Creating a CIR
Your CIR is your Character Information Repository. It is a place where you store a lot of the information about the pc you play on Aelyria. It is a compulsory part of your character creation and it must be kept up to date, especially with regard to training, experience and finances.
In order to create a CIR, go to the
Characters Forum and start a new thread. The name of your thread should be your PCs name.
What To Include?
Well, other than the basic required information, that's up to you! Have a look at some of the existing CIR's in the Characters Forum to get some ideas.
The basic information that needs to be included and updated is:
- Physical Description
Just tell what your PC looks like.
- Training and Experience Earned
You need to list all your skills with a link to every level up, training and experience threads and how much xp you got for each one.
- Financial Records
You need to list any large purchases you make. You don’t need to add minor ones like buying a drink or some bread, but you should include a monthly fee to cover these basic expenses. The Crowns Per Cycle for Food by Race list can help you with this.
- Major Possessions
Any items of note and property you acquired should go here with a link to the place you got them.
Many people include a lot more information than that, but this is the bare minimum. A useful thing to add could be a timeline where you keep track of where you are when for example, though this isn’t obligated.
Remember that you must also update this information. Every time a thread is completed and "signed off" by the Moderator as having given you experience, you should link it in the CIR. The same is true for every time that your running total of money is updated.
How Do I Make Those Links?
The most basic way to link to any page on the net is the following:
[url=http://www.playbypost.com/forums/characters/]Characters Forum[/url]
This gives:
Characters Forum
For links to posts and threads there’s an even easier way:
For threads: [thread=72139]Completely New to Aelyria? READ THIS![/thread]
For posts: [post=1228193]What is the Matchmaker Forum?[/post]
This gives:
Completely New to Aelyria? READ THIS!
What is the Matchmaker Forum?
How can you find out those numbers? First of all, look at the post you want to link to. On the top right you should see ‘permalink’. Click that (you can click the number too, but I find the permalink one to be easier). Now you should get something like the following in your address bar:
http://www.playbypost.com/forums/welcome/
72139-completely-new-aelyria-read.html#post
1244293
This is the full url to the post. The green number is the number of the thread and the red number is the number of the post.
This doesn’t just work for linking threads and posts in your CIR, but you can also use this to link to your CIR in your signature.
Handy tip 1:
If you want to add colour to your signature or something like bolding or a different font you have to put those tags inside the url, thread or post tags. For example:
[url=http://www.playbypost.com/forums/characters/][color=lime]Characters Forum[/color][/url] =>
Characters Forum
Handy tip 2:
How to make an image into a link:
[url=http://www.aelyria.com/index-help.html][img]http://www.aelyria.com/images/ui/but-help.gif[/img][/url]
This gives:
What about those tables?
If you want to add tables you can find the general structure in the
BB Code List. You could always try some
Advanced Table Formatting too. An example of a simple table could be:
[table=head]|Property 1|Property 2|Property 3
Object 1|x||x
Object 2|x|x|x
Object 3||x|x
Object 4||x|[/table]
Which gives:
| | Property 1 | Property 2 | Property 3 |
|---|
| Object 1 | x | | x |
| Object 2 | x | x | x |
| Object 3 | | x | x |
| Object 4 | | x | |
You can add formatting inside the cells of the table too, but for some reason formatting in the last cell seems to mess up your table. Adding an empty column at the end or not formatting your last colomn is one solution, using the noparse tags where a new line should be started is another (you'll need to switch the {} with [] around the noparse tags).
[table=head]|Property 1|Property 2|Property 3
Object 1|[center]x[/center]||[center]x[/center]{noparse}{/noparse}
Object 2|[center]x[/center]|[center]x[/center]|[center]x[/center]{noparse}{/noparse}
Object 3||[center]x[/center]|[center]x[/center]{noparse}{/noparse}
Object 4|[center]x[/center]|[/table]
Which gives:
| | Property 1 | Property 2 | Property 3 |
|---|
| Object 1 | x | | x |
| Object 2 | x | x | x |
| Object 3 | | x | x |
| Object 4 | x | | |
Other neat tricks
If you see something in a CIR you like or a certain way of coding something and you want to know how to do it then try clicking the quote button. You should be able to see the tags they used then. Note: if you’re going to copy extensive parts from the layout of someone else’s CIR, please ask them permission first. They probably won’t mind, but some people might not like it if you copy their things.
More info about the different tags that are possible can also be found
here.