Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
I apologize to all those that really don't want to hear this discussion. But this was the first place I thought of when I thought of this issue that has currently presented itself to my clan. As MONDO and Shane have suggested, there are probably a lot of users who instead of hosting a dedicated server and hosting the servers themselves run through a GSP. A search of Google brings a whole host of services I have never even imagined existed and I have no experience with. Asking here however has provided me a whole host of resources to look into now, including several off list offers by some users which is most excellent and why I am on this list. Thanks for all the replies. I haven't even been able to read them all. I just skimmed most of them now and will go over them in detail later. The amount of tips, and information is invaluable and I thank everyone on their feedback. Sincerely, -- All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. - Unknown When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion. - Abraham Lincoln Mark J. Gunnett [EoE]SniperFodder{AL} ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
This may have to do with game servers but do you really think everyone on the list needs to hear about this discussion. This is the kind of topic that makes Valve want to switch us over to forums. If you want any constructive feedback you should go to srcds.com where they know about every host and are probably more unbiased than here. I bet if you search their forums, you will find everything you need to know and want to know about every notable host there is. On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 11:24 PM, Josh Bost dislexs...@dislexsick.comwrote: @Nicholas: Yes. That is correct, as Lane mentioned however there are common items available in 'one-click' format (In the case of L4D2 last time I checked it was several versions of MM+SM, SDK Hooks, and a few others). It makes sense for me, given that if they didn't prevent it not only are the problems Lane mentioned present, however anybody can then add L4DToolz or L4Downtown and give themselves an increased slot count*, or other action like that. Lets not even go into what they could write themselves. *Though doing this without authorization gets your server disabled :P @Matt: Yes, however as it stands my server only runs MM, SM, L4Downtown, and SDK Hooks and the update for L4Downtown wasn't critical, all others were installed through management panel. @Cc2iscool: See previous points - those extensions could have easily been malicios. @Shane: Exactly. Cheers, Joshua 'Dislexsick' Bost On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 2:46 PM, Nicholas Hastings nshasti...@gmail.com wrote: So what you're saying is that Hypernia won't let you put extensions on yourself and that you have to wait hours for them to update them instead? On 2/20/2010 9:26 PM, Josh Bost wrote: To further my previous recommendation for Hypernia I would like to note I have submitted 3 support tickets so far: 1) Getting TF2 extensions added to the management panel to allow PropHunt: Done in 3 hours, even though after sending in initial ticket I had to get the server owner to send in a ticket allowing me to request stuff for them. (They don't allow clients to uplaod .dll files on their 'By the slot' servers) 2) Getting them to allow me to have a 16-slot L4D2 server. Resolved in 12 hours, though that was due to me sending the ticket and going to bed :P actual respose to the first ticket was like 45 minutes. 3) Getting L4Downtown updated. Done in an hour. Cheers, Joshua 'Dislexsick' Bost On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 4:41 AM, Johnlists.va...@nuclearfallout.net wrote: Investigate the server performance and flexibility. Then, to see their response times and knowledge levels, ask all of them questions about improving your routing and server performance, plugin questions, and server configuration questions through their support system, even if you already know the answers. Experiment with the control panel and different services. (If a company offers a free trial or money-back guarantee, you could also take advantage of that, but a month would give you a longer view on server stability and uptime.) The three company strategy is often used for interviews with contractors, and it's a solid one. -John ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
True this is for servers and it is off topic as usual Sent Using My IPhone :) On 21 Feb 2010, at 08:24, DontWannaName! ad...@topnotchclan.com wrote: This may have to do with game servers but do you really think everyone on the list needs to hear about this discussion. This is the kind of topic that makes Valve want to switch us over to forums. If you want any constructive feedback you should go to srcds.com where they know about every host and are probably more unbiased than here. I bet if you search their forums, you will find everything you need to know and want to know about every notable host there is. On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 11:24 PM, Josh Bost dislexs...@dislexsick.comwrote: @Nicholas: Yes. That is correct, as Lane mentioned however there are common items available in 'one-click' format (In the case of L4D2 last time I checked it was several versions of MM+SM, SDK Hooks, and a few others). It makes sense for me, given that if they didn't prevent it not only are the problems Lane mentioned present, however anybody can then add L4DToolz or L4Downtown and give themselves an increased slot count*, or other action like that. Lets not even go into what they could write themselves. *Though doing this without authorization gets your server disabled :P @Matt: Yes, however as it stands my server only runs MM, SM, L4Downtown, and SDK Hooks and the update for L4Downtown wasn't critical, all others were installed through management panel. @Cc2iscool: See previous points - those extensions could have easily been malicios. @Shane: Exactly. Cheers, Joshua 'Dislexsick' Bost On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 2:46 PM, Nicholas Hastings nshasti...@gmail.com wrote: So what you're saying is that Hypernia won't let you put extensions on yourself and that you have to wait hours for them to update them instead? On 2/20/2010 9:26 PM, Josh Bost wrote: To further my previous recommendation for Hypernia I would like to note I have submitted 3 support tickets so far: 1) Getting TF2 extensions added to the management panel to allow PropHunt: Done in 3 hours, even though after sending in initial ticket I had to get the server owner to send in a ticket allowing me to request stuff for them. (They don't allow clients to uplaod .dll files on their 'By the slot' servers) 2) Getting them to allow me to have a 16-slot L4D2 server. Resolved in 12 hours, though that was due to me sending the ticket and going to bed :P actual respose to the first ticket was like 45 minutes. 3) Getting L4Downtown updated. Done in an hour. Cheers, Joshua 'Dislexsick' Bost On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 4:41 AM, Johnlists.va...@nuclearfallout.net wrote: Investigate the server performance and flexibility. Then, to see their response times and knowledge levels, ask all of them questions about improving your routing and server performance, plugin questions, and server configuration questions through their support system, even if you already know the answers. Experiment with the control panel and different services. (If a company offers a free trial or money-back guarantee, you could also take advantage of that, but a month would give you a longer view on server stability and uptime.) The three company strategy is often used for interviews with contractors, and it's a solid one. -John ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
Check out http://www.ziruxgaming.com On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 8:54 PM, Mark Gunnett mgunnett4...@gmail.comwrote: So, My clan right now runs all of our game servers off of a dedicated box that costs around $135 a month. This was cheaper by far since we used to run anywhere between 7-10 game servers. The keywords there are used to and was, since recently we've found that we really don't have members playing those games anymore, and therefore it's kind of pointless to be renting this dedicated box. So we are going to switch to running 1 game server (TF2, 24 slots) from a GSP. Now here is a listing of the GSP's I've looked at, pricing wise: Gameservers.com - $71.95 Nuclearfallout.net - $65.99 ($68.98 with a HLStatsX Installation) MyInternetServices.com - $45.00 ArtOfWarCentral.com - $39.70 Now, I myself have personal experience with Nuclearfallout.net. As far as I could tell, the NFO servers I have hosted weren't exactly all that great, but they weren't bad either. I always here crap about the GameServers.com servers, but I don't know from personal experience if they are worth that kind of money. Now, I only heard of MyInterenetServices.com because of the deal they had going on for BF:BC2. We can't exactly host ranked servers ourselves so we looked around for a GSP and they seemed to be doing a deal on BF:BC2 32 slot servers. Anyways, I'm unsure of them either for a TF2 server. Now, I have heard of ArtOfWarCentral.com, and I have played on a server on one of their boxes and I didn't like the way the server... felt. But that could just be me. If anyone can recommend which of these would be the best to go with, or if you can recommend a different host that offer's TF2 servers around $70 or under for 24 slots, I would appreciate it greatly. We're trying to cut back costs with the amount of server use we currently have, and a GSP is the way to go currently. Thanks, -- All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. - Unknown When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion. - Abraham Lincoln Mark J. Gunnett [EoE]SniperFodder{AL} ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
