The Forge Archives

Greets folks,

For those that don't know, I've been hosting folks for free for a while. I like doing that, but I decided to take it a step further and actually offer some decent features/setup. So, I am going to be launching RPGShelf.com in a week or two. It's sole purpose will be to serve game companies, gaming sites, and fans. Of course, I'll host other things too, but those will be my main target customers.

I am offering services for dirt cheap. The services will include mySQL, 50-100 MB of webspace, your own control panel, email, post-nuke, discussion forums, and more. Once I have you setup, you can run free -- your control panel gives you all sorts of control over your account. For an example - check out www.runebearer.com.

My basic plan starts at $30/year, and the advanced plan is $50/year. Dirt cheap folks. :) There is no monthly charge -- just a one time pop through Paypal or by check, and we are happy.

The website is still coming together at www.rpgshelf.com -- I will be finalizing the site next week.

Anyway, to bring this on topic -- what features are important to you as game designers? Obviously, because of the low price, I'm not going to have a major support system setup -- although I will have a ticket system and forums as the primary means of that -- but I won't be in a position to have 24/7 support or any such stuff. Is that important? Or is this so incredibly affordable that you don't really care?

Finally, if you guys want in on this, email me at nathan@mysticages.com, and I would be glad to set you up. I sort of want to give Forge folks a first dibs on it, before I start announcing it next week.

Thanks,
Nathan Hill

Well the first question I would have would I get my own domain, or would it be a sub domain of RPGShelf? Second question would be could you help people set up their site if they don't have that much experience in doing so? This is sounding like what I have been looking for as far as my own site and affordability goes so I may be all over this action.

Sylus

Domain Name: Yes.

Runebearer.com is hosted by me, and you can also access their site through runebearer.rpgshelf.com. That is how I would set it up, for instance. If you already have a domain, you could go ahead and test the site, get things going, and then transfer the domain.

As far as help, I can help in some aspects -- but I'm quite busy so I don't have time to do it for you. In other words, if you needed advice on setting up your own forums, cgi, or php bits, I could help. But, I won't code for you -- you will need your own application or tutorial for that.

Thanks,
Nathan

cool,looks like I'll be interested. Are there any applications or tutorials you would suggest that could help a person set theirs up?

Jason

Here are some useful threads to check out here on the Forge for some other opinions:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=1479&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=html+application

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=591&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=html+application

If you have access, Dreamweaver is great, but it is quite feature rich. It is sort of complicated. There are simple html building applications on the web, and you might try Front Page Express from Microsoft. If you have a Mac, try this site: http://www.pure-mac.com/webed.html

There are numerous tutorials on the web -- I'm not sure which one to promote over others. You can also buy a HTML Book for Beginners too for $10 or so.

Good luck,
Nathan

Thanks Nathan, I'll definitly take a look at those things you mentioned and look for me to set up a site with you around the 20th or so.

Jason

Here is a question: can one sell products on their site through visa or whatever?
And if so what safety or protection environment can you guarantee?
Another one: What guarntee, insurance will you provide for your services? eg if you have to go down or someone's hosted site goes down due to technical reasons etch.

Quote from: xechnaoHere is a question: can one sell products on their site through visa or whatever?
And if so what safety or protection environment can you guarantee?
Another one: What guarntee, insurance will you provide for your services? eg if you have to go down or someone's hosted site goes down due to technical reasons etch.

Yes, you can. This will be just your own account -- you can sell anything or do whatever you want with it. You certainly can sell things, but unfortunately, I don't have ssl (the secure layer stuff) nor credit card processing available. If you use Paypal, it uses a secure connection.

As far as guarantees, I'm not sure what you mean. The servers are pretty rock solid. In your control panel, you can perform backups of the databases and webfiles pretty easily. If the site goes down, I'll deal with it as quickly as possible. What do you mean by insurance?

Anyway, good questions.

Thanks,
Nathan

Insurance means that if something goes wrong to your business and this has an impact over the services to your clients, will they be backed up for this effect of impact?
So I can sell directly from the site, without directing to rpgshelf?

As someone currently being hosted at Nathan's free Action Roll site, I can tell you that I handle sales with nothing more complicated than snagging a button from the Paypal button wizard and pasting the html code into my page.  Neither Nathan nor Action Roll is involved in any way.  I assume that would be the same situation as his new for pay service.

BTW, Nathan, I am considering making the move, but I've just honestly been too swamped to really give it much thought.  My current thinking is that I may want to go with an actual Ramshead Publishing site this time around, once I get some new product released.

I didn't know about actionroll. So...:
What is the actionroll hosting like? Why ,Valamir, do you want to change? What advantages rpgshelf offers versus actionroll?
Sorry for the bombardment of questions but the matter gets my interest too.

Quote from: xechnaoI didn't know about actionroll. So...:
What is the actionroll hosting like? Why ,Valamir, do you want to change? What advantages rpgshelf offers versus actionroll?
Sorry for the bombardment of questions but the matter gets my interest too.

Hey there,

I run Actionroll.com too -- it's more of a general gaming site/zine/etc, although it goes for periods without updates. When I launched it, I offered free webhosting to anyone who wanted it. The downsides to Actionroll is that your control over your account is limited. You can ftp and do cgi-bin stuff fine, but if you want to setup emails, mysql databases, or other fancy stuff, you would have to go through me. My process then would be a little awkward and painful. With RPGShelf, you have control over emails, ftp, ftp accounts, discussion forums, mailing lists, cgis, file permissions, image galleries, user access, mySQL databases, and more. It makes it so much easier.

Runebearer, for instance, originally was hosted on Actionroll, but they have moved over to RPGShelf since it is available. We've had a couple of hiccups -- like runebearer.com resolving to another dns (I think that was due to a specific name server on the user's end however). But otherwise, it has been fine.

Hope this answers more of your questions. I've used several different service providers, so I am not a newbie in terms of this. I may be glossing over certain obvious questions, so continue to ask away -- even if you don't plan on using RPGShelf.

Thanks,
Nathan

Nathan I am almost ignorant to all these stuff. I am very interested in launching a site but it seems really difficult for me. I could be really interest towards your hosting if like Sylus Thane asked you offered a bit of your experience.
By the way, could one build his hosted site with flash (which I happen to like very much)?
And if so could the rpgshelf provide the software or at least the legal licence ( if the legal licence is necessary for such a work)? (this one because I don't have over 50$ to spend) ;)

Hey again,

The site could certainly be built with Flash, but I don't have any experience with that software. And I don't think there is a legal license needed for a Flash site -- you just need to buy Flash MX (or whatever is the latest version). Of course, it isn't cheap software.

Your best bet is to start with html unless you can find someone else who has experience with those dynamic sites.

Thanks,
Nathan

I asked about the license because a friend of mine has the software but not me. And me definately can't afford it. My friend could do this for me but I see that the site will be registered to my name. Will this be a legal problem?