> Yes, but there's a difference between a quality cost and overcharging for > the same service,
NFO does not even make a profit, so overcharging doesn't come into play here. > and over-hyping something that doesn't even matter > (anything more than 1000 fps serverside, hell, even 500 fps is pushing > it.) We were talking about L4D. L4D is limited to 30fps and that is the most that anyone can offer. If you want to talk about Orangebox/Source/GoldSrc games, then we can do that too, although you and I already did in a prior exchange. In the case of those engines, there are plenty of providers that offer 1000fps servers and it's mainly a case of supply and demand. Professional teams swear by high-tickrate/high-FPS servers, so it's not entirely hype. > To be honest a lot of times the smaller companies will give you better > support if you pay a few dollars extra for those services over a large > business. For instance, Branzone. They're not huge right now, but they're > not tiny either. You pay a couple extra bucks for the same thing, I get a > response to tickets usually within 10-20 minutes, but you also don't > overpay > for the same service. I don't want to compare to specific providers, but NFO uses some of the most expensive bandwidth out there and has a very strong focus on performance and service. These factors have costs associated with them. Other providers that use different bandwidth, load machines differently, and have different service levels will have different prices as a result. Some providers may over- or under-charge for the service, but as I mentioned before, Nuclearfallout does not make a profit. > Is any host perfect? No. Is it worth it, in my > opinion, to pay the extra bucks for a NFO server? Absolutely not. I'm not arguing that the high-end hosts are right for everyone, but they are not as overpriced as you have indicated. There is oftentimes quite a bit of value found in buying a slightly more expensive service. > For the > same price as a dedicated server (where I can run 3-4 of the same server > mentioned) it costs the same as 1.8 servers through NFO. Naturally you can save quite a bit of money by renting a dedicated server (although I'm not sure what type of server you're talking about here). Many hosts, including NFO, offer these side by side with game servers and they are typically a good value, but only if you have the time to set everything up yourself, don't need the extra freebies and support that a game server would offer, have the extra money and need for multiple servers, and don't need quite as good of performance. > While I do > understand the support aspect, game servers are *really* not that hard to > run yourself. I taught myself how to do it with a bit of google searching > and toiling. That was over three years ago, I'm still learning, I think you have learned, and know now, a lot more than you realize. That reflects well upon you. The better GSPs will have your level of knowledge and more, and they will have already applied it to their machine configurations, fully automatic systems, and so on. That also means customers can talk to live support staffmembers who know what they're doing and are willing to quickly walk them through all sorts of issues that crop up. > I don't mean to make this a fight, but seriously, it's overrated. Some > things you do have to learn first-hand though. :) There's a lot to be said for starting off with a well-established, quality-oriented host that has a good reputation -- then potentially going from there to a dedicated server or a lower-end host. And there's no harm in taking advantage of the free trials that many GSPs offer, to see if the performance is all it's cracked up to be. -John _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