Great self promoting. I suggest you contact each host to see for yourself as everyone has there own needs. Regards Derek. Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:37:45 -0800 From: mido...@gmail.com To: hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions http://midnightgaming.net Do yourself a favor and check out some independent reviews starting with this one: http://gspreport.com/reviews/Midnight-Gaming I won't bash the other ones listed in this thread, but I would personally not use them. Read the reviews you'll see for yourself. MG consistently rates top of class and prices are mid range, can't go wrong like the reviews say. Jake Eisenman wrote: I've never had problems with ArtofWarCentral, they always answered my questions pretty fast (20 minutes with a few exceptions). Server starts to lag like once or twice a year, put in a ticket, solved. arreo...@gmail.com wrote: Had horrible experiences with ArtofWar's customer service. I would highly recommend against them. Slow, unable to do simple things to fix the servers in a timely manner. Left them and haven't looked back. Just keep in mind you always get what you pay for. If it looks too good to be true, then 99% of the time it is. Don't skimp on a few extra bucks because you'll only regret it latter when you find out the GSP has oversold the bandwidth on your underpowered shared server box. Arreo ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds _ ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
Our clients begs to differ which we have hundreds and hundreds of clients which are satisfied. Every host has the odd bad review mean while we have a large amount of great reviews. @ OP send me off an email and I will provide a free BFBC2 32 slot server ranked free for a month for you can test our service. Thank You Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 23:37:38 -0500 From: roadhous...@gmail.com To: ad...@oneskylitnight.org; hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions And I recommend against art of central too. never rented from them but several of my friends did. I recommend against xfactor also. check out gsptruth.com for why On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 11:36 PM, In Hyuk Seo roadhous...@gmail.com wrote: Sleekserver is really cheap but they have horrible network and you will have really high ping even if you are really close to the server. And they have only 1 location in Missouri which is meh... They are really cheap though. On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 11:23 PM, Jake Eisenman ad...@oneskylitnight.orgwrote: I've never had problems with ArtofWarCentral, they always answered my questions pretty fast (20 minutes with a few exceptions). Server starts to lag like once or twice a year, put in a ticket, solved. arreo...@gmail.com wrote: Had horrible experiences with ArtofWar's customer service. I would highly recommend against them. Slow, unable to do simple things to fix the servers in a timely manner. Left them and haven't looked back. Just keep in mind you always get what you pay for. If it looks too good to be true, then 99% of the time it is. Don't skimp on a few extra bucks because you'll only regret it latter when you find out the GSP has oversold the bandwidth on your underpowered shared server box. Arreo ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds _ ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
running I can’t really blame a whole lot of this on Aowc. They didn’t force me to pick the rig I picked. And maybe it’s just me, but it seems like I should be getting a lot more for my money… If we’re showing incredibly low performance (severe drop in tick for source servers) they tell us that we’re running too much on our machine. Please don’t tell me that we’re paying $240 dollars per month for a box that can’t handle 2 24 man 50 tick TF2 servers… If you plan on getting a dedicated server from Aowc for source games, don’t plan on getting their dual 3.0 Xeon rigs. I can’t say how other game engines run though, so it may just be a source thing. Servers crashing/randomly disconnecting We’ve had probably close to a dozen or more total crashes/network failures/power outages over the last year that lasted more than a few hours. Many actually last entire nights. The latest one occurred 2 days ago. About mid-day we noticed one of our dedicated servers were down. We could ping the server, but we couldn’t log into Rdc and we none of the dedicated servers running on that box were functional. We submitted a ticket at 1:21PM. 2 hours later we get a reply saying our Rdc was fixed. Well I tried logging on and it was still dead. We gave them a call, hoping something would get done a bit quicker. They said they would have the server pulled for closer inspection. At 9:30AM the next day they ask if we have a firewall that could be blocking the Rdc. I told them that we don’t have a firewall on there that blocks ports. I’m not sure if he was trying to be cool, or if they were legitimate spelling mistakes, but his response was “Aiite they're checking into it I'll tell you when I got more infos.”. So I waited and waited. Our machine finally came back up but was going incredibly slow (took about 20 seconds for a right mouse click to work). I asked for a hard reboot and that was the last time I saw the server online… 1 of the 3 Aowc support guys actually asked us if we knew what the issue was, which I found somewhat odd. The last thing they said to me, 2 days after the initial crash, is that they think it might be a hardware failure. Uptime for our 2 servers is definitely below their 99.5% guarantee. All in all, I’m incredibly dissatisfied with what I got from Art of War Central due to their lack of helpful support, unreliable network hardware, and overall ignorance. I have, however, never had a ticket go completely ignored by Aowc support, so it seems as though they are at least trying. Unfortunately, trying just doesn’t cut it when you have 80,000 players across 4 servers. I rate them a 4/10. Good luck in the future. Our contract is almost up, we have purchased a server and are moving to a different host. Maybe with time and dedication, you guys can once again become what you gloat about, but for now, you fall very short. there you have it. Best of luck with your GSP search. Feel free to message me with any questions about leetservers. I'll shoot youover some of my IPs so you can test them. Thank you, Alec Sanger From: xfactorserv...@live.ca To: hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 13:14:35 + Subject: Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions Our clients begs to differ which we have hundreds and hundreds of clients which are satisfied. Every host has the odd bad review mean while we have a large amount of great reviews. @ OP send me off an email and I will provide a free BFBC2 32 slot server ranked free for a month for you can test our service. Thank You Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 23:37:38 -0500 From: roadhous...@gmail.com To: ad...@oneskylitnight.org; hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions And I recommend against art of central too. never rented from them but several of my friends did. I recommend against xfactor also. check out gsptruth.com for why On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 11:36 PM, In Hyuk Seo roadhous...@gmail.com wrote: Sleekserver is really cheap but they have horrible network and you will have really high ping even if you are really close to the server. And they have only 1 location in Missouri which is meh... They are really cheap though. On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 11:23 PM, Jake Eisenman ad...@oneskylitnight.orgwrote: I've never had problems with ArtofWarCentral, they always answered my questions pretty fast (20 minutes with a few exceptions). Server starts to lag like once or twice a year, put in a ticket, solved. arreo...@gmail.com wrote: Had horrible experiences with ArtofWar's customer service. I would highly recommend against them. Slow, unable to do simple things to fix the servers in a timely manner. Left them and haven't looked back. Just keep in mind you always get what you pay for. If it looks too good to be true, then 99% of the time it is. Don't skimp on a few extra bucks because
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
