[SkyBreaker]

Hey all!

Seeing as the SC2SEA community is growing with new members joining daily, I wrote up a short guide on how to use the forums to their fullest potential; and should be a good guide for newcomers to read and understand how the forum works!

These topics are unordered and are all equally important as the last, enjoy!

The Search Function

This function searches all threads and posts on SC2SEA for the key-words you enter; so prior to making a thread – have a quick search as your topic may have been already covered so it’ll save you the time of waiting for responses among other benefits!


Searching the forum!

Respect Other Members

A lot of members, means a lot of varied opinions! If you don’t agree with what someone has said, argue your points constructively and likewise when someone argues your points; don’t take it to heart and turn vicious; realise that people may not always share the same opinions as you and respect your fellow gamer!

Rating Posts

Under each post on SC2SEA there is a thumbs-up and thumbs-down icon; get into the habit of using it on posts you deem good and/or bad, it’ll help all users see which posts are well-constructed and when advice is given; the posts which offer the most solid advice. It will also allow all users to see what the community deem as good & bad responses, and hopefully inspire similar contributions.


Rating a post!

Reporting Posts

If you come across posts which you believe are against the rules and regulations (read: sc2sea's Ban-System Thread) report the post so that the moderation team will be notified via email and can react accordingly.


Reporting a post.

When asking for advice…

When you create a thread on SC2SEA asking for advice in a certain match-up or even how to deal with a certain unit-composition try to name your thread as accurately and appropriately as possible. For example; “ZvP; Help dealing with the colossi” is a much better thread title than “WTF COLOZI!?” (Slight exaggeration; but you get the point, haha). Also when asking for advice, make sure to include replays of your games so that the community can view them and give you more solid advice… theory-crafting is one thing, however the reason you could be having trouble might have nothing to do with what you think is the problem (i.e. if you were cutting workers at 18 for example).

Spoiler Tags & Smilies

SC2SEA.com also has spoiler tags for your use. Whether you want to not spoil the results of the GSL, or whether you want to reduce the size of your post; spoiler tags are awesome! You can use them with the following code;

PHP Code:

[spoiler="GSL Results"]oGsMC  wins![/spoiler] 


Which will appear as;

+ [GSL Results] +

oGsMC wins!

Also be sure to make use of our intuitive named customised "smilies" that work for all the flags in SEA and races in Starcraft;

PHP Code:

I love iAustralia and iSingapore :), especially the iProtoss players who are so much cooler than iZerg and iTerran ;) 


Which appears as;
I love and , especially the players who are so much cooler than and

Get Involved!

SC2SEA.com has a large array of tournaments; ranging from a Bronze, Silver & Gold tournament all the way up to a Star-League (which is a SEA version of the GSL) running throughout each week, so there is a tournament for every skill level, so make sure to keep an eye on the tournaments forum, monthly calendar (and of course, the news feed in on the home-page) to see the upcoming tournaments. Signing up is a simple process, simply click “Join Tournament” and away you go!

Furthermore; if you do not want to join the tournaments for any given reason – we have a range of fantastic SEA casters who stream and commentate on these events each and every time they occur, so feel free to tune in and watch some competitive SEA game-play!

In addition to the above; there is a SC2SEA Ventrilo server which you can use to chat to your friends or even while you’re playing some team-games! If you don't have Ventrilo installed, head here to download and install the latest version.


Ventrilo Details.

A recent addition to the sites funky and fun widgets is the SEA SL Betting system! In this you can place bets on who you think are going to win the upcoming games from the SEA SL to win some prestigious forum achievements! Even if you're not competing in the SEA SL; this is a good way to earn some bragging points along the way and root for your favourite gamers!

SC2SEA Achievements!

SC2SEA has recently implemented achievements; as rewards which are shown next to each of your posts and in your profile! There are a range of achievements to obtain for various in-game and forum accomplishments! You can see the full-list here. Earning an achievement on SC2SEA is a pretty awesome thing and is indicative of your contributions to the forum!


A few of the SC2SEA achievements available!

Personalise SC2SEA.com for you!

