The dev for Shallow Space actually put me on to Discourse after I commented on his forum software. You can use categories if that’s what you mean see it in action here: ‘http://forums.shallow.space/categories’. I think it organizes well if you put the effort in, but how painful will it be migrating a large forum into it? So if you try it please let me know how the migration is

Really our sites are in niche areas and are focused in content so population will probably always be an issue. For instance on the avg day I get about 60-90 registered users to login per day. But at any given moment I have 100+ guests on the site at all times. I have been trying to figure out how do I get those lurkers to become users, contributors or even donators?

That’s been the tough point for me because SSC tries to provide just general game information for anything and everything out there. So people can read that without logging in. But if I make it hard for people to get at the info I could push people away.

I do make people register to download, just because I don’t have unlimited bandwidth. I don’t know how much you pay in dedicated server fees but I pay about $50 a month for my VPS, dedicated server is even more through my provider so are you utilizing all the server that you need to have dedicated? I would go with a cheaper plan but I need the HD space for the download area.

But to get back to my point was that maybe looking over your threads and use SEO techniques to help classify your discussions better. Making sure the words MOD, PATCH, FL or Freelancer, etc are in the post titles (if it makes sense too) or at least in the body. Build internal links to related content on your site, google loves that. You are already on page 1 search results for ‘freelancer mods’ so you are already there… it’s just how do you get more people to play freelancer?

Especially when SC arrives I think a lot of people will be very absorbed with that. And depending on the experience and if modding is good for SC will give FL scene more looks or less looks. I love freelancer myself, but I will be honest I haven’t played it in a few years now, been so busy with all these games that come out I don’t have time. And looking back the game is what 10+ yrs old now and still has a decent presence and its a shame MSoft never capitalized on that fan base.

As long as we can play FL people will have a need for a mod site and starport is the #1 mod site for FL. So your already getting it done. It’s just how can you provide the same service that costs less for you or figure out how to get more people playing.

Sorry it has been a while since I have posted here last and I definitely know where w0dk4 is coming from. For those that don’t know I am the admin of SSC and it’s tough running these sorts of websites they are not huge money makers. Yeah I have VPS hosting and it runs me about $600 a year for it all (not too bad really) but that just means I have to make $600 in advertising which I usually do when I add the donations.

I think its all worth it because the games are a passion of mine so its worth the expense and my personal time. And it definitely takes time and as the Starport knows you need to be around for a while to get that name recognition.

Social media helps only a little in my experience. But you have to be active in posting to it for it to be effective and its like a full-time job and its a job you don’t get paid for. So the motivation for social media isn’t really there for me either. I don’t advertise at all and all I try to do is just focus on the games and help out any developer I can and usually just word of mouth gets the traffic flowing.

SEO (ie word placement for titles is big) has helped a lot for getting SSC noticed and the use of tags when you can do it help get you noticed on the search engines.

For forum software, I use IP.Board… its ok and would like something more lightweight. But I am invested in IP.Board for now. But this forum software looks amazing http://www.discourse.org/ and is super fast and the SEO potential is amazing. It’s just they don’t have a converter yet for IP.Board. But you will need a VPS I think to run it unless your host allows Ruby/Rails based websites because you will need some extra software most general hosts don’t carry by default. I know a few devs that are using this software and it is slick and its 100% free

If you need any help from me just ask away, I could always post something on the site that may send some freelancer fans your way. Or feel free to post in the FL area on SSC to bring people here for new mods and news.

We both know Star Citizen is going to be a huge game and I wasn’t even going to bother trying to cover modding for it (I’ll make a download area for it, that’s about it) because I think it will be tough to pull the traffic away from the SC website when it comes to modding. That’s just my opinion, this game is gonna have a huge following and it will be a tough fight to become the ‘place’ for modding or just plain information on SC thats not covered on the SC homepage.

Nothing wrong with more focus and I am sure there is current FL modders that will be SC modders that will bring traffic here if they post about their mods here exclusively. So as long as you have a good base of mod developers you should see the traffic pickup and all it takes is mod developers to post youtube videos and telling everyone to visit here and that should help a lot.

I will quit rambling. If you need anything from me just ask I will do what I can, space gaming websites have to stick together.

-D1-

A lot of good info on your site Adoxa. Thx.

If someone has the download and can point me to it, I can upload it to my file area for everyone. Or if someone has an account on SpaceSimCentral just upload it to the Freelancer area.

Hi Everyone

I have had the FCN bar on SSC for quite some time and I had to pull it off the other day because it made my site unusable for most members because the starport website outage.

Could there be a cached list that gets created and used when contact to the server is lost? Or maybe decrease the timeout for waiting for a reply to the server? Could there be a backup server?

I could probably help there depending on what is needed server wise.

Thanks

-D1-

Hi Everyone

I need a little help from the community to help compile a list of links or just references to other space sim style projects so I can get them listed on my website Space Sim Central.

I have a fair amount of space sims, remakes, mod sites, mmos and indie games listed but could use a bit more help in finding more. This will be a great resource for everyone interested in space games in general. Any feedback on the list is welcomed to in the way of categorizing entries or how it’s displayed. (SSC Links Area)

So if people can leave there feedback in this post http://www.spacesimcentral.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&p=680 it would be appreciated or just create your own. At SSC I am trying to cover the latest and most popular games in the space sim genre and hopefully create a nice hub for people to discuss all the games in general. I have also started a wiki that (in time) will document most of the space sims that have been created as well.

