SW- Beginners guide

[aengus]

SmallWorlds Beginners Guide - DISboards

SmallWorlds is a 3D virtual world that runs inside your web browser. It enables you to build
your own room, house, or even your own world, and fill it with a wide variety of items and
fun activities. With your online friends and acquaintances, you can share experiences
like playing games, watching YouTube videos, listening to your favourite band browsing
through photo galleries, and so much more

Parents should be aware that this game is PG-13. There is an unlimited dictionary.

Contents:

1. Creating your first avatar
2. Navigating the game and understanding missions
3. Getting started with your pet

Chapter 1
Creating your first avatar​

It's not so obvious how to creat an account while in Beta so the following diagram was created.

from the main page at www.smallworlds.com clicking the button labeled "go there now" will allow you to begin creating your new avatar in the game.
Next will bring up the following change to the webpage, click OK to accept

Now you will be at the select an initial look screen. This step is really out of convenience, don't waste to much time worrying about what your going to look like as these steps really just give you a starting point. You can then change your appearance to anything once you select an option and then click next.

Now that you have selected your initial look you can really start to customize your avatar as shown in the next graphic

The arrows under the face will allow you to rotate to see what your avatar will look like from every angle. In choosing your face shape you can select 2 different shapes and they will act like a merge. Using the slider will will show the results of the merge, moving the slider to the left will make the shape move more towards the first shape while moving the slider to the right will make the shape appear more towards the 2nd shape. The slider being in the center is an even merge of both shapes. Once you understand this concept the creation of your avatar will be quite simple.

Next you will choose your skin tone, and then eventually your nose shape in the same manner you chose your facial shape.

Don't click Next just yet, you will notice the bottom row of icons Face, Hair, Eyes, Mouth, Decals, Glasses. You will want to make edits on all of those sections in order to really get your avatar to be all you. Also pay attention that some of the styles have 2 pages, it will say page 1 of 2 in the top right if there are more options hiding from your initial view. Hair inlcudes hats on page 2. Decals include options like facial hair, piercings, dimples etc.

Once you are happy with your look click Next to go to the Dressing Room

Now you can select your clothes, you pick your shirt and pants type then you may customize the color of them. Your shirt can inlcude a logo, and of course a little bling can be added for the final touch under necklace.

Clicking Next will bring you to the Dance studio. I recommend not fiddling with this now as it can be confusing and is something you just don't need to worry about until you get yourself going into the game. You can always come back to this at another time.

If you do wish to get started customizing your dance moves, the
preview dance buttons are at the left. Adding a move is done by clicking the + and removing a move is done so by clicking on the - symbol. Once a move has been added you select the head, arms and legs posture followed by how long of a pause before the next move executes and finally the angle in the event you wish to have your character change direction during the execution of the current dance step.

Clicking Next will bring you to the Name screen

Now you should enter your characters name both first and last. Understand when you speak it will only show the first name and when your avatar is clicked on it will display the entire name. Once you have enterred both click the check availability button. If your name is available click next otherwise try again until you have a unique name.

Now you are almost ready to enter smallworlds. The first thing I suggest you do is click on the account settings button which will bring up the following screen:

The first option I would put onto filter, it will filter the most offensive cuss words from being displayed as this game does not use any dictionary. The second option I would leave at "do not use tunneling" unless you are experiencing problems. What this does is sort of encapsulates the data to disguise it from firewall and packetshaping technologies. It has an adverse effect if enabled in that you may experience only 1 computer in your home may use the game at a time. If there are multiple players in the house for instance this is going to cause you great pain.

Click save once you are satsifed with your settings and I will recommend unless you just cant stand the thought of being with out a pet in the game skipping the make a pet option for now.

There is a mission you will need to create a new pet to finish and this will destroy your current pet so there is no real need to do this yet, as the pets skills will all be lost.

Clicking the wrench will let you modify your avatar if at last minute you decided it is still not quite what you wanted. Keep in mind you can always get to this option before logging in, your character can change later if you so wish.

Clicking enter world will bring you to the terms of service page, you will need to agree and click next to continue and fill out your personal information.

