man, i tried running a site off of a house server for a while this last spring XD had to stop after some flooding and a frazzled. but yeah, it is cheaper to run a site by far from home but the cost of creation is mostly dependent on how much you can do from scratch and if you can find people, getting a coder to work for free is the biggest part and cuts out the bulk of the expenses but that is still 10-50 a month to run the site named, however much you paid for the actual code you are using to make your site(i've seen it sell for around 200 dollars for something firmly established), the cost of your pixelist and if you go that route the cost of your materials(such as theme and bases and games) and of course the server-cost which, for imageheavy sites, isn't the same thing as your domain and can be managed by buying it from a company or setting it up yourself

i know because we are doing everything from scratch that i can run a basic forum-based site for 18 a month and it will only double when i implement a proper avatar system(it's currently a non-saving dropdown thing but it's small enough to not take up any notable space)



sorry if any of that is weird or confusing, i am tired XD

Oh you're starting an avatar site too? Be sure to read this thread thoroughly so that you can avoid the mistakes of other sites. xD You should PM me when you get into beta testing so I can check it out. ;D


Also did some looking into LunaeSaga. I had never heard of it before. It seems like it only lasted a year? I completely missed it. It's sad to see sites go down because it makes it harder for other sites to keep the trust of the users. If a bunch of sites close down that someone has spent money on, they may not want to contribute to other sites in the future. :[

I agree, I hate it when ones that I like close down. :[ Though I have seen an interesting effect where when 1 site closes down, 2 more seem to spring up from the ashes of it. xD; That really proves my point that it's more the staff that leads to the site closing than the fact that it's an avi site in general. The staff seem to bicker and go separate ways and build more sites out of hatred for the previous one.

Isn't that what design/pixels contests are for though, to scout out potential artists? Although usually you don't make it as obvious as that xD

it won't even be into closed beta by this time next year, i want a site that is 'ready' before i let the users come in and wear out all of the 'new' on it X''D that means i am going to give it at least two years of alpha-testing love before i set it free to the public though it is going to be an rp-centric avatar community so it probs won't be up your ally anyway

@ Ashy, oh how sneaky!! ;P

@ littl3chocobo, Who says I don't like RPing? =P I used to RP all the time when I first joined Gaia. I'm just not very good at it so I don't tend to do it. xD And about your site... at least you're being responsible about it. Syndrone bothers me because they claim the site is in Alpha testing but they are selling monthly donation items and stuff as if it were fully open. I dunno but I think the point that you start selling monthly items means you're open. Maybe that's just me?

dude, syndrone is also advertising and is trying to get a radiostation established. does not help they are a redo of another site(am i wrong to say it was lunae?) that shut down, they are bum-rushing everything and only /just/ got their inventories set up to be used >x>;;;;

oh, and they are at least open beta if not open fully, alpha does /not/ have open registration and generally does not do legit monthlies, donation-thank-yous maybe but not monthlies thugh the coding is for sure beta XD

They are a remake of Terrasus which I completely missed. I'm pretty sure it was open for less than 6 months though. I thought that Syndrone was fully open but when you go to their homepage, right above the log in fields it says they are in Open Alpha. I don't know if they just haven't taken that out or what...

There was another site that was supposed to open alongside Syndrone called Undergrin but I dunno what's going on with that one.

rose knows about terresus so ask her about that but i have never heard of undergrin

I'm still kinda curious as to when Malthea will be open and what it'll be like. Though I feel like the longer they prolong opening (even if just for alpha/beta testing) the more harm it could do if their site doesn't live up to the hype. It a dangerous road to have taken but if they can make it truly awesome, it'll be worth it. If not, then they'll have wasted a lot of time on a site that people have list interest in.

I'm only saying this cause I find the generation that first came into customizable avatar forum communities is slowly fizzling out of them. The next generation simply doesn't have the same attention span to stay connected for too long unless it's truly worth it to.

Just two cents from me.

I don't think Malthea is ever going to open sadly. They haven't posted any new updates in almost a year. I was really looking forward to it too. I miss going to an active site.

And that's a good point about the new generation of users. I think people expect A LOT more out of new sites nowadays. Before a site could open with just the basics and people would still use it, now everyone wants to know where all the games are just at opening. As avatar sites come and go, people expect a lot out of sites they join now. They want ALL of their favorite features to make it worth sticking to a specific one.

Undergrin used all its donation funds, somehow. With that kind of management already, I'm not exactly expecting it to open anytime soon, nor do I really want to join.

