LV's Future: The Road Ahead!

LV has been in a technologically and financially challenging position for a while, and it's been the subject of many discussions among the admins. As it is right now, LV isn't sustainable. This is due to two huge factors: (the lack of available developers and content for; the slow breaking of) our forum software the cost of our host. These issues have come up again and again with no real solution provided... until the last discussion about it. We were discussing how to get LV into a position where it was sustainable, but knew that if we upgraded to IPB 4.0, we would lose all the applications (including the economy - there is no replacement for IPB 4.0) and themes. When we went to look into the pricing for IPB 4.0 anyway, we saw they had raised their prices to $360 for a 12 month license.

The Solution - Part 1 (ft Xenforo)

The idea of upgrading to 4.0, which was already undesirable, went out the window. After some discussion about other options, we did some extensive research into Xenforo and found a solution to our first problem.

First, Xenforo's cost is only $140 for the first year, then $40 for additional years if we want to receive support and access to their applications (we do).

The second thing we looked into was whether or not we'd be able to keep our users, posts, threads, PMs - all of the good stuff that comes with a base forum. We found out it was very possible - Xenforo has a built in importer specifically for IPB. List of what can be imported (even if the options are grayed out).

Our third big concern was the economy. We didn't want to lose that under any conditions. We not only found a new economy application, but one that puts ours to shame. It has countless more features than our current one and is still supported and maintained by the developer. This means that we don't have to just tell people, "Yeah, that part of the economy is broken and we can't fix it." We can actually get help with any problems we have. There is a drawback to this, though, and that is an economy reset again. I'm hopefully going to be able to contact the developer and ask if an import of our current values is possible, but if not, we'll need to create a "keep your items and funds or give them up" thread again.

We also looked into the themes, and this is going to hurt a little - unless we want to cough up $3500 for a company to professionally recreate just Palette Town, we'll be losing the current themes. However, there is another significant difference between Xenforo and IPB. Customization in Xenforo is much easier and requires less manual coding - especially with a theme we found that's essentially a framework for creating more themes. We will be recreating Pallette Town and other themes to the best of our ability when we make the switch, so they will not be lost forever!

Additionally, Xenforo has a multitude of features included in the base package that even IPB add-ons haven't done properly. The best example is mentions. On LV currently, if you want to tag someone, you have to type @ then type out their name, then get two notifications that you were tagged instead of one. Believe it or not, this mention feature wasn't even built into the software. We had to use a third party app to get it. In Xenforo, mentioning works as it should and is included in the forum software. You simply type @, then a list of usernames pops up. Another big one: medals/trophies are automatically rewarded to users. No more manual handouts! You can explore Xenforo for yourself by creating a demo on their website (takes less than 2 minutes to set up).

Xenforo's userbase provides excellent support, and has quite a few developers who put out great improvements for the forums. Not all of the applications are free, though, but we're going to cover this later in the post.

The Solution - Part 2 (ft NewFound Hosting)

In comparison, this one is short and simple. Our current host charges us $594 a year for hosting, and for a site of LV's size, it's disgustingly expensive. I have personally spent days looking into other options, and finally found another host. With them, our hosting costs go down to $300 for the first year, and $360 yearly after that. The kicker? Our huge database isn't a problem for them, which means we don't have to worry about growing our site (the other option was removing a ton of old posts to get our database smaller than 2GB - no thanks).

The Dilemma

Of course, there are downsides to this. We'll need to reset the economy again, and there's going to be a day or few of downtime while we get everything rolling. Additionally, the gallery will not be carried over, so please download anything you want to keep now. The medals may be entirely reworked in a way that makes more sense; though, I'd consider this more of a benefit. The larger part of this dilemma, though, is...

The Finances

I'll try to keep this part brief, and just provide a list of the things we need to pay for, and then an additional list of things that we would like to have, but aren't of the highest importance.

Necessities:
Hosting Year 1: $300 (usually $360, we were given a discount for the first year)
XenForo Forum Software & License: $140; $40 annually
%5BDBTech%5D DragonByte Shop [Lifetime license] (this is the economy): $50
%5BDBTech%5D DragonByte Credits [Lifetime license] (this is the other part of the economy): $50
UI.X Forum Theme Framework: $30; renews for $20 annually
Discord Integration (no more posting in a verify thread; essentially a bot tailored to LV): $30
%5BDBTech%5D DragonByte Donate (Lifetime license): $50
Total: $650 (~$36 more than what we currently pay for hosting alone)
Subsequent years: $420

Other Add-ons (order of priority):
Cover Photos: $20; $10 annually
Sticky Navigation (the navigation bar will scroll down the page with you; toggleable): $10
Post Reactions: $26
Sticky Profile Post: $10
Youtube Video in Profile Sidebar: $6
Combined total: $722 for the first year
Combined subsequent years: $430

It'll be more expensive this year than other years, but for the next few years, it'll be much cheaper than our current plan. Another thing to keep in mind with this is that we currently pay $594 for the host alone - no other features.

The Benefits

Since we're ideally moving to a new forum software, we've had to slightly rework the donator benefits. While we were at it, we'll be changing the name of Contributor+ to Supporter, and added a fourth tier: Patron. These changes will take effect on the Xenforo - not IPB. With that being said, any donations made in the mean time will count towards these ranks. The benefits are as follows:

Spoiler

VIP:
Access to the Donators forum
10% more PokéPoints per post
Store up to 200 Private Messages
Purple name color & glow
VIP rank image in your posts
Custom member title
Ability to have a BBCode member title
Profile cover photo
Profile music player

Contributor
Access to the Donators forum
20% more PokéPoints per post
Store up to 500 Private Messages
Red name color & glow
Contributor rank image in your posts
Custom member title
Ability to have a BBCode member title
Profile cover photo
Profile music player

Supporter
Access to the Donators forum
Double PokéPoints per post
500 PokéPoints added to your account
Ability to close/open your own topics
Store up to 1,000 Private Messages
Red sparkle name color & glow
Supporter rank image in your posts
Custom member title
Ability to have a BBCode member title
Profile cover photo
Profile music player

Patron
--Patron will only be available after the transition to Xenforo; a $100 donation is required for this group (separate from past donations - sorry)
Access to the Donators forum
First look at new content coming to LV (themes, updates, promotions)
250% more PokéPoints per post
650 PokéPoints added to your account
Ability to close/open your own topics
Store up to 1,500 Private Messages
Pink sparkle name
Patron rank image in your posts
Custom member title
Ability to have a BBCode member title
Profile cover photo
Profile music player


Achromatic will write and perform a song for anyone who donates $100 or more. This isn't a joke. No covers. PM him for more details after donating.

The Conclusion

We will begin the process of moving LV over once we have all the funds. Our current host should be providing a refund for the remaining months on the plan, but this amount will vary depending on when we can get the money together and move to the new host. Because this is a new software, there may be other unexpected changes.

To donate, click here.​

 

Thank you so much! That's very generous of you and much appreciated. And your post reminded me to include that the Patron rank and other donor-related changes are going to be added once we're on the Xenforo (due to the ease of editing there).