Don't just type any fake email address in there because this will be your login name and you will need to remember it. There is also a verification email that will be sent out. After you have filled out your information Click Next to submit

Now you can pick the shape of your home, This is where you begin every game and where you can place the furnishings you acquire. Click next once you have picked out your room.

Congratulations if all went well you are now standing in your room with your first mission being displayed before you.

Good Luck!​

 

[aengus]

Chapter 2
Navigating the game and understanding missions​

Congratulations, you are now in a similar situation to that dude (hehe)

A brief explanation of this screen is in order before diving into the details of how it all works. Starting with the top left you see a rectangular menu bar with a few options on it. First is a star, this is greyed out at the moment because you are just starting. This is the rating this room space has received. Once you have received a rating the star will turn yellow and have a number in it representing the average (between 1 and 5) you have received. Next is the title of the room which in this case is That Dude's space. The next position is a wrench, Here are where the room options exist. Finally the camera icon is where you can send postcards or set your room icon.

The next obvious thing we notice as we scan the top left to right is a transparent mission window. Everytime you receive a new mission this will pop up like so. The good news is you can just close it because you can get to the missions via the My Profile option which we will discuss in detail further on in the tutorial.

Lets move to the bottom left. You can see a speech bubble square button. This is the chat history button. Under the chat history is a toolbar that spans the bottom of the game screen. We have our smilies bar, followed by the chat input area. The next area in the middle has a bunch of icons. People is where you can add/see friends and search. Places are where you can see all the different places, public and private, as well as search. Shops is next which does just that, it shows all the different shops you can visit, looking under places is a common mistake so remember that before you have a V8 moment. The Mail icon is next which is your smallworlds mailbox. You can send and receive messages from this location. My profile option is next which has your current information, as well as access to your missions that are active, inactive, or completed. Next is the share icon which is where you can invite your friends, family, * cough * donkeys to join you in the game. The inventory icon is next which is your main inventory screen. All items not placed in a room can be found here as well as the option to gift them to friends is possible from this screen.

As we make our way to the extreme right we see a few more round icons which are the rotate left and rotate right buttons, zoom, widescreen, and sound on/off accordingly.

OK now lets get to the details, starting with the top left toolbar

if you click on the wrench for the options you will get a screen similar to the following

You can change the name of your room on this page as well as your room description. The room picture is chosen from the camera icon at the previous menu option.

If you switch to the decor tab you will get the following screen

Here you can change up the floors and walls of your space. Depending on the room you will have a differnet amount of icons listed. Each of the different floors represent different rooms of your space. The same goes for your walls. Expermentation is in order to learn what room is what. TIP: change each of your floors to a different pattern and each wall to a different pattern while learning your space. Then it will be obvious which floor is which room and the same for your walls

The next tab is the members tab, it is a bit of an advanced topic so I will only briefly go into it here. You can assign members in this section, as well as contributors and officers. If you only wanted to let a couple people in for instance you would choose their name from the pull down menu (friends list) then choose members under the members role pull down menu, and click add, then you would go the next option of security

Security tab is how you can control who gets in, by default anyone can enter your space. If you wish to change that, as per our previous example, now you want your members only to access it, you click members only in the radio button option. You also have the option of setting a password for your room in this section.

OK and this brings us back to the toolbar we started with

Now the next icon is the camera, clicking on that option will bring up the following screen

now the first thing you should notice there is that my BFF's are there and the second thing you should notice are the options.

by clicking the save space snapshot option it will be the icon that shows when people search your room, or your room is loading.

Clicking the send postcard option will ask some basic info to email a postcard to a friend of yours which will basically invite them to the game. It will include the picture of your room, if you just hope to share the picture. It is an easy option to get a screenshot for the less tech savvy.

Now moving back toward the bottom left side you will see the chat history button. Clicking on that button will bring up the entire history of the room starting with your arrival. Besides chat it will also show arrivals as well as departures. If you go AFK and return, you can actually catch up on what was said. The chat history button is your friend Opening it up will look similar to the following:

Just under the chat bar is the smilies button. Clicking on this button will open up a panel of smilies, as well as your dance button. The smilies include (from left to right) smile, laugh, whistle, clap, sad, cheer, angry, and dance.

