Rabbit's Guide to IRCThe aim of this guide is to teach people who don't know the basics of using mIRC and accessing the Endless Gravestones online chat as quickly as possible. It will also walk you through the basics of changing your settings and using the chat so the world you're stepping into isn't so overwhelmingly confusing. To get things started, you will need to download mIRC from
here, simply select the mirror that is closest to where you live. It is a free program for 30 days, after which you'll get a message prompting you to register and pay some money but this is little more than an annoyance so don't worry. It won't stop working.
Once that's done, install the program and boot it up. You should get an options menu, otherwise it's under the Tools menu.
Once you open the options menu, there are 7 different categories, each with their own subcategories. The most important of these is the first one (Connect). From here, you can set your name and email address (which are of no real value; they just go on your profile when people right-click your name) as well as your nickname and an alternative one in case yours is somehow taken. It is generally recommended that you use the same username that you do on the forums so that people don't get confused, or something similar if your name has been taken.
The next subcategory, Servers, is equally as important as without it, you won't be able to find us. Open it and select Rizon, then select Random Server.
After that is Options. I find that the most useful ones to have are “Connect on startup” and “Reconnect on disconnection”, though you are quite welcome to select any of the others. They're pretty self-explanatory.
Local Info, Identd, and Firewall can be left alone. The next important tab is Options under the IRC category. Click “Hide ping? pong! event” because it is just annoying. It won't affect you in any way, though, and this is probably just a personal gripe but I get sick of seeing that message every so often. Under Messages, you can set a timestamp to appear before peoples' messages. There are three different settings: [HH], [HH:nn], and [HH:nn:ss], which corresponds to hours, minutes, and seconds respectively. You can use it to find out how long its been since someone has talked or for the purposes of logging. Alternatively, you can just leave the box unticked. Also of interest in this subcategory is the Quit Message, which will be shown when you type the quit command. Usually people will take the chance to leave a parting shot or say something snappy and/or cool and generally make a grand exit. As its name implies, strip code allows you to remove any fonts or additional colouring from your chat window in case it gets annoying.
Catcher and Flood don't need to be changed but if you want to keep logs, then Logging is where you go. You can choose from Chats, Channels, and Both, chats being private chats with others and channels being the channels you're talking in. The log files will be saved in a directory of your choice and capped at a certain amount of kb to save disk space, though this can be set as high as you want.
Once you've customised mIRC to your liking, go back to the Connect category and hit the Connect button if you haven't done so already. Provided that you've done everything right, then a bunch of messages should pop up on the main chat window telling you as much. In the main chat box, type
/join #EndlessGravestones and that should take you straight to us.
The final step is to register your nickname with the NickServer so that no one can take it from you while you're chatting. Go back to the main server window (mainly so that no one sees what you're doing in case you should accidentally mistype things) and type
/nickserv register [password] [email address] where your password is the password you want and the email address is where the confirmation email will be sent to. As always, be sure to check your junk mail if you don't seem to be getting it. Once that is done, follow the instructions in the email and then your account will be activated. Having a registered nickname allows you to kill people who have stolen your identity (not literally, mind you!) and allows us to make you a voiced member, which gives you a plus sign next to your username in the chat window and marks you out as one of the cool crowd. Apart from that, it does nothing. When you are registered, simply log in by typing
/nickserv identify [password].
To help out those who have never used IRC before, here is a list of a few basic commands that can make your life a bit easier.
/join [#channel] – joins the specified channel
/quit – quits you from the channel and displays your quit message
[backslash]me – the most often used command, it puts any text written after it into action form. For example, “[backslash]me jumps into a fountain" would read as "*Rabbit jump into a fountain”
/nick [newnick] – Changes your nickname to the specified one
Ctrl+B – puts whatever you want to say in bold. This can be combined with [backslash]me to create bold actions
Ctrl+U – underlines whatever you want to say
Ctrl+I – adds an indentation as if you had pressed Tab in a word processor
That's most of what you'll need to know. A relatively quick and painless intro to using Internet Relay Chat! Now go forth, have fun, and remember that the forum rules still apply. If you have any problems or questions, don't hesitate to talk to me or one of the mods.