What is a webhost and do I need one?

[*BaseClogger*]

Since I'm a complete noob and really confused I'll just ask some really basic questions:

What is a webhost and why do I need one for an online league?

[kagnew35]

Originally Posted by *BaseClogger*

Since I'm a complete noob and really confused I'll just ask some really basic questions:

What is a webhost and why do I need one for an online league?

A webhost will set up your site on his server for a fee, do all the original setup for you, up and running quickly, if you have no site experience. You need a website for your league to communicate with your members.

[*BaseClogger*]

Originally Posted by kagnew35

A webhost will set up your site on his server for a fee, do all the original setup for you, up and running quickly, if you have no site experience. You need a website for your league to communicate with your members.

How do like... the games connect, or whatever?

[kq76]

Originally Posted by *BaseClogger*

How do like... the games connect, or whatever?

Usually via FTP. All it involves through the game is clicking a button or two.

Just in case you don't already understand this, online leagues typically don't have say two people playing a game against each other like say 2 managers do in real life. An online league could do that, but it'd be pretty difficult to organize more than say 2 humans to play out their games against each other on a regular basis.

What online leagues do typically do is have a commish and several managers of different teams. The commish organizes everything then uploads the file usually via FTP (either in game or through an FTP client). Once the managers already have the main file (you just download that file, extract it and place it in the correct folder), all they have to do after every sim is get the update through the game by pressing a button. The manager then makes their changes and then they send their export by pressing another button. The commish then imports the exports, runs the sim, updates the file and the process starts over again. It's pretty simple actually.

I'm going to split this topic as it's going away from the purpose of this thread.

EDIT: I should probably point out that it's not absolutely necessary to have a webhost to run an online league, but the vast majority do use one as you can do more with one and probably much more easily too.

[f.montoya]

Being a webhost myself, I may be able to answer a lot of your questions.

Basically, the main reasons to have a website(and thus a webhost to provide that), is for league communication and a place to display your league reports(all those pretty html pages with standings, league leaders and team pages) to the public. There are some OOTP guys who like to lurk on websites, either out of casual interest in the theme of the league, or potential interest in joining the league. So having a forum/message board shows a lot about the general atmosphere of a league and it's organization.

That said, you don't need a website at all, especially for just a few league members. You can sign up for some of those file sharing places like RapidShare to make your league file available to your league members. They will not be able to update after sims in-game like they would if you had a website with an FTP account, but they would be able to download and unpack the file manually after each sim.

League members can easily email you their export files and you can just put them into your league.lg/import_export folder and import them via the game and run your sim.

And the cycle repeats itself.

If you plan on filling all teams in a league of 16, 20, 26 or 30 teams, you may want to have a website to have FTP(allows the game to place files on a server where your league members' games can access with simple clicks of buttons in-game) and make the process easier for everyone before and after each sim.

If you have any other questions, post here and I'll be glad to answer them