Hosting an Free Company Website-Advice Wanted

[lyrax123]

Hello!

 

So, I have a quick question. Currently, I run an ending website for my free company. It's mostly used to get applications nowadays, and the occasional story or two. I need to pay to keep the website up soon, but is it worth it?

 

 Are there any other suggestions of where I can host a free company website. Tumblr is one option, along with a google form for applications. 

 

Thoughts, suggestions? 

 

Thanks!

[Maril]

A lot of free companies these days seem to be running without a website, and use google forms and tumblr for things. I think one of the downsides is that on tumblr, things get buried easily if you follow a lot of blogs and there's the eternal issue of not being in a habit where you specifically check for a certain thing. Tumblr is also not super optimized for hosting a lot of information. I think it would depend a lot on which kind of FC you are, if your members are already using/familar with Tumblr etc. Even your size. 

 

Whilst I can give no timeline right now, we are in the process of upgrading our software here on the RPC. In the future, every guild listing in what will become the new FC/LS "Hall" of sorts, will have their own small forum. We are waiting for the release first of all (You can read more about it in the Announcements section), and we need to do some testing, but it is coming and may be a more viable option for yous then.

[Nebbs]

Discord is another place being used to supplement in game groups. It is poor at static or structured stuff.

 

Maybe consider Tumblr, Discord and GDocs combination?

[Faye]

I recently got rid of my FC's Enjin site. Most FC's these days don't seem to use guild sites anymore, and most people are even less willing to check and use them now than they have been in the past. Instead I've been using google docs for applications and sharing information, tumblr for advertising and sharing content from our FC members, and Discord for chatting and any announcements. I do miss the aspects of things like forums and image galleries, but they were going largely unused recently anyhow and this is definitely much more manageable and low maintenance from a leadership perspective.

[lyrax123]

We do have a Discord, which I use for announcements and the likes. I'm thinking of adding maybe a story room for it? Like, post your stories here? 

 

Though the halls on the RPC would be nice. Kinda get more of the FC on the RPC and such.

[Yarehasu]

I recommend checking out Guilded! Guilded is a very minimalist website and I use it for my beautiful FC. It has a calendar, discussion posts, Documents that you can post and have people comment on.. an editable app.

 

Better yet, it has a bot that links directly to your Discord. I use it to make announcements for events or if there's important discussion pages that need to be looked at! You can even directly post stuff from Reddit there for everyone to see.

 

It's new but please check it out. It is honestly a lovely website and I've been using it since it was released to the public. The devs are very open to suggestions and have replied to every single one I've put in to let me know how things are going. Guilded deserves support.

[Nebbs]

I recommend checking out Guilded! Guilded is a very minimalist website and I use it for my beautiful FC. It has a calendar, discussion posts, Documents that you can post and have people comment on.. an editable app.

 

Better yet, it has a bot that links directly to your Discord. I use it to make announcements for events or if there's important discussion pages that need to be looked at! You can even directly post stuff from Reddit there for everyone to see.

 

It's new but please check it out. It is honestly a lovely website and I've been using it since it was released to the public. The devs are very open to suggestions and have replied to every single one I've put in to let me know how things are going. Guilded deserves support.

 

Thanks for that (Guilded ref)  I love the minimalist approach, I'm going to try this for my FC.

[Erah'sae]

Whatever website you go with, make sure you go with one where you can get your data back off.  Enjin used to not have an export function but I've been told that may have changed.

 

Honestly with Discord and Google Docs you can get away with not having a personal forum or what not.  I would, however, get a wordpress blog site or some such to keep people informed of events or anything of the like you want to use.

 

(Also, use https://wordpress.com/ not a reseller if you go that way.  You can get free blog hosting if you use one of the stock themes which can be somewhat customized and don't mind the name.wordpress.com url)

[Yarehasu]

I recommend checking out Guilded! Guilded is a very minimalist website and I use it for my beautiful FC. It has a calendar, discussion posts, Documents that you can post and have people comment on.. an editable app.

 

Better yet, it has a bot that links directly to your Discord. I use it to make announcements for events or if there's important discussion pages that need to be looked at! You can even directly post stuff from Reddit there for everyone to see.

 

It's new but please check it out. It is honestly a lovely website and I've been using it since it was released to the public. The devs are very open to suggestions and have replied to every single one I've put in to let me know how things are going. Guilded deserves support.

 

Thanks for that (Guilded ref)  I love the minimalist approach, I'm going to try this for my FC.

 

No problem! If you need any help, feel free to message me and I can give tips and tricks!

[C'kayah Polaali]

My FC uses Discord as our primary communications tool, too, replacing website forums, announcements, etc. I think a website is still useful as a "trailhead" - "Contact X, Y, or Z if you're interested, here are the rules, etc", but that really doesn't require more than a simple static website.

 

What I've done in the past for an online game I made, when it came time to sunset it, was to make a static mirror of the website (there are tools which can do this for you. I used wget, which is a command line tool, but there are others with more friendly interfaces) and then hosted that on S3. I do have to pay for it, but the cost is somewhere around 11 cents a month. I think if I were looking at doing a new FC today, I'd do something like this for the website, and simply have it act as a jumping off point to get people to contact the FC officers.