@list.valvesoftware.com Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 13:14:35 + Subject: Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions Our clients begs to differ which we have hundreds and hundreds of clients which are satisfied. Every host has the odd bad review mean while we have a large amount of great reviews. @ OP send me off an email and I will provide a free BFBC2 32 slot server ranked free for a month for you can test our service. Thank You Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 23:37:38 -0500 From: roadhous...@gmail.com To: ad...@oneskylitnight.org; hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions And I recommend against art of central too. never rented from them but several of my friends did. I recommend against xfactor also. check out gsptruth.com for why On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 11:36 PM, In Hyuk Seoroadhous...@gmail.com wrote: Sleekserver is really cheap but they have horrible network and you will have really high ping even if you are really close to the server. And they have only 1 location in Missouri which is meh... They are really cheap though. On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 11:23 PM, Jake Eisenmanad...@oneskylitnight.orgwrote: I've never had problems with ArtofWarCentral, they always answered my questions pretty fast (20 minutes with a few exceptions). Server starts to lag like once or twice a year, put in a ticket, solved. arreo...@gmail.com wrote: Had horrible experiences with ArtofWar's customer service. I would highly recommend against them. Slow, unable to do simple things to fix the servers in a timely manner. Left them and haven't looked back. Just keep in mind you always get what you pay for. If it looks too good to be true, then 99% of the time it is. Don't skimp on a few extra bucks because you'll only regret it latter when you find out the GSP has oversold the bandwidth on your underpowered shared server box. Arreo ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds _ ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds _ Your E-mail and More On-the-Go. Get Windows Live Hotmail Free. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/201469229/direct/01/ ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.733 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2699 - Release Date: 02/20/10 02:34:00 ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
Hypernia, Never had any Problems. though my server has only been up for 4-5 months. Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 11:01:15 -0500 From: violentcri...@convictgaming.com To: hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions *xfactorservers.com * They were a good hosting I used them before they seem to have good tech support hardly any downtime. Derek one of the owners is always around and willing to help. He still helps me know whenever I have issues with something on TCAdmin and I don't even colo or rent servers with them anymore not because of issues with them. *Nuclearfallout.net* I think NFO lost all their good techs Main one started ultimategameserver.com as I remember an issue I had with them with a server I had purchased for some reason their hosting routed me to Washington State then back to Chicago from Michigan and they told me that wasn't a big deal and they weren't going to fix it. *gameservers.com * I have used them for 4 yrs. I use to host around 15 servers with them I am now down to 3 server with them. I understand why people hate them aswell I cannot say I haven't had days where I have wanted to hurt someone there if Tellz Worm are reading this you know who just be kind personally I have never had issue of lag besides when the server box was being attacked. Their response time is slow but do you want a quick response or the right one. With that said I think they need to hire a couple more techs. I would personally use xfactorservers.com or gameservers.com As for the site gspreport.com they don't really guard against spamming. Any GS employee or owner can make up all the reviews to boost their ratings. To prove my point about this site http://gspreport.com/reviews/GameServers check out CockToe CockToes he is awesome. In closing all hosting companies have downtime and bad techs you are just going to have to pick one and hop they work for you. On 2/20/2010 9:26 AM, Alec Sanger wrote: I've been with gameservers, artofwarcentral, and leetservers. I've gotta say that Bobby from leetservers is the best I've ever worked with. Some of my biggest issues in the past were performance, and I've never had a single performance issue with leet. It seems to be a small team working over there, but they do a great job. I've currently got 19 servers from him, with 6 BC2 servers on the way. I won't say much about gameservers. They can offer you low low prices, but at the expense of performance. I think it's just matter of them overloading their boxes. Sometimes we'd get good performance, but other times it'd be bad. As for artofwarcentral... oh god... I'm going to post the book of a testimonial I wrote to them and posted on their forums in the testimonial section. Needless to say it was deleted within an hour. That pissed me right the fuck off, so I'm happy sharing it with everyone who wants to read it. I'd like to give my testimonial. Now this isn't a rant. I've had 2 dedicated servers with Art of War Central for 1 year. I've taken everything that's happened over the last year into consideration when writing this. And please note, I have never actually rented a single game server from Aowc, only dedicated servers. So where do I start... ah yes, lets start with their tech support. When it comes to support, Aowc is absolutely lacking. What I've gathered is that when it comes to dedicated servers, Art Of War Central does not actually have any more control over things than the customer does. When you submit a ticket to Aowc, it appears that they then contact the datacenter somehow (call? submit a ticket of their own?) and have whoever is working at that particular datacenter fix the problem. What is the need for the middle man? Why am I paying Aowc? When there is an issue with our servers, I like to know what happened. Oh it's fixed now sorry doesn't cut it for me. When I ask what the problem was, I get a response such as I do not know, the datacenter fixed it they didn't give me a description. This is pretty poor communication. The datacenter should relay what the issue was back to Aowc and Aowc should be able to supply me with a cause when I request. To give them credit, they were able to get our first box rebuilt because it was giving us so many issues. Unfortunately, when we got that server up, we went from 6 Ips to 1 Ip, and they were trying to charge us to get them back. After it reached management they just gave them back to us. Like I mentioned before, it seems as though they lease their equipment, so when a customer contacts the Aowc tech support, the Aowc tech support has to contact the dacacenter tech support. There's a lot of room for error there. While still on the subject of poor support, lets talk about the lag and what kind of responses I get when bringing it up
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
% and 30% loss over hundreds and hundreds of sent packets. Management comes back requesting 3 Mtr reports each with over 1000 packets, as well as my home Ip. No matter how many times we say that the issue is going on right now with everyone one the server and not just me, they simply will not investigate the situation. Instead they require you to do all the work so they can tell you the obvious several hours later. “We are having a network outage on one of our providers”. So we know the drill now. Send tracerts, send a ton of Mtr reports with thousands of packets, send a home Ip, and wait. Well next time we’re having loss, we pinpoint the problem on a Savvis hub. We’re getting loss when we hit that hop. It’s shown clearly in all of the Mtr reports. Granted, there’s not a whole lot Aowc can do about this, since they do not run Savvis, but their response to all of our data was to get in game screenshots if we see loss on the server, and the problematic Ips that we found are fine. Please tell me you’re joking. So now apart from tracerts, 3 Mtr reports with over 1000 packets each, and my home Ip, I Also need to send in game screenshots showing loss? Again, why am I paying Aowc? There was one time in particular that we were having loss around 20%. We submitted a tracert showing clear packet loss and the response from management was “thoes time outs are normal router reaction data is till going though fast”. Eventually we got sick of trying to submit tickets for lag. The stress of dealing with these guys was far worse than the stress of players complaining. Now on to the “powerful” rigs they’re running I can’t really blame a whole lot of this on Aowc. They didn’t force me to pick the rig I picked. And maybe it’s just me, but it seems like I should be getting a lot more for my money… If we’re showing incredibly low performance (severe drop in tick for source servers) they tell us that we’re running too much on our machine. Please don’t tell me that we’re paying $240 dollars per month for a box that can’t handle 2 24 man 50 tick TF2 servers… If you plan on getting a dedicated server from Aowc for source games, don’t plan on getting their dual 3.0 Xeon rigs. I can’t say how other game engines run though, so it may just be a source thing. Servers crashing/randomly disconnecting We’ve had probably close to a dozen or more total crashes/network failures/power outages over the last year that lasted more than a few hours. Many actually last entire nights. The latest one occurred 2 days ago. About mid-day we noticed one of our dedicated servers were down. We could ping the server, but we couldn’t log into Rdc and we none of the dedicated servers running on that box were functional. We submitted a ticket at 1:21PM. 2 hours later we get a reply saying our Rdc was fixed. Well I tried logging on and it was still dead. We gave them a call, hoping something would get done a bit quicker. They said they would have the server pulled for closer inspection. At 9:30AM the next day they ask if we have a firewall that could be blocking the Rdc. I told them that we don’t have a firewall on there that blocks ports. I’m not sure if he was trying to be cool, or if they were legitimate spelling mistakes, but his response was “Aiite they're checking into it I'll tell you when I got more infos.”