That kind of annoys me when the people who start sites like that won't use their own money to build it and rely on donations..? Why should I donate to something that isn't even built? I would rather see the owners invest their own money into the site so they're more likely to keep it going. If they get the whole site funded on donations, I feel like they're more likely to abandon it because they didn't have to sacrifice anything to get it going... but that could just be me. Like... if a teenager is given a car for free, they're probably more likely to not take care of it as opposed to if they had to work for a few years to earn enough money to buy one. *shrug* If I started an avatar site, I would build at least the necessities first and open it for beta testing before accepting ANY kind of monetary contributions.

Though I think I saw on their blog that you had to donate to even get access to their beta? And that was a year and a half ago and no beta. Sites can do what they want but I wouldn't give them my hard earned money in those situations. I gave some money to Malthea years ago when they were doing that and even they haven't opened.

pay-to-play before there is a play? dude, that is /bullshit/ X_X;;

@Taiki: I think it was that paying would get you CBT access and items...? But really, I'm glad I didn't spend however much that was. Bleh.

Well, since you mentioned paying for something before there's anything there, donating and all....ever heard of kickstart? A lot of people use that and it's about the same thing (except I think things actually come of it lol)

actually no, that is not the same ^^;;; that is to get things off the ground and i may be mistaken but if the goal is not reached the contributors get their money back, it is also a way to get something in return since you are usually offered some sort of return for a contribution should it make it

Damn, they're not going to open anymore? But I was so looking forward to it once I'd finally heard of it. I wonder what happened to them. Maybe realization of how much work it'd take has kicked in?

These sites also depend a lot on donations for funds, if people do not have the funds to donate it makes it harder for sites. Lazy or unmotivated staff are too, though I don't think sites like this, ernya, solia or gaia are gonna go down anytime soon.

Well, I don't know much about kickstart, but they don't have to give anything out for donation levels, I don't think, but most give something or another from what I've seen....but some I've seen are for horrible things like a book that tells a guy to rape pretty much it seemed like.

but off topic!

I think Lunae is never coming back though supposedly it's going to.

@ Yokuutsu, I've ran a Kickstarter. Usually successful ones have at least a prototype of what they want made and just need funds to get it mass produced. Often when people ask for money for something not started they won't get funded. People like that often use IndieGoGo because they have an option to still receive the funds even if the goal is not met. I usually only fund webcomics and the comics are already made, they just need money to get the actual books printed. xD So still, I probably wouldn't give money to a Kickstarter campaign if they didn't at least have a working model of whatever it was. I wonder if an avatar site has ever tried to start using an actual Kickstarter and offered items as the reward tiers?

I completely missed Lunae too, and Royal Creed. xD I haven't really been active on any avi sites for a year and a half and I completely missed the life spans of like 3 of them.

@ Arikana, Malthea could still open, I just think it's unlikely. But like someone said, they'd have to have an amazing site to live up to their hype or people will probably be disappointed.

@ Terezi, you're right, they do depend on donations. And sadly the days of where you could get donations simply for items I think are gone. Gaia goes the way of making games in which you have to pay to get some features which is where they make their money. Just like most mobile games or FB games now adays. People like items but I think they get more fulfillment from playing actual games.

Yeah, at this point I don't think they will be able to live up to their built up hype. With all the time they've had in working on it, anything short of perfect would be a disappointment.

You said you got regular updates from them? If yes, before those stopped, how often were updates sent out?

This is actually good news in a way, when more sites close the people that were there will have a hole that needs to be filled.
Especially with Gaia's umm.. Let's call it Current Market Strategy (That's an extremely over the top nice way to put it don't you think?) more and more people are willing to put time in other sites, it's just the matter of advertising and communication with those people.

Granted, the way Trisphee is going itself a lot of new people will be bored off the site real quick unless they come in huge waves of people....

well, illusion, i think that is a good reason for /you/ to help out and try and get some people to join. it would be much appreciated and is a really responsible and helpful way of helping the site

I've tried to get people to join-even during that masquerade event like forever ago....they still left. With one of them, I think it was due to lack of roleplays...for the other few I invited, some didn't join, the others...I guess it just wasn't their cup of tea. -shrugs-

well that was over a year ago, maybe you should try again?

I've tried since then, to get them to come back. One of them is pretty much out of avatar websites now. He'll rarely get on Gaia...same goes for most people I know actually. And then there's a few that don't have regular internet so yeah.