Thanks Everyone for the help and the feedback thus far on SSC.

-D1-

Nice blog Why485 very cleanly done.

This is a good read about something bad that might happen soon

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20127001.300-space-storm-alert-90-seconds-from-catastrophe.html?full=true

So how do you know if you got right handed Whooper instead

@Bas:

Add suggestion: Set up some parent categories in your DL area, for instance “Freelancer”, as soon as you click at it the child categories will come visible

Little restriction of my mod but I have added tools and scripts section under each game mod section. Thanks for suggestion Bas.

Look forward to 58.64 of the order mod rsabatino.

@Bas:

I know it’s OT but:
http://www.spacesimcentral.com/downloads.php?cat=3
You might want to add the unofficial 1.4 patch as well as the Quickfix (www.eoa.seriouszone.com for the last one)

For freespace 2 mods you can add some downloads from www.freespacemods.net

You may want to difference between Mods and Player/Modding tools

I was wondering if I should do that or not I will put in mod tools areas into each game mod download area it might just be easier to manage in the long run. Thx Bas.

@Gibbon:

My Phoenix mod does SP but i think you already have that although there is a new version out now

I’ll get this updated this weekend. Promise

Thanks Mr Ed on the nice list you have I will work on getting some descriptions and the mod so people have access to them. I know the biggest reason why was looking for these because I have read on other forums even moddb and people are asking for SP mods and people don’t know how to find them. and like I stated before MP only mods die off if there server goes down and then you are really stuck unless you setup your own server.

Been busy but managing to keep things up to date. I know I am lacking on more of the FS2 mods and will remedy that soon. The news alone takes up a good portion of my time and my wiki. Have over 100 files in the download area now and I know I am not even close on some games for mods and tools. But I have time…. and a reminder to all people can upload there own mods as well feel free. And the system will even tell users when new uploads or edits to a download have happened so besides setting up the backend it takes care of itself.

I know they are out there and I know some MP packages have a SP gameplay as well I am trying to track them all down and get permission to host the downloads of them on my site. I am going after these first because these will run whether you have a server to connect to or not. And when servers go down that supports a mod that mod is no longer usable.

Just wanted to know if there was a list compiled out there somewhere?

Thx

-D1-

I have been plugging along nicely and have about 10-15 game pages done and will try to get a few done every week and maybe in a few months I will have all the games covered even if it is a brief description. But it is actually fun trying to track down info on some of these games never mind the screenshots and videos

If users request it I will give people access to update and add things like specifics for games. Right now my work only will consist of general info, links, downloads, screenshots and videos if available.

-D1-

I’ll host everyone’s mods if they want

I have plenty of space and bandwidth for now. If people give me permission I can upload the mods/files over time or people can upload them themselves all I ask is that they stick it in the right area and if I don’t have a spot for the mod/file let me know and I will make the spot on the server.

-D1-

@Bas:

€h…were is freelancer in the wiki’s game list? ^

How did I miss that one

Oh I don’t doubt this will take me some time but with some feedback from the users and doing a few games a week it should be pretty populated by end of the summer. I didn’t even know of any other wiki projects out there… I know I was creating this one mainly because I am saying SSC is a resource site so I need to have some basic info on most of the games out there and we’ll see how far I get.

Hey Everyone

I just wanted to let people know that I will be designing a Wiki around documenting all of the Space Sim ever

It will be a lot of work and look forward to working with everyone get facts and descriptions to make it a nice resource for everyone. I am trying to get basic layout down right now and will probably start actually using it this week. I haven’t really decided yet if I should leave editing of the pages open or just to select people as to not get hard work messed up.

But in the end I think it will be a nice resource for all and I look forward to creating and documenting it all. Here is the link to it: http://spacesimcentral.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

It is still in a rough state and I have disabled registration for right now. But you can see I have already started on the game listing and I know there is way more than what I have listed. So any help would be appreciated and I have a Wiki thread in my forums for those that would like to help out.

Thanks

-D1-

I will build a community over time… my site is still new but working on the SEO now to become more search engine optimized. SWAT does have info on a few of the more popular space sims out there so they have more than just Freelancer.

I don’t want to step on any toes I just want to build a site geared towards the space gamer in mind. Yes there are always more focused sites out there and that’s great we need them. But we also need a few sites that find info and updates of the scene as a whole. I’m doing this just because I love these games and I always wanted to go to one site to get my fill of news and updates and to download the files I need so I made one

I saw it and responded. Was looking at my links and I will also add Swat-Portal to my links area.

I am doing my best to create a Space Sim Community where discussion on all games related to the gender is welcomed. I am trying to also create a download database that will house patches, game files, mods for all games (or least the most popular). News and exposure is what the space sim gamers need and I am trying to provide that. Hopefully very soon (next month) I will have a wiki started that will try to list all Space Sim’s ever created for the PC and some info and screenshots per game. So I will need the communities help to build this resource that will be available to everyone.

I know my site is new but I have been a space sim gamer forever and I too see what you are talking about Bas and I want to change it. We should be a strong community of Space Sim Gamers that demand more content and games be created for us I’m only a one man operation so I could use some help. And thanks to everyone so far that have been giving me some good feedback and changes to do to the site.

-D1-

Hi Seraph