Hello. I'm Mitch Trale -- Technologist at PucaTrade. Steady Progress is a series of posts detailing upcoming technology changes at PucaTrade. My goal is to share something new that will be released soon, something that's in the works, and some important issue or question we’ve identified on PucaTrade. These posts will appear every week or two.

Something New

We launched Future Site on 8/21/2016 at v3.2.1. Since then, we have made significant stabilizing changes and improvements to the codebase. We have developed and launched new interfaces, features, and infrastructure to the core PucaTrade platform, and now find ourselves at v3.4.1. Check out the Version Changelog.

Flux is PucaTrade's pre-release environment, available to subscribers. Learn more about Flux from the last Steady Progress, or via the Flux Help page. We're now seeing a few hundred intrepid members on Flux, and we hope Uncommon and Rare members will participate on the Flux testing environment. This allows our team to learn from your experiences and to get your feedback on early-access features.

Beyond Flux, we have also synced up the Live version of PucaTrade with v3.4.1.

This has introduced some new features to everyone on the site, including:

Recommended Traders

Since the launch of Future Site, we have seen shifts in the way people trade on the site. Package trading in particular has made it easier and more efficient to send many cards to a single recipient, rather than mailing cards out to many different receivers (as happened on the old 1-card-1-trade version of Puca).

This efficiency has given us the opportunity to refocus outgoing trade towards the traders who need to receive cards the most. Here's a breakdown of the new filters we have developed and released over the last two weeks:

New Traders are people who have joined the site, have points and active / visible wants, and who have not yet received / completed any trades. These are folks who are trying PucaTrade out, and aren't yet sure whether they'll stick around to become active senders. As a community, we should welcome these new people, and should do all we can to ensure that their first few trades are positive experiences. Send them a throw-in along with the trade, or a note / tips about the cards in the trade, if you're so inclined.

Active Traders are people who have successfully sent & completed trades to other folks, and who have not received any incoming trades within a set period of time. Inclusion into the Active Traders filter is calculated automatically throughout the day, and there are a couple of different thresholds — outbound vs inbound point amounts, number of trades sent vs received, recency of last send / receipt — which we can monitor and adjust as needed to ensure that the right mix of traders appear in this filter.

Leaders are people who are currently on the 24 hour, 7 day, and 30 day Leaderboards. This list is regenerated automatically every day, which means that new Leaders are entering this filter, and old Leaders are falling out, based on their current presence on the Leaderboards. We feel these people are highly contributive members of PucaTrade, and that they should receive cards given their high rate of sending.

Uncommon and Rare members on PucaTrade have access to all filters.

Currently these are: New, Active, Leaders, and Everybody.

Common members have a simpler option available: Recommended Traders. This filter contains all New and Active Traders, and will help ensure that trades sent by our free tier members are having the highest impact, and are reaching the receivers who need cards the most.

Note: Common members who signed up before 11/11/2016 will retain access to the Everybody filter.

Something Coming

We're going to continue pushing hard on these filters, so that as senders, you have many options and ways to choose who receives your cards. I am personally excited about the next filter we're working on, codenamed My Traders.

This feature will allow you to easily manage a list of traders via a searchable Traders page, similar to the Traders Search on the Search From Anywhere feature (try this now: type MCT and hit TAB twice, or click Traders button in the search pop-up).

My Traders will work like a list of one-way connections, and can include people you have traded with in the past (incoming / outgoing), traders whose lists you'd like to bookmark or check in on later, and of course, your IRL friends on PucaTrade.

At the PucaTrade office, we've often felt it's difficult keeping up on the Wants of our local playgroup, as there's no easy way to filter on them via the Send Cards page. This new My Traders tool shoud help support local exchange among friends and family, and will help you integrate PucaTrade into your own MTG communities.

Something Else

December is going to be a cool month at PucaTrade. We have some things planned for the site that we are excited about, including new Sweepstakes, new features, and something to replace the Secret Santa exchange we have run in years past. More information on those items will be published in the coming weeks.

As ever, thank you for reading and trading.

Give and Let Give.

MCT is a Technologist at PucaTrade. Email him at mitch@pucatrade.com. Find him on Twitter @johanmagnus94 and @mitchtrale