edition Sol Ring/Mana Vault if anyone happens to have those for trade.

I have some Modern Masters Chalice of the void that I picked up for myself, but recently decided I'd be ok with trading and I have a Mirrodin Chalice of the void on the way to me (if you happen to be looking for a complete playset).

I also have lots of other goodies on my trade list including JtMS, Shocks, Snapcaster FTV Vesuvas, Beta Sinkhole and such. 

Thanks for reading all that and have a great day!

Kizudarake wrote:
gumgodMTG wrote:

I noticed that on the wishlist "edition printed in" is no longer a filter option, but "edition owned" seems to do what I wanted.  Not sure if this was an intended change.

Edition printed in lists all cards in your collection that were printed in that set, plus all your other printings of that card. So, if you wanted to see what cards you have that had been printed in M15, then selecting Edition Printed In: M15 would show that you have an M15 copy of divination, as well as one from born of the gods and m14 and m13 and m12, whereas edition owned: m15 would just show your copies printed in m15.

For me, I generally only keep around 5 of each card, or 1 or 2 of each printing for cards like naturalize, so if I buy a number of packs from a set, I like to know if I already have 5 or more of a card, so edition owned: m15 won't show me that I have previous printings of divination.

Yeah, it was definitely useful, I wasn't sure if it was just removed from the wishlist section or the entire search engine.  Doesn't make any sense to me to remove edition printed in, but I was still able to list out the Antiquities cards that I still need and that is what I was looking for at that particular moment. It's not logical though since those cards are on my wishlist so I don't 'own' them so logically 'edition owned' on the wishlist shouldn't show these things I have zero copies of...

I noticed that on the wishlist "edition printed in" is no longer a filter option, but "edition owned" seems to do what I wanted.  Not sure if this was an intended change.

71

(2 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

I noticed this yesterday as well, but it seems to be working correctly today.

So, I picked up commander 2014 deck, and because I like to inventory things, I entered the tokens, but I don't like the fact that the tokens are double sided, and thus if you enter both sides you have an inaccurate list/double entry.  Can we have the tokens laid out a bit differently? 

The list of tokens is below listed like this: one side/other side

White Deck
1x Stoneforged Blade/Germ
3x Kor Soldier/Pegasus
2x Angel/Cat
4x Soldier/Spirit


Blue Deck
1x Teferi Emblem/Zombie
2x Fish/Zombie
2x Whale/Zombie
2x Kraken/Zombie
3x Ape/Zombie


Black Deck
1x Nixilis Emblem/Zombie
1x Germ/Zombie
2x Horror/Zombie
1x Demon (*/*)/Zombie
5x Demon (5/5)/Zombie


Red Deck
1x Daretti Emblem/Tuktuk the Returned
1x Wurm (Lifelink)/Goat
1x Wurm (Deathtouch)/Goat
2x Goblin/Goat
5x Myr/Pentavite


Green Deck
1x Gargoyle/Elf Warrior
2x Treefolk/Wolf
2x Elemental/Beast (3/3)
2x Elf Druid/Beast (4/4)
3x Elephant/Elf Warrior

I just think these should be treated like dual faced cards like Delver of Secrets / Insectile Aberration (these should be searchable by either side, but count as one card).

73

(2 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

Ctrl + I brings up a quick search box.  (works anywhere on the site) but that's the only keyboard shortcut I know of that is specific to this site.

d72B wrote:

+1, can reproduce

I have noticed this as well.  Doing the same thing for finding users with this card on their tradelist.
http://deckbox.org/trading_opportunitie … #tid=14537

When I bring that up, it appears correct and shows thirteen to eighteen results (it actually varies so that's weird).  Looking at most of them though is pointless as most of them don't actually have the card I want.  If I hit 'apply filter' after loading the page, it drops from thirteen results to just one.  Since I do want the specific edition, so it gives me false hope.

75

(0 replies, posted in Site Discussion)

I noticed today that the language flag is missing from my collection and I'm not able to set a language on cards on my wishlist either.   Is this a planned change?

Edit: Never mind, shift + reload brought up the language flags, must have been a browser/image cache issue.