The next feature is the Player Panel Fly-out Direction. Player Panels appear when you move your mouse over someone's nickname in the Player List. These panels contain some information about that user. Arcade lets you choose where you want the panel to appear.

You can pick from Left, Right, or Top. By default, panels appear on the left.

Note: If you pick right, you must have enough space on the screen for the panel to display, or it will appears to the left.

Arcade also allows you to customize the icons in your Game Bar. These icons typically are buttons to game lobbies, where you can play your favorite games online. You can change the icon size from: Full-Size, Reduced, Zoom. Please remember to Apply out of section after making your choice.

These icons can also be sorted in 3 ways; Manually, By Usage and By Population. Rock on!

Sound Options

GameSpy Arcade allows you to customize every sound you hear, from the classic "Welcome to GameSpy" upon startup to the little beeps and private message alerts. It's available to you from the Sound Options menu accessible by going to GameSpy > Options in GameSpy Arcade and choosing the Sound tab:

The first option to notice here is the Sound Scheme. You're probably used to the '(default)' theme, but you can create your own!

To do so, simply choose one of the sounds from the list by clicking on the drop-down Event menu. Then, UNCHECK the Use Default File option. This will bring up a popup asking you to browse to the sound file you wish to play.

Once you've modified your sound files, you can save this scheme by clicking on the Save As.. button above. Notice how you can also Delete custom schemes.

There are a couple of more interesting features here, like the Game-Specific Sounds and the Mute ALL sound effects checkboxes. The latter comes in handy if your sound card does not support multiple applications using your Sound Driver Device simulateneously, or if you just can't be bothered to hear sounds.

Chat Options

One of GameSpy Arcade's most important features is the ability to chat with your friends in game lobbies. Even your chatting experience can be customized via the Chat Options menu. To access GameSpy Arcade's Chat Options, go to GameSpy > Options and choose the Chat tab:

You can control the content that is displayed in the chat lobby under the Filters section. The Language filter allows you to hide swearwords and profanity in the chat. There are different levels of sensitivity, namely none, first letter, all and vowels. Affected words will be replaced by asterisks (*) in the chat. The Spam filter allows you to block out repetitive lines in the chat by one user, also known as "flooding". Modes include hi-lite and only once. Finally, you can force Arcade to convert all UPPERCASE characters to lowercase. This last feature comes in handy if certain users forget their Caps Lock key!

The Display options allow you to customize the general appearance of your chatting experience. You can have GameSpy Arcade alert you when a user joins or leaves the room, as well as enabling/disabling dedicated message tabs for all incoming private messages. If the latter option is enabled, any private message you receive from the chat will open in its own dedicated window. Another useful feature is the Priority Word List menu that will automatically play an alert and bold text that has been marked as a "priority".

Click on the Priority Word List button to access this feature. From there, you can add or remove key words.

In this example, a notification alert will be played when the words help and quake appear in the chat. We are also adding a new priority word, "john doe".

Note:This feature matches any combination of these words. If someone types the word 'earthquake', it WILL notify you!

nother great feature is the ability to put yourself in Away Mode. When in this mode, Arcade partially hibernates and incoming messages are left on the server. Also, player pings are not updated, so as to minimize the amount of bandwidth that is used. You can set an Away Mode Message via the Chat tab

To set yourself in Away Mode, simply right-click on your nickname in the Player List, and select Away mode > On. This will prompt you with the Default set message. Once set, anyone who moves their mouse and hovers it on your nickname in the Player List will see that you are in Away Mode and will also see your away message.

Note: Users who are in Away Mode are always located at the bottom of the Player List in "blue".

PlayerSpy Options

GameSpy Arcade also allows you to fully customize how messages are sent to you via PlayerSpy.

Simply click on the PlayerSpy tab under GameSpy > Options to access its options:

Under Permissions, you can enable/disable the Authorization prompt when users add you to their PlayerSpy list. Leaving this option off allows *anyone* to add you to their list.

The Display box contains several great options: ? Show location shortcuts: Displays the location of your buddies under their nickname in the list. This also allows you to follow them into any lobby or game. ? Sort Ascending (A - Z): Allows you to sort your buddies in alphabetical order. Online players are by default listed at the top. ? Show "online" players only: PlayerSpy only displays players that are online. ? Always hidden at startup: Start Arcade with the PlayerSpy tab minimized. You can also have Arcade open any new messages in a Seperate Window. If this last option is enabled, you can also toggle the option to auto-switch to these message windows. Arcade allows you to enable direct PlayerSpy Notification Links in the chat area:

PlayerSpy Notification Links Clicking on these blue links opens a new PlayerSpy message window to that user.

Finally, you can have GameSpy Arcade Purge all PlayerSpy history files on exit under the The Paranoia header. This removes all logs of previous conversations, and often greatly improves performance in Arcade. Managing Game Tabs

Organized under "Groups", Game tabs are located in the left menu of Arcade, and allow the easy navigation to some of your favorite games. They can be moved, hidden and clicked. One of GameSpy Arcade's "hidden" features is the ability to create custom groups in order to better organize such tabs.

Creating a group is easier than it looks. Simply right-click on any existing group and select "Create New Group". You will notice that you can also edit the basic properties of certain Groups as well as accessing their main options.

A popup window will appear. Enter the Group Name of the group you wish to create. You can also enter a Description for your new game tab group.

Once you hit the "OK" button, a new group will appear. It is at first empty, so you will need to drag in game tabs to "add" them to your new group.

Note: Custom Groups can be removed similarly, under the condition that no game tabs belong to it. You can create as many groups as you want.

Network Options

If you find that GameSpy Arcade runs a bit slow in general or when refreshing a list of game servers, a possible quick fix is to adjust the connection slider under the Network options.

This adjusts the amount of bandwidth that GameSpy Arcade uses and, in most cases, helps improve performance.

Tip: Adjusting the slider a couple of notches lower than your current connection speed will ensure that there's plenty of available bandwidth for Arcade to use.

By [HELP]Admiral