STILL EDITING!!!

Alright, so here is the thing. Our community is growing with each passing day, member-wise as well as thread-wise. With this growth, we've started to adapt and open new boards but I've noticed a bit of confusion as of late despite the obvious. People don’t seem to understand the boards. Like what to do and the likes; mainly when it comes to the OOC (Out of Character) topics. But let me start from the top. =D

Up top you will see our RPG “Toolbar” where you can easily access the Home page, your Account, Characters, RPG Forum, RPG Chatroom, RPG Directory, the About Us as well RPG Rules.

Let's start with Account!

When you hover over it with the pointer, you get three new tabs; Profile, prefences and Private messages. Yet inside the "Account" (yes, you can click account regardless of the new tabs) is Overview, Profile, Preferences, Private Messages, Friends & Foes, Characters and Role Plays.

Overview - Basically this shows important announcements, your activities and feedback on your posts. You can also manage your subscriptions, bookmarks, drafts and attachments here. (Note: Many people have been asking how to get to their saved posts or drafts. It's simple account > drafts and you'll find all your saved posts)

Profile - Pretty simple? Just fill in what you think is necessary but NEVER give out your personal information.

Board Profile - Again, pretty obvious. Customize your messaging notifications, time zone, posting defaults and so forth. As of now, this is the only layout D;

Private Messaging (PM) - You can use the "Find Member" to search for a person you wish to message. Do not forget to click the "Add" button or your message won't go through. The Outbox means your message has gone through however it has by been read by the receiver. Once it's read, the message will move to the sent box.

Friends and Foes - This is a tool that will quickly locate your RPG friends. The Foes option prevents you from seeing their posts, however they can send out private messaging. (No, you can't put staff under foes, sorry D;)

Now we go on to our Roleplay tab:[/]

When you hover over it you shall see the following, [b]”My Roleplays, My characters and Add new role play.

Go to My Roleplays first (This can also be found by going through Account).

This page has two options, My Role plays which shows ALL the Role plays you are in (In regards to the Role play tab, not the forum) and Add new role play which should be simple enough to understand.

Now, My Characters (which can all be found in the Account tab) looks scary, but it's simple enough. It lists ALL of your characters from ALL roleplays you have joined. So... how do you add a character? Simple enough. We go to add role play. =3

First things first, add your title. I'll make an example picture shortly. It can be anything so long as it follows RPG guidelines.

Now you need a short description of your roleplay so as to catch the eye of another. It can't be too wordy so take care in what you write.

Tags! Quite helpful because we have a filter system. Some people may be attracted to romance, others may not. So keep in mind what tags to use since they attract people based on their filtering of tags.

Roleplay thumbnail is basically your banner and MUST be at least 100x100. Be creative and make your own designs or ask someone from our Creative arts to do it for you! =3

Setting is the place of your world or universe. You can add cities, towns, villages or planets to it.












Right, so a few things about our Chatroom. People ask us a lot about using action commands. What is an action command? Well, you can tell when you see our entire name as well as text in italics. Like, "Mid says: proceeds to glare at people.” (You’ll see me doing that a lot. =D) In the chat it will look like, Mid proceeds to glare at people.

Now, how did I do that? Easy! Type /me (action here). Like this:

/me proceeds to glare at people.

And that should be all on that. Oh remember, no spaces before the / or the codes wont work.

(Edit by QB: Took out the IRC-specific stuff. Since we moved to the AJAX in-house client, things work a little differently. Here's a run-through of the different commands that are most frequently used:

/roll xdy+z rolls x dice, each with y sides, adds z to the total, and gives you both the results of each individual die roll as well as a total. Alternatively, the plus can be turned into a minus as well. x and y have maximum values of 100; any higher than that and they default to x=1 and y=6, respectively. Please don't use this command unless you have to, though...it can get annoying.

Going IC and OOC is now most often done by clicking the relevant button to the left of the chat window. Clicking the one corresponding to a character puts you IC as that character in the place they were last located, while clicking the one at the top takes you OOC again.

