I'd like to suggest an addition to the Pet Trade tab. I think it'd be interesting to see a Pet Exchange area.

It would essentially be very similar to the Item Exchange section, except it would allow direct pet-for-pet, or pet-for-items, or pet-for-pet-and-items, pet-for-gold coins, etc. trades.

Ideally I'd like to see a system where User A offers their Pet for Exchange. They have a section where they fill in what they're looking for, and can choose a number of options. It could be as generic as check-boxes for species or gender of a pet, indicating whether they want wild-caught or bred, GP or DG, or types of materials they're looking for, etc. along with a text box where the user could specify what they're looking for.

The trade system would necessarily not be automated the way the Item exchanges are, but would rather need to be on an approval basis only. (Obviously, Pet A is not necessarily equal to Pet B, and even if they are equal, User A might be looking for something very specific).

In my mind, the general flow of the Pet Exchanges should go as follows:

1. User A offers Pet A for exchange.

2. User B finds the offer, and User B makes an offer of X, Y, Z on the exchange.

3. User A gets a message indicating they have had an offer on Pet A, and are able to view the offer and consider it.

4. If they feel the offer is fair, they Accept Offer. The exchange occurs at this point.

5. If they do not, they can Decline Offer and write an explanation of why they are offering, or make a counter-offer.

6. User B receives notification of Offer Decline or Counter-Offer, and have the opportunity to allow the Exchange to not happen, or can make another Offer. The cycle repeats until a resolution occurs.

It may also be a good idea to have a set Expiration date for both Exchanges and Offers. If no Offers are made or accepted on an Exchange by a certain date after the creation of the Exchange, the Exchange should expire. Likewise, if an Offer is made and does not get either Declined or Accepted, after a set period of time the Offer should expire.

This will prevent the Exchanges board from becoming cluttered with out of date exchanges or exchanges offered by users who are no longer active, and will also prevent someone from making an offer and forgetting about it until suddenly, someone accepts it, when they no longer want to make the trade.

Thoughts?

this great i would love this.

Lovely idea!

While it is a great idea for the users, I have never seen it implemented in any pet breeding game thus far.

Possible reason?

Combining pet and item trades into one most likely takes very complex and tedious programming work since you are combining two very different types of things into one.

It completely removes the social aspect of the game, and BK is already not very talkative as a whole.

But I do agree the item exchanges need to have a time limit and expiry date for their posts. So many worthless offers up there.

This seems very elaborate. What would be simpler, and what I would like to see, is the ability to send a private offer to another user to exchange pets for items, or items for pets. Negotiating exactly what items and pets would be involved in the trade would still take place via either the forums or private messages. This would simply make those exchanges more secure. 

In addition, I totally agree that the Item Exchange offers need to expire at some point. It's pretty ridiculous the number that are up right now. 

Lioden has a similar system and it tends to work well over there, with money, items and lions being able to be offered together in a bundle.