Just Curious

[ClamSlammer]

So, I'm obviously new to the forums, but for those that don't recoginize me I've been on the server for a few years at this point.

I've been playing COD4 heavily since it came out and involved in the series since COD2 came out.

 

I've looked around a bit more and noticed the donate tab.

I find it incredibly hard to believe that your operating cost is $4k/year.

Where does all this money go?

What exactly are you paying for and what does it get you?

 

My background is in COD, so that's what I'll talk to more than the other games that I'm not as familiar with.

A bit more about my background:

I used to run COD4 servers out of my dorm room.

My campus had one of the fastest connections in the US at one point (rivaled by NASA) and every room had a fiber jack.  I know this isn't as impressive now, but when COD4 first came out it was.

Anywho, I started up a server on an old laptop, and it took off from there.

At it's peak i was running 2 top 40 ranked COD4 servers as well as a ProMod pub, a Mixed Gametype, and a Promod match servers.

All of these were running off a box that sat behind my closet, that a group of guys donated to me to build (All said and done, built for probably ~$500).

This all came to a screeching halt when my campus was DDOS'd for 2 weeks by a worldwide botnet.

The servers simply never recovered.

 

Anywho... managaing servers is not that hard... and not that expensive.

I no longer have access to connections like I used to, but for maybe $20-30 / month you guys could have all your COD4 servers at 1 IP (obviously different ports).

I'm sure there have got to be enough people here, that there are those that could set these up with their eyes closed.

I would assume that this goes the same for the other games that you guys host.

 

So my question is still why does it cost $4k / year for upkeep?

I would think that at most it should be half of that.

 

My other point is, if you want to break away from whoever hosts your servers (dediserverhosting I think) let me know.  I would love to help configure servers for you guys.

I've done enough with COD4 in Linux and Windows that I can do it relatively easily.

 

Just a thought.

[Kepar]

We have a lot of servers in few games not just CoD4. It's not as easy as you think.

[SiD]

Not sure the logitistics or the hosting costs, but I do know there are currently 23 servers being hosted across a vriety of games. Then there's two websites and a voip server.

 

Then probably cost of hardware, upkeep, and maybe some sort of fee for dealing with paypal (the main means of dealing with donations). The last part not 100% on because I've never hosted anything through PP. But it makes sense.

 

Only peeps like Daredevil can reveal everything.

[GI-JOE]

May be somethings missing or incorrect but from memory without double checking, I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong:

20+ gameservers (costs x-amount per-slot per-server), multiple machine rentals and upkeep (some were custom builds), occasionally upgrading said machines, web/server hosting (since we are an international clan we have machines/servers in both the US and Europe which have different monthly costs), URLs, redirects, VPNs, bandwidth, IP.Board leases for at least two websites/forums, potential paypal fees, OS and software leases (though I believe these may be bundled in with the entire web/server hosting costs), game costs and other unpredictable costs/fees that may pop up without warning. Shit adds up, especially since most of those are monthly. I'm sure that I'm missing a few things on top of all of that since my memory is not what it used to be.

 

There was one that was more in depth but I'm too lazy to search through years of forum posts to find it, but here is the official post that everyone can see: http://fearless-assassins.com/donation.html 

 

I believe the $4963 is to cover atleast half the costs for the entire year but I could be thinking of something else, so don't quote me on that one...or any of this really..

 

Add the fact that a fraction of that cost goes to help the community keep growing and adding new gameservers and features and shit every year (assuming we raise enough to allow this).

 

Running COD servers out of your dorm room whilst piggybacking off of your school's amazing network isn't particularly expensive, but building an entire gaming community isn't cheap.

Edited October 23, 2014 by GI-JOE

[A_Snake]

I used to have 4 servers (rented slots) that I set up and ran with only one being a cod4 server.  The other 3 were Halo servers.  These were through a hosting site called Gameservers and were small compared to what we have here.  At Gameservers you are charged more for the higher number of players that can connect so most of my servers were in the 14 to 16 player slot.  These all were just over $200.00 each per year.  So looking at 4 servers at a quarter the size of these costing me $800.00 a year I can see where the 20 plus servers here along with web pages, forums, Voice Servers can run into the thousands.  In fact I've wondered if the goal set for fund raising is enough to handle everything.  Having been on the operating side of things in the past and knowing the time and headaches associated with is why I more than willingly donate to keep these servers up and running.  While I donate a good bit, my donations don't amount to the cost I was forking out for my 4 little servers and I don't have to fool with the coding, programming, and other issues associated with having servers.  This is also part of the reason I don't criticize the work people do here.  I've walked in their shoes on a small scale and I know what it takes.

 

While I am sure your offer is appreciated, it is a lot larger than what it may appear on the surface. 

Edited October 23, 2014 by A_Snake

[ClamSlammer]

I think you guys are missing my point.

Why pay thousands when you can pay hundreds?

 

You don't need to pay by the player when you can configure the servers yourselves.

 

I'm not saying that hosting a server much less a community (especially one of this size) is cheap or anything to scoff at.

 

I just think that if this were approached a little differently it could be alot less.