Typing a message, then clicking the OOC button allows you to send an OOC message to everyone in the channel...wait for it...without the message being added to the chat logs! BBCode still works in these messages, but raw URLs do not. You'll have to get creative to share that hilarious comic, etc. with the rest of the channel now. You can also type /ooc <message> to do the same thing, but since the syntax is similar to the command to go Out of Character, I would prefer new users to use the button labeled OOC, to the right of the message entry window, instead. The problem comes when your user and character name are identical...

/msg <screen name> <message> allows you to converse privately with another user. /describe <screen name> <action> is sort of a combination of /me and /msg, allowing you to privately perform an action.

Of course, there's the /help command, which displays a list of various other commands should you get stuck.

That's about all you need to know!)

We’ve got staff in the room most of the time, but we’re all busy with other things like life, IMs, and PMs, among other things. Sometimes a person takes it to the point where you become fed up. You can easily put them on ignore by typing /ignore <name of the person you wish to ignore>. Then, say you've forgiven them. /unignore <ignored person's screen name> puts them back in your good graces.

And that’s the basics of the Chatroom! Google the rest if you need any, now we go on to the forums! <3

Now, first up is our Welcome Desk (Click me) where newbies can introduce themselves or members in general can say their goodbyes or let us know if they’ll be away for a while. Please, do say hi to us because we are the kind of community who enjoy seeing new faces. We greet when we can and try to make you all feel at home. Feel free to ask questions to members as well as staff.

Our Main lobby (Click me) is usually used to present something to the rest of the community. Like a poll or something you think may interest the rest of us. We have a couple of Sub-Forums here like our Help Forum (Click me) where you can ask questions about the site, chat or what ever issue you may currently have. Next we’ve got the Announcements (Click me) where anything of interest regarding RPG will be mentioned. And our Forum Gaming (Click me) where you can join others in various gaming such as the “Two truths and a lie,” or the “RPG name twister!” games.

Moving on we’ve got our Discussion and debate (Click me) were we can throw in topics about the world, current or past events, life and whatever else we come up with. (Edit mark 2 by QB: The Flame Wars forum is officially no more.)
Library (Click me)
RPA on RPG (Click me)

We have an OOC board (Click me) for you to post all of these topics in. Please, refrain from posting these topics in other boards. Thank you

SubForums within the OOC board:

People and places (Click me)
Within People and places –

Profiles (Click me)

Character Journals (Click me)

Clans, Guilds and organizations (Click me)

Interest Checks (Click me)

Also, we have our Role Players Wanted (Click me) section as well as an Interest Check (Click me) .

If you need more members for your RP, post in the RPW section. People will look. But you can not request specific genders for your writers, you can ask for a specific gender for the character but not the writer. Be creative, that's what a true writer and artist does.

The Multiverse (Click me)
Fantasy Roleplay (Click me)
Realistic Roleplay(Click me)
Futuristic Roleplay (Click me)
Fiction Roleplay

Sub forums within Fiction:
Anime & Manga Roleplay (Click me)
Movies & Films Roleplay (Click me)
Books & Literature Roleplay (Click me)
Video Games Roleplay (Click me)
Private Roleplay (Click me)
Everything else Roleplay (Click me)

Sub Forums within Everything Else:

School based Roleplay


We've also got a few more boards in the Fiction board (Anime, Video games, movies and books).

And for those of you who may need help with your writing skills, here is our Role Play Academy (Click me). There is no shame in asking for help.

Please help us by keeping this place more organized. Thank you and have fun.

Woo! I think this is going to be an absolute LIFE SAVER for some folks. I was considering posting one of these up myself, but then I kept having second thoughts about it. I guess you did that for me.. Hehe.. Good thing too. I'm not sure if anybody would take me all the seriously. Oh well. Thanks for posting this up. Now I can tell new people where to go when they need some help as well as offer my own hand of assistance. ^^;

You're welcome. =D I just hope people read it XD

I read it =D. Nice thread, will help newbies alot =P.

But for me this like like the ABCs xD.

XD Omg, thanks. I'll edit more in when I get on a computer.

If you guys wish to add any helpful tips, by all means feel free to post them.

Right, I'm still editing it but if anyone would like to read what I've got and tell me if you understand it. Well, that would be great. =)

Thank you very much. I am a newbie so it helped me a lot. Didn't quite get the nick name thing, but I don't think I will be using it too much. Thanks again!

