Creating a gaming community (clan)

[Kazuo]

Greetings everyone!

I'm new to forum softwares such as Xenforo and the likes. For years I used guild hosting websites such as Enjin, Guildlaunch, Shivtr, and so on. But now with our ever expanding gaming community we want to create a lasting site with a good customize-able forum software, after much research, I found out that Xenforo is the best out there currently.

So I had a few questions before I purchase Xenforo.

1. There are so many domain hosting websites out there, which one should I chose for a gaming community? I'd like to pay a one time payment for it, or even a yearly one if it's worth it, I simply want the best suggestions. I need a good domain where I can host Xenforo and start up my site. Hopefully one that can last me a couple of years.

2. How easy/hard is it to use a forum software such as Xenforo? Do you need to be a coder or is it possible for the average computer wiz to manage?

3. Is it possible to integrate online games into the software? Such as bringing over external modules that relate to that game? Specifically from Enjin. As well as transferring over forum threads, donation modules, etc.

4. Many of our users browse the site on their android phones, tablets or iphones. How user friendly is Xenforo in this area? Do you provide the mobile support together with the main license that I buy? Is it something separate I have to pay for? Or is it just not supported?

5. Last inquiry. Could you provide me a few sites as an example that use Xenforo? Specifically gaming community sites, or a few ''modern'' looking sites that have windows 8.1 elements.

Any other info will also be appreciated, don't hesitate to share with me your thoughts regarding this and my decision will be based on your suggestions! I'd really like to hear the opinions of someone who has done what I am about to do, ie creating a gaming community, but all suggestions and answers are welcome.

Thanks in advance!

 

[rainmotorsports]

1. I accidently first only commented on domains. You don't have to register your domain with the same company as your host. Xenforo runs fine on shared hosting so you don't need a VPS or spend any crazy amount of money. I would say stay away from Bluehost and hostgator and all the companies their parent company owns.

As far as domains go there are so many registrars out there your going to get a million opinions. I pay the premium to register with Hover. GoDaddy for domains only probably not the worst thing in the world but got a bad rap for supporting SOPA. Namecheap is one some people go for but they are a truly horrible company. I had no issues with them but despite being a registrar last domains I had with them were actually through eNom and the pair has a habit if you don't renew they don't let the domain go they act like someone bought it for resale.

2. To just run the forum? Easy as pie. Your probably going to want at least one person on your team that has some html/css experience. Certainly wouldn't hurt to have a coder to make portal and sidebar modules for you.

3. Not sure what your looking for. Likely losing anything you have on enjin. With a coder on your team there is so much that can be done. Battlefield Bad Company 2, Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 for example plugins could be written to control the servers and display live feeds of information on your website. Its really dependant on whats available for the game not so much on Xenforo. You can find plugins for steam integration if your interested. Generally games don't have too much available for any forum software but its all down to what your looking for I suppose.

4. Xenforo is the forum software of choice for Tapatalk themselves but their support of the plugin has a habit of flip flopping from okay to bad. Xenforo itself scales very well to mobile and while Tapatalk is great in a bad signal area I like to view the site straight up.

5. Could check out an "In Progress" build www.tbgclan.com I haven't finished converting our vBulletin theme but its 80% there and the front page is only semi responsive the rest of the site is fully responsive. Still adjusting plenty of things. Haven't had much time lately.

Edit - Oh how could I forget about our friends as well http://www.47r-squad.com/ Not sure what he has as his main theme now but I really liked the work @napy8gen did on the blue theme they have. Its a 1.1 theme so its not responsive but I honestly think if they ever wanted to update it, it would work every well with 1.2+ responsive.

 

[wedgar]

Greetings everyone!

So I had a few questions before I purchase Xenforo.


2. How easy/hard is it to use a forum software such as Xenforo? Do you need to be a coder or is it possible for the average computer wiz to manage?

4. Many of our users browse the site on their android phones, tablets or iphones. How user friendly is Xenforo in this area? Do you provide the mobile support together with the main license that I buy? Is it something separate I have to pay for? Or is it just not supported?

Any other info will also be appreciated, don't hesitate to share with me your thoughts regarding this and my decision will be based on your suggestions! I'd really like to hear the opinions of someone who has done what I am about to do, ie creating a gaming community, but all suggestions and answers are welcome.

Thanks in advance!

I am not a coder. I have found a very supportive community in this forum both from staff and from other community forum operators.

Questions that I have had have been answered very quickly. I'm impressed that when I login here that there is always one or more staff also led in.

There are a lot of third party applications available in the resource center.

I switched from vBulletin to XenForo a little over a month ago. I have found xF to be easier to use and it works. There was so much in VB that did not work.

I have several Android devices and I was not able to get into the administrator control panel for VB using an Android device. I can with xF.

xF had made operating my community forum more fun.

 

[Kazuo]

Thanks dearly for your answer rainmotorsports as well as Wedgar! That was fast, I had heard I would get responses immediately on Xenforo, but this is amazing ^^

I'll look into the domains and ask my community as well, there's a few site designers and computer software developers I know so perhaps they can direct me to a good hosting site.

And yeah, lately I've only been reading bad reviews about vB5 so not even considering that. I've been browsing the resource center and all the apps, it's pretty amazing, been scribbling down the names of apps and modules that I will need already.

More suggestions and answers are always welcome ^^ I think I will purchase a Xenforo license as soon as I get my domain, so hopefully during this week.

 

[wedgar]

Thanks dearly for your answer rainmotorsports as well as Wedgar! That was fast, I had heard I would get responses immediately on Xenforo, but this is amazing ^^

I'll look into the domains and ask my community as well, there's a few site designers and computer software developers I know so perhaps they can direct me to a good hosting site.

And yeah, lately I've only been reading bad reviews about vB5 so not even considering that. I've been browsing the resource center and all the apps, it's pretty amazing, been scribbling down the names of apps and modules that I will need already.

More suggestions and answers are always welcome ^^ I think I will purchase a Xenforo license as soon as I get my domain, so hopefully during this week.

Hope you enjoy your forums as much as I do mine.

 

[Kazuo]

Thanks again ^^

I have an additional question regarding one of the Extras that I can purchase.

Do I have to pay the 60$ for Resource Manager to use the add-on's I find in Resources on this site? These http://xenforo.com/community/resources/

And if not, then what good is the Resource Manager?

 

[Andrej]

Not exactly. You can access/download resources with an active license, without having to purchase the Resource Manager. It is an add-on on its own for your forum.

The Resouce Manager is an official XenForo add-on that allows you to manage resources such as files and tutorials or other article-like content along side your normal forum. The aim is allow content such as files to be listed with a focus on the initial content rather than discussion surrounding it. Users can watch resources and be updated whenever a new version is released.

Resources can be sold (as a link to external purchase handling), downloaded directly from the resource manager, downloaded from an external URL, or provided without a file. The administrator can control the type of resources allowed and who can post them on a per category basis. Discussion threads can automatically be created for each resource, allowing the target forum and a thread prefix to be specified per resource category.

It is completely integrated into XenForo, including support for moderator permissions, logging, manual approval and soft-deletion, liking, news feed entries and alerts, reporting, search, spam cleaning, and statistics.

You can see the resource manager in action here, where we use it to manage third-party add-ons, styles, language packs, and tutorials.

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xenforo-resource-manager-1-0-0-released.47042/