. So I waited and waited. Our machine finally came back up but was going incredibly slow (took about 20 seconds for a right mouse click to work). I asked for a hard reboot and that was the last time I saw the server online… 1 of the 3 Aowc support guys actually asked us if we knew what the issue was, which I found somewhat odd. The last thing they said to me, 2 days after the initial crash, is that they think it might be a hardware failure. Uptime for our 2 servers is definitely below their 99.5% guarantee. All in all, I’m incredibly dissatisfied with what I got from Art of War Central due to their lack of helpful support, unreliable network hardware, and overall ignorance. I have, however, never had a ticket go completely ignored by Aowc support, so it seems as though they are at least trying. Unfortunately, trying just doesn’t cut it when you have 80,000 players across 4 servers. I rate them a 4/10. Good luck in the future. Our contract is almost up, we have purchased a server and are moving to a different host. Maybe with time and dedication, you guys can once again become what you gloat about, but for now, you fall very short. there you have it. Best of luck with your GSP search. Feel free to message me with any questions about leetservers. I'll shoot youover some of my IPs so you can test them. Thank you, Alec Sanger From: xfactorserv...@live.ca To: hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 13:14:35 + Subject: Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions Our clients begs to differ which we have
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
We ordered 2x dual dual-core xeon @ 3.2 (Can't remember the core) boxes from them. Can't remember the cost off hand. After our experience with them we decided to purchase our own physical hardware and colocate ourselves, so all we were paying for was rack space and bandwidth. In the end, our colocation center got bought out and they jacked up the price so we eventually sided with renting individual servers. That was almost 2 years ago and we've been completely satisfied ever since. Thank you, Alec Sanger Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 10:24:23 -0600 From: cc2isc...@gmail.com To: hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions Alex, Many times with dedicated servers smaller providers just resell dedicated services for higher cost and are just the middleman, and offer no actual support because they cannot afford the hardware they're selling you, and thus are just reselling from an actual dedicated provider (sounds like they were on very cheap cogent or something with the packet loss.) Unfortunately your review is all too common in the hosting industry. Sounds like AoW was also jacking up the price on the server box you were renting to make extra money. What were the specs of the box you were purchasing, if you don't mind my asking? If you're going to go with a dedicated provider, go with one that does dedicated servers directly and doesn't just resell for someone else. They may not be able to help you with gameserver issues...but if you're running a dedicated box you should know how to run your own servers already. Note these comments are not necessarily directed at you, Alex, just giving heads up for anyone looking for something similar. For a dedicated box, I would recommend http://www.dedicentral.com. While he does resell for a larger provider, he keeps the prices at a reasonable level, was a big contributor to webhostingtalk, and over the two years I had dedicated servers I think I only had one issue with latency that was due to a router issue, which was fixed within a few hours. I recommend contacting him directly via email for custom boxes, as they don't have many standard setups on their website. On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 8:26 AM, Alec Sanger eclyp...@hotmail.com wrote: I've been with gameservers, artofwarcentral, and leetservers. I've gotta say that Bobby from leetservers is the best I've ever worked with. Some of my biggest issues in the past were performance, and I've never had a single performance issue with leet. It seems to be a small team working over there, but they do a great job. I've currently got 19 servers from him, with 6 BC2 servers on the way. I won't say much about gameservers. They can offer you low low prices, but at the expense of performance. I think it's just matter of them overloading their boxes. Sometimes we'd get good performance, but other times it'd be bad. As for artofwarcentral... oh god... I'm going to post the book of a testimonial I wrote to them and posted on their forums in the testimonial section. Needless to say it was deleted within an hour. That pissed me right the fuck off, so I'm happy sharing it with everyone who wants to read it. I’d like to give my testimonial. Now this isn’t a rant. I’ve had 2 dedicated servers with Art of War Central for 1 year. I’ve taken everything that’s happened over the last year into consideration when writing this. And please note, I have never actually rented a single game server from Aowc, only dedicated servers. So where do I start… ah yes, lets start with their tech support. When it comes to support, Aowc is absolutely lacking. What I've gathered is that when it comes to dedicated servers, Art Of War Central does not actually have any more control over things than the customer does. When you submit a ticket to Aowc, it appears that they then contact the datacenter somehow (call? submit a ticket of their own?) and have whoever is working at that particular datacenter fix the problem. What is the need for the middle man? Why am I paying Aowc? When there is an issue with our servers, I like to know what happened. “Oh it’s fixed now sorry” doesn’t cut it for me. When I ask what the problem was, I get a response such as “I do not know, the datacenter fixed it they didn't give me a description”. This is pretty poor communication. The datacenter should relay what the issue was back to Aowc and Aowc should be able to supply me with a cause when I request. To give them credit, they were able to get our first box “rebuilt” because it was giving us so many issues. Unfortunately, when we got that server up, we went from 6 Ips to 1 Ip, and they were trying to charge us to get them back. After it reached management they just gave them back to us. Like I mentioned before, it seems as though they lease their equipment, so when a customer contacts
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
Violent Crimes, I think NFO lost all their good techs Main one started ultimategameserver.com as I remember an issue I had with them with a server I had purchased for some reason their hosting routed me to Washington State then back to Chicago from Michigan and they told me that wasn't a big deal and they weren't going to fix it. Are you thinking of another company when you talk about NFO here? No techs have left us to start other companies, and all of our current employees have worked here for 3+ years. We take performance problems very seriously and would never say that a routing issue of that magnitude was not a big deal. Performance is our bread and butter and a guarantee even stems from it. As for the site gspreport.com they don't really guard against spamming. I second this. gspreport.com is clearly no longer being maintained, has had the same This Months Top 5 GSP's up for at least a year, and as you said, is extremely spammy. The numbers also don't add up on the reviews -- look at NFO's page and average out the numbers from the individual reviews, and you can see that they don't match the top at all :). Mark, on this list, you're going to see a lot of advertisements from GSPs themselves. I'd recommend making a second list and boiling it down to the most attractive three companies, then trying each one out for a month, if you can (without letting them know they're competing). Investigate the server performance and flexibility. Then, to see their response times and knowledge levels, ask all of them questions about improving your routing and server performance, plugin questions, and server configuration questions through their support system, even if you already know the answers. Experiment with the control panel and different services. (If a company offers a free trial or money-back guarantee, you could also take advantage of that, but a month would give you a longer view on server stability and uptime.) The three company strategy is often used for interviews with contractors, and it's a solid one. -John ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
