Lag early on?

[cpvr]

If your virtual pet site starts to grow faster than you thought, what do you do? Say if you're running on a dedicated server already, do you go out and buy another one to try to lessen the server load and continue to grow?

I know when I worked for Zetapets, we tried our best to be fast, but with bad coding, the site never went anywhere because the scripts needed to be recoded and that was too time consuming for the owner even though he coded it..

So, what would you guys do if your virtual pet site grew very fast?

[Fly]

Go out and buy another one. The reason being, when a site is slow to load, or there is horrible lag, well...that tends to turn people away from a site faster than anything.

There's nothing I hate more than lag. I hate waiting for anything. ~chuckle~

[cpvr]

But what if you can't afford a new server?

[Martin]

But what if you can't afford a new server?

You beg for money
"Brother can you spare a dime"
xD

[Fly]

Then you'll have to make do with what you can afford. Or ask for donations. If every member gave .50 or a dollar, then you'd be better able to afford a server.
Donations are quite common...or am I mistaken?

[tater]

if only dedicated servers only costed a dime :D...id cluster like 500 of em

[cpvr]

Then you'll have to make do with what you can afford. Or ask for donations. If every member gave .50 or a dollar, then you'd be better able to afford a server.
Donations are quite common...or am I mistaken?
They are quite common if the prizes and everything else that you offer to your users are good...

What I'm basically trying to get at is what if your site is loading slow at times (during peak) and you really need another server but you can't afford it. Would you try to take out a bank loan or something?

[Fly]

Me personally yes I would.

Because say like during the summer when everyone is out of school, and playing games on the computer all day. If they're on a petsite that's slow to load, well, as much as they might like that game, they are most likely going to go to a place where the server is fast as lightning.

I know as an adult surfing the net, I get frustrated when I try to load a page and I wait....and I wait......and I wait....then I say screw it, there's something else on the net about whatever, and I leave to find something faster.

Most petsites are put up by kids tho right? If that was the case, then I dunno what the hell I'd do! It's been too long since I was a kid, and probably the only people that had computers back then was like NASA.

~chuckle~

[Patrick]

Gotta spend money to make money.

[Sagashiteru]

that's right, I would get a job in real life for big cash(PHP scripts sell easily here in belgium) or if I needed a small amount I could do online coding for random people.

I've got a solicitation tomorow to build a CMS for some company and we could be talking €700+(must be around $1000).

[cpvr]

Gotta spend money to make money.
Exactly, the key to success is to invest your hard earnt money and try to double it. Even if it means taken risks such as buying a top of the line dedicated server for your pet site in order to get rid of the lag.

[Ian]

most sites have lag at the beginning because the programmers are noobs at the start

a few months before I started marapets I thought php was some kind of sex disease

[Fly]

~laugh~ Ian, you just crack me up.

[Ian]

~laugh~ Ian, you just crack me up.

lol its true though. When we started we had NO clue what we were doing

Laimay went out and bought tons of books on how to draw and eventually a tablet thingy to draw on and I just followed guides online on how to program.

We just got better everyday and never gave up.

[cpvr]

lol its true though. When we started we had NO clue what we were doing

Laimay went out and bought tons of books on how to draw and eventually a tablet thingy to draw on and I just followed guides online on how to program.

We just got better everyday and never gave up.
Yup, that's true Ian. I remember how Marapets started out and how slow it was, but now it's so fast and growing so fast it's unbelieveable. If you can do it, then anyone can. Practice makes perfect, yes?