Moving to a new host. [POLL]

In an attempt to help revitalize the forum I am contemplating moving the site to a new host... The unfortunate reality of this is that it will result in the loss of the majority of the postings here. In fact it will be less of a move, and more of a complete rebirth.

I am still contemplating whether or not this move is even worth it. I know that the 4e community needs a good online home still, and now that WotC has abandoned it in it's entirety I feel that even more strongly. But there are a wealth of options that are widely available for members of this community to gather. So what do you all think? I know my sudden return is strange, but I've never lost interest in the 4th edition community... Sometimes life just catches up. Feel free to either persuade, or dissuade me below.

So what's necessitating the move?

Nothing is really necessitating the move per say. This forum still functions, and the forum host is still available. However...

This site was built with a limited forum builder, as it's original intent was just as a small pet project that at the time I could not invest any money into. With that in mind there are many limitations that this site faces due to the model it follows, and especially if the host ever goes away. As far as I'm able to tell there seems to be no way to move this forum from the host, and host it elsewhere (hence the rebirth). The content is basically held hostage by the host. It also seems that development of this forum hosting company has nearly halted, and the quality of their product is suffering. For the costs it takes to improve the site on this platform I feel that it would be money well spent to invest in a more traditional website/forum and not just a simple forum generator.

This current forum would remain up until the new one was ready for launch, and would remain as an archive for as long as the servers stay up.

Like I said it's not really a necessity, but a desire. I'd like to attempt in rekindling a 4th edition community similar to what was available on official forums and sites at one point. Like a Dragonsfoot for 4e. And seeing that there are a few dedicated members left on this old forum has made me want to have something worth dedicating to a bit more. But with the current forum in place there will be many limitations, and the costs of running a site elsewhere would be easier to swallow than dumping money into a largely unsupported platform for a couple quality of life features.

Though, if there's not really a market for such a thing I'm not too sure if it's worth the money to do it.

In order to have a dedicated fansite, you would need to start attracting people from a variety of sites, because if you just draw from here, it's going to be me, Chris24601, and Garthanos. I'd look around places like RPG.net, Enworld, etc to see if there's any demand for an alternative site before pulling the trigger.

Hello there, i recently found this forum, perhaps you could be interested in this community on discord!
https://discord.gg/AQUFhHw

would love to see a site rebirth myself anyway HOWEVER Honorbound is right we need to better attract people ..  what if the site had some good tools of its own associate with our favorite game. Like a character builder which was intellectual property agnostic but allowed uploading of things with the 4e structure?

Kind of an OGL 4e version as base..

OK that might just be wishful thinking though.

As long as there’s enough notice for me to pull all my old posts before they’re lost, I’m okay with a move.

One element I think might be worth noting too is that the website I’m building for Ruins & Realms is going to have a forum built into the site and I’m more than willing to have a 4E sub-forum, particularly since conversions to/from 4E is definitely something I want to have happen, but for copyright reasons can’t really include in the physical books themselves.

If people on my forums convert my content (monsters, powers, etc.) to 4E though, that’s fans being fans.

That's another thing to consider - when the Ruins and Realms site goes live, it will likely undercut the new site you're trying to build and wasting your time and money.

wow I was thinking about checking on this site since I might get to run sometime this year and here I get a message

Honorbound wrote:

That's another thing to consider - when the Ruins and Realms site goes live, it will likely undercut the new site you're trying to build and wasting your time and money.

Ruins and Realms?

DMSamuel wrote:

Honorbound wrote:

That's another thing to consider - when the Ruins and Realms site goes live, it will likely undercut the new site you're trying to build and wasting your time and money.

Ruins and Realms?

Check out the "STILL Not Dead" thread below.

It used to be called Terrors & Tactics earlier in its design life, but Ruins & Realms is my spiritual successor/love letter to 4E with a focus on tactical combat, mechanical balance through the use of technical language and wide arrays of character options. Some parts have shifted a bit over the years, but the core still plays very much like 4E at the table.

While they won't appear in the main books due to various legal issues, I have in the past (and really need to update) had conversion rules from 4E to my system and visa versa. Indeed, one of my key design points was that every possible race and class option from 4E should have an equivalent in my system (and then some).

The project is nearly 630 pages and counting for the two core books (Player's Guide is done but for feedback edits; GM's Guide is nearly done with the crunchy bits and just needs the fluff/how to be a GM sections filled in), after which I'll be holding a kickstarter for print costs and artwork and launching a website with forum for it and related RPG topics (including 4E as one of the chief inspirations).

And when he says wide arrays of character options, he ain't kidding. 4e can't do half of what his system can.

Well, I still lurk from time to time. Less frequently these days. My 4E campaign ended almost 2 years ago and I’ve migrated to a different (non-D&D) RPG system. But 4E is still my absolute fav edition of D&D. P

The consideration to move obviously has to weigh the cost of losing the content here against the benefit of a move. I can understand how a platform going obsolete would prompt a move. But with the very small audience that seems to be here, I don’t know how much a new site would grow.

I will definitely follow along to any new place as I still am interested in 4E, even though I don’t run it any more.