As Brick Hill continues to develop, so does our virtual economy and it's great seeing users engage with the items our asset development team works hard to produce. For the group of people wondering how to get a leg up in Brick Hill's competitive trading game, this guide is for you.

Where to begin

The first thing you will undoubtedly need is some bucks. My preferred method to gain bucks is the old fashioned way: make something and sell it. Brick Hill has a good market for clothes and you're sure to make money selling good shirts and pants, you could also sell games you make or ask for donations but if you fancy a shortcut, a few dollars will get you enough to buy a good special item.

The trick to getting a good items for a low price is waiting for one to go on sale and then buying it before it goes out of stock but good negotiators will be able to buy a special item for less than the lowest selling price of an item that has already sold out.

How to trade your items

Upgrading and downgrading is the method most traders will use to boost their value. Upgrading is simply trading multiple items of your own for one item of someone else's and vice versa for downgrading.

When you downgrade one of your own items, you can expect to gain value from the person you trade with as your one item is perceived to be better than their smaller items. But the opposite can be said when you upgrade your own items so you have to strike a balance.

The key to successfully upgrading is overpaying by enough for the recipient to accept your trade but not so much that, when you downgrade again, you aren't able to make a reasonable profit.

Understanding traders

The most important factor traders will consider when sending and receiving is the value gained (or lost). It's important to make sure you aren't going to lose out by accepting a trade but it's also important to make sure you're not winning by too much either because if you are, you limit your chances of someone accepting your trade.

But don't get too hung up on value. Remember that not all special items were created equal and if you attempt to trade an item that people don't want because it has low demand, even if it's valuable, for an item with high demand, you'll find most traders will be reluctant to accept.

That said, skilled traders will be able to extort very good trades out of their high demand items by trading them for low demand items and use that to profit provided they know how to trade their items back up again.

Getting trades

Feeling like your getting nowhere because your trades get declined begs the question 'how to get more trades accepted?' The answer: send more trades out.

Every trader experiences considerably more declined trades than accepted for arbitrary reasons. The simple solution is to send more out, but make sure they have a reasonable chance of getting accepted otherwise you risk wasting your own time.

The Marketplace subforum exists to solicit trades. Probably the most effective way to increase your trade volume is to post the link to your trade window there but you'll need to be proactive in sending trades out too.

When it comes to accepting and declining trades yourself, the Marketplace can also be helpful in advising you and you can always ask a friend. Ultimately however, it comes down to you: whether or not a trade is good will depend upon whether or not you think you can gain more by trading away the items than you give, if you are to accept a trade.

So, whether or not you like to trade, remember to have a bit of fun. Brick Hill's items are there for your enjoyment and we hope you use them for your entertainment above all things.