I might be off on the Tech leaving pretty sure it was NFO, but I am 100% sure about the routing issue I remember that part. Been with alot of bad companies I can remember why I left each one. I agree with him though I would test out each company and see how well they treat you. Everyone has there opinion but the only one that matters is your own. On 2/20/2010 1:11 PM, John wrote: Violent Crimes, I think NFO lost all their good techs Main one started ultimategameserver.com as I remember an issue I had with them with a server I had purchased for some reason their hosting routed me to Washington State then back to Chicago from Michigan and they told me that wasn't a big deal and they weren't going to fix it. Are you thinking of another company when you talk about NFO here? No techs have left us to start other companies, and all of our current employees have worked here for 3+ years. We take performance problems very seriously and would never say that a routing issue of that magnitude was not a big deal. Performance is our bread and butter and a guarantee even stems from it. As for the site gspreport.com they don't really guard against spamming. I second this. gspreport.com is clearly no longer being maintained, has had the same This Months Top 5 GSP's up for at least a year, and as you said, is extremely spammy. The numbers also don't add up on the reviews -- look at NFO's page and average out the numbers from the individual reviews, and you can see that they don't match the top at all :). Mark, on this list, you're going to see a lot of advertisements from GSPs themselves. I'd recommend making a second list and boiling it down to the most attractive three companies, then trying each one out for a month, if you can (without letting them know they're competing). Investigate the server performance and flexibility. Then, to see their response times and knowledge levels, ask all of them questions about improving your routing and server performance, plugin questions, and server configuration questions through their support system, even if you already know the answers. Experiment with the control panel and different services. (If a company offers a free trial or money-back guarantee, you could also take advantage of that, but a month would give you a longer view on server stability and uptime.) The three company strategy is often used for interviews with contractors, and it's a solid one. -John ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.733 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2699 - Release Date: 02/20/10 02:34:00 ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
Yes I have to agree on testing a few places out and see how they really are, I once rented a few cs servers from counter-strike.com and it ran pretty good for the most part when we decided to go with a dedicated server that they started to offer we thought it would be a good time to let our clan grow... After a good two-three months of everything working great we started to get really bad lag on our gungame server turned into one side would spawn and the lag was so bad half the other team would be killed before you seen yourself spawn anyways long story short the dedicated server they had for us was really running on VMware and it was getting overloaded I take it since thats the only way I could get anything of my own to lag like that. After having issues with them I went and bought myself a nice dual quad core and have been using a few of those since. Having a dedicated box/colocation is not worth it unless you're hosting a good amount of servers. Nuclearfallout has always been a good one on my list, sure it costs a bit more than some of the other places but you sometimes get what you pay for. If you think they charge to much just get a quote from Internap, I got one when trying to start my gsp up and it's a pretty nice bill to start out. Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 14:06:04 -0500 From: violentcri...@convictgaming.com To: hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions I might be off on the Tech leaving pretty sure it was NFO, but I am 100% sure about the routing issue I remember that part. Been with alot of bad companies I can remember why I left each one. I agree with him though I would test out each company and see how well they treat you. Everyone has there opinion but the only one that matters is your own. On 2/20/2010 1:11 PM, John wrote: Violent Crimes, I think NFO lost all their good techs Main one started ultimategameserver.com as I remember an issue I had with them with a server I had purchased for some reason their hosting routed me to Washington State then back to Chicago from Michigan and they told me that wasn't a big deal and they weren't going to fix it. Are you thinking of another company when you talk about NFO here? No techs have left us to start other companies, and all of our current employees have worked here for 3+ years. We take performance problems very seriously and would never say that a routing issue of that magnitude was not a big deal. Performance is our bread and butter and a guarantee even stems from it. As for the site gspreport.com they don't really guard against spamming. I second this. gspreport.com is clearly no longer being maintained, has had the same This Months Top 5 GSP's up for at least a year, and as you said, is extremely spammy. The numbers also don't add up on the reviews -- look at NFO's page and average out the numbers from the individual reviews, and you can see that they don't match the top at all :). Mark, on this list, you're going to see a lot of advertisements from GSPs themselves. I'd recommend making a second list and boiling it down to the most attractive three companies, then trying each one out for a month, if you can (without letting them know they're competing). Investigate the server performance and flexibility. Then, to see their response times and knowledge levels, ask all of them questions about improving your routing and server performance, plugin questions, and server configuration questions through their support system, even if you already know the answers. Experiment with the control panel and different services. (If a company offers a free trial or money-back guarantee, you could also take advantage of that, but a month would give you a longer view on server stability and uptime.) The three company strategy is often used for interviews with contractors, and it's a solid one. -John ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.733 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2699 - Release Date: 02/20/10 02:34:00 ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds _ ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
Sounds like all but #2 support ticket would be useless in most any other host. On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 10:21 PM, Matt Stanton inflatablesoulm...@brothersofchaos.com wrote: Wouldn't that also mean that metamod plugins would require support tickets? What if you need to add DFENS? On 2/20/2010 10:16 PM, Nicholas Hastings wrote: So what you're saying is that Hypernia won't let you put extensions on yourself and that you have to wait hours for them to update them instead? On 2/20/2010 9:26 PM, Josh Bost wrote: To further my previous recommendation for Hypernia I would like to note I have submitted 3 support tickets so far: 1) Getting TF2 extensions added to the management panel to allow PropHunt: Done in 3 hours, even though after sending in initial ticket I had to get the server owner to send in a ticket allowing me to request stuff for them. (They don't allow clients to uplaod .dll files on their 'By the slot' servers) 2) Getting them to allow me to have a 16-slot L4D2 server. Resolved in 12 hours, though that was due to me sending the ticket and going to bed :P actual respose to the first ticket was like 45 minutes. 3) Getting L4Downtown updated. Done in an hour. Cheers, Joshua 'Dislexsick' Bost On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 4:41 AM, Johnlists.va...@nuclearfallout.net wrote: Investigate the server performance and flexibility. Then, to see their response times and knowledge levels, ask all of them questions about improving your routing and server performance, plugin questions, and server configuration questions through their support system, even if you already know the answers. Experiment with the control panel and different services. (If a company offers a free trial or money-back guarantee, you could also take advantage of that, but a month would give you a longer view on server stability and uptime.) The three company strategy is often used for interviews with contractors, and it's a solid one. -John ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
Sounds to me like a good way of doing business. That way the GSP doesn't have to fuck around because some douchebag customer broke their own server. On 21/02/2010 12:24 PM, Cc2iscooL wrote: Sounds like all but #2 support ticket would be useless in most any other host. On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 10:21 PM, Matt Stanton inflatablesoulm...@brothersofchaos.com wrote: Wouldn't that also mean that metamod plugins would require support tickets? What if you need to add DFENS? On 2/20/2010 10:16 PM, Nicholas Hastings wrote: So what you're saying is that Hypernia won't let you put extensions on yourself and that you have to wait hours for them to update them instead? On 2/20/2010 9:26 PM, Josh Bost wrote: To further my previous recommendation for Hypernia I would like to note I have submitted 3 support tickets so far: 1) Getting TF2 extensions added to the management panel to allow PropHunt: Done in 3 hours, even though after sending in initial ticket I had to get the server owner to send in a ticket allowing me to request stuff for them. (They don't allow clients to uplaod .dll files on their 'By the slot' servers) 2) Getting them to allow me to have a 16-slot L4D2 server. Resolved in 12 hours, though that was due to me sending the ticket and going to bed :P actual respose to the first ticket was like 45 minutes. 3) Getting L4Downtown updated. Done in an hour. Cheers, Joshua 'Dislexsick' Bost On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 4:41 AM, Johnlists.va...@nuclearfallout.net wrote: Investigate the server performance and flexibility. Then, to see their response times and knowledge levels, ask all of them questions about improving your routing and server performance, plugin questions, and server configuration questions through their support system, even if you already know the answers. Experiment with the control panel and different services. (If a company offers a free trial or money-back guarantee, you could also take advantage of that, but a month would give you a longer view on server stability and uptime.) The three company strategy is often used for interviews with contractors, and it's a solid one. -John ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
