Guidelines to Think Before Creating Your Online MMO Fansite

Guidelines to Think Before Creating Your Online MMO Fansite

Are you thinking about creating your fansite because you are very enthusiastic about your particular topic such as MMO? I have listed some of the key factors that you should think about before jumping into the project. Creating a highly successful fansite takes a lot of hard work, time, and sometimes even money out of your own pocket.

1. Money aka Cost

Think about the cost of getting your own domain name and getting correct amount of bandwidth. These are initial costs that will come directly out of your pocket. If you plan on adding many images to your fansite, then the bandwidth that you will end up using will be a lot more. Also if you want to let people to download music or video files, you are looking at a lot more cost.

2. Time

Managing a complete and well-kept fansite or blog will take a huge chunk of time. This is the amount of time that you may not want to sacrifice, because if you do play a game and really love it, you will almost always be playing instead of spending the time to upkeep your sites. Think about how much time that you are willing to allocate to your fansite on a daily basis. Do you have time to write and upload new content? Do you have time to answer questions? Do you have time to advertise for your MMORPG fansite?

3. Technical Experience

Publishing and creating sites have become easier and more user-friendly throughout the time. However, you still need to learn vast amount of knowledge if you do want to make your site as good as it can be. These knowledge may range from basic html and JavaScript, all the way to how to make your database and server more secure. This task may be very hard if you do not have any experience at all, however, these experiences are definitely learnable.

4. Content May Become Outdated

If you choose to make a fansite yourself, be aware that the online game is constantly changing with new updates, new content, new classes, and new skills with ever changing economy and player base. If you do not constantly follow up and update your fansite accordingly, your original content may soon become obsolete and you will lose all your visitor base.

5. Competition Can Replace You Quickly

If you have decided to make a fansite for a popular game, do realize that good competition can take away your community standing quite fast. If a new fan site comes live with more and better contents, most of your visitors will soon defect and move to the new ones instead. You should always be prepared to adapt and adjust your strategy accordingly. Be flexible is the key and do not be afraid to try news things to learn from your mistakes.

6. Other Factors

Also think about whether or not you will have Wiki’s or private forums on your fan site. These are great community resources only if many visitors are willing to participate and contribute. You must have seen many dead wiki’s and empty forums that are simply wasting resources and the time the original makers have put in them. Think about whether or not they are necessary before putting them together.