New server/hosting ordered

LFG · 06-18-2007, 02:21 AM

I'll be traveling out of town on business until Thursday again, and wanted to provide this site update before I left.

I just ordered a brand new, dedicated server. This site will be moving to that new server as soon as Niber figures out how to pack it all up and move it in it's exact current condition, with no surprises.

We've outgrown the capabilities of our existing server and hosting far more quickly than projected when we moved in December. All this should be apparent to everyone on this site based on the recent slowness and unpredictable, sluggish response times.

We did a lot of shopping for our new server and host, and ultimately had to make the decision to go with a provider that offers world class 24/7 support. There are a lot of good professional providers out there, but it's just me and Niber on this side. I don't have the first technical clue about all this stuff, this is my first web site. But while Niber is quite gifted and proficient with all this stuff, he has a day job and sometimes travels on business also. So when he goes out of town and the server comes down, I need to be able to get in touch with a dedicated person by email or chat and say "fix my shit asap please."

Our new server and service will cost $2400 per year, just for the hardware and hosting, no extras are included in that. I have made the financial commitment and paid for this already. But we will be getting some amazing upgrades over what we have now, including:

-1500 gb per month bandwidth, vs. the 250 gb bandwidth we have now
-A dedicated server of our very own, vs. the virtual dedicated we have now, which looks and acts like our own server, but is actually shared.
-2 gb ram vs. 512k ram.
-100 mbs uplink vs. the 10 mbs uplink we have now.
-And, most importantly, a state of the art box and processors that will be able to perform far more quickly than what we have now.

In addition to the new server and host, we are in the process of getting a complete redesign of this site from another vendor. The redesign will include a new custom skin, custom graphics, and will have advertising boxes in place that we can just rotate banner ads through.

We will need to start advertising on this site to pay for all this stuff. In addition to the advertising, we will be funding this site through sales of our very own eq2flames store, which will be on Cafepress. Yes, this will be done in time to order for Fanfaire. The cafepress store will have over 100 different designs - things you can wear and things for the house - and all will be extremely cool. I've been working on this for some time now, and I know you will think it owns when you see it. But I'm still at least a week away from finishing it, so please be patient.

With the new server, we will be able to implement a lot of new fun stuff, like an IRC client, so we can try and host dev chats and such. We'll also be implementing a significantly expanded arcade, so this site can be a one stop activity center lol. Lots of other things are possible, maybe even Counterstrike and Ventrillo? Niber?

Our new skin design will feature 3 ad boxes, one horizontal box at the top and two vertical boxes down the left side. The advertising itself will be inobtrusive and not offensive, without any annoying buzzing crap or secondary mmo ads. We will be implementing a solution where people can turn off the ads for a small annual fee - we were thinking about something like $12 to $15 bucks per year. Nobody has to pay, but everyone has got to realize that all of this isn't free, and I've paid for most of it myself up to this point, except for some contributions that pretty much dried up near the beginning of this year.

Our goal is not to make a profit really, but is just to be self funding, so all this stuff pays for itself.

If anyone wants to help out, here is the Donate link. I'll keep a running list of contributions, and if you want to contribute, that will be applied later toward your ad free viewing of this site.

Thanks to everyone who continues to use this site in the spirit intended.

Illuminator · 06-18-2007, 02:29 AM

I just hope the redesign isn't too bandwidth-intensive, I don't want to draw any warning flags on bandwidth use at work.

LFG · 06-18-2007, 02:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Illuminator

I just hope the redesign isn't too bandwidth-intensive, I don't want to draw any warning flags on bandwidth use at work.

No it won't be - I specifically ordered minimalist - it will be no more bandwidth intensive, and likely even less, than what we have now. My other specific requirement is for the new design to not add any vertical height to our "everything on the main page" format.

LFG · 06-18-2007, 02:37 AM

By the way, the new Cafepress store site I'm working on will have a ton of products in the following sections:

-GirlWear
-DudeWear
-UberKids
-Fabled Gear (mugs, mousepads, clocks, stickers, and tons of stuff)
-Don't Wear This Stuff to Fanfaire (in your face and non-porn "adult" "rude" and "shock" kind of items)

Just be patient and give me another week please, I guarantee you will be surprised.

Thanks

Snark · 06-18-2007, 03:13 AM

May I implore you to first try showing only the banner ads to guests, and not registered users. The large majority of people who view this site are unregistered, and it may be enough to pull off the revenue you are looking for. If not, a small fee would be ok, but make it one-time-only and more like 5 bucks.

