Young Writers Society

This is relating to writing as in I'll be doing the writing bits for a new site. Not a writing site, mind you (this place is fantastic), but a sim/RPG sort of thing.

Of course, while I am just the person in the background sorting out statistics and how all the bits of the game mesh, I'm also the person who sparked the idea so it's more or less up to me to get the site itself going so the programmer can jump in.

I was hoping someone had some expertise in this? While my programmer (funnily, their name is Cassaundra), has suggested Host Gator since she knows the site, I'm wondering if anyone has opinions on this or the whole process? I don't want wool being pulled over my eyes because, in the process of all this, I'll be spending a lot of time and a bit of money to get everything working so then I can potentially make money (people buy perks on games, right? Alpha accounts? yeah -breathes-).

So, dunno if this is the wrong place, but, hey, I want as close to an expert as I can get talking to me.

I'm not exactly an expert on setting up websites, but what I'm sure of is that it takes up a lot of money. That money, I think, is a bit hard to accumulate back. It is plausible though, all you need is work hard! Why not contact Nate? He's a site admin and all, so he might have an idea.

Before you go and spend money, research to death all possible hosting providers. There are a number of great free hosts out there that you can use to start off with, so if things wind up not working out, you won't lose so much money.

Be sure to check their domain transfer policies, as well as what features are and are not available (or must be enabled upon request, and whether there are fees associated with such).

Also, if you're planning on making money out of the venture, it's a good idea to start up a company, like an LLC, to prevent any money troubles down the road. I don't know where you live, but filing the paperwork for an LLC is really cheap where I am, and it helps protect you from any potential lawsuits as well as makes filing taxes much, much easier.

So, before you even start up a site, research web hosts and business law. It will save you a lot of money and risk in the long run.

Thanks, guys. I admit I'm very new to the idea, but I have a lot of ideas and people have been so helpful. I have a good feeling. Luckily, I have two family members that are pretty knowledgeable, but one runs a business and the other lives on the other side of the country, so I'm waiting for them to respond.

I was thinking of messaging Nate, but he's sort of like the mob boss and I'm--well, analogies aside, I'm always a bit scared of admins. I need to get over that. I've known admins before, but their super powers make them fearsome. XD I'll maybe message him if my relatives don't get back to me.

Kyllorac, thank you especially for your advice, as well. I've seen LLC thrown about the bottom of the sims I've played, but I didn't think too much about it. I also will search for free hosting. Luckily, I'm now a member of PSU so that should make things a bit easier and my programmer seems to know quite a bit. I mean, I know proboards will be great for hosting the forums before the game is open to the public (see: it's free and I know my way around it and know people), but I've never tried to set up anything more than a blog. O.o So, new territory, but...

...I love exploration, especially of the mental sort.

Well, keeping in the vein of free, the PHP + MySQL combination is a pretty hard one to beat when it comes to dynamic content and keeping track of user data and etc. in a database. They also happen to be the most popular option, and almost all web hosts support the PHP/MySQL pairing.

There are other alternatives, but they're not as widely used or supported.

You might also want to look into a variety of CMSes (Content Management Systems) and find one that best suits your needs, so you don't have to build everything from scratch.

Let me tell you if you would allow. I have some sites and I am experienced in them. If you need domain and hosting, I would suggest the two most reliable sites, GoDaddy.com and BigRock.com.

So, if you need to design your site? Use some premium online web designers or some online designing tools. If you want to do it off-site, you could always use Adobe Dreamweaver, the best WYSIWYG editor around and if you ever need help, just shoot me a PM or reply here and tell me, I shall help you in designing, if you need help in uploading your site or with any programs, you know who to call.


But let me tell you, I am only good around HTML and a little of CSS, don't talk me about php or java stuff.