Q:  Does it cost anything to sign up for an account?

A:  No.  It is free to sign up for an Allakhazam.com account.  The free account lets you log onto the site and post under the same name, rate other people's posts, and take advantage of a number of other free features we include.  All accounts may optionally be upgraded to premium accounts for a very small fee, which provide you with a number of very nice additional features.

Q:  I see posters rated as Scholar, Sage and Guru.  What's up with that and how do I get a title?

A:  That is part of the Karma system.  Your Karma rating is determined by averaging every rating your posts have received from the users of the site.  The rating comes from posts made under your registered name on any of the rated forums for any game covered by allakhazam.com, but does not include posts on user journals.  You must have at least 15 posts before you receive a Karma rating.  Then any future post you make will start out at your Karma level.  Anonymous posts start at a rating of 2.  Titles are assigned to your posts according to the following scale:

    Karma below 3 = user.  Posts are in dark blue.
    Karma between 3.01 and 3.65  = scholar.  Posts are in yellow.
    Karma between 3.66 and 4.34 = sage.  Posts are in green.
    Karma between 4.35 and 5 = guru.  Posts are in red

Q:  I want to change the way the comments are displayed.  How do I do that?

A:  At the top of every forum, you will set a set of filters.  You can adjust the forum settings to your personal preferences.  Simply make the changes and hit the change button.  If you also check save, the settings you choose will be your default settings each time you visit the forums.  The filters at the top of the forum do the following from left to right:

    a)  Flat vrs Threaded.  Choosing flat will bring up the full text of each primary message on the forum.  Choosing threaded will only bring up the subject lines.  The default is threaded.  Be warned that choosing flat will significantly increase the loading time for each page.

    b)  Auto Expand.  You may choose to automatically expand messages higher than a certain rating so that the full text of those messages appear while the rest of the messages only show the subject line.  The default is to never auto expand.  Be warned that the more messages you auto expand, the longer the loading time will be for each page.

    c)  Order.  You can change the order of the messages to show you the newest messages first, oldest messages first or highest rated messages first.  The default is to show the newest messages first.

    d)  Filter @.  This filter lets you eliminate from view any messages rated below the threshold you set.  Thus setting it at no 2 (below average) will cause those messages rated 1 (awful) to not appear on any forum you visit and setting it at 5 (excellent) will only show you those messages rated excellent.  The default is 2.

Q:  What are those icons next to each post?

A:  Click on the white arrows in order to reply to a specific post.  Click on the yellow notepad to edit your own post.  Click on the red flag to bookmark a post so you can easily find it later (premium only).

Q:  Are there any special codes I can use to make my posts look better?

A:  Yes.  The forums use ubb codes.  There are a variety of things you can do once you understand the codes.  Here are some ideas:

    a) You can change the color of any text.  Just block the text with the color codes in brackets with the ending block starting with a slash.  Thus [orange] this text would be in orange [/orange].  The following colors are available:  Orange, Yellow, Blue, Navy, Green, Olive, Gold, Silver, Black, White, Teal, Red, Maroon, Purple,

    b) The other tags you can use are (remember to start with the tag you want and end with the same tag with a slash in front of it):
            [li] to get a bulleted list [/li]
            [b] to bold text [/b]
            [i] to italicize text [/i]
            [u] to underline text [/u]
            [quote] to quote text [/quote]

    c)  You can also do preformatted text, which lets you paste tables and whatnot into messages and not lose their formatting.  Type [pre] text goes here [/ pre]

    d)  There are 3 ways to do links.   http://www.anything will automatically be linked in. You may deliberately define links as links, by using [link]text to be linked [/ link].  You may also deliberately name links by using the following syntax. [link = h t t p://whatever.com] TITLE of link goes here [/ link]

Q:  If I see one more "Monk Item" post, I think I'm going to scream.  How do I get rid of them?

A:  Rate them down.  Since the default setting to view posts is 2, it only takes a couple of people to rate down a post before it disappears from view.  Moreover, because a poster's Karma rating determines where his posts are initially rated, if a person consistantly makes posts that other users rate as awful, eventually his karma will drop so low that his posts will effectively disappear the moment they are made.

Q:  I'm a registered user, but can't seem to be able to log in.  What's the problem?

A:  Several things could be contributing to this.  First off, you must have cookies enabled in your browser to stay logged in and to use the premium features.  Check your browser settings to make sure they are enabled.  Second, if your computer date and time are off, the cookies can expire prematurely.  Check your computer's date and time to make sure they are correct.  Finally, sometimes you just need to log off and back on again to reset things.  Click on login in the menu, log out and log back into your account.

Q:  How do I submit information to the site, and do you have any submission preferences.

A:  All new information and corrections can be e-mailed to eqteam@allakhazam.com.  It can often take a week or two before something gets posted, and priority goes to new information over corrections, so corrections can take even longer, but we will always make the correction eventually.  To speed up the process and make it more likely your submission gets posted, please crop the item screenshots and convert them to either jpeg or png format.  Include as much information as you can about each item, including the zone it is found in, mob that drops it and level you need to be to get it.  Zone and level information are especially important for an item to be properly searched in the database.  My modus operandi when I get a huge mass of submissions is to basically skip past bitmaps, zip files and images that need further editing to get to those I can instantly see and put up, leaving the others for later when I get more time. I also use those that give the most information first, so if I get three submissions of an item the one that included the who and where drop information is the most likely to get used.  For quests, I'm more likely to quickly post up a quest whose description is ready to post than one that's a long, unedited log file or one which needs significant editing.  If you know the reward, please include a screenshot of it.

Q:  I see some people are able to run their own journal.  How do I get one for myself?

A:  That is one of the many features offered as part of the premium service described above.

Q:  I'm a premium member and want to know how I access my @allakhazam.com e-mail.

A:  Any mail sent to yourusername@allakhazam.com will automatically be forwarded to your registered e-mail address, so you can just check your mail like you normally do.

Q:  I just signed up for the premium service and want to set up all those cool features like my journal and posting title.  Where do I go to do that?

A:  Click on Your Account in the menu.  This brings up your account administration screen.  Here you can choose your posting title, set up your personal journal to your preferences, set your e-mail to public and add a signature and biography.  Make sure you hit save changes after you change your settings.

Q:  I'm a premium member, but I've quit playing and want to make sure my account does not renew.  How do I do that?

A:  Click on Your Account in the menu to get to your account settings.  In the lower right-hand corner is the billing settings which lists your renewal date and whether to renew your premium account.  Change that to "no" and hit save changes.  Your account will now expire instead of renew.

Q:  I'm a premium member, but am still seeing ads.  I thought premium members did not see any ads?  So why am I still seeing them?

A:  You are not supposed to see any banner, popup or skyscraper ads as a premium member.  If you are, you should first check to make sure you are actually logged into your premium account, and not a different one.  You should also check your browser settings to make sure you have cookies enabled and your computer's date and time to make sure they are set correctly.