Forums

The Forums are the site's message board — categories, threads, and replies, with BBCode formatting, upvote/downvote reactions, and unread tracking. Every category is fixed by the game's staff; there's no player-created category, but there's a lot you can do within them.

Categories

Categories are set up by the game itself, not created by players. A few types have special access rules:

• Staff-only boards — hidden from the category list entirely unless you're staff.
• Donator-only boards — same, hidden unless you're an active Donator or staff.
• Staff-contact boards — support-ticket style: you only see and can reply to your own threads there; staff see and can reply to everyone's.
• Announcements — only staff can start new threads, but anyone who can see the board can reply.
• Penthouse board — stays visible in the list, but you're redirected back to the Penthouse if you try to open it without membership.
• Alliance Boards — every Alliance shares this one category, automatically filtered so you only ever see your own Alliance's threads. See Alliances for more.

Threads & Replies

Starting a thread needs a title (up to 120 characters) and a body — no cost, no level or Reputation requirement, no minimum account age. Replying is just as open. Pagination is 25 threads per category page, 15 posts per thread page. Pinned threads always sort to the top of their category regardless of activity; staff can lock a thread to stop replies from anyone but staff.

Editing your own post has no time limit — edit it whenever you want. Deleting is more limited: you can delete your own reply, but not a thread's opening post — to remove that, the whole thread has to go, and only staff can delete a full thread (which takes every reply with it).

Slow Down — 30 Second Cooldown

There's a 30-second cooldown between posts (new threads or replies, sharing the same timer) to stop spam. Donators and staff are exempt — everyone else gets a "wait N more seconds" message if they try to post too fast.

BBCode

Posts and forum signatures both support BBCode formatting: bold/italic/underline/strikethrough, colored text, quotes, code blocks, alignment (center/left/right/indent), horizontal rules, and links. Two tags are Masked City-specific: [player=ID]name[/player] links straight to a profile, and [alliance=ID]name[/alliance] links to an Alliance page. Images and links have to be real http:// or https:// URLs — anything else just renders as plain text instead of becoming a live link or image, so it can't be used to sneak in something unsafe. Images are checked when you post or save your signature: one over 2 MB, a link that isn't an image, or one that won't load is refused (up to 10 images per post or signature). Large images in posts are shown scaled down. There's also a small built-in set of emoticon shortcodes.

Reactions

Every post — the opening post or any reply — can be upvoted or downvoted, one vote per person per post. Click your own reaction again to remove it, or click the other one to switch. You can see who voted which way, not just the total.

Unread Tracking

The board remembers what you've already read, per thread, and shows you how many new replies are waiting the next time you look at a category. You can mark a single category read, or everything at once, without having to open every thread individually.

There's no reply notification, no "watch this thread" feature, and no email/push alert — checking the unread counts is the only way to know something new happened.

Your Post's Footer

Every post shows the poster's avatar, level, alignment, Donator status, staff rank (if any), how long they've had their account, their total forum post count, and their signature (if they've set one, up to 1,500 characters, formatted with the same BBCode as posts). Set your own signature from Settings.

Search

You can search thread titles within a category — there's no body-text search and no searching across every category at once, just titles, one board at a time.

Moderation

Staff can pin/unpin threads, lock/unlock them, edit or delete anyone's post, and delete entire threads outright. A forum ban blocks someone from posting or reacting entirely (temporary or permanent, same system used for game and chat bans) — a banned player sees a dedicated screen instead of the board.

Tips

• Donator status quietly removes the post cooldown — handy if you're active in a fast-moving thread.
• Deleted your own opening post by mistake isn't possible — think twice before starting a thread you might want gone later, since only staff can remove a whole thread.
• Set a signature once from Settings and it'll show on every post you make from then on, no need to re-type anything.
• Use Mark All Read after catching up so unread counts only track what's actually new to you.