In your user control panel, you will find places where you can send and receive private messages, add information about yourself, a signature as well as add-friends and keep on-top of threads you’ve subscribed to. Make sure to update it with your battle.net code and ID to ensure the smoothness of SC2SEA’s tournaments. Here you can also add your contact details (things like Skype, MSN and so on) to make yourself more accessible.

You can also make use of the (-) and (+) buttons next to each sub-forum to minimize or maximise which sub-forums you want to see!
Did you also know clicking on the colored boxes next to titles takes you straight to the first new post you haven't read yet?


Using the (+) and (-) buttons.

The Replay System

As it stands, SC2SEA has a replay-system implemented where you can upload your replays and download other replays that have been uploaded; this is an awesome way to catch the replays of the aforementioned SC2SEA tournaments, as well as upload your replays to brag to your friends how you defended a 4-Gate or even post as a reference in any of the threads around SC2SEA.com.


Latest-Replay List.

Quick-Find Player List

A recent addition to the site is the Quick-Find Player List, which you can use to find players from the SEA region (all leagues and races) to form practice-buddies and/or partners for team games. It’s a great way to form some friendships in-game that can result in some solid practice! Make sure to add yourself and mouse-over potential new players to play with to see what they're looking for!


Player-List.

SEA Live-Stream List

The stream list to the right hand side of the forums is a useful tool in finding people who are streaming events from the SEA region. You will often see players like the SEA all-star, FXOmOOnGLaDe among others, stream their ladder adventures as well as some of the best casters in the region (GSL's kellyMILKIES for example) casting and streaming the tournaments here on SC2SEA.com! Not to mention tuning into streams is imperative to improving as a SCII gamer; as you can almost consider them free-coaching from the professionals!


SEA Live Stream List.

If you're a streamer and would like your stream added to the list; please contact an admin or moderator with the details regarding your stream.

Donations

Feeling generous? Or just want to contribute to an awesome community and help sponsor the tournaments on SC2SEA? Feel free to donate to SC2SEA.com here! All donations are put directly into the tournament prize-pool funds and are distributed throughout the tournaments we run here on SC2SEA.com!

Tychus appreciates your donations!

Photos and Photo Albums!

Among the other awesome features of SC2SEA, there is also a photo album section where you can upload your own photos, as well as view the photos uploaded by other users, where you'll see a majority of LAN events around the SEA region as well as other awesome things (ST_Ace in NSW for example!).


Example of the albums available on SC2SEA.

And most importantly, GL HF GG and enjoy your stay at SC2SEA.com!
I will constantly update this thread as new features are added to the forum!
from Sky and the rest of the SC2SEA crew!

Update List:
6/04/2011: Photo-album added.

[JacziE]

Wow, awesome thread Sky and thanks for doing this! Should be super helpful to everyone, new or old. Great stuff!

[HDPhoenix]

2 thumbs up! 4 if I was a monkey!

[deL]

Wow, awesome thread Sky and thanks for doing this! Should be super helpful to everyone, new or old. Great stuff!

[nirvAnA]

2 thumbs up! 4 if I was a monkey! what do monkeys have 4 thumbs?

nice post sky!

[cure]

Well written Sky! Someone deserves scribes ^.^

[SkyBreaker]

Thanks guys! No problems about writing it up... truth be told I'd been meaning to write it up for a while, had a rough-draft lined out and all... but really, really didn't want to have to write it all out in notepad.

So I finally got around to installing MSWord on my computer and decided I'd do it properly. I'll keep it updated as new things get added to the site, and ofc "pretty-up" the images once I get around to buying Photoshop again... there's only so much Paint can do, haha! ^^;

[nirvAnA]

A few more stuff to add!

For those new to forums we have a FAQ section here which goes through all the basic forum features.

FAQ

For those who want to know the full list of smilies, i.e what you type that automatically gets converted to images. Useful for almost everyone who posts.

Full Smilies

For those who want to know the full list of bbcodes, how to embed youtube videos or make fonts in nice colors. Useful for frequent posters / article writers.

BB Codes

And lastly about reputation

Reputation

Do note that once your points exceed a certain number, instead of just having a green icon below your name it grows into a nice shiny medal. For e.g take a look at Cure's name in the post above. I believe Dox also has this

Lastly, the staff of the site and casters can be seen in this following link

Site staff