After reading through some great arguments here, I have been swayed in thinking it's better to rent now. It would probably be much easier to get more people to participate, and the more people, a lower monthly cost for all.
It obliterates any ownership issues from the start. If we can get enough people onboard, it would be very affordable for all to pay a yearly installment. For the mates that can't afford the yearly payment, maybe a 3-6 month payment schedule would be good.
I for one have 100% confidence in CB administering the payments as far as that is concerned. I have paypal and am totally on board.
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BlackHawkBible music connoisseurThere's no place like 127.0.0.1Icrontian
edited November 2007
Whatever is decided, I'm up for 10-15% of the cost of buying a server but what about renting a server for 2-3 months and see how that works out. The amount of people that are gonna play, if people lose interest, stuff like that.
Checked a site and we can get a 24 slot server for a little over $80 a month and a 3-month purchase can get us 5% off (yippee!).
i can't view this whole page because i am at work, but the google cache version shows a public TF2 server for 24 players a month @ $35.95
Public game servers can have a password or no password at anytime.
I think renting for a month or two to start with would be a good, noncommittal way to find out how interested we really are in this whole thing. Also, it would require less people to pony up less money at first, while we're just exploring our options. After that, we could get a longer-term rental or look into buying a server if we want to stick with it.
Also, remember that we do not have to spend $1700 for a server.
I have asked for a couple favors to see if we can find out how many games these places run on a Single Quad box.
EDIT: hmmm Sledge just posted some interesting info in the Poll thread.
Another caveat for buying a server, if we can run 2 or 3 games on it...we increase our audience of people who want to contribute. There are plenty of gamers on this site that don't necessarily like TF2. If we could do like 2 or 3 games (CS:S, UT, HL2:DM or whatever plus TF2) I forsee getting as many as 50+ people in on this? Thus reducing costs further per person.
The most important thing about a server is the RAM and the connection. Tribes II servers with 64 players were often run on 800MHz PIIIs, but with 8GB of RAM and 20/20 connections.
I'm telling you source is different from almost all other dedicated servers. SourceDS is much heavier on the proc than other, ram intensive servers.
At any rate, many very interesting points have been brought up. Certainly we would be able to run multiple games concurrently on a dedicated box, including CoD, CS, and other popular games.
How's this: As a trial, Matt and I will pay for the first month. Let's use it and see what the interest is like. In 3 weeks, we'll revisit the idea and tell everyone who wants a slot to pony up. CB, I will gladly hand over funds management to you, I don't want to deal with it.
We'll get it from gameservers.com. They seem very established, and I've played on servers hosted there, and they run good.
30 day trial of a rental sound good? No cost to you guys.
Now...that says 35.6Kbits of uplink for each player. Which means that a T1 should be able to hold 24 players easily, we may not need to have it at a datacenter at all.
I am going to install the dedicated server files here on a test box, just for ****s and giggles.
EDIT: Yes, I know this spec may not be totally accurate, but I have to try, its just the way I am
Since this is a trial box, I think we should try to find the best place to host, as well. I'm pretty sure futher west than Houston and UK is basically S.O.L. for all intents and purposes.
How far west can we push it to make everyone happy is my question.
You should be worrying about how close it is to the east coast for UK players. Even if the thing is at the tip of Maine, and you're coming from California, if both connections are good you'll have a ~90 ping.
I like Prime's Trial Run idea, and I'm appreciative of his volunteering to pay the first month. This will make it a lot easier to decide if we like it with out getting immediately into the payment logistics.
Ryder: I'll gladly try to connect to your server when I get home from work in a couple of hours. Testing game servers is a tough job, but I'm willing to make the sacrifice.
Well, the test run went well.... Black Hawk, FC, and I all played for a few minutes... CPU load on the server never went above like 1%.
Will be interesting to see if we can get 8 or 10 of us on it...at least it would be fun for skirmishes. If 10+ works on a pipe this size...we may not need a datacenter to have what we want.
Well, the test run went well.... Black Hawk, FC, and I all played for a few minutes... CPU load on the server never went above like 1%.
