New Member Walk-Through

This site is set up to give members as many options as possible to display their creativity and to facilitate interaction with other roleplayers.  It isn't as straight forward as forum based sites and some of the options might be confusing so this guide is recommended if you've created your account and are wondering what to do next.

Things to do

1. Create an account
2. Edit your profile
3. Add your guild
4. Add your character
5. Add your alliance
6. See a list of all of your characters
7. Write a journal entry
8. Post on the forums
9. Add your own guide
10. Add someone to your friends list
11. Leave a note on your friend's guestbook
12. Write a blog entry

Create an account

You will have to create an account to add any content to the site.  I recommend using your character name so if and when you post content it doesn't say "by IRLulzCat" which makes a lot of RPers shudder and immediately ignore anything you post.  If you create your account and at some point change mains or for whatever reason want to change it, just send me a PM.

You MUST use a valid e-mail address because a validation link will be e-mailed that you will need to click before you'll be able to login.  Your e-mail address is not shown publicly.  If your e-mail has an aggressive anti-spam filter, it might mark this e-mail as spam and send it to a spam folder rather than your primary in-box.  If you do not receive an e-mail within 5-10 minutes of registering, check your spam folders, and if you are sure you didn't receive the e-mail then please send me an e-mail so I can manually give you access.  If it comes to that, there may be up to a 24 hour delay if you happen to catch me on a day when IRL is kicking my butt.

Edit Profile

Once you are logged in, on the left side menu you should see a My Account link. Clicking this will take you to your profile and it should look something like this:

You should see your login name, a set of tabs, and whatever information you’ve put into your profile so far. By default you are in tab #1, the View tab, which shows you what other people viewing your account page will see (minus most of the tabs).  Each tab has different options for your account, although when you first start don't be surprised if most of them are empty.

Click the edit tab and make any changes you want to do at this time.  Some of the options are adding a signature, adding a small avatar, and changing the text entry options.  In particular, if you DO NOT want to receive email notification when posts are made to your realm group, uncheck the box in the Messaging and Notifications section.

Add your guild

Once you have finished messing around with your profile, you'll want to post information about your character.  But before you start, if your character belongs to a guild, head over to the Guild Listing to see if your guild has been added to the list yet.  If it has, you can go on to the next step of adding your character. 

If it hasn't been added yet, add it to the list.  Do this even if you aren't the guild leader or officer because all you really need to add at this time is the name of the guild and whether it is an Order or Destruction guild.  Guild listings are revisioned so anyone who is a member of the site can edit any guild listing.  Before you panic and think this is a horrible idea, know that the information is protected in the same manner wiki's work.  If some yahoo decides to erase information and/or post derogatory information an administrator can quickly and easily revert back to the previous version. 

The only required fields are the name and the realm.  Fill in the other fields if you feel comfortable, or leave them blank so an officer can fill it in at a later time.  The main thing here is to make sure you spell it exactly as it is found in game.  Hit save, and then head on over to the add character page!

Add your character

You can add your character (RP bio) by either following the link under the Create Content menu (left sidebar) or going to the Character Listing page and clicking the link at the bottom of that page.  Character pages can only be edited by the person who added them and administrators, so only characters that you play.

Now comes the fun part!  Add as much or as little information as you want about your character.  Bio's help you define who your character is and how they react to other characters while role-playing.

You will not be able to add the guild name if you didn't add it earlier.  If you are guildless, just leave it blank.  If you are running into problem with it not accepting the guild name, double check to see if it is in the listing (add it if it isn't), or leave the guild name blank and send me a PM with information about what errors you are getting if not.

Add your alliance

If your guild belongs to an alliance, feel free to add it.  Alliances are freely editable like guild pages.  You will only be able to list guilds that have been added to the guild listing.

See a list of all of your characters

Follow this link:  http://ostermark.com/my_characters

Write a journal entry

Once you have a character listed, you can start keeping an in-character journal.  To add a journal entry follow the link under the Create Content menu (left sidebar).  Click the radio button next to the character you are writing the journal for, then write up whatever  you want and save it.

Post on the forums

The forums here are very simple compared to most forum systems out there.  Be patient, and if there is a feature you are really missing, post it in the suggestions forum.

Add your own guide

Have you written up a nice lore article, or a guide (for example, "How to RPing shamans")?  Feel free to post it here.  To do that you will need to post it as a new Book Page.  Add it to the library category that best fits.  If none of them sound right, drop a note in the suggestion forum and we'll figure out a new category for it.

Add someone to your friends list

If you go to any members profile page, you'll see a "Create a Relationship with..." link.  Just click on that and fill out the simple form.  Once you've added them, all you need to do is click on the My Relationships link in the left menubar.  You can find other user by browsing the Member List or clicking on the author name of any post.

Leave a note on your friend's guestbook

If you go to any members profile page, you'll see a "Guestbook" tab.  Click on the tab and leave them a message!  If you need to send more private information, use the Send this user a message link at the bottom of their profile page.

Write a blog entry

Blogs are places where you can keep notes to yourself, rant about something ingame, out of game, or whatever you want to write about.  Write once a day, multiple times, or once every 3 months.  It's up to you.