Turning your server into a community

The biggest way of getting people to use your forums is honestly making it look nice, and yourself be more active, if you want them to be active, force things like introduction post on signup, have a certain amount of posts before they can post on things like applications for staff, etc.

Really getting a rich community is mirroring your quality from ingame to out of game. The typical RP server now does not have nearly as much community quality as it did three years ago, and you wont find the same quality in a cookie cutter RP server. Find ways to make events, make events out of game that translate into game, decent forum moderator to keep content premium / organized as possible, etc.

From what I've looked at your forums, it seems to be a cookie cutter forum, there is really nothing special about it nor does it offer really anything that would keep users to post on it, also white forums are honestly cancer (not to use it really offensively) but more so that it's really hard reading things late at night + it doesn't really appeal to things like RP's and what not. (hence urban-esque looks of most servers).

My suggestion(s): Get an actual webhost and get either myBB or IPB If you are looking for cheap hosting contact me ;) Learn post etiquette Get a good forum moderator / "community manager"

Your forums are quite un-appealing and seem all over the place. I used to use SMF, but a very heavily edited version. Now I use MyBB and am slowly bringing in-game integration within the website and that bring more people to the site. It's all about custom and simple designs.

Take a look: http://thenexusnation.com/

By[TNN] Lubricant Jamat 8th of June 2016 13:28:28

Your forums are quite un-appealing and seem all over the place. I used to use SMF, but a very heavily edited version. Now I use MyBB and am slowly bringing in-game integration within the website and that bring more people to the site. It's all about custom and simple designs.Take a look: http://thenexusnation.com/

He's using that newer site via freeforum . net or whatever, so he might be locked to it.

Edit: damn boy the forums looks clean AF

But is it better than my forums?

-snip-

ByVirtusat 8th of June 2016 13:32:58

He's using that newer site via freeforum . net or whatever, so he might be locked to it.Edit: damn boy the forums looks clean AFBut is it better than my forums?http://hexvault.co

For some reason I've seen your forums before, I personally don't like the colour scheme and your icons aren't loading (possibly font awesome?)

However, when i change the theme at the bottom, the other theme looks much better. You may want to consider changing your default theme for people (if you haven't done so already).

By[TNN] Lubricant Jamat 8th of June 2016 13:43:32

For some reason I've seen your forums before, I personally don't like the colour scheme and your icons aren't loading (possibly font awesome?)However, when i change the theme at the bottom, the other theme looks much better. You may want to consider changing your default theme for people (if you haven't done so already).

For some reason you have to press the top left home button (big ass hexagon) to make fontawesome load, I have no idea as to why they don't register at the initial load. Been investigating it for awhile now.

ByVirtusat 8th of June 2016 13:45:22

For some reason you have to press the top left home button (big ass hexagon) to make fontawesome load, I have no idea as to why they don't register at the initial load. Been investigating it for awhile now.

I personally like the much lighter theme, it's all too dark with bright colours. I'd say make the bright one your main theme, really sleek and love the features.

By[TNN] Lubricant Jamat 8th of June 2016 13:46:30

I personally like the much lighter theme, it's all too dark with bright colours. I'd say make the bright one your main theme, really sleek and love the features.

I've been meaning to actually rewrite IPBforo (the theme youre talking about) because it doesn't really flow the way I want it to, also the theme you are talking about (the dark one) I made from scratch, obviously there are a lot of errors, but from what my comm has said, they hate reading late at night with blinding white.

ByVirtusat 8th of June 2016 13:47:52

I've been meaning to actually rewrite IPBforo (the theme youre talking about) because it doesn't really flow the way I want it to, also the theme you are talking about (the dark one) I made from scratch, obviously there are a lot of errors, but from what my comm has said, they hate reading late at night with blinding white.

I would add a toggle between dark and light which would just switch out the CSS. The way I've done mine is by using gray more than white as it is more easy on the eyes and white is only uses for backing.

By[TNN] Lubricant Jamat 8th of June 2016 13:50:23

I would add a toggle between dark and light which would just switch out the CSS. The way I've done mine is by using gray more than white as it is more easy on the eyes and white is only uses for backing.

Not a bad idea, but with IPB that'd be a hell of a lot of work, as it's not very happy to handle JS / custom css that isn't actually handled by their specific framework

ByVirtusat 8th of June 2016 13:56:06

Not a bad idea, but with IPB that'd be a hell of a lot of work, as it's not very happy to handle JS / custom css that isn't actually handled by their specific framework

I wouldn't know at all, I've only used SMF, MyBB & Xenforo.

Add RPG element - merge forum database with servers database so posting on forum rewards you with something in-game.

I coded something alike for my buddy, went from 35 users to 1920 in a month.

ByNeth - 2 weeks offat 8th of June 2016 14:21:07

Add RPG element - merge forum database with servers database so posting on forum rewards you with something in-game.I coded something alike for my buddy, went from 35 users to 1920 in a month.

As in take Darkrps DB and merge it with lets say a myBB db?

ByVirtusat 8th of June 2016 14:37:16

As in take Darkrps DB and merge it with lets say a myBB db?

Indeed - you can do it in way more ways than one way (pun not intended)

The idea about having a certain amount of posts etc to apply for staff does work. But I'm not trying to increase the posts on a forum, I'm trying to engage people and create more of a community feel. Plus it just encourages people to spam the forums with useless posts that nobody cares about. Obviously, DarkRP attracts a certain type of people that you wouldn't want in a community, but I know that there are some genuine people about.

If you're getting a certain undesirable playerbase, then you need to look at the content that you're pushing out. DarkRP tends to bring the kiddies in and even more so if it appears that they can just screw around and mess with people. This is where custom content comes into play that encourages people to play nice and follow certain guidelines. You'll also want to allow people the freedom to do what they want, since a restricting server is not fun.

You need to give the users a goal to work towards, to gain the long term members that make up a community. Progression systems like Neth posted help with this a lot, as someone who puts the time and effort into a community is less likely to break the rules and more likely to stick with it, as well as get their friends to join their server.

Pointshop did a great job by providing server owners with this, as people would want to earn the next item they wanted. Take ideas from that, give achievements that people will want to earn that give them rewards. Leaderboards are always great too since people want to be at the top of them. Give special perks to those who play on the server for a certain amount of time, such as maybe a Regular rank that just makes them stand out from the rest.

The thing I've found in my years of running communities is that people need to be given an incentive to continue playing, and without a stream of fresh content and goals to work towards then they won't stay.

I don't run a serious server, but I try my best to at least ensure that everyone is having fun and will return the following day. The goal is to eventually expand to other game modes and hopefully other games to create a larger community for people to engage in. I did run a TTT server for a while which did have a small player base that would return every day with the majority being nice people. However, the problems started occurring on the monetary side of things. Not many people are willing to donate for pointshop points for just simply cosmetic items. I am able to push out many content updates with at least one a week and I'm always constantly tweaking things in order to give the best experience possible. There's also various in-game things such as expensive cars and other content that people can work towards in a variety of ways.

@Meeja, DarkRP is probably the easiest gamemode to make sales on actually. Kids will buy up cool weapons and custom ranks. You have to target different age groups and different types of people all in one package. This is why selling a VIP type rank is a really good idea. You can add a lot of features that cater to everyone and put it all in one package that the majority would want to buy.

It's great for sales, just not for a quality community. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed hosting a TTT server. Met some great people. But obviously I cannot keep paying a hosting company if I'm not even getting enough return to pay for the server each month.