[DJ aka GDR DJ]

I think you guys are missing my point.

Why pay thousands when you can pay hundreds?

 

good server costs always a little bit more money

our servers run with good multicore CPU, enough RAM, fast SSD, high bandwidth to internet for lag free gaming and and and ..... and all this, you got not for FREE

[ClamSlammer]

I know they'll cost money, I'm well aware that nothing is for free.  If we're looking at the servers I was hosting they were $50k / year

I just think that with a little elbow grease (hard work) that the cost can be brought down to more manageable levels.

[ClamSlammer]

Am I way off base here?

Basically I suppose what I'm saying is that I can not donate money at this time, but what I could donate is time & effort.

 

I would be happy to help set up the servers a different way to save money.

Configuring them is actually kinda fun (in my opinion) but does take time and know-how.

[Bow_In_Honor]

I think you guys are missing my point.

Why pay thousands when you can pay hundreds?

 

You don't need to pay by the player when you can configure the servers yourselves.

 

I'm not saying that hosting a server much less a community (especially one of this size) is cheap or anything to scoff at.

 

I just think that if this were approached a little differently it could be alot less.

I don't think you understand the amount of money and security that goes into server hosting. It's not as simple as configuring a server on your home PC. There's a reason why server hosting companies exist, because they have the staff and utilities to offer a reliable service to there customers. If anyone could just put up their own server and not have it bombarded with trogans, and all the other fun stuff that server hosting companies have to deal with, then they wouldn't exist. 4k for the upkeep of all these servers isn't unreasonable at all.

[A_Snake]

Any donations whether it be monetary or knowledge based is always appreciated. 

 

What I find funny is that currently you do not know what all is going on behind the scenes at F|A, but you are indicating that you feel it can be done cheaper and thus better.  I feel that you likely don't mean it that way, but that is the way it is coming across to me.

 

As I stated above, any donations (to include technical knowledge) to help with the running of F|A sites is always appreciated.

[Ol Smoke]

I understand where ClamSlammer is coming from.  My old clan did it different than they do here.  We owned our servers (3), the top 10 guys paid for it in dues.

I paid $25 a month for my slot as a staff admin, after I went thru the ranks and earned my way in.  We maintained our own servers and maintained the T3 that we

were attached to.  The T3, at that time was $1540 a month per side which came to about $3400 a month total.  We had over 400 members paying a minimum of

$5 a month per slot.  We then had 3 owners that made up the rest, along with the admin dues.  There were other costs which made it about $4500 total a month.

This was 2000 to about 2008 we are talking about.  I could be wrong about the T3, but I think that was about the cost then.

 

So, if it is run from a sourcing company or on your own, there isn't going to be too much difference.

 

Oh, I just remembered something.  We sold off unused bandwidth to a couple of companies that were in the same building, so that cut down on some costs.

[D..X]

ya but were only paying out 5000 a year your talking 3400$ for 3 servers a month if thats the case i think we are doing ok  as we are running like 20

Edited October 25, 2014 by D..X

[Thundercats]

Oh and speaking of we are looking for donations so we hit our goal by the end of october. Just sayin

[ClamSlammer]

I don't think you understand the amount of money and security that goes into server hosting. It's not as simple as configuring a server on your home PC. There's a reason why server hosting companies exist, because they have the staff and utilities to offer a reliable service to there customers. If anyone could just put up their own server and not have it bombarded with trogans, and all the other fun stuff that server hosting companies have to deal with, then they wouldn't exist. 4k for the upkeep of all these servers isn't unreasonable at all.

I do understand how much security goes into server hosting.  Very very much so.  Like I said I was hosting a top 20 server when COD4 was in it's prime.

They exist becuase there are people who don't know how to do this.  I happen to.

 

 

What I find funny is that currently you do not know what all is going on behind the scenes at F|A, but you are indicating that you feel it can be done cheaper and thus better.  I feel that you likely don't mean it that way, but that is the way it is coming across to me.

 

 

I'm not trying to criticize how you guys do it, becuase you're right, I don't have the details.

I'm just saying I think I could help reduce costs dramatically. 

I'm not trying to say you should do it this way, since you guys are very near to completeing your goal (kudos on that).

I'm just saying it's an option.

 

I see that LeaseWeb - (which is probably a more expensive server hosting company) offers the following for $1340/yr

160GB Storage RAID 10 - way more than enough (at least for COD4 and a web host)

8 GB RAM

8 Core CPU

With (just to be more than safe) an 8TB monthly data cap.

All of this would be overkill for hosting COD4 (I know that you guys host more than COD4 but that's what I know so that's what I'll speak to).

This could proabably be cut down to a TB/month which would still be on the safe side.

COD4 doesn't eat up as much bandwidth as you may think.  With my 48 slot and a 30 slot servers nearly full 24/7 I still never made it to my schools top 10 bandwidth users list.

 

Please don't take this the wrong way guys.  As I said I just want to help really.

If you aren't interested, or if you are satisfied with your current cost / service I'll let it go.

You guys obviously have the ability to raise some serious money, just think of what else that could go to if the server upkeep was less