Forum:Getting Started Guide

So, you're new here, and want to know what to do? Well, I've got your back.

Sign up for the wiki
The very first thing is to make an account on the wiki. To do that, go to the top right, and click where it says register. Then fill out the form, and go through the process. Keep in mind, your username does not need to be the name of your character, and is even discouraged. Instead, try to come up with something interesting, or use a name you use for a different service, such as email or xbox live. When you are registered for the wiki, move on to the next step.

Making a Character
Next is to get claimed. You will need a rough description of you character, and two that you would like to be a child of. To get started, try filling out this outline:

Name: Gender: Preserve: History:

If you can fill that out completely, with at least a paragraph for a history (keep in mind, more is better), you are ready to move on.

Fleshing it out
You will be more likely to be claimed if you can further expand upon your character and make him/her more detailed. You could talk about their personality, their parent (you can write one option for each gender parent, if necessary), how they fight, appearance, etc. For appearance, make sure to include things like height, hair and eye color, and age. The history should makes sense, and not including any characters from the book. Try to include how their parents met, how they grew up and raised, their school life, and how they got to the Preserve they are apart of. Now try filling the following out:

Name: Gender: Preserve: Parents: Appearance: Personality: History: Weapons:

If you can do that, you are ready to be claimed. Go to the making a character page, and follow the instructions, then click the button for claims, and fill it out. Dont forget to put your signature at the end! (you can do that by clicking the signature button, or by typing ~) Check back later see if it has been approved. If it has, you are ready to move on! If not, fix the indicated things, and put something at the end of the page to the effect of "I fixed it", and put ~ at the end, to sign it.

Your character page
After your claim is accepted, you should start on a page for your character. Go here to do just that. For the Article title, put in the name of your character. Make sure you spell it correctly, as if you mess up, you will need an admin to fix it for you! Now, once you've made it to your page, there should be a button above the editing space labeled "Character Page". Click that and then fill in all the fields. Also click on both of the puzzle pieces, click edit, and fill in the information. If you're having problems with them, you can go to the upper right of the page and click the button labled "Source". In source mode you will see everything a little differently. If you're still having problems with them you can copy over these blank templates you use (just make sure you delete the old ones first):

Adding the info
Now you need to add the info for your character. Below the stuff I had you copy in, put in your characters information. A good rule of thumb is to break it up into sections: one for your appearance, one for your history, one for your personality, and one for your stuff. The easiest way to make one of these sections is to use a title format. So what you do is type what you want the title to be, for our example, lets say "Appearance". Then highlight the text (double click the word) and look towards the top of the screen, on the left. You should see a box, that says normal. Click that. A menu should appear. Click "Heading 2". Done! Now fill out the relevant information for that section below the heading, and repeat when you get to your next section. You are now almost done with your character page. Just one last step!

Getting an image
In the above template, you may have noticed one bit called "image", to which you no doubt thought, "but I don't have an image!" Well never fear, friend, because I have a way to help. Go to tektek to design an avatar to use with your character. When you have filled out the avatar the way you want, click save avatar. Then right click on the image after it saves, and click "Save Image As" (or similar) and save it. Make sure to name it something simple you can remember. Then, come back to the wiki, and on the right, where it says "Upload Image" and chose the image you just saved. Look at the name, and make sure you remember it. Now go back to the image bit of the form up above, and put in that exact name, including the .png, .jpg, or whatever. Now click Publish, at the bottom. You're done!

You can also find good pictures on deviantart. Just make sure that no one else is using that picture before you put it on your character's page.

Getting a Word Bubble
Word Bubbles are little speech bubbles the people use when they want to indicate that their character is saying something, as opposed to them. For instance, my main character Jason's Word Bubble looks like this:

Which is, in turn, really this, before it is filled out:

To add the time and message in place of the {{{1}} and, you would write it like this:

Now, if you want to know what that all means, I'll explain. the {{ means we are starting a template. Then, the word, Iko, just happens to be the name of my character. Yours will be different. The next bit, the |, means it is starting the first 'variable'. What you put there will replace the {{{1}}} on the unfilled template. The 5 ~'s will insert the date and time, so you don't have to. Next comes another |, meaning we are now moving to the second 'variable', the. That is the message bit. So that is where you write the message. So, the filled out one I posted above would look like this: {{Jason||Hello, newbie.}}

So at this point, I'm sure you want to know how to get your own! So now you will go back to the page creator and make the template. To make the template, make the article title Template:FirstName, obviously replacing FirstName with your character's first name. Then paste the following code in:

{{Word Bubble |image     = just the image name, no file: or brackets

|color     = top bg color

|color3    = shading gradient top

|color2    = bottom bg color

|color4    = shading gradient bottom

|textcolor = top txt color

|textcolor2 = bottom txt color

|line      = middle line color

|fonttype  = font style

|charname  = * how you want their name to appear

|charpage  = * page with char info, (actual page/character name)

|preserve  = * Your Characters Preserve

|title     = * title

|time      = * text under name and sig

|text      = bottom text

}}

Make sure to leave the {{{1}}} and {{{2}}} there, as it makes the code work right. For the colors, you can use words, such as darkblue, or a hex color generator. Save the page, and use as indicated.

If you want to use the hexadecimal code for the colours, which gives you a wider variety of colours to use, here is a colour picker to help you.

Colour-Picker

Start Roleplaying
Now comes the fun part, the Roleplaying (RPing)! Now, this is a less traditional RP setup than other places, and most RP takes place character-to-character, on the characters' pages, like you made. This is where the IMs come into play, as well. When you first get your page set-up, you will soon get IMs from people telling you Welcome, at the bottom of your character page, in the comments. Pick one of these people that you think you might want to reply to, and click on the name in the IM. Then go to the bottom of their page, to the comments, and put in an IM introducing yourself. You've just started your first roleplay! Have fun, and if you have any questions, join the chat by clicking on the link on the right. Just be aware that the chat is OOC, or out of character. That means that you don't RP your character in the chat. In chat, you're just a normal human being sitting behind a computer.