Hi Guys, To touch on this, that is correct we do limit certain file types to be uploaded by our clients in the shared environments and it is because we are very keen on our security. There are a handful of MODs that are floating about that allow you to exec commands on the host machine, which can easily lead to an individual client compromising an entire shared server and taking down not his own account but everyone else who is hosted on the same machine. We add MODs to our web panel upon request which allows the client to do one click installs of them to their game servers. This makes it allot easier for those who are less experienced in the server arts and also allows our support staff to easily see what has been installed to the game server which in turn greatly helps with troubleshooting. With all shared environments you have to be very careful on the security in order to prevent unnecessary downtime and/or loss of client data. Hope that makes sense to everyone :) -Lane -Original Message- From: hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com [mailto:hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com] On Behalf Of Shane Arnold Sent: Saturday, February 20, 2010 11:30 PM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions Sounds to me like a good way of doing business. That way the GSP doesn't have to fuck around because some douchebag customer broke their own server. On 21/02/2010 12:24 PM, Cc2iscooL wrote: Sounds like all but #2 support ticket would be useless in most any other host. On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 10:21 PM, Matt Stanton inflatablesoulm...@brothersofchaos.com wrote: Wouldn't that also mean that metamod plugins would require support tickets? What if you need to add DFENS? On 2/20/2010 10:16 PM, Nicholas Hastings wrote: So what you're saying is that Hypernia won't let you put extensions on yourself and that you have to wait hours for them to update them instead? On 2/20/2010 9:26 PM, Josh Bost wrote: To further my previous recommendation for Hypernia I would like to note I have submitted 3 support tickets so far: 1) Getting TF2 extensions added to the management panel to allow PropHunt: Done in 3 hours, even though after sending in initial ticket I had to get the server owner to send in a ticket allowing me to request stuff for them. (They don't allow clients to uplaod .dll files on their 'By the slot' servers) 2) Getting them to allow me to have a 16-slot L4D2 server. Resolved in 12 hours, though that was due to me sending the ticket and going to bed :P actual respose to the first ticket was like 45 minutes. 3) Getting L4Downtown updated. Done in an hour. Cheers, Joshua 'Dislexsick' Bost On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 4:41 AM, Johnlists.va...@nuclearfallout.net wrote: Investigate the server performance and flexibility. Then, to see their response times and knowledge levels, ask all of them questions about improving your routing and server performance, plugin questions, and server configuration questions through their support system, even if you already know the answers. Experiment with the control panel and different services. (If a company offers a free trial or money-back guarantee, you could also take advantage of that, but a month would give you a longer view on server stability and uptime.) The three company strategy is often used for interviews with contractors, and it's a solid one. -John ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds __ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4883 (20100220) __ The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com __ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4883 (20100220) __ The message was checked by ESET Smart Security
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
@Nicholas: Yes. That is correct, as Lane mentioned however there are common items available in 'one-click' format (In the case of L4D2 last time I checked it was several versions of MM+SM, SDK Hooks, and a few others). It makes sense for me, given that if they didn't prevent it not only are the problems Lane mentioned present, however anybody can then add L4DToolz or L4Downtown and give themselves an increased slot count*, or other action like that. Lets not even go into what they could write themselves. *Though doing this without authorization gets your server disabled :P @Matt: Yes, however as it stands my server only runs MM, SM, L4Downtown, and SDK Hooks and the update for L4Downtown wasn't critical, all others were installed through management panel. @Cc2iscool: See previous points - those extensions could have easily been malicios. @Shane: Exactly. Cheers, Joshua 'Dislexsick' Bost On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 2:46 PM, Nicholas Hastings nshasti...@gmail.com wrote: So what you're saying is that Hypernia won't let you put extensions on yourself and that you have to wait hours for them to update them instead? On 2/20/2010 9:26 PM, Josh Bost wrote: To further my previous recommendation for Hypernia I would like to note I have submitted 3 support tickets so far: 1) Getting TF2 extensions added to the management panel to allow PropHunt: Done in 3 hours, even though after sending in initial ticket I had to get the server owner to send in a ticket allowing me to request stuff for them. (They don't allow clients to uplaod .dll files on their 'By the slot' servers) 2) Getting them to allow me to have a 16-slot L4D2 server. Resolved in 12 hours, though that was due to me sending the ticket and going to bed :P actual respose to the first ticket was like 45 minutes. 3) Getting L4Downtown updated. Done in an hour. Cheers, Joshua 'Dislexsick' Bost On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 4:41 AM, Johnlists.va...@nuclearfallout.net wrote: Investigate the server performance and flexibility. Then, to see their response times and knowledge levels, ask all of them questions about improving your routing and server performance, plugin questions, and server configuration questions through their support system, even if you already know the answers. Experiment with the control panel and different services. (If a company offers a free trial or money-back guarantee, you could also take advantage of that, but a month would give you a longer view on server stability and uptime.) The three company strategy is often used for interviews with contractors, and it's a solid one. -John ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
apoplexy industries, best service I've ever had on phenomenal servers. http://www.aigaming.com Mark Gunnett wrote: So, My clan right now runs all of our game servers off of a dedicated box that costs around $135 a month. This was cheaper by far since we used to run anywhere between 7-10 game servers. The keywords there are used to and was, since recently we've found that we really don't have members playing those games anymore, and therefore it's kind of pointless to be renting this dedicated box. So we are going to switch to running 1 game server (TF2, 24 slots) from a GSP. Now here is a listing of the GSP's I've looked at, pricing wise: Gameservers.com - $71.95 Nuclearfallout.net - $65.99 ($68.98 with a HLStatsX Installation) MyInternetServices.com - $45.00 ArtOfWarCentral.com - $39.70 Now, I myself have personal experience with Nuclearfallout.net. As far as I could tell, the NFO servers I have hosted weren't exactly all that great, but they weren't bad either. I always here crap about the GameServers.com servers, but I don't know from personal experience if they are worth that kind of money. Now, I only heard of MyInterenetServices.com because of the deal they had going on for BF:BC2. We can't exactly host ranked servers ourselves so we looked around for a GSP and they seemed to be doing a deal on BF:BC2 32 slot servers. Anyways, I'm unsure of them either for a TF2 server. Now, I have heard of ArtOfWarCentral.com, and I have played on a server on one of their boxes and I didn't like the way the server... felt. But that could just be me. If anyone can recommend which of these would be the best to go with, or if you can recommend a different host that offer's TF2 servers around $70 or under for 24 slots, I would appreciate it greatly. We're trying to cut back costs with the amount of server use we currently have, and a GSP is the way to go currently. Thanks, ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