While the smilie button is open, it covers your chat input box, so you must click the smilies button a second time in order to return to enterring text.

Next is a row of buttons starting with the People icon

Clicking on the People icon opens up a window where you can see your friends status and search for people.

The default screen is your friends list. Here you can see which of your friends are online. The above picture does not have any friends online (there would be a green circle if they were) By clicking on one of your friends you can see some information about them.

Block this user would prevent the user from chatting with you

Edit membership would allow you to make the user a member of your room space

Remove from friends list would... well... remove the person from you friends list

Status (in this case offline) would also show as online if the user was online. In the event the user is offline the last time this person logged in

Then a bit down is a homespace button. Clicking that will take you to the users homespace even if the user is not online (unless the room is closed by the security tab)

Moving to the search tab at the top you are moved to a screen awaiting your text input. You can search for a friend by first name or by space. After your search is complete you can click on any people in the results window. The only difference you will see in the results window as in the friends list is that if the person is not on your friends list you will see add to friends rather than remove from friends.

Next to the search button there is also a refresh button if you wish to run the query again

The next icon is the Places icon

The places icon is the main source of navigation in smallwords by clicking on it you bring up the following window (NOTE: this does not include shops, a common mistake!)

You start in the popular tab, and across the top you will see in addition; public, favorites, search, refresh, home, and exit

The popular tab is showing the most popular rooms both public and privately owned. Clicking on the public tab would remove any from the list that are privately owned. Favorites will show rooms you have chosen as your favorites (cover in a moment). Search to find rooms by title or owner. A refresh button if you want to execute your search criteria again. the Home button, this is how you get to your own homespace.

When you click on a room in any of the menus you get more information on that room. You can see the description of the room and who owns it, how many people are in the room, and the option to add/remove from your favorites. If you choose to add to your favorites it would then show up in the favorites tab. Think of this like a book mark on your internet browser. You can save all your favorite places. If you wish to remove it from the favorites you simply click the room then select remove from favorites.

Finally there is a go there button which will take you to that room. If there is more than one room open (instance) then you will get a list of which to enter as the room loads.

Next is the shops icon

This is very similar to the places icon with the exception these are all public places that you can buy items from, it looks like the following:

The only significant differences between the places tab and the shops tab are that there is a single window for the shops and the only information displayed are description and how many users online in the room.

**** much more coming @_@ ****

 

[aengus]

will be chapter 3

 

[aengus]

reserved

 

[aengus]

reserved again

 

[poohluv2u]

reserved as well

 

[aengus]

reserved as well

OH NO YOU DIDNT!!!!

 

[GoofyWaterCoaster]

Woot A!

BTW: Reserved

 

[Disney Dreams]

reserved as well

Now THAT was funny!

- Dreams

P.S. reserved

 

[aengus]

ZOMG I will boot you all out of this thread!!!!

 

[AmberDaze]

ROFL!

 

[Beherenow]

Really
Explanatory
Sentences,
Easy
Registration.
Very
Exceptional
Dialogue!

 

[aengus]

Zomg On Topic People!

 

[ihavewaycutecats]

Zomg On Topic People!

 

[Mnementh]

Zomg On Topic People!

Judging by posts 2-5, I thought posting "Reserved" WAS the topic

 

[Mamacita]

giggle

I have something to add, when you choose your starting point avatar it does matter which you choose because each has its own set of 2 face shapes to morph between. Once you've saved you can go back and change any feature but the face shape, so choose carefully.

now back on topic....


***reserved***

Mamacita

 

[aengus]

giggle

I have something to add, when you choose your starting point avatar it does matter which you choose because each has its own set of 2 face shapes to morph between. Once you've saved you can go back and change any feature but the face shape, so choose carefully.

now back on topic....


***reserved***

Mamacita

Nice I didn't know that! I will update that later

 

[GoofyWaterCoaster]

Judging by posts 2-5, I thought posting "Reserved" WAS the topic

 

[aengus]

I reserve the right to tell you all I updated chapter 2 pretty extensively

 

[tinkcollector]

TY Aengus!