Hello Everyone!
I hope you all had a great Halloween. I would like to start this off, as always, by thanking those who purchased last month's exclusive name color, especially aeonian for being the first person to.

15,000 Members
I officially became the Owner of MCTrades on October 24th 2018. Around that time we had just under 10,000 members. I am very happy with the progress and am very grateful for everyone that has registered and has stuck around.

To celebrate this I will be doing a small giveaway. You can win the following:

• 1x Animated Rainbow Name Color
• 1x Diamond Rank
  
• 1x Emerald Rank
• 5x Regular Name Colors

TO ENTER BE SURE TO COMMENT ON THIS THREAD.

Shoutbox Liking
I have already seen this being discussed in chat, due to popular demand (and sqlty's push) I have decided to allow users to like chat messages. However this is not available to everyone, those who have the emerald rank are able to do so. This gives it a little bit of exclusivity while also preventing spam which is the reason it was previously removed. (Please do not abuse this).

History Page
I recently stumbled upon an addon and found it could be quite useful for some. We now track the previous 50 threads you have visited and allow you to view that log, your "history". You can view the page by going here or simply clicking on the history button at the top of the page:



Top Chatter
I decided to bring this section back to the announcements. For those who are not aware of the user with the most chat messages by the end of the month receives a special name color (the only 3 gradient name color on-site). The winner of this throughout October was Blood. Congratulations!

Name...

Hello Everyone!
I hope you all settled back into school. I would like to start this off, as always, by thanking those who purchased last month's exclusive name color, especially Aladarr for being the first person to.

Small Changes
This month mostly consisted of minor changes/fixes, here they are:

• URL's no longer include the thread titles & member usernames, simply the ID.
• Added the "Requesting" thread prefix to the loans/investment section.
• The backend issues causing downtime have been fixed.

Charity Event
I am proud to announce we raised $350 for the British Heart Foundation. Below there is a video submitting the donation and receiving the confirmation email. I'd like to personally thank Chearful, sqlty, andreeww, VladNex, Moofie, Nutella, Netts, Maurits & Blood for your donations. As I mentioned in the previous thread this charity means a lot to me and I'm very grateful for everyone that partook in the event.



Halloween Theme
You will have probably noticed the change around in theme, throughout October the spooky theme will be the websites default. You of-course can change back to your preferred theme at the bottom left of the website.

Name Color
The October name color has now been released to match the spooky season and we hope you enjoy it. It can be viewed/purchased here.

Sincerely,
Callum
MCTrades Owner

Hey everyone, it's been quite some time since we've done a charity event and as I have received various requests to do another, here we are. I decided to go with the British Heart Foundation as it means a lot to me and all of our previous fundraisers were for American organizations.

"We’re the British Heart Foundation. We fund research to save and improve lives affected by heart and circulatory diseases, the world’s biggest killers." - For more information visit their website here.

Goal: $250
At the end of the month, I will video myself making the donation via their website and will personally make up for all the money lost in fees.

Starting today and lasting until the 30th, you will be able to purchase a limited-time pink and red gradient name color (this will be the only ever red name color as it is typically reserved for the staff team) for $5.00.
If you donate $25 or more you will receive the "Charitable" medal and if you donate $50 or more you will receive the "British Heart Foundation" medal!

If you'd like to donate a custom amount, please make a ticket or privately message me.

Sincerely,
Anti
MCTrades Owner

Hello Everyone!
I hope you all enjoyed summer vacation and are ready for school. I would like to start this off, as always, by thanking those who purchased last months exclusive name color, especially Broly500 for being the first person to.

Username Requests
We receive regular username requests and I figured it was time to implement some requirements so those inactive names can be brought back into activity. If the account in question and you meet the following criteria you can request their username by creating a ticket here.

• The account must not have Diamond or Emerald.
• The account must not have been online in the past year.
• The account must have less than 100 posts.
• You must have the Emerald account upgrade.
• You must have at least 75 posts.
• You must have at least 30 positive post rating.

Group Information
I'd like to take this time to go ahead and go over group kicks. If you buy into a group you can still actually get kicked after the group is rebranded or sold. However, from now on a group owner can only kick per rebrand if they clearly state it on their recruitment thread. This will be an added rule, which is mentioned below.

Rule Changes

• Group owners must clearly state how long buy-ins last for, whether that be lifetime of the group or until it is rebranded. (If users are kicked without this they are due to be refunded).
• Any shop threads containing prices in the title must be up-to-date and accurate. Falsely advertising will result in a termination of the thread.

We will begin enforcing these rules immediately so be sure to adjust your threads accordingly.

Name Color
The September name color has now been released and we hope you enjoy it. It can be viewed/purchased here....

Hello Everyone!
This post is a little different to the usual but as some may know we have in fact had a trailer/promotional video for the website created. This will be used to a much higher extent in the future to attract new users but for now, we are offering the chance for you to get yourself a free name color, for a month.

The name colors you can claim are as followed:

• Blue
• Orange
• Pink
• Purple
• Gradient Blue
  
• Gradient Green
  
• Gradient Purple
  
• Gradient Rainbow (Looks slightly different to this).

As previously stated, this will last...

Hello Everyone!
I hope you have all are enjoying the heat (for those who are getting any sun). I would like to start this off, as always, by thanking those who purchased last months exclusive name color, especially RaptorG for being the first person to.

