Cycling Can I get a primer on Villager Trading?

[daitoshokan]

Hi all,
I've been playing New Leaf for about a month now, and I can't seem to find a very comprehensive guide on how to do Villager Trading, and it's holding me back from participating as much as I'd like to. What do I need to know to get into this? Also, some standout questions:

1. What exactly is cycling? Are cycling animals for sale? Do I need an additional 3DS to have a cycling town?
2. What is the best way to prepare a villager for a trade?
3. What is the proper protocol to follow to organize a trade online? Do I neglect the villager in question until he is in boxes, then post online saying he's for sale? Or can they be put up for sale before in boxes?
4. How can I protect my dreamies from people visiting my town?

Thanks, and sorry for the noobishnish. I'd love to help out with a pinned guide once I have a knack for it myself

 

[vodkasmizmar]

1) Cycling is time traveling in your town one or two days at a time and waiting for a villager to ping you that they moving away. They will usually tell you the date and you can say yes, move away, or no, stay. This is usually done as a precaution to prevent non-cycling animals (dreamies) from accidentally moving away. For cyclers, they say almost always say yes unless the animal is reserved.

Cycling animals are almost never for sale and given away for free, unless they are a top tier animal, which can be sold, auctioned, or raffled off. You do not need an additional 3DS to have a cycling town, just an extra copy of the game.

2) To prepare a villager for trade, again, do the ping thing and time travel to the date (or # of days away) they are moving. When loading the game, Isabelle will tell you that sadly, a villager will be moving and it's your last chance to say goodbye. Visit their house, their furniture should be packed up. This is the perfect time to give away the villager.

3) They can be put up for sale before boxes if you do not time travel or want time to garner offers. Again, I would only suggest doing this with upper-tier animals. Otherwise, for less popular animals, just time travel them to their moving date. If trading for bells, I would suggest putting up items on sale in your Retail and have the person purchase the item. As for villager-to-villager or villager-to-item trades, it's a bit more risky because the wifi can easily be switched. Be careful!

4) People can talk to your villagers (but shouldn't), but it will not effect whether your dreamies move out or not. You'll just occasionally have your villagers talk about person Y from town X. If you don't want to deal with this, firmly state the rules and flick the wifi switch if they do talk to your villagers.

Hope I've helped and didn't post any misleading information. I don't have a cycling town and fairly new to the villager trading scene as well, so if anyone more experienced than me would like to correct any information I've put down, please feel free to!

 

[sn0wxyuki]

So, if I don't have the additional 3DS then there will be no way I can move the villager to my main town? Still have to go through another 3DS to transfer villager from my cycling town to main town?

 

[daitoshokan]

^Good question. I imagine you either need another DS, or you can recruit the help of a cycler on the forum to cycle your target village through his/her town and to your target town.

I have two more questions. First, what is voiding? Second, where do people get the villager sprites for their signatures? I seemingly need one for dreamie proof.

 

[panzerattack]

You can just do what I've done and list your "dreamies"/ideal villagers in your signature, or you can go somewhere like here (http://moonvalecrossing.tumblr.com/) and create a signature using her sprites. There are a few signature creation services on the forums. I personally haven't used one this town around because they're all huge and I want something really simple.

I've got one DS and 2 game carts, and you can only transfer villagers with help, which is not going well for me so far lol!

edit: oh! and voiding is when you allow a villager to move out without find them a new home, so they just go to "the void".

 

[veronicay1218]

The void is basically cyber space. it's (apparently) where villagers go if they are not adopted by another person on their moving date. To void means to skip over their date that the villager is moving therefore sending them to this cyber space.

As for sprites HERE is a good one too