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Build Your Own Avatar Community

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A quick and cheap solution to starting up your own virtual avatar community.

Do you dream of starting your own avatar community? Do you want to be the next Gaia Online, or make money for running a forum with cute items people will pay for to dress up their avatars? This lens will get you thinking on the right track. We will be exploring the forum-based avatar sites much like Gaia Online.

From this, you will learn how to do this a cheap way. It's not a long-term solution, but a good way to get your feet wet.

Let's begin!

First and foremost, read Bobbi of Avarica's excellent guide on starting an avatar website. She outlines the level of dedication involved, including time, money, and other resources. She also provides tips information on starter software you can use to begin the execution.

After you've read her guide, you'll have an idea the challenge you must undertake to do it. What I'm here to show you is a slightly easier startup option so you can get a "taste" of what could be.

Finding an avatar editor might be a problem, first and foremost. One that works and isn't full of memory leaks, and is easy to install can be a headache. I greatly recommend Living Avatars. However, in it's current state, you can only use the free version on vBulletin. You can use an older version on free forum software like phpBB and SMF, which I will provide a download link to at the end of this lens.

Remember, whichever software forum you decide to use, please, as Bobbi said, have your own hosting account; free hosts are terrible for a serious endeavor like this. Also, be prepared to update to a dedicated host (around $10-60 per month depending on what you get and who you're with) for when your community explodes.

Installing Living Avatars is very easy. Once it's in, follow the steps and read the website and support forums for more information.

Aspects to Consider

If you're starting a site like this, either you have money, knowledge of scripting, how databases work, CSS/HTML, or artistic skills. If you have at least two of these, you have a head start. If you have none of these, then go back, save up some cash, and/or pick up at least one of those skills! Or, maybe you have a dedicated talented team working alongside you. If that's the case, you're way ahead of me.

An alternative to Bobbi's method, at least for a short-term option is investing in the aforementioned forum software vBulletin. While there is a good bit of startup cost involved, you will have a suite to mess with right then and there, assuming you're not a php programmer or can't hire one immediately.

So, let's look at the estimated price:

Domain name and a GOOD web hosting (Do NOT use GoDaddy for something like this; you'll want full control) $100/yr

Living Avatars - full version: $30 (and another $20 if you want the branding off) (You can also opt for the free version)

vBulletin - $100/yr for the leased license, $180 one time then $60/yr for the owned.

So, you're going to be spending AT LEAST $230 on this baby to begin with. Not too bad for a start!

Why vBulletin?

The reason why I suggest vBulletin is because Living Avatars was developed specifically for it. A free addon for vBulletin gives users the option to trade the items used in Living Avatars and make them exclusive, which is what many owners of Avatar Communities want. It also gives you the full plug-and-play experience for those who want this on a smaller scale.

Also vBulletin is great for "Serious" forum software. It can support large numbers of users, loads fast, has lots of well-made addons (for free and for pay). Use phpBB for your long term project if you wish, but only if you're planning on re-engineering it. If you can do that (either your team or someone else), you can claim the hacked software as your own and not have to worry about license fees.

Please understand that, while Gaia used phpBB as it's base, the core has gone through a lot of time-consuming, expensive transformations to get where it is today. Also, phpBB was one of the better options for forum software back when it started in 2003, so there's plenty of open source forum software you can use as a base for when you're ready to hire that programmer, including phpBB; explore your options.

Also note that, while phpBB does have nulavatar, which Bobbi mentions, Bobbi is also in the process of upgrading to a site exclusive, much cleaner avatar system. Several established avatar websites have their own exclusive scripts, or at least "cleaned up" (i.e. security holes patched, etc) versions of nulavatar.

Playing In the Sandbox

Unfortunately, I can't cover all ground. Maybe you're an artist who's looking to play with a maker like this on a tiny scale. That's sort of what I'm doing right now, so I can easily talk about it from that standpoint.

Again, I highly recommend Living Avatars because it's easy to install, and you can customize it nicely with some script. The avatar maker is different from what's out there because users can interact with the layering system. This gives you and your userbase a lot of flexibility. Unfortunately, the canvas does have it's limits in terms of dimension and tries to make everything into a box. But for plug and play software, it's still excellent. You can use an older version that's linked below and a free forum software like phpBB of SimpleMachines Forum. You will still need paid webhosting. Your site will be graphics intensive and very few free hosts will appreciate that.

It's up to you whether you want to use raster (pixel) or vector-style graphics. LA is very vector friendly and supports the lovely transparency effects of PNG 24. So, if you're like me and love to make vector graphics, there you go. If not, and you're a pixel pusher, you'll still enjoy this software.

If you're not an artist, well, you should hire one or convince an artist friend to make some bases and items for you. The LA site also has some packages you can use, in the meantime. I would recommend being unique and getting your own bases exclusive to your site, should you ever decided to get serious. Likewise, you might not want to use Living Avatars forever, and eventually hire someone to create an avatar maker for you that's unique to your site, especially if LA isn't giving you what features you want, should it ever become successful.

Last Bits

Here's some last minute things to keep in mind.

Purpose: WHY are you making an avatar website in the first place? Always be prepared to answer that and keep that in mind while working.
Target Audience: Do you want a themed community, or want a little bit of everything. Both aspects have it's advantages. Consider both and find a good middle to attract a strong userbase.
Partnership: If you plan on going big, you're going to need some reliable help. Find people that you know and trust to go into business with, and keep them close.
Alpha or Beta?: Some avatar sites go live before any of the content is complete in order to foster interest. Sometimes it may be better to wait until you have avatar bases first.
Activities: Do you want more to do on your website besides chatting for items? What about games, events, contest, roleplaying, or something more unique?
Cash Cow: Don't look at the avatar site as a cash cow; approach it as something you have a passion for. While it CAN end up making you cash on the side, try to avoid that as it can really make the place feel soulless.
Of Halos and Headphones: I have to be blunt about this one because I see this with a few avatar sites; try to steer away from making Gaia's harder-to-get items into your site's harder-to-get items, too. Halos, I can sort of understand, but headphones??
Databases: Become familiar with the art of backing up, restoring, and all around maintaining databases, or at least get a friend that is. Nothing is more painful and activity killing than the loss of your site userbase's hard-earned goods.
KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid- very important. Many people like simplicity. Simplicity has more room for creativity and is faster to get a grasp on, and this is what people tend to look for in avatar sites. Overcomplicating things will be hard on you and your users alike.

Helpful Links

You've put up with my rambling! I hope it helps you on your way, or at least gets you thinking about another method, possibly easier and cheaper way of starting an avatar community.

Living Avatars for SMF and phpBB and I think IPB: This is an older version of the free software that can be used on different forums. NOTE: While this is free to use, and you can find many tips that apply to this on the Living Avatar's website, this version is unsupported.. If you want a supported non vBulletin version, please considering purchasing this software. Also, Living Avatars is NOT open source, so do not modify it and redistribute it as your own!
Cash Shop Integration: This will help you integrate your forum's currency system with Living Avatars. This works for pretty much any currency system and involves a short trip inside phpMyAdmin for the name of your currency table. Note that it won't integrate Living Avatars with the shop itself. If you want that, please consider getting vBulletin and Living Avatars Pro.
How to change the Points names: How to change the points names in Living Avatars to another currency name.
vBulletin: vBulletin, excellent premium forum software.
Simple Machines Forum: Also known as SMF; my preferred forum software of choice; also free, but not entirely open source.
SMFShop: Cash mod for SMF
phpBB: Very popular open source software that many avatar communities are based on.