Gamers Talk Forums is a user run and owned site devoted to open discussion of all facets of games and gaming. The site consists of a front page where users can find recent news and active topics and numerous sub forums for varied discussion needs.

• News is posted by individuals who have asked to contribute to the Gamers Talk forums. If a user is interested in posting news, contact an administrator.
• There are several types of forums. Gamers Talk is a game-oriented board, but recognizes that individuals need places to post where they don't always need to talk about games. There are general forums, clan forums, and gaming forums separated by game type (ie: RPG, action, strategy, etc)

Gamers Talk was started several years back as "Tournament.com Forums" which was owned by Oriion and setup as a refuge from the realms of oppressive corporate controlled gaming forums. The site began running on shared and semi-dedicated hosting, but over time money and equipment donated by the members was used to build a high-end dedicated server which the communities colocate in Los Angeles, CA. While many things (including the name) have changed over the years, Gamers Talk still runs largely with the help of user donations. Users will find a link to donate money to Gamers Talk if they are feeling generous. There are also affiliate links that users can click through that will provide a percentage of their purchases to Gamers Talk. Users are encouraged to utilize the affiliate links whenever possible. When donations run out, the administrators are stuck paying the hosting/bandwidth charges and this is a bad thing.

No. Gamers Talk Forums will NEVER send email ask for your account information.   If you receive a suspicious email that claims to be from here, here's how to know IT IS FAKE:

• Most emails from Gamers Talk are sent because you request them (thread notifications, password changes) or you were banned. We rarely ever send out bulk emails and when we do, they will also be mentioned prominently on the site.


• We already know your user name. We have multiple database backups and like any other legit site, we will NEVER need to ask you for your user name or password... EVER.


• A real email from Gamers Talk will be properly addressed to you (by your forum name), it will be propery closed, and it will certainly not sound like a child wrote it hastily.


• Gamers Talk has never and will never use free email providers or a "home" ISP email address. Email from Gamers Talk will ALWAYS originate from an IP address with DNS records resolving to the domains gtfrc.com or tcomforums.com ( 64.235.233.34 -> 64.235.233.38 ). Email from any other address, is NOT FROM HERE.

If you receive a mail "from Gamers Talk" asking for personal information or asking you to login to another site, please forward it (WITH ALL HEADERS) to the Gamers Talk webmaster. To do this, turn on "show all headers" in your email client and forward it, or use "forward as attachment".

When you signed up for an account on these forums, you agreed to the following terms:

A lot of people tend to forget this agreement shortly after signup, but rest assured, if you break these terms your account is subject to being banned or removed rather quickly.

The Gamers Talk Trading Forum is an area of Gamers Talk where members can advertise items they have for sale or want to swap with other Tournament.com members.

The Gamers Talk Trading Forum is for private advertisements only, strictly no commercial advertisements!

Gamers Talk Forums does in no way take responsibility for any transactions that take place within the classified section. They are to be undertaken AT YOUR OWN RISK. You are advised to deal only with people you know, and know well. This is after all the big bad internet and there are some big bad people out there.

To clarify: Gamers Talk, or it's owners, take no responsibility or ownership for activities undertaken within the Gamers Talk Trading Forum.

This section of Gamers Talk Forum is strictly on-topic and will be moderated as such.

Users have the ability to choose avatars once they reach 100 posts. Until 100, users cannot have an avatar. At 100, there are two choices to pick from. As post counts increase, so does the available selection. The current checkpoints are 100, 250, 500, and 800.

Once users hit 1000 posts, they are able to create and upload their own avatar. Avatars must be 60x60 pixels (or less). Avatars can be no larger than 24576 bytes. Please remember to check the 'Use Custom Avatar' tick box after you have entered a URL or selected the file to upload from your computer. Failure to check the box after you have selected the URL or file will result in the default avatar being selected.

There are occasionally contests where a user can win a custom avatar and can use it before they reach 1000 posts. Watch for them if you really want that custom avatar!

There is a list of titles that is assigned to users as their post count increases. While these titles may be meaningless to the user, rest assured that they have made someone laugh at some point in time. There are far too many checkpoints to list.

