Hosting Plans and Website designing

Before I go hunting, I need to know some stuff.

• What do we want to have? Our own forums? Website? Blogs? Web games or a flash arcade?
  
• From there, work out the databases we might need and how much space we should consider. (Note, php files are quite small. The currently broken ChaoZ forums has a Legend of the Green Dragon Game, a Monstra CMS site (didn't need a database to use), a PHPbb3 forum with an arcade I was installing games to and what other features and such I was adding all come up to 109.32 / 1024 MB or space used on the free host I am using. (Uninstalling a chat function Ken and I disliked borked the whole forum... But you can find the game and website still working. ))
  
• How many email addresses do we need.
  
• Other features and such needed that Cyber said in the Expanses thread.
  

Gimme everything I need to know and I can start hunting. I'm going to go and look DragonPrime, the Legend of the Green Dragon forums and see if anyone had issues with them before branching off to other communities.

Edit for op. Please stop swearing, it simply is not necessary and we plan on having people who may not be of age browsing the site.

So far, hound nothing from a few communities I know. None of them use iPage.

Gonna have to compare then.

Guuuuuuys~ HALP ME!

I need to know what we want!

I have no idea about any of this stuff so I doubt I can help :p

Well, I know we don't want a LotGD game, nor any other web game... I just need to know what specs I should be sussing about after... it's a big world out there in hosting firms.

Also, I want to discuss what website/blogging/cms set up we want, what forum and other needs to determine the best host for a cheap price.

Okay, sorry about that.

We need... Our own forums, web site, and blog. Unless we are planning on making our own flash games, an arcade is not necessary or even wanted. A clean and functional chatbox would be nice.

I know we don't need much space for the actual site, but I think we should look for at least 1 gig.

As for email addresses, I don't know exactly how many we need but at least one is needed. I'd prefer if we could have as many as we wanted.

I hope this helped...

Cyberkyd_30 wrote:

Okay, sorry about that.

We need... Our own forums, web site, and blog. Unless we are planning on making our own flash games, an arcade is not necessary or even wanted. A clean and functional chatbox would be nice.

Hmmm... What kind of chat box? Chatango or actual plug in chat box? Because I'll need to tinker on my test server to get the only Ajax chat mod working, and chatango will need to be made into a BBCode and used in a thread, unless someone comes up with a mod that will lets me input it at the top of the page without borking/hacking at the layout or code.

Everything else, I can provide easily with only 2 databases. The website will go without a database, but if I can get another database, that means I won't need to use Monstra for the database and /can use something like WordPress, Joomla or something like that.

Cyberkyd_30 wrote:

I know we don't need much space for the actual site, but I think we should look for at least 1 gig.

Will it be for file downloads? Like, do you want to chuck files up for download? Because you get around 2gb of space with a free host anyway, you will at least get a bit more for your dosh.

Cyberkyd_30 wrote:

As for email addresses, I don't know exactly how many we need but at least one is needed. I'd prefer if we could have as many as we wanted.

I hope this helped...

Well, since it will be mostly staff that need one, I'll guess around 20+, but they won't be entirely needed yet and might generally be able to get more with a few $$$.


Seems pretty small time, I'll see what I can find.

Until then, should I start setting things up on a free host? I can easily back up the site and move it to the paid host when we can, that and we can at least get work on design and such done. You know, get experience and such. I'll actually start this later, because I want to have the ChaoZ forums done (Also, setting up a section for CyberSpace on there. Makes sense since the guild is a casual gaming and roleplay guild. Might get attention to this when I start actively recruiting for the guild. That and I need to explain why a portion of the donations to the guild will be sent to CyberSpace studios...) before I actually work on these forums (I'll leave the website to you guys, I havens tinkered much with Monstra yet.

So yeah, Yay or Nay on the early dev work for the forum, website and development blog (Or did you want individual blogs for the staff?)?

Alright, can someone PM me an email to use to set up the test site and forum? I'm out of email addresses to use... The password is optional, but means I don't need to ask you to verify the emails that come through.

The chatbox will not be necessary considering we are going to meet over Skype anyways.

The space will not be required for file downloads. We can use Google Docs and/or Mediafire for our files, depending on who the file is intended for.

20 emails would be plenty at the moment.


Yay on the early dev work for the forum, website and development blog. Individual blogs are not needed ATM. Thanks a bunch!

I can build a website if you guys want. I can't do much in terms of adding forums or an actual blog platform (without resorting to iFrames or other methods), but I can make a nice looking site with ease, such as my own (http://www.versilstudios.net/), which only took a few hours.

Samulis wrote:

I can build a website if you guys want. I can't do much in terms of adding forums or an actual blog platform (without resorting to iFrames or other methods), but I can make a nice looking site with ease, such as my own (http://www.versilstudios.net/), which only took a few hours.

Oh nice! I up for you doing the website! Would you need a database for it?

Nope. I'd just build the website; it'd be up to you guys to find hosting and a domain.

Gonna get those later, busy on my end and can't do it off my ipod without errors...

That that helps me out a lot, since I only get 2 databases to work with on this free host.

BUT! It comes with cloudflare, which is awesome.

If we're doing things on the cheap, surely we don't need ANY email addresses until the game is nearing Alpha. I mean, make a bogus outlook and use that, even if it's for techsupport. For example, "For inquiries regarding Technical Support, Reporting users and Constructive criticism, email CyberspaceInquiries@outlook.com"

@cyberspacestudios.com is not necessary imo.

Most if not all come with emails, so if we do purchase a plan, it's best to get what extras we can.

Hell, the free hosting deal I am using gives me 3 off the bat!

Anyway, I present you the brand new forum!

http://cyberspacestudio.x10.mx/forum/

Note: I ran out of character space in the url to add the 's'.

Note 2: There is nothing in the index right now, since Samulis could provide a far better looking website then I could, since I lack the graphical skill to make awesome looking sites as equal to his.

I'm on tech support for this, since most module you guy decide that I should get might need to be played with on my test forum I set up.

I'm still looking at what blogging platform would be the best to use, most likely using WordPress for it though. Opinions?

Leaving it there, tired and last time I did work on this when tired, I had to redo the ChaoZ forums! Sign up to the new forum, I'll give you admin settings to Cyber and those he wants to help. I won't help too much with the teaching, since I kinda just DO things without keeping track oh how... ^_^"

We already have cyberspacestudios@gmail.com which used for that kind of thing, Kanga.

But in my opinion, it would be very beneficial to have our own domain and hosted site. For one thing, we would have more control and security. If a forumotion database got corrupted or it was decided we had broken some weird, vague rule, we could lose the forums and everything on them. If we had our own site, we wouldn't need to worry about that (as long as we were smart about backing up our site database).

In addition, people would be much more likely to take us seriously. Which site would you be more likely to support, jerrythejumpingrabbit4PC.wordpress.com or jerrythegame.com?

@WereMagi: Thanks a bunch! CyberspaceStudio works fine considering we are actually just one studio Yes, I do think wordpress would be a good blogging platform. Are we able to create HTML pages with this placeholder? I really know nothing about how this works at all

Cyberkyd_30 wrote:

@WereMagi: Thanks a bunch! CyberspaceStudio works fine considering we are actually just one studio Yes, I do think wordpress would be a good blogging platform. Are we able to create HTML pages with this placeholder? I really know nothing about how this works at all

We can use HTML, CSS, PHP, Java, Flash and anything else that works when looked up by the browser. I'm going to chuck the blog up, set the settings and start getting mods for the forum that would serve us best, like Ge$hi. Ge$hi would make using the [code] tag to include syntax highlighting depending on what programming language is stated. Nifty when we start get to the programming of things.

Any suggestions on what features we can add can be done here. I would prefer to use this forum over the new one still mainly as it's mainly for us to design it, get the idea of how it all works behind the scenes and see how vastly different it is compared to a Forumotion PHPbb forum.

Also, if none of you like the look of setting up permissions, I in no way fault you for it.

**EDIT -1 :

Wordpress blog is up, sent an invite to Cyber. Cyber also an admin on the test forum.

Blog:
http://cyberspacestudio.x10.mx/blog/

Will start setting up a few modules on the forum before I start posting.

If you want to browse mods and forum styles for PHPbb, please look over her:
https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/?sid=80d8fab479e86c521f778f0a545a34a5

For WordPress Widgets, they can be searched for in the admin section.

Please tell me anything you want to add, so I can make sure that I don't have to do anything like test on my test forum/blog or edit anything, ect.

Sam, I can set you up an FTP account for you, if you wish to start working on the website. We have 3 slots for those that need them, I use the root FTP account that comes with the host.

Also, 2 of 3 email account slots are free. I had to make one in the event someone actually replies to any emails sent out by the blog or forum, since they are used for the admin account creation for both blog and forum.

I'll edit the post again unless someone posts after me.

/EDIT**

All right, thanks a bunch! I connected to the blog and set it as a link underneath the Cyberspace Studios category. I also created the categories we have on this forum but they have no forums in them yet. Mostly just to become a little more familiar with the whole thing; I'm not trying to take over from you, WereMagi.

Cyberkyd_30 wrote:

All right, thanks a bunch! I connected to the blog and set it as a link underneath the Cyberspace Studios category. I also created the categories we have on this forum but they have no forums in them yet. Mostly just to become a little more familiar with the whole thing; I'm not trying to take over from you, WereMagi.

Thats the idea! Learn the annoying job that I have to do on ChaoZ!

I'm really your Tech Support for this, really. Just make sure you are setting permissions! If you don't, no one can see or post on the boards!

Ah, I see-eth Well then, I'm perfectly fine with that. And yes, I know how to set up permissions XD

And I see no boards. Not even that redirect you made.

Also, I haven't actually done those mods yet... I plan on doing so once I have the time. Also, that will make installing mods easier.

I'm not really sure how that's possible 0.o The rest of the categories have no forums in them so they aren't showing up yet, but I can see the Cyberspace Studios category and the redirect (and follow the link) even when logged out. And I already set up permissions for guests and registered users.

Ill look over it later then for you, unless you beat me since I gotta work first.

Okay, looked at the permissions...

No permissions set for admins, mods and new members. You can see the boards because you gave yourself permission.

I'll let you fix that and then go over each and every permission for you. I decided not to add any mods yet since it's best to take baby steps, what with all of us having other things on our plates.

I'll get a list of mods I'll add soon, most of them from the ChaoZ forum since. Like the donate thing we have going on.

One last thing: Everyone else sign up. Once everyone get the idea of how the new forum would be like, and I actually get back to comparing hosting deals, I'll be moving the database with the files to the new host.

Also, who want's to make a style for the new forum? I can give you the two main styles for a base to make one from.

Going to work on the ChaoZ forum and then afterwards work on the Cyberspace forum. Feel free to post suggestions and such.

EDIT:
>Start fixing permissions again
>Feel like cake
>go to eat cake
>Come back and finish work
>Nothing happens because idle for too long
>Needs to do it again but has to go to work again

Welp....