Alright, this will be a work in progress...

Welcome to the Negative World. I am Zero, the code monkey, etc. around here. If you ever have an issue with the site, want to report a bug, have a suggestion, etc. you should post it in this thread. If it is something that needs to be personally brought to my attention for one reason or another, you can always send me a private message. Sweet.

As a quick explanation, the Negative World is basically a site made by Nintendo fans for Nintendo fans. Though I do all the main programming, we tend to think of it as a group effort, and everyone has a voice. Essentially the site came about when we realized there was a large erm... lacking... in the quality of user on the average public Nintendo forum, and the forums suffered because of this. So we decided to create a forum where true Nintendo fans had a place to speak about Nintendo without worrying about constant haters and trolls. This doesn't mean everyone has to be constantly positive towards Nintendo all the time (believe me, we ALL hate friend codes,) but we want to keep the environment pretty positive overall. In the end, it makes for a pretty unique site, we think, though it is a shame that a site without Nintendo haters is actually a rare thing.

Onto the FAQ.

A. Your Profile, Etc.

Before you get started, you should probably go edit your profile. Fill in whatever you want, no one cares about you. KIDDING. Also, once you hit 15000 XP you can choose a new avatar so you don’t get stuck with an 8bit avatar. Otherwise you will look like a follower, when in reality you are a leader. But do NOT spam the forum to get XP!

B. Site Experience (XP), Levels, Etc.

You may notice in the menu bar above that you have a level and an XP score next to your username. XP is basically site experience. Pretty much every time you do anything, from clicking pages to making posts, playing online games if you unlocked them, etc. you get XP. How much XP do you get per what action? Well, that is up to you to find out. Here is a warning though... do not try to exploit the XP. All XP is tracked and anytime something seems a bit out of whack, we will take a look into it. If I find out someone is exploiting a loophole then BAM... MASSIVE XP DEDUCTION, BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Just don't do it, alright? However, we have no problem with people gaining massive XP by getting actively involved in the site, in fact that is the point. So don't hesitate to click around, make posts, etc. just don't spam or exploit.
The XP is then used to unlock features, such as private avatar, background user color, site skins...
You can check the current XP leaders here, and the XP unlocking guide here!

Levels are a bit different than XP. Do not assume that levels are related to your XP, they aren't. Levels are just a means of controlling access to the various functionality of the site. Most new users start somewhere from level -1 to level -3. Levels go downwards. Level -5 is considered a site administrator. Etc. There is no official way built into the site to move down a level... if we feel you deserve it, we will move you down. If you feel you deserve it, well... let me know. But don't cry if you get DENIED. Don't worry too much about levels, there really isn't a whole lot to be gained by moving down a few levels. The differences between the various levels will be explained later in this FAQ.

C. Posting on the Forum

As stated above, we happen to enjoy the fact that we have a Nintendo forum with an overall positive vibe, and we plan to keep it that way. Posting about other companies, posting off topic, disagreeing with Nintendo, etc. are perfectly fine (though you should probably get a feel for how the forum works before going nuts with that.) Flaming, trolling, etc. are not. Disagree, but disagree with respect for the others. As for content, we are pretty much completely open... discussions on modding, linking to other sites images, pictures of (legal aged) guys in Super Mario underoos, all of that is fine. Just make sure to include a NSFW label on anything that is NSFW so those who don’t want to see it will know not to click.

Our main forum is set up a bit differently than many, so it might be a tad bit confusing at first, but you will get the hang of it in no time. Actually it is our only forum. It is, however, controlled by levels. Users can post threads based on what level they are. For instance, a level -1 user can only post a level -1 thread, which everyone can see. A level -5 admin, however, can post a level -5 thread that only those level -5 or lower can view. On the main forum, you will see a “board view level” option. This allows lower level users, if they please, to filter the board to only view posts from certain levels. It’s really not as confusing as it might sound.

Our forum uses BBCode, which you can insert with form buttons. You can have more information about it if you click the question mark in the "edit a post" page, but on the whole it's easy to use. Just know you can resize posted images if they're wider than 740px, so it doesn't break the site layout, like this: (img=640x360), and that links must have text between the url tags. The forum also allows HTML, which means you can put embed videos in the site.