Once users hit 3500 posts, they can use a custom title. The maximum length of a custom title is 25 characters. In the case of an extraordinary spammer showing up thinking they can get a custom title in a couple days, there is a 10-day window before a user can utilize a custom title.

There are occasionally contests where a user can win a custom title and can use it before they reach 3500 posts. Watch for them if you really want that custom title!

All users are allowed to have signatures (sigs). There are a few guidelines for sigs:

HTML is not allowed in sigs. This has caused problems in the past. So, a few rotten eggs spoiled the fun for everyone.

There IS a size limit for signatures. Your signature can be no larger than 150 pixels tall by 400 pixels wide. The entire signature must also be 40k or smaller to accommodate the modem users on the board.

If using a picture and/or text, the total allowed size includes the text and the user is encouraged to use small text (size=1) to keep the size of the overall sig reasonable.

A donor is someone who donates money (or server hardware) to help Gamers Talk pay its operating costs. Donor status is shown by a star and the word donor beneath member names on the forums. Donors have many benefits which normal members do not and why not, after all they have paid for the bandwidth they will use.

Donor Benefits:

• Reduced post and PM flood check time.
• Access to members download area and 'Anything Goes' forum.
• On-demand personal file hosting space.

Gamers Talk Forums is a non-profit, community based, organization which doesn't have corporate financial backing. Instead, we ask that Gamers Talk members donate whatever they can to help pay for the not insignificant operating costs which include server hardware, bandwidth and hosting charges. If you would like to make a donation, please do so here. Please note that purchases made through Gamers Talk affiliates do not qualify for a member to be marked as a donor due to the very small amounts of money made from these transactions.

It should be noted that all Gamers Talk staff are unpaid volounteers, therefore all donated money go straight to ensuring we have enough bandwidth to keep up with you crazy spammers :)

The minimum donated amount to qualify as a donor is $5 but due to the charges we have to cover for each donation we ask that $10 or more is donated to ensure the best use of your money.

A mod is someone that has control over a forum on the board. They have the ability to edit posts. They can also close or move a post. Moderators should be the first person to contact in the case of a problem in that forum.

Moderators are performing a job based on their willingness to donate time to the site. They are not paid nor rewarded. Mods are also regular posters, meaning they are not posting "as mods" 100% of the time.

You can see who the mods are by visiting the main forum page and looking in the far right column.

Clan Moderators
These are individuals who are chosen by their clan to moderate their clan forum. As such they are not chosen directly by Gamers Talk and are not members of the Gamers Talk staff. However, they are expected to behave, and ensure that the forums they moderate remain, within the rules and regulations of Gamers Talk. The Gamers Talk administration team have the last word when deciding whether a selected clan member, or current clan moderator, is appropriate to moderate their forum.

An admin is someone that has control over every aspect of the board. They have the abilities of a mod, but it applies across the board. They can also fix/modify user accounts, ban users, and approve/disapprove user registrations. If a moderator cannot fix a problem, it is raised to the administrator level.

Admins are also using their own time and resources to help the site. Admins are here to help. However, it should be noted that admins are people too - meaning they have opinions on matters. Do not confuse the private opinion of an admin as the opinion of Gamers Talk as a whole.

The current administrators are: catz, Dokteur Kill, Oriion, Ritsui, Searcher, and sKunk.

No porn is allowed on public Gamers Talk Forums.

This does not mean there are no "babe" or "hunk" threads. It means that there cannot be pictures containing exposed genitalia. It also means there should not be any pictures or words posted that are extremely provocative in nature.

If a post contains a small snippet of exposed skin that shouldn't be, the picture will normally be edited out by the offender or mod/admin - whoever notices it first. If a person intentionally posts pictures knowing that they are against the rules, the picture will be edited out and that user will receive a warning. If the user has received warnings in the past (either with their current username or an old username), they will most likely be banned. This can be a case-by-case basis depending on the user and the circumstances.

Likewise, dirty stories are also not allowed. It may only be text but it is still porn and this is not allowed at Gamers Talk.

Posting, linking to, soliciting or encouraging the use of warez or other illegal, copyrighted software, music or movie is prohibited.

