Discord is one of the most popular platforms for online communication. It offers voice, text and video chatting along with livestreaming for everyone, but this beginner’s guide will be for Zodiac players specifically.
Originally used primarily in the gaming industry, Discord has become a hub for communities of all types including workplaces and art studios. First time users and veterans of the program alike will tell you how simple it is to use. New to Discord? Read this beginner’s guide!
How Discord works
This beginner’s guide will go over the basics to get you familiar with the platform. Discord is based on communities called “servers”. These servers are created by users and hosted by Discord, all for free. Servers are invite only so only those you personally add can join to chat.
When setting up a server you’ll be asked a few questions by the setup wizard. This includes the name of the server, if it’s for just you and your friends or for an entire community, and then lastly you’ll choose an image to upload to server as the icon of the server.
Everything Discord can do
Users have access to text and voice channels within Discord. Text channels are used for talking, posting pictures, sending gifs and even sharing files directly to other users. This feature is especially helpful for games that have mods as getting all of your friends on the same file version can be difficult.
Voice channels are used for live audio streaming with settings to either have your mic activated at all times or set a specific key to activate it for those with a noisy environment. Here you’ll also find the options to start a video chat with your webcam or stream your screen while playing games. Specific windows can be shared or entire desktops, whichever best fits the content you’re streaming.
Setting up channels
Every server begins with two channels, one text and one voice. These will be named “general” and “General” respectively. Hover over the channel name and click on the gear icon to open the settings. This is where you’ll be able to change channel specific settings that will override any server wide settings.
Voice channel options let you change the name of the channel, limit the amount of users that can enter and even change the quality and audio and video on voice channels. This is helpful if you have multiple channels for the same game, such as “Zodiac 1” and “Zodiac 2” so that any one channel doesn’t get crowded.
Text channels will have options for name changes, slowing down how often messages can be sent and marking the channel as Not Safe For Work, or NSFW, for any channels that may have unprofessional material posted.
Inviting friends and other users to your server
Now that you’ve set up a couple of channels, it’s time to start inviting users to play games with or just video chat and hang out. To get started you’ll click the dropdown arrow in the top left of the window, just to the right of the server name. From there choose “Invite People” and a new screen will appear.
Here you have a couple of options on how to proceed. Friends you’ve added directly on Discord will appear with single click invite buttons available. Anyone not on your friends list will need a link to the server found below the list. You can set this to be a timed link that expires so no one can use it later on, or change it to permanent but understand that anyone who receives the link will have access to your server.
Assigning groups and roles
As Discord servers grow, you may find a need for help moderating the increasing amount of users in your channels. While creating rules for your server and pinning them to a text channel is a great deterrent, you may still find toxic behavior or unwanted guests coming in.
This is where roles and groups come in. Roles allow you to give certain people permissions in the server to perform actions such as muting members, moving them between channels or even outright disconnecting and banning them when needed. Communities find roles helpful when setting up different groups of users that offer different assistance or need labeled for specific games they play.
Enjoying the server
The server is set up, your mods are patrolling the chats and you’re now able to kick back and enjoy! So hop in and show your server who made such a great Discord with a video chat or livestream some Zodiac or other games.
