IconBuffet | Blog Forum | [FAQ] New Users Quick Start Guide

[FAQ] New Users Quick Start Guide

Hello and welcome to the Icon Buffet.

You can click on the Help link at the top right of the page to go to a page showing how the site works. But, here's a quick summary. On the right side of your personal page you will see several Items: Points, My Bank (includes Stamps and Tokens), Badges, and Friends.

You receive Points when you send out Deliveries to other members (more later).

You use Stamps when sending out Sets, You use Tokens to receive Sets. It is IMPORTANT to decide which sets you want first because you have a limited amount of Tokens. Once you spend them you can't get anything else until they refill next month, or unless you upgrade to VIP (link on your personal page). Tokens are a use'em or lose'em situation, meaning that you will only get refilled to 10 on your Refill Date (as noted in My Bank). Thus if you have 3 remaining on the refill date you will only get 7 additional. So, it is important to use them before your refill date so that you can acquire the maximum amount of Sets in the shortest amount of time. The Chefs have recently released some new ways to get additional Tokens which is located Here.

The Icon Sets are divided into 4 categories Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Diamond.

Bronze sets cost 1 Token to receive and 1 Stamp to send.
You can see all the Bronze Sets Here

Silver sets cost 3 Tokens to receive and 3 Stamps to send.
You can see all the Silver Sets Here

Gold sets cost 5 Tokens to receive and 5 Stamps to send.
You can see all the Gold Sets Here

Diamond sets cost 10 Tokens to receive and 10 Stamps to send.
You can see all the Diamond Sets Here

Clicking on an individual set will show you all the Icons in that Set. Or you can Browse all the Sets by clicking on the Free Delivery Tab at the top of the page. Mousing over each set will show you whether it is Bronze, Silver or Gold and the amount of Icons in the Set and you can click on a Set to see all the Icons in that Set.

Badges are earned in several ways. One of the members wrote up a good summary of what had been discussed in the forums on Badges Here. Having an Avatar gets you the Cheese Badge for example, Avatars are 48x48 Pixels.

Points - For each Set you receive you will get 5 Stamps which you can use to send Sets to other members. For each Stamp you use to send Sets out you will receive 10 Points, except for Diamond Sets where you will receive 25 Points per Stamp used. The Chefs haven't told us yet what the Points will be used for but they have said that it will be beneficial to have Points. Reaching certain milestones can also earn you additional Points. One of our members has done a summary of these discussions in the forums which is located Here.

You may have already received some Sets sent by other members. If it's a Set you would like to have you can choose to accept it (click Yes which will reduce your Tokens by the value of the Set), click No if you don't want that Set, or do nothing and the Set will expire in 7 days. There are 4 new Sets a month sent out by the Chefs. You will receive one of these Sets directly from the Chef's which will not cost you any Tokens, the others you will have to get from other Members which will cost you Tokens.

If you have any specific request for Sets you can post them in any Members personal Box or in the Blog Forum which you can access from one of the tabs at the top of this page. You can do the same thing with any questions you may have.

Friends - You will see posts on your page saying XXXX has added you as their Friend - Do you want to add XXXX to your Friends Yes/No. It is safe to click Yes (you won't get any spam mail), the post will go away and that person will be added to your Friends list on the right. The Chefs have indicated that the amount of Friends will somehow be associated with a new Badge but haven't released any additional information. After you have added a Friend to your Friends List they will get the same post on their page. If they accept you will get a note on your page XXXX has added you as a friend! XXXX is already your friend. You can just click the trash can icon next to that post to make the message go away.

Referrals - For each new person you bring into the Icon Buffet you will receive 50 Points and 15 Stamps so that you can send them some initial Icon Sets while at the same time earning yourself some additional Points. Much more on referrals is located Here.

Posting in the Blogs - You can use a limited amount of html in your Blog posts. For more information see code in your comments 101. You can also delete any post you've made, or any post in your Box, by clicking on the trashcan icon next to it.

More Guides, FAQ's and Tutorials can be found in This Post.

Make some new Friends and enjoy your time at the Icon Buffet.

Posted by dyar on Apr 13, 2007 in Blab | 32 comments

dyar on Apr 13, 2007

I initially prepared the above for My Referrals, but with so many new users asking questions I thought I would post it in the Forum. It expands a good bit on the Help Link which many people seem to have a hard time finding. Feel free to pass the link along to the New Users you bring in.

mleclerc on Apr 13, 2007

Thx for this page. I am "less confused" now :-)

tamashii on Apr 13, 2007

Glad to see this up. Very nice, dyar.

josh on Apr 13, 2007

This is a very nice write-up Dyar. Thanks for taking the time to do this. If we add a sticky function to the forum, we'll have to sticky this for a while.

dyar on Apr 16, 2007

Just bumping this up for the New Users coming in today to get their Free Delivery.

