With LiF, the specifics are that everything is done thru VoiP and the game emphasizes voice communication and it's advantages, as compared to older MMOs that had text communication and even text interface. The availability of Voice comms means that your interlocutor is instantly informed of an incoming communication and also must provide an instant reply. Such is the spectre of features of VoiP, that text/written comms are reduced to a minimum and used in very specific cases only.
Another defining aspect of comms and mass information in LiF (and a clan webpage is, certainly, an instance of mass communication media) is the availability of social networks where you can setup a basic Wall and other most basic features and have your traffic forwarded to the end user instantly and securely - everyone uses social networks anyways.
Thus, the functionality of a custom-hosted Guild webpage must surpass the social networks' features considerably and by a large margin, so that there is a real performance gain in relocating to the new service and no comms quality (and usability) is lost.
Of course, a posh and imposing website is a big boon for the guild and a huge public relations booster - provided the site is professional and well-done, to the point and of actual use.
Therefore, let us make a list of modules that are of actual profit to the guild, then - and unfortunately, such a list will be an incredibly short one.
1. First of all, a Teamspeak status module that shows your VoiP status and attendance level. Usability nominal because everyone logs into TS instantly anyways - but I recommend to keep this module anyways.
2. A Calendar system with integrated Events - this thing can prove to be really useful if you get to make all the members use it responsibly. Basically, a simple Events system allows you to make people notify whether they will be attending or will not be attending or only maybe will, a specific event - or, what's better, a recurring event, such as a Judgment Hour or a scheduled practice session. This is hard to accomplish due to end user inertia but in the best case you can have a very precise picture of your future Online forecast: knowing what players will have what patterns of online presence and being able to estimate your future online numbers easily. This is hard to pull off, though. Users can even specify the roles they can fulfill in an event.
3. A Map. Visit lifmaps.com, create a private map page, put all of your recon data on it (like the places for specific resources, or enemy fortifications, any points of interest) and voila, link to it on your website, whether available for members only or public. However, I've had problems embedding the lifmaps.com content into Enjin via iframe, so at this point we're just using html links.
4. Guild management. It is possible to simplify guild administration by using online spreadsheets and wiki engine functionality. At present my guild uses a Skill Build Planner where you can see the individual preferences in skill selection in a realistic skill cap environment, thus you can easily figure out any deficit in skill coverage. Another feature related to Guild Management is an Armor spreadsheet calculator, where you can estimate the quantity of crafting ingredients needed to fulfill an armor quota - you can probably imagine that quite easily.
I've seen that many other guilds hosted on Enjin have deep, meaningful Members Only pages that are probably used for guild management - please come share your experience and describe any business processes you are employing on your guild web page.
I've found out there is a way to embed Google Spreadsheets into Enjin modules without much effort; this can prove vital, because the biggest drawback of using a custom webpage is that end users tend to be extremely lazy and unmotivated when it comes to opening the browser, going to some site, interacting with it in a thoughtful manner, even if just sharing event attendance info. If for a group of 12 people 4 will never visit the online resource and another 3 will only do that time to time - that just defeats the entire point of using an Events panel, it's just rendered useless because of no end user involvement. Habits must be formed; I wonder if there's code to have Teamspeak open a browser page in a new window for anyone who joins - because most users are just playing the game to have fun, and opening an obscure website and interacting with it - doing that daily, on a constant basis, reminding yourself of that *duty* - there's simply zero fun in that. I'll even concede the fact that while designing the Skill Budget for our guild, I had to find and interview every guild member on Teamspeak personally and input their data manually onto the spreadsheet system, because there simply is not a realistic way to get this mass of people to all do what is needed, even if it's just a few clicks: you would get much more frustrated while trying to order them to input their own data than by doing the entire process by your own. People are resistant to change, inert and lazy - which is acceptable, considering we're playing a game. Keep this in mind, and don't expect anyone except the most senior management to participate in online guild management in any way.
Anyways, please share your stories of hosting your other guild management programs online: what is their method, what sort of problems do they solve, and how are they used in practice.
But lets continue:
5. A To-Do/Achievements Page. If you look at the Enjin Achievements module, you will see that it can be easily modified and turned into a handy guild progress meter; even more, it can serve as a plan for the entire guild to follow. What you do is you brainstorm a number of milestones that need be reached and enumerate them all and then the page will have an entry like "[] construct 15 drying frames and 15 tanning tubs for the leather procuring processes", or "[]get a set of steel tools for everybody to use" and so on. LiF guild economy is essentially a planned one, and most of the expenditures and objects to be constructed can be planned for way ahead in time. The most basic functionality would be an ordering system where players would be able to push in a simple order and the system would allocate it to whoever is available that can do the job. But as long as your players mostly never visit the online webpage, such a service will be very unlikely to succeed. I wonder if some Teamspeak API will in fact allow custom notifications of TS members based on the changes to the spreadsheets.
6. Anyways, the rest of the functions that I could say are useful are the Forum (although it's more of a nominal, reserve module, probably used in unusual circumstances only), the Recruitment form (really easy to set up and looks quite pro), and aside from that you can, obviously, host your guild rules, guild history, a list of members and maybe some other informational pages that do not have any interactivity.
I hope this post has been informative to my colleague webmasters and guild officers looking to harness web IT to improve their LiF experience. I hope you will share whatever know-hows and technologies you have developed, or suggest new ways of doing things or looking at them - if it's cool and it works, share it immediately!
Anyways, below I've included our Wiki Skill Budget Planner, and a screenshot of the armor calculator.