http://www.branzone.com/specials.php http://www.branzone.com/specials.php$32 for 32slots, just don't get the 128 fps server; I know someone who uses branzone and they say its ok On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 9:54 PM, Mark Gunnett mgunnett4...@gmail.comwrote: So, My clan right now runs all of our game servers off of a dedicated box that costs around $135 a month. This was cheaper by far since we used to run anywhere between 7-10 game servers. The keywords there are used to and was, since recently we've found that we really don't have members playing those games anymore, and therefore it's kind of pointless to be renting this dedicated box. So we are going to switch to running 1 game server (TF2, 24 slots) from a GSP. Now here is a listing of the GSP's I've looked at, pricing wise: Gameservers.com - $71.95 Nuclearfallout.net - $65.99 ($68.98 with a HLStatsX Installation) MyInternetServices.com - $45.00 ArtOfWarCentral.com - $39.70 Now, I myself have personal experience with Nuclearfallout.net. As far as I could tell, the NFO servers I have hosted weren't exactly all that great, but they weren't bad either. I always here crap about the GameServers.com servers, but I don't know from personal experience if they are worth that kind of money. Now, I only heard of MyInterenetServices.com because of the deal they had going on for BF:BC2. We can't exactly host ranked servers ourselves so we looked around for a GSP and they seemed to be doing a deal on BF:BC2 32 slot servers. Anyways, I'm unsure of them either for a TF2 server. Now, I have heard of ArtOfWarCentral.com, and I have played on a server on one of their boxes and I didn't like the way the server... felt. But that could just be me. If anyone can recommend which of these would be the best to go with, or if you can recommend a different host that offer's TF2 servers around $70 or under for 24 slots, I would appreciate it greatly. We're trying to cut back costs with the amount of server use we currently have, and a GSP is the way to go currently. Thanks, -- All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. - Unknown When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion. - Abraham Lincoln Mark J. Gunnett [EoE]SniperFodder{AL} ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
I assume the gameservers.com one you were looking at was the 500 FPS. I don't have experience with their higher FPS offerings but I know their basic ones are fairly laggy and bounce between 10 and 250 FPS all the time...I wouldn't recommend using a base server from them unless you want really cheap. NFO I hear is good but they tend to be pricey. I personally like Branzone, their servers run pretty well, even the basic ones, so they're good to go with, and their staff tends to be helpful and quick (much quicker than Gameservers.) Don't have any info on the other ones or experience. On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 9:54 PM, Mark Gunnett mgunnett4...@gmail.comwrote: So, My clan right now runs all of our game servers off of a dedicated box that costs around $135 a month. This was cheaper by far since we used to run anywhere between 7-10 game servers. The keywords there are used to and was, since recently we've found that we really don't have members playing those games anymore, and therefore it's kind of pointless to be renting this dedicated box. So we are going to switch to running 1 game server (TF2, 24 slots) from a GSP. Now here is a listing of the GSP's I've looked at, pricing wise: Gameservers.com - $71.95 Nuclearfallout.net - $65.99 ($68.98 with a HLStatsX Installation) MyInternetServices.com - $45.00 ArtOfWarCentral.com - $39.70 Now, I myself have personal experience with Nuclearfallout.net. As far as I could tell, the NFO servers I have hosted weren't exactly all that great, but they weren't bad either. I always here crap about the GameServers.com servers, but I don't know from personal experience if they are worth that kind of money. Now, I only heard of MyInterenetServices.com because of the deal they had going on for BF:BC2. We can't exactly host ranked servers ourselves so we looked around for a GSP and they seemed to be doing a deal on BF:BC2 32 slot servers. Anyways, I'm unsure of them either for a TF2 server. Now, I have heard of ArtOfWarCentral.com, and I have played on a server on one of their boxes and I didn't like the way the server... felt. But that could just be me. If anyone can recommend which of these would be the best to go with, or if you can recommend a different host that offer's TF2 servers around $70 or under for 24 slots, I would appreciate it greatly. We're trying to cut back costs with the amount of server use we currently have, and a GSP is the way to go currently. Thanks, -- All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. - Unknown When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion. - Abraham Lincoln Mark J. Gunnett [EoE]SniperFodder{AL} ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
Their basic servers are kinda...meh. They work and generally are stable but they bounce between 10-125 with a full 24 server like Gameservers. Causes choke constantly. I'd recommend their higher offering if you're going to go with them. On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 10:01 PM, Kornelijus Survila kornhol...@gmail.comwrote: http://www.branzone.com/specials.php http://www.branzone.com/specials.php$32 for 32slots, just don't get the 128 fps server; I know someone who uses branzone and they say its ok On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 9:54 PM, Mark Gunnett mgunnett4...@gmail.com wrote: So, My clan right now runs all of our game servers off of a dedicated box that costs around $135 a month. This was cheaper by far since we used to run anywhere between 7-10 game servers. The keywords there are used to and was, since recently we've found that we really don't have members playing those games anymore, and therefore it's kind of pointless to be renting this dedicated box. So we are going to switch to running 1 game server (TF2, 24 slots) from a GSP. Now here is a listing of the GSP's I've looked at, pricing wise: Gameservers.com - $71.95 Nuclearfallout.net - $65.99 ($68.98 with a HLStatsX Installation) MyInternetServices.com - $45.00 ArtOfWarCentral.com - $39.70 Now, I myself have personal experience with Nuclearfallout.net. As far as I could tell, the NFO servers I have hosted weren't exactly all that great, but they weren't bad either. I always here crap about the GameServers.com servers, but I don't know from personal experience if they are worth that kind of money. Now, I only heard of MyInterenetServices.com because of the deal they had going on for BF:BC2. We can't exactly host ranked servers ourselves so we looked around for a GSP and they seemed to be doing a deal on BF:BC2 32 slot servers. Anyways, I'm unsure of them either for a TF2 server. Now, I have heard of ArtOfWarCentral.com, and I have played on a server on one of their boxes and I didn't like the way the server... felt. But that could just be me. If anyone can recommend which of these would be the best to go with, or if you can recommend a different host that offer's TF2 servers around $70 or under for 24 slots, I would appreciate it greatly. We're trying to cut back costs with the amount of server use we currently have, and a GSP is the way to go currently. Thanks, -- All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. - Unknown When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion. - Abraham Lincoln Mark J. Gunnett [EoE]SniperFodder{AL} ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
try sleekservers.com On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 11:04 PM, Cc2iscooL cc2isc...@gmail.com wrote: Their basic servers are kinda...meh. They work and generally are stable but they bounce between 10-125 with a full 24 server like Gameservers. Causes choke constantly. I'd recommend their higher offering if you're going to go with them. On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 10:01 PM, Kornelijus Survila kornhol...@gmail.comwrote: http://www.branzone.com/specials.php http://www.branzone.com/specials.php$32 for 32slots, just don't get the 128 fps server; I know someone who uses branzone and they say its ok On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 9:54 PM, Mark Gunnett mgunnett4...@gmail.com wrote: So, My clan right now runs all of our game servers off of a dedicated box that costs around $135 a month. This was cheaper by far since we used to run anywhere between 7-10 game servers. The keywords there are used to and was, since recently we've found that we really don't have members playing those games anymore, and therefore it's kind of pointless to be renting this dedicated box. So we are going to switch to running 1 game server (TF2, 24 slots) from a GSP. Now here is a listing of the GSP's I've looked at, pricing wise: Gameservers.com - $71.95 Nuclearfallout.net - $65.99 ($68.98 with a HLStatsX Installation) MyInternetServices.com - $45.00 ArtOfWarCentral.com - $39.70 Now, I myself have personal experience with Nuclearfallout.net. As far as I could tell, the NFO servers I have hosted weren't exactly all that great, but they weren't bad either. I always here crap about the GameServers.com servers, but I don't know from personal experience if they are worth that kind of money. Now, I only heard of MyInterenetServices.com because of the deal they had going on for BF:BC2. We can't exactly host ranked servers ourselves so we looked around for a GSP and they seemed to be doing a deal on BF:BC2 32 slot servers. Anyways, I'm unsure of them either for a TF2 server. Now, I have heard of ArtOfWarCentral.com, and I have played on a server on one of their boxes and I didn't like the way the server... felt. But that could just be me. If anyone can recommend which of these would be the best to go with, or if you can recommend a different host that offer's TF2 servers around $70 or under for 24 slots, I would appreciate it greatly. We're trying to cut back costs with the amount of server use we currently have, and a GSP is the way to go currently. Thanks, -- All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. - Unknown When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion. - Abraham Lincoln Mark J. Gunnett [EoE]SniperFodder{AL} ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
