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Poll: Guild Site Hosting

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Hey team, can you do me a favor? I want to conduct a poll about your guild website. I’m curious about what your guild is using and why. My interest is both personal and professional (Disclaimer: I’m with Enjin).

Which site hosting does your guild use?

View Results

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Note: If you can’t see the poll because you’re on a reader, try this link

In addition to voting on the poll, could you drop a comment answering the following questions for me?

  1. What influenced your guild to use that hosting service?
  2. What one site feature are you most thankful for?
  3. What’s the URL to your site?

For GMs – Enjin 2 year anniversary means 40% off for you

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enjin-logo-birth

Our premiere partners at Enjin are celebrating their second birthday! (Disclaimer: I do advise them when it comes to their services from a GM perspective and the actual links are affiliate links).

From one guild master to another, I can’t recommend their services enough. In the past, I’d use my own combination of forum software, blog software, and EqDKP hacks to manage my guild’s online presence. On of top of that, I had to stress over the looks, too.

Now I don’t know about you but as a guild master, I’d rather spend my time actually playing the game with my guild instead of having to fret over the technical stuff.

I don’t have to worry about loot tracking. They do it for me.

Attendance? That’s taken care of.

My guildies can keep track of each others blogs.

The best part? An actual recruiting form for applicants. In the past, we had a separate forum where users had to copy and paste an existing application template into a new thread. It was archaic! But with their modules, all we had to do is come up with the questions.

Their promotion started a few days ago. But it ends tomorrow! If your guild’s web contracts are coming up for renewal, consider using Enjin to power your guild instead.

Enjin offers three plans. Here’s the scoop on their current deals:

  • SAVE 40% when you prepay for 1 year on any plan!
  • SAVE 40% on all themes and headers!
  • SAVE 30% when you prepay for 6 months on any plan!
  • SAVE 20% when you prepay for 3 months on any plan!

Their Ultimate plan is the best value if you opt in for a year. With the 40% discount, that’s $17.97 a month. For smaller guilds, Premium might be the better option for you. For a year on the same promotion, that’s a $5.37 a month.

That’s approximately three dollars a month without having to fret about technical issues, upgrades, or other problems.

But hey, if you’re still sceptical about their services, you can always move your entire guild and try out their premium plan for a month first. See how your guild likes it.

Hurry! You only have a day left before the deal expires!

Sign up now!

What do You Look for in a Guild Website?

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This is a great question asked by Nibuca on Twitter which was brought to my attention by Gnomeaggedon.

Guild websites can be a great tool for communications between guild members and detailing raid accomplishments. You can use it to hold information for prospective recruits, keep track of loot that has been awarded and set up forums for active discussion between your players.

So here’s today’s questions for you all. I’m actually in the midst of writing a long post about guild website essentials, so consider this a research post designed to see if I’m on the right track.

Does your guild have a website? Do you use it or not, and why? What features would you consider important or expendable?

Resources for the New Guild Leader

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I just wanted to highlight some links for any up and coming Guildmasters who aren’t sure where to start looking for the various services they will need to set up and organize their guild..

Guild Webhosting

Enjin (Affiliate link) – Free. Contains forums, item mouseovers, roster, news management, calendar, progression indicator, multiple themes available (Demos, upgradable)
Guildomatic – Free. Contains forums, item mouseovers, roster, news management, Ad-Supported (Demo, upgradable)
Shivtr – Forums, character profiles, image gallery, events calendar, guild bank interface, polls (Free trial, $8.99 /month)
Guild Launch – Free, Forums, calendar, guild progression, RapidRaid loot management system, guild bank interface, armory interface, 10 MB file storage, Ad-Supported (demo, upgradable)
WoW Guilds – DKP system, bank management, raid progression module, WoW MP3 player, event management, over 70 templates to choose from, guild stats, armory interface (Demo – $9.88 /month)
Guild Universe – Forums, calendar, event management, guild application, roster, news management, polls (Demo, upgradable)
Guild Portal – Forums, polls, mail, content management system, raid calendar, bank management, roster management,  (Demo, equals to $5.00 /month)

Webhosting

Dreamhost (Affiliate link): Dreamhost powers World of Matticus (500 GB Disk storage, 5 TB monthly bandwidth, $5.95 /month depending on prepayment).

Forums

Yuku – Free, hundreds of skins, customizable polls, member management (premium available)
Free Forums – Free, daily backups, over 100 styles, member management, data recovery (premium available)

DKP and EPGP

DKP 4 Guilds – Inhouse DKP management, raid attendance logs, raid bank, item mouseovers.
EPGP Web – Web interface for EPGP users.

Voice Servers

Nationvoice (Affiliate link): My personal vent provider of choice. I’ve been with them for over 5 years since my early days in Counter-strike (50 users for $14.99).
Typefrag – An alternative to Nationvoice. A number of Guilds I know use them (50 users for $9.99 and they have a special where if you order for a year, you get 50% off).
MMO Mumble – Mumble hosting service. $5.63 for 25 slots.
Raidcall – Free, no dedicated servers needed.

General

Warcraft Realms – Online WoW census. Tracks a player’s guild history.
WoW Jutsu – Ranks guilds based on their progression. Filterable by battlegroup, server, and faction.
WoW Progress – Ranks guilds based on their progression. Filterable by battlegroup, server, and faction.
World of Logs – Think of it as a really indepth damage meter. Takes your combat log and outputs it into something meaningful.
WoWpedia – The encyclopedia of WoW. Useful for learning about raid instances and the trash therein as well as boss strategy.
Boss Killers – Various strategies for killing bosses.
Ask Mr Robot – Online tool for figure out what gear to get next on your character. Optimizes reforging and augments. Customizable stat weights.
Icy Veins – Class information and raid strategy

Recruiting

Elitist Jerks – One of the largest theorycrafting communities. $25 per thread.
Tankspot – Available to Tankspot donors only.
WoW Lemmings – WoW forums aggregator. Sorts the latest posts on the Guild Recruiting forums on the official WoW site by faction and class.