@ Arikana, Well in 2012 it was like 3-5 times a month. The year before that was more like 5-10 updates a month. It just gradually slowed down and stopped. Their latest update posted on Twitter is from December 6th, 2012 while Facebook is September 23rd, 2012.

@ Illusion, it may be good to get new users when other sites close, but not paying users. Every time a site closes that I spent money on, I'm less likely to spend money on a new site. I'm sure some other people are the same way.

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I think the biggest thing hurting Trisphee right now is the wait/delay. A lot of users aren't willing to join a site that has been open for years if they're unable to collect all the monthly items. There's probably is a VERY limited supply of monthlies from the past year due to the inactivity of the site that they'll be almost impossible to collect if a large amount of users were to suddenly show up. Which is really sad because the monthly items are so beautiful and it's sucks that more people can't enjoy them.

Yikes. I wonder if Malthea's creators forgot about the site or if they just gave up on it or something? Then again, not everyone always remembers to continually use social media. I know I'd abandon most of my social media sites (other than Twitter as I have tweets from some people/sports teams sent to me via text) easily cause I just outright forget about them. >3>

Either way, paying or non paying Trisphee could use members in general. Even if we get 100 users who don't pay money, our market/economy would actually balance out nicely. Right now we have a ton of items that can be evenly distributed to new members, besides a lot of people means more support, and more support means more events, and more events means... Well you get the picture.

But I agree, the inactivity from this past year has been insane. I don't want to know how many monthlies were bought this year alone. I understand everyone is busy, but even then I think Fen is taking a little too much she can handle in her current situation, cut a load off. Seasonals (in my opinion) have been truly holding everyone back because of their (sort of) sporadic release every couple of months, and the amount of items that have to be made for it in general. :/

I've been waiting for a half of year to, the problem is it's hard to have anyone stay when there are no events currently running. With what's going on with Gaia currently, if Trisphee could run a event right now it would be a golden opportunity to talk to angry Gaia members and snag them over to Trisphee for a bit.

@ Illusion, You're right, Trisphee needs more users whether they're paying or not. I just meant in the instance of sites closing down wasn't great for getting new users who would pay. There could still be ones that come regardless.

And you're spot on with right now being a golden opportunity that Trisphee NEEDS to take advantage of. Gaia users are bailing left and right at this moment. I've seen a TON of them joining Syndrone. If Trisphee wants to get back on track they can't let this opportunity pass them by. But I worry if anything will happen, I mean Fen hasn't even logged on in 3 weeks.

I suggested it before, like you said, change priorities. Something needs to change still. Cut the AU monthly out and use that resource to make event items or something! I don't even know what's up with the seasonal items, is that the Ankha Eggs? I wasn't around when that was launched so I'm not sure. I would consider helping with pixeling some items only if there was some plan in the works to get things turned around and not just to keep up with the current stagnant pace (and if I got paid, lol).

I've seen polls put on by avatar sites and it seems like the most often consensus is that Halloween Events are the most popular. I hope Trisphee has something cool in the works.

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As for Gaia, I wonder how much longer it'll last going the way it's going. Starting today I can't look at the forum without being logged in? So weird... I could before.

We have that Nox event that is sort of the equivalent to a Halloween event. It's sort of like Mexico's day of the dead, which is right after Halloween. (We normally have a Nox event sometime between September - Novemember)

But other then that, every other event we had was sporadic. Our mini events need a more of a interlude focus in terms of stories (which is sort of happening now, kind of, not really). And to be interactive in general.

If I can name a couple of the biggest problems in avatar sites in general is the interactive aspect of the sites, without that there are no avatar sites. No one will pay money for pixels if they can't use them to interact with anything.
That's why the game Littlebigplanet makes so much money from their clothing DLC is because there is a huge interactive aspect to the game, and that making avatars feels essential to the gameplay. I feel as though games like Littlebigplanet are the future of avatar sites, as we move closer and closer to Virtual Reality gaming the more things that were close to it go away, and are absorbed into VR. I'm still expecting to fully explore vast lands or worlds sometime in the next 20/30 years.

Well then I hope Trisphee has a great Nox Event in the works. xD

And I agree, I've noticed people calling avatar sites a "game" which I never thought of them as. I always thought of them as an interactive forum but newer members assume they are some sort of game that can be "played" so they expect more than a forum.

I expect an avatar, items, forums, and maybe a few side games.

That's it. That's all I expect...other than some people posting and the like obviously.

This is a sad story...
I never even knew Avatar sites existed until someone linked me here.

yeah, gaia is trying to explode itself in a confetti of cash and hate ^^;;;