OK, here's a different variation on this idea I would like to implement on my boards.
Creating a plethora of RolePlaying Game Boards, with many different Genres represented.
Would love to have the ability to have the member register on the MAIN site with an "Out-Of-Character" identity as a MASTER PROFILE. Ex: Bob from Ohio.
Now, when the member would click on the link to the subdomains (each separate board for each game), they would be prompted to create a CHARACTER PROFILE specific to that game.
In the Fantasy game, "Bob from Ohio" would name his character "Elohas", the rest of the CHARACTER profile indicating that he's an Elf from Arcansbane.
Bob decides that he wants to play the superhero RPG...and clicking over to THAT board, Bob is prompted to create his CHARACTER PROFILE for THAT game.
Each Character Profile would post as the Character on the board it is designated to post on, but ADMINISTRATIVELY, I would be able to tell that Bob from Ohio was Elohas, Texas Pete, and SuperVulcan, etc etc.
Because of the size of each of these boards (each templated to it's own theme), and the amount of players that will be jumping on to play, you can see my hesitation to place them ALL on one single database...
The server would go nuts with the amount of queries.
The side effect would be to slow my site down to a crawl, even just to refresh the page.
Is there a way to SEPARATE the member data (along with all the usergroup permissions, etc) into a separate DB, and still have all the separate boards access the info?
Mind you, I have NOT installed SMF yet, as I am inquiring on how I can get it to do the things I want it to beforehand?
I haven't even approached the next half of this question...
ROUND #2: Is it possible to make the character profiles like a check list...pick a race, pick a region, etc etc, and have usergroups automatically assigned by doing so...(purpose for this? The Compendium is designed to be USER specific...an Elf from Country A has certain beliefs that an Elf from Country B doesn't...due to different cultures, etc...and therefore, the Compendium will be designed to show the player what his character would believe, versus revealing the whole TRUTH (which is only shown for the character's own species).
Make sense?