Guild Designs - Guild Hosting

[vovinit]

I would like to thank Verdandi For giving me permission to post this in the EQ Traders forums.

I would like to take a second to introduce Guild Designs http://guild-designs.com . Guild Designs offers template sites with the most desired features for MMORPG guilds. Our templates are specifically designed and themed for many of the most popular online games.

Creating a guild community couldn't be easier. Choose a template, pick a domain name and place your order. Guild Designs does all the work for you. We register your domain, and host your site set up and configure all of the features. You can have your own .com/.net/.org domain. Not a subdomain!

Be sure to check out the demo section on our site to see a complete site. Our template sites feature a DKP system to keep track of raid info, Guild Roster, Forums, Chatrooms for meetings, SOE news and server status pages, new member application forms, links page to the most popular sites related to your game, Calendar system to schedule guild events, and a very extensive admin section allowing you to upload and edit images and graphics and configure your site features to your preferences. The popular Cpanel system allows you to setup and read emails, check web statistics, add numerous php and cgi scripts to your site with just a click or two.

The prices for our sites and hosting is very reasonable. We are charging 1/3 of what the other guild site is charging and we give you many more features as well.

After we build your site our commitment to you does not stop there. Guild Designs has a live support system so you can ask your questions in real time chat. All this for a price you wouldn't believe.

Visit us at:
http://guild-designs.com

[Draggar]

If people sign up though here, will DenMom and Ngreth get any 'kickbacks'?

[Ngreth Thergn]

heh Draggar

but anyway. This is an "aproved" ad (vovinit asked first and posted to OOC and one time only as instructed , yada yada yada)

[Draggar]

My comment was only half-humor.

Vovnit is utilizing EQTrader's resources to avertise to the exacy type of people his web publishing service was created for. He's getting free advertising. (Nothing wrong with that since the admins are OK with it).

Honestly, I did check out the site, and I was glad to see 'where did you hear about us" and I hope *anyone* who decides to purchase the service would put down EQTraders if they got it from here. There are probabaly services very similar to this out there, and if the common users of EQTraders knew if you did get some compensation, either a clump bonus / donation, or a 'conission' out of each sign up, maybe it would push some people to use Vovnit's service.

It's really a win-win-win situation.

The client gets a very easy way to host his or her guild's website with all the perks they'd want, message board, calendar, etc..

Vovnit gets new customers.

Ngreth and DenMom would get a "thank you" from them, possibly to buy massage therapy or a few hours in the batting cages to take out your fustrations.

I think I speak for a lot of people here who want an 'easy' way to make a guild's web site, and if they saw it helped you two out, it would make their decision easier.

[vovinit]

Quite honestly I would be more than happy to shoot a few bucks to EQ Traders or anyone else that referred somone who signed up for the Guild Designs site. If EQ Traders is interested in anything like this possibly a link or small add to get it viewed more I would have no reservations whatsoever about giving them a percentage of the sale. That would go for other sites as well so If you run a class specific or EQ related site and want to work something out I can host your site for free or pay you a percentage of each sale I make either way you want.

One thing you have to keep in mind is that I make very little profit off of the sale of each site. We charge $20 for a site and the domain registration costs over half of that and the $20 includes first month of hosting as well.

Guild Designs makes sites for EQ, FFXI, WoW, Coh, and SWG. The hardest part of this business is getting the info to people who are wanting to set up a guild site. That's a select few people so it's a very limited targeting audience. Just e-mail me at admin@guild-designs.com if you want to advertise on this site or any other and we can work out a referral system.

[Aryse Andenter]

Vovinet,

I've looked into and tested a number of options for guild websites recently. While Guild Designs is reasonably priced, it's also not the cheapest one, so you have to have the features to make it worth while. Right now from your website, there is a lot of information missing to help GLs determine if the features they want/need are there. Since I'm not sure if your post here is more an advertisement or looking for input I won't post here yet. Another thing you should look into is giving this information in forums that are specific to guild leaders, as there are a few out there, rather than general or unrelated sites where GLs aren't inclined to think to look for an option and it is less appropriate. I'm happy to see another guild site option out there - I'm not so happy to see it promoted on eqtraders, honestly.

[LadyAnnaAnna]

As a new guild leader, I really like this idea.
As it is per DenMom's rules, I go against general 'hey everyone advertising'. (yeah i know, i did it myself, but i was stupid and didnt read things).
Since admins are ok with this one though, no reason why not to post, especially in OOC Chat.

LadyAnnaAnna

[vovinit]

Well. I have found that when members see Guild Designs they pass on that information to the one responsible for the guild site. I asked eqtraders if I could post this and they said yes. I do advertise where I can but I cannot spam message boards so my ability to advertise is limited to what the owners allow.

As far as price. As far as I know Guild Designs is the only one that offers .com/.net/.org domains and we set up a website for you in any theme you wish, we register your domain set up your forums configure emails and all the necessary things you will need. What you get is a ready to go website that takes practically no work on their end. Thus if a Guild Leader has little to no knowledge of html it’s not a problem for them. If anything goes wrong with your site we will fix it. If you don’t understand a feature of your site we will walk you through it. All that for $20 dollars, which includes domain and first months of hosting. If you ask me that’s a pretty good deal our main competitor is asking 3 times the monthly hosting fees we are and they are only giving out a subdomain not a real url with a hosting account and cpanel features. I know you can get some guild sites for free on other sites but none of them give you the professional and clean look of our templates. And none of them give you your own domain. Most come with banner ads and popups. Guild Designs Live support is online at least 8 hours a day. So if anyone has any questions it is easy to initialize a chat with them.

[Aryse Andenter]

Well, it depends entirely on what you are looking for. For some people, the actual features of the site are more important than the address - some guilds aren't bothered by www.yourguild.guildwizard.com, and there are always options like iceglow to shorten a lengthy address. However, that's not really the point. The domain is a very nice feature, but there's still a lot of features I am left with questions about - you may have it all in place and all available, it's just not really clear.


Take for example DKP. The characters on the demo roster aren't on the DKP list - so how are they added? Do members have to sign in twice? Does the GL have to add players to DKP? Can they add/delete players manually? Can it be done with a guild dump file and be automatically updated? What options are available for dealing with and keeping track of members who box characters? Or players who have alts in the guild? How is DKP entered? With a raid dump file? with a who list? By hand? Do you have the option of both? In the Demo, the DKP page looks different and isn't really integrated with the guild site. So what exactly is the DKP page? How much control do you have over who can edit DKP? Can a GL designate specific people or only certain categories of people, or can they even designate someone else to take care of it? What about docking DKP or merit? Are there features that allow this? Do you have to enter event information just once and then select the event after that, or do you have to enter the event information each time? What keeps track of an event DKP value? Can you make the same vent have differen DKP values? What about item information? Is there a database or is it entered every time? Do you have the option of adding items to the database if there is one? What about events you mark on the calendar - can they be directly related to the DKP for the guild?

Do you see what I am getting at? This is just in reference to DKP alone. If it is something people are paying for, they want to know exactly what they are getting and how easy it will be to use - especially the ones who don't know anything about computers/web design beyond what is directly in front of them - these people are going to be most likely to buy this service. Maybe you do offer services for all these questions - but at the moment, it's a little vague.

I'm just trying to help you out by pointing out some of the questions I would have before paying for your service and some of the things I evaluate when looking at options for my guild.

And I still say that you should look into message boards specifically for guild leaders, since this kind of information if not only welcome but in high demand there. I can mention your site on some of the passworded ones I visit.