Shack Game Server Survey

I've been playing and hosting online games as long as they've existed and I've never heard of "renting a game server" before. Might want to clarify that more since I suppose a lot of us have no clue how a rental system would work.

/ V

No Quake 3. And yet, UT.

Man, that's sad and uninformed =\

Quake 3 is an amazing game and should be on that list.

No Doom 3? Admittedly it's a CPU hog so you'd have to dedicate one good computer to run one game server that takes 4 people (8 by the 1.2 / RoE specs), which server admins whine about because other game servers are more economical and don't eat up as much CPU time. We never really gave it a fighting chance because of the resource requirements (rydogg tried running one but stopped after the CPU hog characteristics and low popularity).

Doom 3 deathmatch is fun, and shouldn't be relegated to lan party fare if someone can dedicate a machine to it. It would certainly be good to have it passworded since the max player count is so low, and to increase the signal to noise ratio (one cheater / llama on a 20-person CS server is bad, but imagine one on a 8-person or 4-person Doom 3 server!).

You include the first Unreal but not Quake3!?!?!?... just sad.... Quake3 still has 3,000+ players online wile the first Unreal has like 100.

Maybe I'm just daft in the Scottish sense]i, but why would anyone rent a game server? Is it for people who are just desperate to be an admin, but don't have the pipe for it? I really don't get it…

…but then previous to today, I wasn't even aware that other services offered game server rental, or that such a service could be coming to the Shack. I would check "I don't rent online game servers" if it wasn't such a new concept to me, and wasn't struggling to come up with a reason why I should. The only one up with which I've come so far is to run old games for which barely anyone has servers; I could see a necessity for that, but for anything more recent, there's a shitload of servers out there already, what's one more?

I don't see HALO 2 on that list :)

i kid . . .

It would mean way too much support. The servers will very likely be runing som sort of *nix OS, and your average gamer at a bash shell?
Plus, if it worked that way the servers would have to be bandwidth, since there would be no way to control the amout of players they allow on the server. More players = more bandwidth. And its the bandwidth that costs the real money.

Hmmmm...will you be picking admins for these servers from the general populace of the shack?

Can I apply now?

I sense the end of days for Shack game admins.

The two games I play online aren't there: Doom 3 (occasionally) and Return to Castle Wolfenstein (constantly). It's a conspiracy by Alec, Maaaarten, and Steve against me!

why isnt Quake 3 Arena in the list ?

thats the only online game i play

lolerblades

I'm a little naive, how much is going to cost me per month? I've never rented a game server before, but I would if it was the Shack.

Could you guys negotiate with Blizzard and get a shack only WoW server kplsthx.

What would be the win -- I go to a site. I say I want this game. I want it for 5 hours. Here are the mods / options I want. I want it to start at 8pm. I pay $5-10 MAX and then the server starts up @ 8pm, we play, and then its gone.

Ok people, lets get a lot of votes in for Natural Selection. It's probably the best HL mod out there, and it's always in need of more exposure, and more public servers.

And also DCX/BF1942. Because you can never have enough of those.

So to be clear, this is asking if you would pay to rent shack hosted game servers for not just shack use, but other uses, clans whatever, not 'would you like to see shack hosted games mostly for shackers a la Ashke and Rydogg's servers right?

I think specialized old school servers would be cool. Stuff like doom, heretic, hexen, threewave ctf, action quake 2, etc.

AQ2 > CS

Maybe a server focused on co-op games also...

Tribes 1/2 plz.

Do you fantasize about Hot Wet Marrten?
[ ] yes
[ ] yes
[ ] maybe
[ ] yes but not gay

I and some of my friends have rented BF1942 servers in the past for the sole purpose of having a no rules Desert Combat server. I've since gotten bored with DC, but my friends still play religiously every night. They're paying $60 a month for a 26 slot BF1942 server that they have full control over with remote manager.

But of course with BF2 coming out and Desert Combat not in *official* development any longer, all bets are off when it comes to dedicated DC servers IMO.

Would've maybe been a good idea to have had a location section - I never play on the current Shack servers since the pings are so abysmal for me, being in Europe. Or can you harvest that information automatically from my IP?

Some of the best games I've ever played were on the Counter-Strike Shuga Shack Server of Death. Good times.

next time put poll in reply please. thank you.
joking.
making it easier to play with my favorite people on the web would be fantastico.

No Battlefield 2?

40+ comments and not one "omg steve is a sellout whore!!!" post yet

you guys are getting better :)

I guess there was no reason to list online games such as WoW or EQ.

Will there be an option to have servers in different regions of the US (West Coast, Midwest, etc)?

silly question: why do our game preferences matter? a game server is a game server, hardware + an OS + a fat connection... why wouldn't one just rent out them based on hardware specs and let users run what they please? Note: I'm not proposing a business model to steve+co, I've just never rented a game server before and am curious.

Ok I'm a lamer... until this post I didn't even know they rented game servers...

No tribes:Vengeance?

:(

I'm assuming the shack is setting up >1 server right? i want an NS server, shack battles would be awesome for that game

When renting servers (ut2004), for me it is very important that I have access to the server so I can update maps, mods, mutators & patch the game without having to submit my requests to the ppl i rent the server from.

I'd enjoy to see the Shack Servers Of Death come back, although I'm not interested in renting one or anything beyond Shack servers provided for the benefit of the readership. Voted appropriately.

This poll makes me realize just how off-center my gaming tastes are though. I most commonly play Natural Selection, TFC, and HL2DM. The majority (which I enjoyed being a part of back in the QuakeWorld days) is now a lot of CS and CoD players. The most simulator-like sim I play is Vanilla BF1942, and that's not exactly the most accurate depiction of war ever, what with all the soldiers waiting around for planes and jeeps exploding upon contacting a palm tree.

Wish there were more gamers like me still.

So is the new FileShack going to have torrents?

A few notes:
1) I rent an entire machine from The Planet. It was cheaper to rent a machine and configure whatever I wanted on there however a most gamers probably don't want the hassle of having to admin games AND the Linux OS (or Windows).
2) One thing that is not on the list of things people want: fast updates as patches are released. Some game servers don't get updated for days.
3) Another thing gamers want, typically, is some type of control panel that would allow them to configure map rotations, game types, player limits, public/private toggles, server passwords, rconpasswords, etc.
4) The ability to upload custom maps and have a location for the custom maps to be downloaded (when not in game) is something that people will want to make the server "theirs".
5) The ability to either have a shell account or a web interface the the server logs is going to be important particularly when griefers are causing problems. The server logs typically contain more information (IP address specifically) which can be handy if you want to ban someone from the game server. Having a web interface to add them to the banlist is helpful, too.
6) A web interface for their specific machine (not just their specific game server). This is handy to see if latency is high for the machine, what the machine's load is, how many people are connected to the game servers. Using something like cricket here is helpful for both the server owner and the game server lessee.

I've rented and owned game servers; there is a lot of work to keeping people happy on them but they are a great time to be sure (and can be a good investment!). Good luck on getting this candle lit!

It's sad, but before Christmas I'd have been all over this idea. But since I picked up WoW, I don't even play any other games anymore. I really need to quit that game I think, but its so damn addicting. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to get into FPS again, because I've had a really hard time even launching Steam anymore. And before Wow, that was a daily occurrence for me.

Good idea I think though.. the shack could use something like this I'm sure.

That is one early-mornin' survey postin' right there. I suspect an all-nighter...

Gotta say that I can't emphasize how much I appreciate servers that track stats. It's nice to see my strengths and weaknesses on a server on which I'm a regular. It is all a part of my continuing and comprehensive plan to further improve myself.

This is so hot. w00t!