Guide for using the console games forums

[Neil]

This is JUST a guide to help, NOT rules/guide lines

Ok so to...Maybe help people out, so less flaming, stupid debating and all that I've decided to right up a small guide to aid those who don't want to be flamed for posting old news or something.

Part One - Making a thread

Ok so obviously you know how to make a thread, but to make a decent thread, not get flamed so much and to basically get less trouble there's a few steps you can take to stop this, first one is searching, ok, say you know the release of a game, and you can't see any post about it, and you want to post this desperatly, first you have to click "search"



Clicking search will come up with that box, for a quick search just type it in there, that's fast but sometimes not as effective,





And that comes up, if you want a more, precise search then you should use the Advanced Search, located by clicking the link just under the quick search bar



That will come up, using this is very simple, but you have to be careful, if you don't do it right you may search the wrong forum or the entire forum, these instructions will help you get a more exact search



Doing exactly how that shows will give you results that include the game you're looking for in the title, you can do posts but it could come up with loads of results and it'd of been better to just quick search.

Part Two - Layout

Ok this is important, when posting it's best to be in short chunks, people don't want to read huge paragraphs of information and would rather read in smaller bits, you can either sperate every section of it by putting a space in between each part, e.g.

Talking about GTA4,

Intro

List of features 1

2

3

Etc...It'll be much easier for most people to read like that, plus it makes it look neater, also use a decent font, the standard font or something easy to read not like this because it'll just be annoying, another thing that would be good to include is pictures (if available) because it'll be easier than trying to explain something.

Part 3 - "Console Wars"

This is always something that comes up in the console gaming forum, there are less arguements if no one tries to compare the PS3, Xbox 360 or the Nintendo Wii, if you plan to post about this then don't say "The Nintendo Wii is for babys", "The PS3 is a piece of crap" or "The xbox 360 is old and rubbish" because they're not facts, just opinion, it's best to just let people play the console they want, the only time I think is acceptable to post any form of "console war" thread is when there is solid evidence, not just opinions.

Part 4 - Popular Game Websites

This is the final part, it is not really related to threads, just a general list of console game websites and things that will help people out when thinking about buying a certain game, console etc but doesn't know where.

Game sites

IGN - Very good game site

GameSpot - Another very good game site

GameBanshee - Very good for role-player games, good guides, lists etc..

Where to buy games/consoles

Play - Very good website, you can save some money on some games if you pre-order them

GAME - I'm pretty sure only people in the United Kingdom will be able to purchase things from here but it might be available to the rest of Europe, maybe the world, not 100% sure so it'll need to be confirmed

eBay - Not all products will be brand new and it's not 100% safe but you can get good deals here

GameStation - Good store, pretty cheap, lots of pre-owned games as well as new

www.xbox.com - Xbox official Site

http://uk.playstation.com - Official Playstation website

http://nintendo.com/ - Official Nintendo website

www.joystiq.com - Game Site (Addition credit to Vince Noir)

American sites

GameStop - Some American game store, only one I think, not sure though

Walmart - They sell games too

Sorry US list isn't very big, I'm english and don't know all of the American stores

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I hope this guide is useful to people, took me absolutly ages to write it so you best appreciate it =]

Edited by Elkaa (Forum Moderator): Thread stuck - Nice guide. PM me if you need updates.

Updated: 22/07/2007

[Elkaa]

Nice guide mate, might have to forward this to see if we can sticky it.

[Jordie]

good guide should be stickied

[Neversoft]

Man, theres gonna be too many stickied threads in this forum. Great guide though.

http://forum.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/index.php is also a mega popular forum. Might want to add that to the list aswell. Although it's only Nintendo based. You should get some popular forums aswell and list them. Have like an Xbox forum, Playstation forum, Nintendo Forum, etc.

[Neil]

Man, theres gonna be too many stickied threads in this forum. Great guide though.

http://forum.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/index.php is also a mega popular forum. Might want to add that to the list aswell. Although it's only Nintendo based. You should get some popular forums aswell and list them. Have like an Xbox forum, Playstation forum, Nintendo Forum, etc.

Yea, anything else added will need to be added by a mod or something so if this guide is actually stickied or something I'll get them to be put on the list

[Brody]

goood guide will be helpful to some people im sure

[Agent 47]

Add www.joystiq.com to the list

[GommeInc]

It would be kinda pointless stickying this thread? It's not exactly a problem the old news etc. People only do it because they're either new or too lazy to search, and then the thread is closed? I don't see why we need a thread pointing out the obvious?

The only good thing about this thread is the details on websites which could make a thread better (depending on the subject of the thread).

Note: I've only just noticed that there is no rule in the rules page saying you shouldn't make more threads related to the same thing. HxF rules are a bit rubbish when you think about it...

[Neil]

It would be kinda pointless stickying this thread? It's not exactly a problem the old news etc. People only do it because they're either new or too lazy to search, and then the thread is closed? I don't see why we need a thread pointing out the obvious?

The only good thing about this thread is the details on websites which could make a thread better (depending on the subject of the thread).

Yea but it might be useful to some people, if old news is posted they normally get "this is old :rolleyes:" tons and all sorts of dumb comments, it's just to help people that are new to the forum and don't want to start trouble, whether people actually use it or not is up to them

[Bear-Max]

Nice guide, but I think the problem is not with the people that are actually going to read this thread--it's the ones that won't that cause the flaming and trolling.