Gamers Talk considers anything commercially available and copyrighted, yet obtainable illegally for free to fall into this category.

Concerning warez/movie/music links or solicitation, users will be warned once and banned the second time. Other copyright violations or encouragement to do so will be regarded on a case-by-case basis.

While proxies are often used to surf the web, the use of "open proxy" servers (used without owner permission) or posting through known "spam relay" proxies is strictly forbidden and grounds for removal. In cases of spam proxies, accounts will be removed without warning to protect the server from harvesting bots.

In cases of proxy posting for a banned user, do not do it. Admins can be contacted via their posted Email addresses.

The current administrators are: catz, Dokteur Kill, Oriion, Ritsui, Searcher, and sKunk.

Personal attacks are not allowed. Personal attacks are the act of going out of your way for the sole purpose of making someone else's life miserable on the forums.

There are certain areas of the board where fighting/arguing is tolerated to a point. While these areas probably should not be frequented by the "thin skinned," there is a limit to fighting.

These attacks will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. If users have some self-control, this should never be a problem for them.

Similarly, posting mis-information with the intent to cause problems or harm another board member will not be tolerated. An extreme example of this would be replying to a PC help request thread with information that will damage PC hardware, software or data will most likely result in a ban being enforced. Liberal use of common sense will help you avoid situations like these.

Racist comments are strictly prohibited.

Regardless of which forum people frequent, racist comments should ALWAYS be avoided. These types of comments do nothing to help the community grow and usually incite personal attacks.

These types of comments will involve a warning at least and the reaction of the user will usually determine the outcome of each case, quite possibly ending with banning of the account.

Also known as "posting tons of lame threads just to increase your post count."

Post spamming may or may not be allowed depending on the forum the user is in. New users should monitor a forum for a day or two to see what it is like. Many forums allow spam when they are in threads, but none normally allow 'topic spamming' (posting numerous new topics and seeing the front page filled with your name).

In any case, the OP (original post/poster) of a thread determines whether or not it is appropriate to spam in it. 'Thread crapping' (spam which changes a serious thread into a spam thread against the OP's intention) is not allowed and may be grounds for privilege removal or banning depending on the severity.

Use common sense and ALWAYS read the OP before posting yourself.

Swearing is allowed, though discouraged in certain forums. Users should read forums for a few days to see what the tone of the forum is before starting to swear a lot. For example, the GTFRC is a sea of foul-mouthed vulgarities with almost every thread being awash in blue language. While the Funhouse has always been a swear free zone, full of cute, fluffy kittens who spend the days sprinkling magic "happy" dust under bright pink rainbow-filled skies that open up to rain cake and pie down every night on it's population.

While swearing in threads is allowed, swearing in thread titles is not allowed at this time.

Users have the ability to send private messages (PMs) to another user. Select this option from the control panel or from the "Private Messages" link on the main forum page.

A user can currently have 123 messages saved at one time. Keep in mind that this includes not only the messages in the Inbox, but also messages in Sent Items. If a user is having problems receiving PMs because the sender receives a message stating the users inbox is full, you will have to delete messages before you can receive more. If none are showing in Inbox or Sent Items, check the "Show Messages From:" box. Change that setting to "the beginning" and see all of the messages you may have missed with the default view.

PMs have a limit of 2500 characters.

Users can attach files to their posts. The limitations are:

Pictures can be no larger than 1024x768 pixels. All attachments must be equal to or smaller than 128Kbytes. Valid file extensions that can be uploaded are: .gif, .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .txt, and .zip.

Anyone who is a member of Gamers Talk can review games, movies, hardware or pretty much anything that they want by following the review link from the front page.

All reviews are held in a queue and checked by Gamers Talk admins prior to being available for anyone to view in the review section. It may take a couple of days for your review to be checked and approved if appropriate.

We ask that all reviews are well constructed, non-biased and do not give away movie endings etc.....

Anyone who is a member of Gamers Talk can submit links to other websites that they believe will be beneficial to other Gamers Talk members via the link on the Gamers Talk front page. These links will be validated and checked to ensure that no Gamers Talk rules are broken and then will be added to the links section for anyone to use. It may take a couple of days for your link to be checked and approved if appropriate.