Arien on Apr 17, 2007

Thanks for that, it makes it all a lot clearer

electricnet on Apr 18, 2007

Thank you for writing this up. Pretty awesome, very handy for new users!

ChickAzul on Apr 18, 2007

Nice write up :D
thanks for linking my FAQ

richmond on Apr 18, 2007

Still clear as Mud on the relation between points and tokens . . .

tamashii on Apr 18, 2007

Might be a good idea to post this relation:

Stamps = Tokens = 10x Points

This means that when delivering a GOLD set, it breaks down like this: 5 stamps to deliver, 5 tokens to accept, 50 points earned (for sender).

mik on Apr 18, 2007

Here's my tip for newbies: if you get a note from someone in your box and want to reply, you should do it on their page. Yes, it makes it a bit disjointed, but they have no way of being notified you've responded, so their page is where they are most likely to see it.

When you post your name will be linked to your page so they can click through to refresh their memory or continue the conversation.

You can also quote part of the message you're replying to, to help tie it together. HTH -mik

socrates on Apr 19, 2007

i was just trying that ... its confusing as heck.
its like some kind of strange blog/forum/chat/online-community monster. there must be a better way, right?

richmond on Apr 19, 2007

"This means that when delivering a GOLD set, it breaks down like this: 5 stamps to deliver, 5 tokens to accept, 50 points earned (for sender)."

Jolly Hockey Sticks!!!

Err, but what does one do with the points?

It would be good if one could exchange points for tokens . . .

otherwise this all seems POINTLESS

justG on Apr 19, 2007

If you think the accumulation of points is pointless, then simply don't focus on it. Receiving/delivering icons is rather fun in itself. The point of points will be made clear to us in time.

Betty on Apr 19, 2007

Anybody else remember the TV special from the 70s--"The Point?" It's narrated by Ringo with the Harry Nillson songs like Me and My Arrow?
All this talk of points reminds me of Oblio and his search for a point.

iconmaster on Apr 19, 2007

Might be a good idea to post this relation:

Stamps = Tokens = 10x Points

For now.

richmond on Apr 19, 2007

Does anybody remember that film called "The Coneheads" ? They had points. Whether they had toekns or not is another question.

My question is not whether there is anyway one can earn tokens?

MacManX on Apr 19, 2007

There are only two ways to earn Tokens so far.

1. Wait for your monthly refill date.

2. Upgrade to VIP and receive 30 Tokens immediately (and be refilled to 30 each month thereafter).

marksch on Apr 25, 2007

My friends sent me icons, which were waiting for me to be accepted when I would have new tokens. The icons have disappeared. This means that my friends lost their stamps while I didn't get any icons. Is this a bug in the system?

tamashii on Apr 25, 2007

@marksch: Deliveries expire after 7 days. Your friends did, in fact, get their stamps back. If you receive a set, have no tokens and are more than 7 days until your next refill, I would suggest declining the set.

signsintime on Apr 27, 2007

Great FAQ Dyar! But then I'd only expect greatness with you involved. :-) Thanks for posting it for the newbies and returning folks like me who can be confused by the whole new system.

Steax on Apr 28, 2007

Quick question - is it therefore possible to get a total of 40 tokens in a month by using your initial 10 tokens then upgrading to VIP (to get the next 30)?

Sounds like that from MacManX's post.

MacManX on Apr 28, 2007

That's what I remember happening. I was about a week past using all ten of my Tokens when I decided to upgrade to VIP. Upon upgrading to VIP, I received 30 Tokens, but my Token refill date also shifted to reflect the date of my VIP upgrade.

For a more permanent way to increase your Tokens, see "New ways to earn tokens!"

dyar on Apr 29, 2007

Just make sure that you upgrade on a day after you spent your last regular Token. If you do it on the same day as you spend your last regular Token the Tokens spent on that day will be deducted from the 30 you get for the VIP.

tamashii on Apr 29, 2007

is it therefore possible to get a total of 40 tokens in a month by using your initial 10 tokens then upgrading to VIP (to get the next 30)?

To be clear: You will not receive more than 30 (in normal circumstances) tokens at any given time simply by upgrading to VIP.

If you have not spent any tokens within the previous 24-hours of upgrading, you will receive all 30 tokens as a newly-upgraded VIP.

If you have, in fact, used any number of tokens within 24 hours of upgrading, they will be deducted from the 30 Tokens (as dyar points out).

There are now, however, ways to increase your monthly token account beyond 10 for non-VIP and 30 for VIPs. Information regarding this can be found in iconmaster’s New Ways to Earn Tokens thread.

Also - thanks so much for including my “bookmarks” thread, dyar! Just noticed that, hehe.

dyar on Apr 30, 2007

More on this topic is located in This Thread. You could actually do it within a few minutes of each other if you timed it around midnight CST, but I wouldn't suggest trying to cut it that close based on the possible difference in clock settings.