Should we move from phpBB to IP.Board - Need opinions

[K73SK]

I've been wanting to do this for awhile, but the price tag on IP.Board has always scared me away from the idea. Also, there are good things about doing this and bad things about doing this. So read everything in this post before actually voting on the poll.

The problem with phpBB is that it's hard to find any decent mods for it that'll make it any fun/good/etc. What we've got on this site is the best you'll find (I think). But guess what. Everything you see on here is also on IP.Board - but better.

Some of the issues I've had with phpBB are:
1.) It's easy to break. I mean, REALLY easy.
2.) Some things just don't want to work. Email functions are acting funky, the shoutbox doesn't work all the time like it should, and adding mods is always a hit or miss with whether it'll blow the board up or not
3.) It's not easy to modify
4.) Getting useful help from the support on phpBB is hard to get

Some pro's I've had with phpBB:
1.) I've managed to get it to work for the most part.

Alright, cool. Now - let's talk about the mods. The main mods we have on this forum are spoiler tags, the arcade, the shoutbox, the money system, the "pet" system, anti double posting, Global Announcements on Index, and inviting friends to the boards while being awarded for it.

*Shoutbox (and no this isn't the only one available): http://community.invisionpower.com/file ... -shoutbox/
*Spoiler tags: Already implemented
*Arcade: Yes they have it. However, I'm not sure if they will allow implementation to where you must spend money to play the games. We'd have to see
*Money system: Yes, they have one. Looks/works almost the exact same as ours. Except that the banks DO work, lol. http://community.invisionpower.com/file ... ts-system/
*Pet system: It's actually a store mod, separate from the points mod (money system)... In IP.Board they're combined. So yes, it's there, and it looks MUCH better than the one that's on here. Your pets would be displayed next to your name in threads instead of in your signature, and I could keep them from taking up so much space. So it'd look like you have tons of pet badges next to your name. It'd be awesome.
*Anti-double posting: Already implemented
*Global announcements on index page: Already implemented
*Invite friends for money: I don't think so, not sure. Probably somewhere.

So you can see all the mods are there - most better than this site's mods. Alright, you're excited. So let's go over the good news and bad news now:

Good news:
*The information above
*All posts and topics will be transferred
*More support
*New themes that are much nicer-looking
*More mods and also easier to maintain
*We might boost our community by having a nicer appearance to the forums and more to do.
*You can customize your profile... Such as your background, profile pictures, etc.

Bad news:
*It's going to cost $175. That's where the poll comes in.
*Your forum dollars won't be transferred by default, but since there's almost no members here... I'll be generous and help out by transferring that myself.
*Same with your pets
*Arcade high scores are going to disappear
*If we want to keep upgrades and support, we require a "renewal" purchase every 6 months. The good news on that is that it's only $25 (for now) per 6 months after the initial main purchase. And that's only to keep support/upgrades - not to keep the forum up. We don't HAVE to renew it. It'd just be recommended.

Now, vote, and please leave productive feedback/input. I don't want useless posts in here that aren't helpful at all to this topic. It's an expensive and serious topic to consider, and if we're not going to get enough support for it, then it will not be implemented.

EDIT: We currently have a 5-day trial for the forum. No mods are installed, it's just the forum itself and what's included with it by default. Check it out and see what you think: <TRIAL ENDED>

[IronJustice]

What if we try InvisionFree first? It should still offer most of the upgrades but without the cost. And we can always 'upgrade' it later.

[K73SK]

The few reasons I don't want to consider InvisionFree right away is because of the security it provides is pretty much equal to phpBB (crap) and people are saying that it isn't as "easy" to mess with. However, depending on our results here, I could consider "Testing" InvisionFree to see how well it works. I can't say that everything I said above will go for it or not (such as transferring posts, etc.)

Some issues I've noticed so far with your proposal, Iron:
Linking to the board itself such as "legendoflegaia.net/forums" doesn't seem to be possible. Or is it and I'm missing it?
We're limited to 32MB of disk space - unless we purchase more.
Due to there being a max amount of space to use, that means it doesn't depend on my host either. Any issues that happen on their end would be impossible for me to fix.
Has ads, unless you purchase the Ad Remover.

[Rammerrush]

I think it'd be a good idea and it might be easier to make all the ideas we have come to reality. Maybe even that Legaia Flash game I've been dreaming of lol. But if we can't get the money to start it then we'd still be alive just not as happy.

Anyway I like it, and fully support it

[IronJustice]

Very true K, I didn't even think about the ad part of it. Also that strict limitation on the storage isn't good. Perhaps then we should hold out for the real thing or not even bother with the upheaval.

[Nightshade]

Well, I was already planning on making a $30 donation in the somewhat near future, and I can probably up it to $50 if that would help get us to the requisite threshold. I think that the current board is sufficient for the near term, but I think there's a lot of room to grow the site and the community in the longer term, and based on what you have stated, we're pretty much at the pinnacle of what phpBB can provide.

I do have to bring up the issue of advertisements - so far, thanks to donations, we've been able to keep the site ad-free. At the same time, there aren't too many users here, and it's also the case that not everyone can or will shell out money every year to keep it that way. This becomes a bigger issue if and when we start reaching the point where bandwidth and storage space have to be upgraded (though from what I can tell, the latter is pretty cheap these days). Even if this is something that you really don't want to consider, K7, it is an option and it should be at least looked at - even a few bucks a month is better than nothing.

[Rammerrush]

Night does have a point, though I really would hate to see adds on our baby.
But it might be helpful, that much is true

[K73SK]

Ad's won't be an issue to worry about. That's why I was mentioning there were ads in the invisionfree boards - they're not in the IP.Board (purchased one).

As for bandwidth, that's the main thing that'll need to be worried about in the future. Storage is of no concern since I have unlimited storage on the servers. So when the time does come, we'll need to consider bandwidth - yes. And then there will be monthly fee's for it. But at the moment, I don't think we need to worry about it. It seems the site maintains pretty well (especially since they fixed some server issues they were having awhile ago).

In summary, don't concern yourself about ad's, you won't be seeing those on the site. Bandwidth would be the next issue to worry about.

[Nightshade]

I think maybe I was unclear. I was referring to considering the possibility of including advertisements as a source of revenue so we wouldn't be wholly dependent on donations for income. We don't want to become overly dependent on any one source of revenue, and if this site grows, will the marginal users be willing to donate to keep this site free of advertisements? I have trouble believing that many of them will.

[Rammerrush]

Yeah that's what I understood from you Night, you weren't unclear I don't think, maybe K was just distracted