Nice guide, you SAID you were making one, didn't think you'd actually put it up
Kudos to you It'll help some, and give me a nice answer to the question, I'll just refer them to this topic! YAY!

By the way, the link to the Roleplay Academy isn't correct. It has an "L" at the end
It still works of course, but you won't arrive at the home page
Yea, that's the only constructive criticism I have to add. >.>

Lol I'm not THAT lazy =p and thanks. I'll fix it this weekend when I get the laptop back. =)

EDIT: So I'm computerless for now *BOO!*

Anyways, for those who need help from staff and can't get in contact via PM. Use the report button but do NOT abuse it.

Yeah Great work but one problem the nickname in chat has been disabled so we cant do anything with the nickname but all in all very very helpful





Dreadwolf

Um I think it rates your grammar and spelling. I dunno how though <<

Someone referred your guide very highly and it helped in many ways. I thank you msot kindly.

^_^

If this grading system work off of the Flesch Reading Ease Test, than these formulas and explanations are what you guys are asking form.

Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level

These readability tests are used extensively in the field of education. The "Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level Formula" translates the 0–100 score to a U.S. grade level, making it easier for teachers, parents, librarians, and others to judge the readability level of various books and texts. It can also mean the number of years of education generally required to understand this text, relevant when the formula results in a number greater than 12.

The grade level is calculated with the following formula:


The result is a number that corresponds with a grade level. For example, a score of 8.2 would indicate that the text is expected to be understandable by an average student in 8th grade (usually around ages 13–14 in the United States of America).

The lowest grade level score in theory is -3.40, but, since there are few real passages that have every sentence consisting of two one-syllable words, this rarely occurs in practice. Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss comes close, averaging 5.7 words per sentence and 1.02 syllables per word, with a grade level of -1.3. (Most of the 812 words are monosyllabic; "anywhere", which occurs 8 times, is the only exception.)

Yea but this system here is very harsh on people who use commas instead of short sentences! I noticed that whenever I was too lazy to type up somewhat literal texts with a lot of commas and semicolons the grade level would sky rock - that does not necessarily mean the text itself was hard to understand. I think the star system is good enough to measure an individual if needed although, that system as well has it's flaws. Like people going on a personal vendetta or simply out of boredom, jealousy. Who knows why others would do such things, knowingly score someone beneath what they really are but yea I just think in general it's kind of a unnecessary.

It makes people weary of their posts and it's an unneeded hassle, plus there are always people who will be afraid to post anything bigger than a paragraph because they 'think' it'll ruin their perfect marks etc... which I feel is just a very obnoxious behavior. And yes I do agree that an easy understandable text 'reaches' a far bigger audience but this isn't a book on sale - it's supposed to be a fun place where people can role play with others who feel the same way about a certain subject. Be it beginner, intermediate or advance. It should not be made into a contest. Well there are things like 'discrimination' towards an individual who has a low rank - simply because of a series of unfair voting etc, hence when they want to join a RP with a more advance crowd they'll be scoffed at and what not. I am not saying it happens necessarily, I am just saying that it gives opportunities to needless fighting and bickering/flaming. But hey, that's only my opinion. Everyone is free to voice theirs, :p

PS: Nice guide Myrin

Thank you for the information. I appreciate any tips and assistance I can get along the way.

Thank you so much for posting this miss. *bows in gratitude*

Wow Myrin, this is very helpful! =D -Only read half of the damn thing but knows its helpful enough from what she read so far, and will read the rest after this is posted.-
From now on, something like this needs to be shown to the new people here so that they can instantly know what the hell they're doing, instead of floating around cyberspace and bugging Moderators; like you, all day and getting nothing accomplished until a few days to a week later whenever they finally lose interest and leave.
I give this topic 5 stars! Great job Myrin and I hope you do not Nom me the next time we see each other in the chat rooms! xD

P.S. - Go ahead and Nom me, lol.
&
P.S.S. - My post was so totally random and you guys know it! Uber Rawr! >=D

Now that really helped. Thanks for posting that!

(noms ppl) Awwwe <3 still working on it. Thanks QB for the edit