Communications

[AdminAdmin]

Once you're clear on the directions, you set out for the communications center. The walk only takes a few minutes but tracking down the communications instructor seems to take forever. You finally find her in a third floor office...

"Hi. I was told you were on your way quite a while ago. What happened? You get lost? Never mind. It doesn't matter. You need to learn about effective communication within the Combine, yes? Yes. Good. Now then, there are several important communication systems available to you. Email Darkness Message (DM) Forums & Private Forum Messages (PM) IRC & Discord Email: The first, email, you already know about. What you may not know is that you can set your Combine account to send a copy of all DM’s that you send and receive to your registered email account. This is helpful and encouraged so you don’t lose any important mails in the event of accidental deletion or game problems. In order to set your account up to email your DMs to you, you must first get to your account settings. To be taken to your account setting click on the “Settings” link. Once you have arrived at the "Settings" page, scroll down a little and to the left, you will see the “Contact Information” Section. First – verify that the email address listed is the address you want your DM’s sent to. If it is not, enter the new email address and click “Change”. Once that’s done, scroll back down to that section and you will see “Messages are currently sent to” and a drop down box. If you want to receive your DM’s to your email select “Both” if not then select “Darkness”. DO NOT select “mail”. By selecting mail you will not be able to reply to DM’s – you’ll have to send a brand new one in order to reply. Once you make your selection and the drop down goes away click “change”. You’ve now set your DM preferences. If you do not set your DM preferences this way, you should only receive e-mails when registering on a new forum or under other extremely rare circumstances. Darkness Messages (DM): Darkness Messaging, or DM, is the in-game messaging service used to communicate with other players in the Combine. You can access this by clicking on the envelope icon on the menu at the top of your screen. The icon will flash whenever you have a new message by default. Once you click on the icon you will see three options on the left side menu: *Read Messages *Send Messages *Sent Messages. At the bottom of each message there will be an option to "Reply" or "Delete". When you click reply or send your screen will refresh to show: In the box for the recipient(s), you put the handle of the person you're contacting. You can add more than one by separating the names with a semicolon. Example: "John;Greg;Rob". Under that you will see the box to type your message. Once you are finished writing your message click "Send". Forums & Private Forum Messages (PM): Forums and Private Messaging (PM) are used as a general communication tool within factions. For most factions, this is where you will receive assignments and report your progress. It is also one place to communicate with all the other members of the faction and have FUN. Some areas are open to all members and some you will not have access to. When posting to the forums make sure you are posting in the correct thread for what you are posting about. If you are unsure where to post something, ask your faction officers for help. Private Messages (PM): PMs work differently on different forums. In general, there will be a "messages" option, usually near the top of the screen. PMs are generally used for in-faction communications. You'll need to check your faction's communications guidelines for using PMs. IRC & Discord: IRC and Discord are forms of real-time chat and are used in-game as well as by many factions. There different chat rooms that you can visit once you've been give the appropriate room names. It's best to see what you're faction uses and have someone walk you through getting set up the first time."

Realizing she's not about to stop for breath, you interrupt the Communication Specialist. Do you... Simply walk out the door without another word. Say, "Okay, I got all that but what's this holocron thing I keep hearing about? and GNS? Sim News? Huh?" Say, "Alright but what about language barriers? I mean there are sentients from all over in the Combine. Do we have a common language or something?" Say, "Yeah, that all makes sense. On a slightly different topic... I noticed your cybernetics. Could you tell me something about them? They look really cool." Say, "Well, if that's all I need to know, I really should get back to the head instructor. Do you know where he'd be at this time?" Say, "Hmmm... Communications don't seem to be a big deal. What would you suggest I study next?"