Will be interesting to see if we can get 8 or 10 of us on it...at least it would be fun for skirmishes. If 10+ works on a pipe this size...we may not need a datacenter to have what we want.
poor blackhawk's ping was 200 he still pwned me thou
i had ~50 ping from Missouri to Ryder's l33t 768k upload
Just search for Icrontic.com Test Server in the big list. I just checked and it is appearing in the listing of 1900+ servers when you refresh the internet server list from TF2. yippee.
our rental host offers something called Clanpay. I haven't looked into it yet, but it sounds like they have software to handle individual member payments on a month-to-month basis. You may want to look into it, CB.
Sorry. Since the thread had turned to how the server was goin, rather than how to manage it, I thought you were talking about game records, not financial records. :P
2Fort has become my second favorite map, Gravelpit is my favorite. All the back-and-fort capture crap maps are tied for last place because they're all like playing the same thing... 2Fort and Gravelpit have something unique about them that the others don't. I'd say include it.
Comments
It obliterates any ownership issues from the start. If we can get enough people onboard, it would be very affordable for all to pay a yearly installment. For the mates that can't afford the yearly payment, maybe a 3-6 month payment schedule would be good.
I for one have 100% confidence in CB administering the payments as far as that is concerned. I have paypal and am totally on board.
Checked a site and we can get a 24 slot server for a little over $80 a month and a 3-month purchase can get us 5% off (yippee!).
Public game servers can have a password or no password at anytime.
www.gameservers.com/game_servers/team_fortress_2.php
EDIT: OMG....I can't believe the reply:
Also, remember that we do not have to spend $1700 for a server.
$1050 / 20 = $52.50. I'm not saying that this company is the one we have to go with, it's just a reminder that there are deals to be had out there.
EDIT: hmmm Sledge just posted some interesting info in the Poll thread.
Another caveat for buying a server, if we can run 2 or 3 games on it...we increase our audience of people who want to contribute. There are plenty of gamers on this site that don't necessarily like TF2. If we could do like 2 or 3 games (CS:S, UT, HL2:DM or whatever plus TF2) I forsee getting as many as 50+ people in on this? Thus reducing costs further per person.
At any rate, many very interesting points have been brought up. Certainly we would be able to run multiple games concurrently on a dedicated box, including CoD, CS, and other popular games.
How's this: As a trial, Matt and I will pay for the first month. Let's use it and see what the interest is like. In 3 weeks, we'll revisit the idea and tell everyone who wants a slot to pony up. CB, I will gladly hand over funds management to you, I don't want to deal with it.
We'll get it from gameservers.com. They seem very established, and I've played on servers hosted there, and they run good.
30 day trial of a rental sound good? No cost to you guys.
Everbody paypal Prime $10.00
Now...that says 35.6Kbits of uplink for each player. Which means that a T1 should be able to hold 24 players easily, we may not need to have it at a datacenter at all.
I am going to install the dedicated server files here on a test box, just for ****s and giggles.
EDIT: Yes, I know this spec may not be totally accurate, but I have to try, its just the way I am
How far west can we push it to make everyone happy is my question.
ryderocz.sytes.net:27015 just go to Favorites and add the server.
Ryder: I'll gladly try to connect to your server when I get home from work in a couple of hours. Testing game servers is a tough job, but I'm willing to make the sacrifice.
Will be interesting to see if we can get 8 or 10 of us on it...at least it would be fun for skirmishes. If 10+ works on a pipe this size...we may not need a datacenter to have what we want.
poor blackhawk's ping was 200
i had ~50 ping from Missouri to Ryder's l33t 768k upload
Just search for Icrontic.com Test Server in the big list. I just checked and it is appearing in the listing of 1900+ servers when you refresh the internet server list from TF2. yippee.
:necro:
i think that covers my feelings.
I'll look into it, thanks.
Sorry to be harsh on you about it!
Last night there was discussion that 2Fort should not be in our rotation...what say ye?
#2, the current time limit for any game is 45 minutes... too long? Shout out with suggestions.
#3, Autobalance was also brought up. On or Off?
#4, Number of wins for a team to be declared the winner is currently 4... Changes?
#5, You can control the length of Overtime (not sudden death)...default is like 15 seconds or something.... should it be longer?
Thank you