Your software choice

I like jcink: free, with subaccounts, with points and awards...

 

Am an IPB fangirl but I am looking at Nova for a new project actually. :D

 

The ones I've played mainly used some sort of forum script so that seems to work well and is easy for anyone into the scene to get into, I did encounter 1 with a wiki-like thing but didn't really like the game, interface seemed ok though.

 

Oh, gosh. I love Xenforo.
I think I must have said it here a thousand and a half times.
Like, there's just something about the simplicity of it that makes me happy in the face.

 

There is a new forum software, NodeBB, that we are gonna use for our fansite. It looks sooooo smooth.

 

I originally started on Ezboard 800000 years ago. (Or at least, that's what it seems.) When Ezboard announced yuku was around the time activity hit an all time low, and I decided to close. I never thought about running my own game until a friend of mine opened a phpBB 2 board for a small group of writers, and realized they couldn't afford hosting it/didn't have the time to keep it running. I volunteered (as tribute) to take over the forum, host it, and attempt to upgrade it to phpBB3.

While I was successful (and learned a lot about databases) in upgrading it to phpBB3 on my own domains, I really felt like phpBB3 didn't fit with me as an admin. I found the back end a little difficult and adding mods always seemed to break the forum.

In late 2012 I shut down the board and prepared to look for alternatives and found SMF. As someone who doesn't yet have the money for Xenforo or IPB--SMF is a great free alternative in my opinion. A lot of the modifications work right out of the box and there are some really great, free themes you can use to tweak to your needs. Their support forums have always been really great, and with help I've been able to use subaccounts mod to offer members unlimited "alts," for their main accounts/characters.

Someday, I would very much like to move to something like Xenforo. Every forum I've seen running it (including this one) has been impressive, speed wise, feature wise--but re-learning an entirely new dashboard, modification and so on is a bit daunting. Plus the price tag too.

I've tested myBB too, and it's pretty impressive, but since I am familiar with and most comfortable with SMF, I recommend it for those who can self-host and want something free.

 

Using Xenforo for my forum RP board and since getting the license and some help from a friend of mine, it's easy to work with. The themes are great and using a bought style has proven to be fun, sometimes frustrating experience. Add-on are there for a lot of what you might want but dice rollers are basically non-existent. We have one that I've bought but it's okay, there's one that is I'm hoping going to be coming out sometime that might be better for doing dice role playing.

Never had duh into the coding aspect of stuff like this and learning a lot as I go. I looked at phpBB and I just cringe in the amount of trouble one has to go through in installing themes or mods.

 

I'll have to think on some, really don't have any ideas I can pop off the top of m head at the moment but that is really cool of you :D

 

I generally create it from scratch, but I would really like to get some experience using Drupal because I here it is a really good piece of software :D

 

What software did you choose and why, as an admin? And as member, does it matter on what format the roleplay is played out, or are you up for using software you don't necessarily like, if the site seems worthwhile?

I use JCink. I chose it in 2011 when I found out that, at the time, the sub-accounts was under development (this wasn't even anything that I was dying to use, because at that point I was still using one account to make IC and OOC posts...I think, haha). It's also one of the more reliable software hosts out there. JCink really takes what his users ask for into account, whereas Invisionfree offers no help to its users and their support is a huge pain in the butt to deal with (based on what a friend of mine has told me). As a member, I don't like Proboards, but I admit it's been a really long time since I've tried using it.

Is your choice influenced by how well you can code html/php/js?

To an extent, yes. I know basic coding, due to being really out of practice, but USUALLY I can go in and basically figure out how to update a site's layout to do certain things. On JCink, it's pretty easy to do. When Jcink was having lots of downtime a few years ago, I got hasty and we moved onto Icyboards. We actually moved back because trying to update the layout was complicated (it was like...layers within layers within layers of files that you had to try and find the right one to update). I also think the software itself was kind of a turn off for potential members, though I don't really have any examples as to why that might be the case, it's just kind of the feeling I got. I'm very glad we moved back to JCink.

If I could afford it and KNEW my site was going to last long enough to justify it, I would buy an IPB license and move my site onto there (since I already bought myself a domain for the site back in May), 'cause I'm like "oooh, preeeeetty" at IPB and I would love to play with it, but I can't 100% justify it at the moment. :(

 

I actually really love Proboards. Despite its stringent ratings, I've managed to have fun. I find that you don't need to go as far as you think you do with the violence, gore, sex, etc. to have fun. Sometimes it being implied is better. I also like its boards and easy setup.

That being said, my site is hosted on jcink because that's where most of the roleplayers have seemed to migrate! I hated jcink when I first started because I had no knowledge of it. Now it's not so bad. Coding is a pain in the rear still, but I just find a skin and mini-profile I like from shine and voila! done. (:

 

XenForo #1 - So many addons available (check the resources section here on RPGFIX) Really versatile. Can't really beat that. Plus the amount of customization you can do is astonishing. You can barely tell that most forums are using Xen Foro because they are so drastically different.. Until you inspect the main page element looking for the Xen Foro version that is ;)

 

I currently use Nova latest version, it is easy to oversee and my crew can easy navigate and post in it.

 

It depends on what it's needed for. For the website itself (and yes, I think it's important to have an easy-to-use website in addition to wherever you're playing), my favorite is Mediawiki (with semantic Mediawiki). When I skin it, it doesn't look much like a wiki anymore, and it helps that my other admins and I aren't constantly overwriting each other's stuff when we forget to download the most recent edits before editing things. Adding Semantic Mediawiki to it means I can make most of the website dynamic and base it off the player's character sheets, which is a huge plus (as there is always something that seems to be forgotten when a character joins or leaves). Their templating system means that if I decide to change how my character sheets look, I only have to change a file or two and every character sheet updates.

If the game is a PBEM, I use Y! Groups. They have a lot of flaws (such as occasionally eating emails), but they've been around long enough that I don't fear I'm gonna lose all my data tomorrow.

If the game is forum-based, I must admit, I'm a MyBB fan. :)