Have you ever considered getting a domain name for your game?

If we make it to a year with this site I intend to but I am not willing to waste the money other wise. We are already a premium jcink with premium cbox and thats working well.

 

I did so as soon as I found decent hosting...granted that was in the late 90s so 'decent hosting' is a relative term.

In the Star Trek simming community, branding can be everything. So many sims use similar names (famous ship names) so finding something unique yet easy to remember is a necessity. Then, you have to grab the domain name because another sim will pop up with the same or similar name soon enough...

 

Domain names are great. I think they hugely add to the feel of the RP community because they show you're invested in it.

I've got pretty much the best possible domain name for a site named Star Army: star.army

 

Domain names are a cheap (~$10-$15 for a year) way to make your site look professional and in it for the long haul, as well as organize any resources external to the forum itself, e.g. the main community on forum.yoursite.com and your wiki on wiki.yoursite.com. I have one for my own site, and it's one of my top recommendations for new sites since it doesn't require a lot of technical know-how to setup.

 

i have but sometimes depending on the price, it can get expensive--i would generally stick to proboards for a custom domain name being its cheaper

 

Per the vote - already got one!

 

I bought a domain for my site and honestly, it was the best thing I've ever done. It feels really cool to be linking people to my .com and I feel so proud of everything I've worked really hard for. I am really really glad that I shelled out a few bucks for the domain.

 

I think it's a real bonus, tbh. And yes, it helps being able to say "here's the site"

 

Honestly, a basic domain doesn't cost tooo much. At least for the first year. So I kinda got mine as an impulse buy, lol.

 

I have a custom domain but unfortunately jcink has yet to release SSL support for custom domain names, so it is currently set to redirect.

 

Would love to, but cost is too expensive.

 

I did! I found domain names to be fairly cheap, and it just made our site URL note memorable

 

Honestly, I don't see the point. (unless you have a forum AND a wiki AND a newsblog AND... then putting them all on subdomains of the same domain makes sense, especially if one of them already has a custom domain from being self-hosted). People are 99% clicking on a link to find your site and then bookmarking it if they like it, no? How is memorable.freeforum.net harder to remember/share than mymemorableforum.au.rt or whatever this year's free-ish top-level domain is?

 

It's a mark of professionalism, actually. If you're a small site, and have no intention of becoming a large site, then by all means keep the free hosted domain name, but there inevitably becomes a point where 10 bucks a year really isn't that bad and it does wonders for your site's general appearance.

So, I'mma go with @Star Army and his site cause like, if he can do anything it's advertise his site. It's Star Army. The Domain is "stararmy.com." Dude has fucking business cards for his site for christ sake XD Like, he takes that shit seriously. If you were handed a business card to a website, which domain are you going to take more seriously? "Stararmy.boards.net" or "stararmy.com"

How seriously do you take your website? How big do you want your website to become? What kind of image do you want to present to the public? This stuff does matter, how much it matters is entirely dependant on, admittedly, how much you care about your website and it's continued growth and development.

Now, that isn't to say if you don't get a custom URL you just don't care about your website. You just don't care about it as much as other people might. It all depends on if running the site is there to fuel the hobby, or if the setting that you create is a passion of yours.

Though, TBPH, if you have a fandom roleplay site I really don't see the point. This is more advise for people who have original setting roleplays and the like, cause if a fandom roleplay site gets big enough it's inevitably going to get into some kind of legal trouble.

 

Honestly? If I'm looking for a play-by-post rpg, and somebody has a custom domain, I'm gonna assume either it's self hosted and gonna have technical issues every four months, or it's run by some pretentious dude who's gonna take an irrational dislike to me and/or my writing style within a month. Yeah, sure, it's probably just that someone had an extra twenty bucks a year and thinks it's cool - they really aren't expensive - so I'll still take a look, but it's certainly not gonna make me MORE likely to play. And if you're full-out running your game like a business, I'll assume you're trying to monetize it somehow, and if you're not charging admission (or it's otherwise obvious how), that makes me suspicious.

(Also, someone hands me a business card that says "https://star.army - come play with us!" and it's not an open world MMORPG I'm gonna be terribly disappointed.)

Now, clearly, that's not everyone else's thought process, and that's cool - but I just can't really wrap my head around it. *shrug*

 

I seem to be with the minority here. I've been part of games that have their website-name.com and while I assume it's a novelty cool thing, if you're still using jcink/proboards than I never really understood the point. For self hosted games, I feel like it's really good. You're doing everything on your own. I have no idea what type of system you have though, if I'd have to learn a new coding set, and I'm less likely to go there.

I like jcink over proboards in terms of systems so something missing that makes me thing, it might be SMF or something else and I'm just not familiar so I'll pass it up completely even if they just brought a domain name for their jcink/proboards site. Never felt more dedication from those who brought a domain name or professionalism versus those that didn't. It's just a person preference in my eyes.

 

Coming back to this with more detail - definitely not necessary to run a game. However if you have 10-15/yr (or much less depending on the domain) to spare for a hobby then it can definitely add a level of engagement because custom names feel more intimate, and has "brand recognition" going for it

If funds are a concern you can split the difference with the member base by doing a fundraiser and getting a custom domain for X years rather than year over year. If you're interested but no one else is, then that is useful information to know for making your decision

 

I've worked in Marketing for the past couple years and I'm a big advocate for owning internet real-estate, especially for domains. For example, when I published my first board game, The Keeyp, we found that it was a easier for people to search TheKeeyp.com instead of direct them to our studio website. You can then redirect that URL to your shop page. Heck, if you're running a Kickstarter or selling with RPG Drivethru you can buy a custom domain that links to those pages.

 

They are so expensive!

 

I think everything that's rational is covered here, for me I got a domain name for my site since it's a commitment to the game and it helps motivate me to keep it running (I have the domain name after all). An additional incentive to keep things going :)