When posting a topic or reply, just fill in the big box at the top or bottom of the board / thread. Topic and message should be obvious. If you have alternate personas (more on that later) you can select what persona you want to post as. Admins have a few other options (more on that later as well.) Select the level you want the post to be (for the most part, we post -1 unless there is a really valid reason to not let the higher levels see a thread) and click the submit button. Sweet. You can also edit and delete any threads / replies made by you or one of your alternate personas. That is pretty self-explanatory so I won’t bother explaining how.

You can add a poll using the "create poll" link under the board heading in the menu bar above.

You can also send private messages to individual users. To do this, click on their username to view their profile, and then click on the "Send PM" link contained in their profile. If you have a new / unread private message a link to bring you to your private messages will appear next to your name on the top menu bar. However, you can view your private messages at any time by clicking the private message link under the board menu above.

D. Functionality of Levels

This is just a quick rundown of the various added functionality you can gain through moving down in the levels. There is probably a bit more not included below, if you have any questions about levels please send me a private message.

Level -3
-Upload new midis and upload new sprites on their respective pages.
-Add new games to the games database (using the upload form on top of the page.)
-Create a new persona which can be used to post. Fun to confuse people with (but don't try to TROLL with it, we can check on whose personas are whose pretty easily.)
-Create your own webcomic (ask me about this if interested.)

Level -5
-Post a news or rant to the public default page of the Negative World (just switch the "normal" option to news or rant when you make a new post on the forum.)
-Post a Top Ten list to the default page.
-various administrative functionality in the "admin" link up on the top menu bar.

Level -7
-Wouldn't you like to know?

Don't ask me what advantages levels -2, -4, and -6 have. Damned if I know.

E. The Neverending Experience Quest

One of the most loved things on the Negative World is the (newly dubbed) Neverending Experience Quest. Think of it as a sort of interactive "game" that takes place on the Negative World. Clues are given, and you have to solve each stage to move onto the next. Some stages you will be answering straight-forward game questions, others you will be forced to think outside the box, and still others you will be running all over the site like a headless chicken trying to figure out what to do. But it is all in good fun, and a very nice way to earn XP quickly as well.

F. Other Assorted Fun Stuff

Store your Nintendo Wii and DS codes here. Functionality is coming soon to be able to view others quickly and neatly.

Negative World has a pretty unique games list where you can not only add games to your collection, but rate various games and see how your scores stand next to the Negative World average. At the moment Super Metroid is our highest rated game... agree? Disagree? Go rate it! You can get a lot of experience quickly by rating games, so I'd suggest checking it out! If you don't see a game on our list, you can add it to the database using the submission form at the top of the page. Sweet!

Interested in getting Homebrew up and running on your Wii? Check out this thread for full details! Personally I haven't done this so I can't be too much help, so if you have any questions or need some help you should probably message Junkie_XL, our resident Homebrew expect.

Everyone likes game media right? Check out our video game midis and our video game sprites pages. And if you are level -3 or lower, you can upload new media!

If you are anything like me, you hate spending more money on games, consoles, and accessories than you have to. Check out our video game deals thread for tips on how to save money, and to post / read about current game deals. I have saved literally hundreds of dollars this way, and you can (and should) as well!

MORE COMING SOON.

URL to share (right click and copy)

delete is still a bit goofy, have to fix it up

Hmm, ok I think delete is working correct now.

Level 0 posts (the ones that show up on every board level) are now level 99 posts. I did this because I am using level 0 as a "user" who is not a member of the site, and it would be too confusing if level 0 posts had nothing to do with level 0 users (who can't post at all.)

Oh and case you are wondering, various user defined defaults WILL be coming... it's jut not a high priority at the moment. But eventually you will be able to set which display name is your default posting name, which board levels are your default levels, etc.

Man I wish I was better at graphics.

Oh well, a new temporary banner is up. And I say temporary because I'd like a better one eventually, but who knows if we will ever get to that.

Hmm, on the other hand the pipe background turned out pretty sweet. I hate repeating backgrounds that are obvious so I figured if I made a bunch of wacky pipes going all over the place it wouldn't be *quite* as obvious of a repeating background, especially since they connect from right to left and bottom to top.

I wish I could help with the graphics department, but looking at your work, I can say without doubt that you are 100X better than me.

Hmm, well after putting more effort into it I think the graphics turned out alright for now.