Small Changes
This month mostly consisted of a node rearrangement, here are the changes:

• All of the account focused sections have been placed near one another and split from the regular services.
  
• The Minecraft specific services were all placed together with-in a sub-section.
• The website/program-specific services were all placed together with-in a sub-section.
  
• The rest of the services were bundled together (not in sub-sections) and were split from the rest of the products/sections.
• The cape account requests section was removed.

Group Sale
I have been asked about this more than I can count. Following a user being banned from the website, his group was taken as per our rules and I will now be selling it. This time there will be no auction, just a flat price of $??.

THIS HAS BEEN SOLD.

Staff Changes

• Avery is no longer apart of the staff team.

Before there are any assumptions Avery did nothing wrong, however unforunate this was a required change. He was an amazing staff member but I will now be taking back up the role of running the staff team.

Top Chatter
Congratulations to Raptor for winning the top chatter event throughout July. You have received the events exclusive golden name color, we hope you enjoy it. I appreciate the grind you put into coming first place, I could see how much you wanted it.

Reminder
I am quite regularly asked about anniversary rewards so will briefly...

Hello Everyone!
I hope you have all are having a great summer break. I would like to start this off by thanking those who purchased last months exclusive name color, especially King Drakius for being the first person to.

Small Changes/Fixes

• Obsidian requirements have been lowered.
• Reputation requirements have been lowered.
• There can now be six sticky thread per section.
• The Rainbow name color promotion has expired.

Obsidian and Reputation Requirements
The requirements for Obsidian have dramatically changed, in my eyes, the previous ones were on the high end. You must hit the following criteria in order to gain Obsidian rank (do keep in mind you are not able to get the upgrade if you have Diamond or Emerald).

• At least 50 posts.
  
• At least 25 trophy points.
• Been registered for 30 days.
• At most 15 warning points.
• At least 25 positive ratings (not reputation).

As always we will be keeping the reputation requirements completely private but I should mention they have also been lowered, you are no longer needed to have a certain amount of posts every month, instead once you hit certain criteria you will be able to leave reputation forever (you should be able to earn access fairly easily). Although if anyone is caught abusing the reputation system, you will lose access to it.

Layout Changes
You may have noticed that you are now required to scroll slightly further down the page to access the account section, which may be frustrating to get used to but we need to appreciate the fact this website is a forum, and we need to open up the discussion sections more. In order to do this, I simply moved the section further up the page so it's no longer neglected.

There will be more changes to the layout of the website as we move forward but it's all being thought out before implementation.

Staff...

Hello Everyone!
I hope you have all had a great month and are looking forward to the summer break. I would also like to thank those who purchased last months exclusive name color, especially punctured for being the first person to .

On a little bit of a sidenote I would like to show my appreciation to everyone who left the kind messages on the previous announcement and know that I am feeling a lot better and especially motivated. Due to what I had to do last month not much on-site was changed but do expect more to happen over the next few months.

Small Changes/Fixes

• Friendly rating has been renamed to Love.
  
• Vouch rating has been renamed to Winner.

Awards
Just a little reminder that if you have been on the website for over a year, or even two, you are entitled an anniversary award. This is of course optional.

If you wish to claim your yearly anniversary medals please make a ticket here.

Name Color
The June name color has now been released and we hope you enjoy it. It can be viewed/purchased here.

Sincerely,
Anti
MCTrades Owner

Hey Everyone!

A few of you may have noticed but I haven't been around over the past couple of days. For the first time in my life, someone close to me has died. My family and I are taking our time to grieve and plan arrangements. I will not be active or really online for a while, I am not sure how long this will be, so please do not expect replies directly from me on-site or over discord.

If you urgently need a message sent to me please contact the staff team, ONLY if there is no one else who can resolve it. I will do what I can with the free time I have. I'm spending a lot of time off and away from the computer for obvious reasons but will be sure to keep the website online while I am away.

I appreciate the nice messages I have received, see you all soon.

Regards,
Callum

Hello Everyone!
I hope you have all had a great Easter break and have settled back into school. I would also like to thank those who purchased last months exclusive name color, especially Lex for being the first person to (again ).

Small Changes/Fixes

• Users may now like conversation messages.
• Added some new "meme" emojis to the chat.
• Changed the URL from "groups/list/" to simply just "/groups".
• There were various other URL/slug changes made throughout the site to keep it consistent.
  
• Fixed some issues with font awesome characters.
• The referral contest banner had its color adjusted to match our theme.

Obsidian
As many of you may know we have had an "Obsidian" rank for a very long time which is earnt based on a certain amount of user activity. You may have also noticed that most users now do not have that rank. This is because I have made the decision to keep the Obsidian rank limited to those who do not have either Emerald or Diamond ranks.

This may take some getting used to but I personally was not enjoying the number of banners some users had and to equal it out with the number of user groups we have I have changes the requirements so only those who cannot afford/do not have a donor rank can achieve Obsidian. (Donors already have the permissions of this group).

Staff Changes
It has been a long time coming, Moofie has done a phenomenal job handling chat, freeing me and the team up of a lot of time to focus on other things.

• Moofie has been promoted to Moderator.

Be sure to congratulate him!

Awards
I announced a few months ago that new medals were in the works, I recently found an artist that was capable of creating these for me. Over April we have discussed various designs and come to the decision on them. The new medals we have implemented are as followed:

• ...