Guild hosting

A guild hosting or clan hosting service is a specialized type of web hosting service designed to support online gaming communities, generally referred to as guilds or clans. They vary from game server hosting in that the focus of such companies is to provide applications and communication tools outside of the gaming environments themselves.

Typical Features

The services typically offered by such a service include:

* Public and/or private forums for members to communicate with each other, or other tools for communications such as instant messaging or chat servers.
* Tools for tracking the roster of characters that a player might have in an MMORPG.
* An application for scheduling and organizing raids, tournaments and other gaming events.
* Applications for tracking treasure, items, or points accrued toward redeeming treasure (often referred to as a DKP system).

History

Originally, most people who decided to create a website for their guild used bulletin board software such as vBulletin and phpBB on traditional web hosting services. However, as the complexity of online games increased--accompanied by larger memberships, needs for more sophisticated scheduling tools, and roster-management features. One of the earliest such companies was GuildPortal, formed in 2001.In 2006, GamerDNA combined the features of a social network with guild hosting, to provide guilds with the ability to network with each other, as well as their own members.

Guild hosting services address a guild's basic need to have an online presence and allow guild members to communicate with each other outside of the game. While it is possible for any guild to do this on their own, setting up and maintaining a site requires constant maintenance, upgrades and integration of new software. One of the key reasons for the popularity of guild hosting services is their focus on relieving the guild from this overhead and freeing them up to spend more time playing the game. In 2006 Guild Launch was formed to directly address the need for reducing this management overhead, to expand the existing social network of the guild into other areas, and to build long term communities within the guild by delivering high quality and easy to use tools.Also launching in 2006 was MMO Guildsites, a option with many advanced features, some of which have been made freely available for use with any hosting service.In 2007 Guildomatic was launched to provide a guild hosting platform specifically for World of Warcraft guilds.In 2008 MyGuildHost, a new player in guild hosting, launched version 2 of their guild hosting and management control panel -- powered by open source PHP and AJAX technologies.In September 2008 GameStreet.net, a gaming social network launched its own brand of guild hosting with extreme flexiblity and ease of setup with a drag-and-drop designer for guild managers