I actually have a bit of experience in mega-forum moderating (larger than this for sure) and that solution is generally a good standard to start from. Anyways just consider it.

Illuminator · 06-18-2007, 03:21 AM

$12 to $15 per year is entirely reasonable, especially when the alternative still allows you access to the content.

Slashdot.org, the mother of all megaforum sites, charges $5 per 1000 ad-free page views.

Snark · 06-18-2007, 03:58 AM

First of all slashdot is far from the mother of all megaforum sites, and I don't think its unreasonable for LFG to first make money off the people who don't register and post (which happens to be a large majority). Slashdot also has infinitely more income it needs to make than eq2flames, so it's also reasonable to expect LFG to start low and work high. Between commercial sales, 3 large adds per page, donations and yearly fees, I think LFG is asking way too much of the community base. I understand this is completely out of pocket for him, but I just don't see the reason to impact current users when he might not have to

LFG · 06-18-2007, 05:11 AM

Snark, like I said, I'm hoping to break even. If I can do that by doing less than I've suggested, fine, I can scale some of this back. I'm tired of paying for all this myself, however. In the history of this site, less than 20 people have donated, so that isn't working as a method of funding. I dunno, if people think that 12 to 15 bucks PER YEAR for ad free viewing is excessive, maybe we can try 10 or something instead to start.

But, show me any non-garage looking site on the Internet that has our traffic but no ads and is sustained from donations alone. I don't think you can show me one. The problem is, when a site gets the traffic we've been getting, the bandwidth and server requirements associated with that cost real money. This site cost almost nothing to operate before December when we had low traffic, jumped substantially in January when traffic increased, and now will cost about $3000 per year in hardware, hosting, license fees, and other miscellaneous expenses that cost RL money.

This is obviously a fun hobby for me, and I like doing it. I'm not counting the time Niber and I spend working on this site as an expense, just out of pocket costs. But something's gotta give. I'm not willing to just keep paying for everything myself. We either need some revenue sources to fund this, or the site is going to run worse and worse. It has been straining under the traffic we have now for the past few months. I am sick to death of having to click a link multiple times or hit page refresh over and over just to get a page to load finally.

So I think it is reasonable for people to contribute a tiny amount toward use of this site in one of two ways: (1) by paying a small amount like 10ish bucks per year to not view ads or (2) by viewing those ads on each page. I don't think that one 768x90 banner across the top and two down one side is excessive. The side panel could probably hold three and still not use the full vertical height of the site, so I don't even think it is important whether we use one or three vertical ads down the side, since the same amount of space on the left side would be consumed either way. We are at most talking about one ribbon across the top and one down that is 3/4 inch wide. If that bothers someone, by all means, pay a tiny amount to turn it off.

I guess I'm not sure why you think that is excessive or that we have multiple funding sources. In the case of individual users, I'm just suggesting that we will have either a tiny ad revenue or contribution per user, supplemented by profits I hope to earn from t-shirt and item sales. Those t-shirt and item sales will be derived from a link in the menu bar, nobody has to go offsite or buy anything if they don't want. I look at the Cafepress site we are doing kind of like a bake sale lol, it's supplemental income only.

If this is really important to you Snark, I'd be more than happy to turn off ads free for Class Leaders, since there is no doubt they contribute meaningful value to this site, and I think the annual fee option for Class Leaders should be waived on that basis.

So I hope that will work for you, and I hope you agree I'm just trying to be reasonable and not being a greedy money hungry bastard. This site has never been about making a profit to me, and I'm not trying to use this site to supplement my RL income now, I'm only trying to meet costs and make the site self-funding.

Thanks

Snark · 06-18-2007, 05:17 AM

I'm not saying you are greedy and I think you missed my main point. I was merely wondering if simply turning off adds for registered users could be enough. It is clear to me that a majority of the traffic on this website is, in fact, by unregistered users.

I also think that yearly renewable fees is a bad idea. With hundreds of potential subscribers, you don't think that a one-time fee would be enough? The expansion alone of this site proves that member listings are anything but static.

I think turning off banner ads shouldn't be presented to the user in a business model, but rather as a generous one; If you donate to this site, we will remove the ads for you: the minimum donation is 5$.

If that, ontop of merch and advertising isn't enough revenue, then maybe I'm wrong, but I think it might be.

LFG · 06-18-2007, 05:20 AM

We can consider a one time donation to turn off ads, I kind of see your point for that. I also don't want the hassle of maintaining and tracking yearly subscriptions.