I am trying to upload my private avatar, and I select private browse for the file and "Punch it!" and I get... "I AM ERROR, select an avatar privacy setting" or something similar...

Using Microsoft IE

Oh yeah damn I remember, select bars in IE need to have their values specifically defined (in Firefox it just takes whatever you put as the display value and counts it as the actual value as well, if you don't define the actual value.)

DAMN IE.

Alright should work now. Also if you try to upload an image and it tells you it is the wrong type, let me know what type it tells you it is. Apparently Firefox just calls them gif, jpeg, and png but IE does some weird stuff like x-png and pjpeg so I'm not 100% sure I got all the possible variations.

Sorry buddy. ;)

As you should be! As all who still use IE should be!

Hmm, is it working in IE for you now? It is for me.

Just uploaded them! Another triumph!

More of a request...When your on page 2 of a post, there is no way to tell which page you're on. The '2' is still selectable, and has a line under it just like the '1'.


Does that make sense?

I see what you mean. It's an easy enough fix, I'll get on it tomorrow.

I was just wondering if you were planning on including a place in the profiles for video game collections? No rush, but it would be nice to have eventually.

Video game collections will come eventually but there is something I want to solve first.

Basically... I would LOVE to have a way to have an actual games database so that whenever games are used for anything they would be linked from that database and then that info could be used in various ways. For instance, this way everyone would select games from the database when building their game collection page and then I could make a page for say... the top 10 games people own, or whatever.

Also I have an interesting idea for reviews which would require something similar. When someone reviews a game they would select the game from the database and then write their review, whether a full one or a short one or whatever, and then give a score. But the "official" negative world review score would be the average of all scores for any given game or whatever.

The problem is I haven't figured out the best way to do this game database. I have two solutions in my head...

A. Find some site that has a master game list (I think wikipedia does, for instance) and create a way to import it quick and easy into my database. For instance, if I could copy and paste from the wikipedia page for each Nintendo console and create some code that would just take what I need and update the database based on whatever is new (the good thing is NES/SNES/N64/etc. never have to be updated since no new games are made for them) and just update it now and again.

Potential downfalls to this are that if whatever sit I'm stealing the list from stops updating we're screwed. Another one is that if they update a game name or something my database would treat it as a new game.

B A better solution, but more work for us (probably mostly me) would be to keep our own updated game list. It might not be as tough as it seems since it wouldn't be a comprehensive one, just an updated as needed one. I'd start off adding all the games I know people would be putting in collections, etc. like Super Mario 3, Super Metroid, yada yada. It might take a bit of initial time but I'm pretty sure just copying and pasting from the aforementioned wikipedia page all the games I think need to be in the database probably wouldn't take THAT long... an hour or two to get a nice list of a few hundred games in the database. Admins could always add new games to the list whenever they wanted. Then create some page which allows regular users to submit games to add to list, and admins could approve them.

This probably wouldn't be quite as big of a hassle as it seems, since once we got the core database it'd be adding a few new games here and there as big name games release. The downfalls though well... for one, I question if anyone would ever actually update the database, or if they would, for instance, want to review a game, see it isn't in there, and just get lazy and not bother. Another is that the list might still end up getting repeats if people aren't careful to make sure they aren't adding a game that is already in there, especially for games like "The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask" which, depending on how a person writes it, can end up starting with T, L, Z OR M. Now I could make a quick search function so you could type in "Zelda" and see all the Zelda games already in there or whatever... in fact I probably would do that... but then again sometimes people are too lazy to even find out the right way to spell what they want to spell, especially with something like Disgaea which has a weird spelling.

I'm leaning towards B because it doesn't put the fate of this entire idea in someone else's hands, but B also means a lot of work on my part and some constant upkeeping so it probably won't come along until I get a lot of the core site functionality going and work out all the known bugs first and have time to really focus on it.

Whew, long answer to a quick question.

The server is having problems, I keep getting blank pages and server error messages. I have to leave and then come back, or keep refreshing and refreshing and refreshing.

Hmm yeah, those server error messages say something about some code not running right or something? But they lie, my code is fine it is just their dumb servers that act up sometimes. They're probably not the best host ever but hey, they're cheap and it seems to work most of the time...

Wow, this is pretty damn cool. I'm liking it!