Had horrible experiences with ArtofWar's customer service. I would highly recommend against them. Slow, unable to do simple things to fix the servers in a timely manner. Left them and haven't looked back. Just keep in mind you always get what you pay for. If it looks too good to be true, then 99% of the time it is. Don't skimp on a few extra bucks because you'll only regret it latter when you find out the GSP has oversold the bandwidth on your underpowered shared server box. Arreo ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
I've never had problems with ArtofWarCentral, they always answered my questions pretty fast (20 minutes with a few exceptions). Server starts to lag like once or twice a year, put in a ticket, solved. arreo...@gmail.com wrote: Had horrible experiences with ArtofWar's customer service. I would highly recommend against them. Slow, unable to do simple things to fix the servers in a timely manner. Left them and haven't looked back. Just keep in mind you always get what you pay for. If it looks too good to be true, then 99% of the time it is. Don't skimp on a few extra bucks because you'll only regret it latter when you find out the GSP has oversold the bandwidth on your underpowered shared server box. Arreo ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
Sleekserver is really cheap but they have horrible network and you will have really high ping even if you are really close to the server. And they have only 1 location in Missouri which is meh... They are really cheap though. On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 11:23 PM, Jake Eisenman ad...@oneskylitnight.orgwrote: I've never had problems with ArtofWarCentral, they always answered my questions pretty fast (20 minutes with a few exceptions). Server starts to lag like once or twice a year, put in a ticket, solved. arreo...@gmail.com wrote: Had horrible experiences with ArtofWar's customer service. I would highly recommend against them. Slow, unable to do simple things to fix the servers in a timely manner. Left them and haven't looked back. Just keep in mind you always get what you pay for. If it looks too good to be true, then 99% of the time it is. Don't skimp on a few extra bucks because you'll only regret it latter when you find out the GSP has oversold the bandwidth on your underpowered shared server box. Arreo ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
And I recommend against art of central too. never rented from them but several of my friends did. I recommend against xfactor also. check out gsptruth.com for why On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 11:36 PM, In Hyuk Seo roadhous...@gmail.com wrote: Sleekserver is really cheap but they have horrible network and you will have really high ping even if you are really close to the server. And they have only 1 location in Missouri which is meh... They are really cheap though. On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 11:23 PM, Jake Eisenman ad...@oneskylitnight.orgwrote: I've never had problems with ArtofWarCentral, they always answered my questions pretty fast (20 minutes with a few exceptions). Server starts to lag like once or twice a year, put in a ticket, solved. arreo...@gmail.com wrote: Had horrible experiences with ArtofWar's customer service. I would highly recommend against them. Slow, unable to do simple things to fix the servers in a timely manner. Left them and haven't looked back. Just keep in mind you always get what you pay for. If it looks too good to be true, then 99% of the time it is. Don't skimp on a few extra bucks because you'll only regret it latter when you find out the GSP has oversold the bandwidth on your underpowered shared server box. Arreo ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
Yes, really Justin. -.- How many GSPs have you used? It depends on what kind of ISP you use also. It might be smooth for some but they have terrible network. They're just really cheap. (price) On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 12:15 AM, Josh Bost dislexs...@dislexsick.comwrote: Here in Australia Hypernia are really good, not so sure about over in America though - They are cheapest here, because they piggyback off and ISPs network (iiNet, IIRC) which means they mostly negate the whopping price for bandwidth in Australia... My server is a bit laggy, but it is reasonable given I am running a 16-slot L4D2 server off what should be an 8-slot server (To get 16-slots I specifically had to lodge a ticket and get it approved. Though they bumped the cost and slot count up I doubt they assigned extra resources...) On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 3:26 PM, Justin mysteriousjus...@gmail.com wrote: Really? im getting pings within the 60's from florida using sleek..:P On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 11:36 PM, In Hyuk Seo roadhous...@gmail.com wrote: Sleekserver is really cheap but they have horrible network and you will have really high ping even if you are really close to the server. And they have only 1 location in Missouri which is meh... They are really cheap though. On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 11:23 PM, Jake Eisenman ad...@oneskylitnight.org wrote: I've never had problems with ArtofWarCentral, they always answered my questions pretty fast (20 minutes with a few exceptions). Server starts to lag like once or twice a year, put in a ticket, solved. arreo...@gmail.com wrote: Had horrible experiences with ArtofWar's customer service. I would highly recommend against them. Slow, unable to do simple things to fix the servers in a timely manner. Left them and haven't looked back. Just keep in mind you always get what you pay for. If it looks too good to be true, then 99% of the time it is. Don't skimp on a few extra bucks because you'll only regret it latter when you find out the GSP has oversold the bandwidth on your underpowered shared server box. Arreo ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions
I just switched to Xenon Servers. So far so good. 500 FPS standard, and it gives you the option to choose -33 -66 or -100 tickrate if you feel like messing with it. If you use promo code: iizihwpmoc without the quotes than the first month is 99% off, which comes out to $0.17 then $17 per month thereafter. I was using DarkStar LLC but these seem to be running a lot better. http://www.xenonservers.com/ On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 9:04 PM, BizSAR biz...@gmail.com wrote: My experiences: Artofwar: Servers well known to be flaky and saturated, support can be slow to respond NFO: OK servers, good tech support, but not worth the much higher cost Primary Target: Decent price, AWESOME support, and quite good servers. Just don't ask support stupid questions about how to set-up/run your server becuase they will charge you for it. Great service for those of us that know pretty much what we're doing. Been in business a long time. They have some good deals right now at http://www.primarytarget.com/specials ~BizSAR - Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:54:30 -0700 From: Mark Gunnett mgunnett4...@gmail.com Subject: [hlds] GSP Hosting Questions To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Message-ID: f54654811002191954nd24b92dhfcfca15c43d7b...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 So, My clan right now runs all of our game servers off of a dedicated box that costs around $135 a month. This was cheaper by far since we used to run anywhere between 7-10 game servers. The keywords there are used to and was, since recently we've found that we really don't have members playing those games anymore, and therefore it's kind of pointless to be renting this dedicated box. So we are going to switch to running 1 game server (TF2, 24 slots) from a GSP. Now here is a listing of the GSP's I've looked at, pricing wise: Gameservers.com - $71.95 Nuclearfallout.net - $65.99 ($68.98 with a HLStatsX Installation) MyInternetServices.com - $45.00 ArtOfWarCentral.com - $39.70 Now, I myself have personal experience with Nuclearfallout.net. As far as I could tell, the NFO servers I have hosted weren't exactly all that great, but they weren't bad either. I always here crap about the GameServers.com servers, but I don't know from personal experience if they are worth that kind of money. Now, I only heard of MyInterenetServices.com because of the deal they had going on for BF:BC2. We can't exactly host ranked servers ourselves so we looked around for a GSP and they seemed to be doing a deal on BF:BC2 32 slot servers. Anyways, I'm unsure of them either for a TF2 server. Now, I have heard of ArtOfWarCentral.com, and I have played on a server on one of their boxes and I didn't like the way the server... felt. But that could just be me. If anyone can recommend which of these would be the best to go with, or if you can recommend a different host that offer's TF2 servers around $70 or under for 24 slots, I would appreciate it greatly. We're trying to cut back costs with the amount of server use we currently have, and a GSP is the way to go currently. Thanks, -- All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. - Unknown When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion. - Abraham Lincoln Mark J. Gunnett [EoE]SniperFodder{AL} ~ Stephen Leacock http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/stephen_leacock.html - I detest life-insurance agents: they always argue that I shall some day die, which is not so. ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds