Sunday, November 4, 2012

Forums Coming! (cumming?)

Taco and I have decided that to further this project and to give back to you guys who have been awesome in supporting us all these years with creative writing, bug reports, and innumerable other things, it would be nice if we had our own community forums! That being said, I have no idea what forums software to use and which host to purchase (less than $10 USD/month is mandatory).

Please leave comments, as I will base my decision off of them =P



17 comments:

  1. just an idea
    why waste money when you can use a free forum hosting?
    i.e. a quick search gives eamped and sparklit sites that admits pron content
    cheers

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  2. generally free forum place are rubbish that's why.
    2nd reason is control. you can do whatever you want with your own domain. change everything no problem. add stuff no problem.

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  3. As for hosting company I don't know not living in the US so I can't help you there. I know some good hosters in Europe but I doubt that will be your primairy target when it comes to getting a host ;)

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  4. I work in the hosting industry, you should be able to find a hosting account that fits your requirements. Also you will need to check the content policy with the hosting company. Some have a no porn policy, others have a nothing illegal policy, considering the nature of your game, you will want one of the latter. This will limit your options, but will prevent grief down the road.

    Also in comparing companies pay more attention to process limits than bandwidth limits. Offering unlimited/very high bandwidth, then limiting you from a process end is not uncommon. This type of plan could very well work for you, but be sure that you have enough processes to handle you anticipated number of concurrent peak time visitors.

    Lastly I strongly recommend getting unix or linux hosting and not windows. They are more stable, offer more flexibility, and have far better support for PHP, the language that most forum software is written in. Just make sure that your plan will include php & mysql, some budget plans will get you to sign up for cheap, and then when you realize that you need these, you need to upgrade to a higher priced plan to get them.

    For Forum software, there are 2 that stand out in my mind: vBulletin is the leading commercial solution, but is not free. PHPBB is almost as good, but has the advantage of being an open source solution that will cost you nothing.

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    1. Well i don't know much about forum hosting but in my perspective take this guys advice and carefully chose the place you wanna get settled.
      As for a actual provider, sorry i can't be of help this time but i am glad lots of people are supporting. =)
      Peace.

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    2. can concur on everything except the forum software. PHPBB is used to much so every spambot is basically written for that even with v3. I would suggest SMF or MyBB. Especially MyBB might suit your needs the best.
      Things like vBulletin, IP.Board or Xenforo are great but they are too expensive and is overkill for what this place needs.

      For the rest I do concur with Anon. pref BSD/Linux over Windows. A look really really close to the terms of service especially when there aren't hard limits with space or traffic.
      You often end up having CPU use limit. Limits in database size. not being able to host more than 50 MB of zip files and stupid things like that.

      Ask around especially people you know or places you trust with the users opinion, but do not believe those top10 BS listings.

      And like I mentioned to Hawt before just send a message and I can setup a test area to try out some software packages and pick the ones you like the most.

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  5. http://teraunce.dndsheets.net/vanilla/categories/p0rnarium or you can already have a forum with unlimited bandwidth and storage space.

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  6. Yes please! It'd make it a lot easier to get/give feedback :)

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  7. Hardest part is getting a balanced host and not writing up the forum itself, sorry I can't help you guys.

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  8. If we really wanted our own forum, why not go to Futanari Palace? SM uses it as their main forum board and I think that it works great. Just my two cents from a lurker perspective.

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    Replies
    1. Actually we considered this option, and sent in a subforum appliacation, but apparently FP forums are not accepting new subforums anytime soon, and it's almost been a full year since we applied. Thus, we need to provide our own forums.

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    2. I usually as a matter of policy don't speak on this matter but I feel that after a year and a half of silence on the subject it's time to vent a little.

      While Futanari Palace is a great site and does offer a lot to it's users in terms of futanari content, it's game development section is abysmally stagnant and ineffective. For example, my request for a subforum hasn't even been acknowledged -- no PM, no reply, NOTHING (despite actually inquiring to the admins). The forum is rather unfriendly as well, the whole reason this blog even exist is because originally the platform I used (liberty basic) was deemed "unsafe" (despite the fact that it's existed for probably close to 20 years now). I felt fearful of keeping my game primarily linked to that site and decided it would be best to start a blog where I was guaranteed a spot to host the game and discuss it freely.

      Honestly, what is the point of even having a game development forum if you won't let game developers actually utilize it. I understand that they can't give every game a subforum as a matter of clutter but seriously : Corruption of Champions, Flexible survival, Otherworld, and this game for example aren't worthy of them despite how much traffic these sites get? (I'm not saying that any of the aforementioned have asked for a subforum, they may have but I am just stating this to make a point).

      I know this game is rather buggy but it's been around for 1.5 years, has over 2,000,000 hits since last May (and roughly 260,000 players or at the very least that many people who've at least checked the game out) so isn't at least a reply warranted (even if it's to say "NO")? I feel once again as if I'm getting the cold shoulder from that place.

      Barely any of the site's traffic comes from Futanari Palace either (6.5% of referrals) which is a shame given the site's focus. It's really no wonder that personal blogs are the main medium for conveying these Futanari games, why go to a development forum that is largely stagnant and not overly friendly toward developers? I wish they'd create a friendly atmosphere for potential game developers, it COULD be a great place to build a community around futanari games but it really isn't. (Example: Even a damned sticky that lists : "Futanari Games and links to their sites" would be a huge improvement)

      /rant over :P

      That aside, I really need to tip my hat to Fenoxo, Daisy Strike, Anonymous, Valente, et. al. as their blogs are not only great for the genre but actually serve as a great place to bind these types of games together. Virtually all of my referrals comes from these blogs and I really appreciate the fact that they've linked this game on their blogs which feature such great pieces of work. I hope I'm at least giving them a tiny bit of referrals for their kindness toward me :)

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    3. Wow... I wish I had known. That is terrible. My suggestions was based on that it is much simpler to modify a current forum than to create your own. However if places are unwilling to even give you a "no". Let them become complacent, they will eventually kill themselves due to stagnation. Have you considered getting with some of the other game developers and forming your own forum? That would allow for the cost to be shouldered much more readily, and would perhaps allow for that friendly atmosphere toward game developers that you hope for? I have no idea what would call it. Maybe Futanari League of Developers? I guess my own motivation for this would be because I am too lazy to hit twelve different blogs daily to check them out(I actually only hit around five or six). Still it would make my life much more simple, and that's all that matters right?

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  9. I seriously need some help finding hosts that allow adult content. I'm banging my head up against the wall here. Any suggestions anyone?

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    1. http://www.seraphimlabs.net/intermediate.php Seems decent...
      So does https://clients.wswd.net/cart.php?gid=2

      From what I understood of the anonymous web hosting industrialist above I believe from a paid perspective this will work.

      I am sure this has been mentioned but there is always http://www.tfgamessite.com/phpbb3/index.php however I am not the hosting guru so I am not sure. I would think that it would be a possibility to be able to create our own subforum area in there.

      Although Teraunce's vanilla forum seems interesting. I'm going to attempt to go play with it a little more(that's what she said).

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    2. mddhosting, arvixe

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