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Low price usually means quite bad quality. High price doesn’t always mean good quality. If you got the dosh, go for CKRAS. If not, hiperz (been lagging a bit lately tho, need to contact them about that). Multiplay is worst case scenario.

Server Provider: GameServer.org
Server quality: 5/5 – stable ping, no lag, no spikes, u can test it – 85.131.243.129
(58ms from bulgaria; 20ms from germany; 60ms from latvia; 25ms from denmark; 70ms from russia; 33ms from switzerland)
Ease of use: 5/5 – full ftp access 24/7
Customer support: 3/5 – Not always someone around to help but when there is problems get sorted asap.
Value for money: 4/5 – 21,76 € for 20slots per month, but only located in germany, frankfurt

another minus is that its german provider and the control panel is on german and also the admins are not speaking english :D..

In short, Multiplay, Hiperz and ArtOfWarCentral are totally shit.

Server hosting is a terrible business. Unless you have like 100+ customers, it’s a lot of effort for very little money. Right now I make more money working just saturday’s at this computer shop from 10am-4pm than I would ever make without charging crazy money for game servers. It’s because you’re all incredibly cheap.

So here’s an overview of the outlay required. First you’ll need dedicated server(s) to run your actual game servers on. If you want great amazing high quality servers, you’ll want to run about 8 on a high end quad core (TF2 server isn’t multi-threaded), so 2 per core. You can get servers super cheap, but not necessarily in places that will get good routing/pings. For example Kimsufi do a server for about £45/month which is an i5 w/ 16GB RAM and wayyyy more bandwidth than you’d ever use. On top of that you need an admin panel, that decent ones are typically around $15/month PER DEDICATED SERVER. So you’re now paying about £55-60/month for your actual servers. Hetzner do a slightly higher end machine that you can get away with running 12 servers at a push for £45/month too, but it’s DE and doesn’t have great routing to anyone who isn’t from Germany or Eastern Europe. If you want good servers, you need NL. There are really only 2 budget NL dedi providers, Leaseweb (who I used for Pixel Gaming and would totally recommend), or Worldstream (also great but a little less customisable). I know i3d exists, they’re using antiquated hardware, they’re a super shady company, and their routing isn’t great anyway.

I just quickly specced up a good quad core server from Leaseweb with 8GB RAM and 1000GB/month (which isn’t a lot in the world of servers but plenty for the purposes of running game servers). 116euro/month + 50 euro set up fee because it’s custom built. That’s about £95/month + admin panel so £110/month. Worldstream might have something better and leaseweb might have something a little more appropriate pre-built, but there’s not going to be more than £15-25 of a difference.

Take into account also that paypal (since you’re not going to be able to afford to use anything else) takes a 5% cut of any payments you receive.

So let’s go back to that. I’d say £14/month is a pretty reasonable ask for a 20 slot highlander server w/ STV and fast map download. So you could run 8 servers of those at solid amazing quality.

14 * 8 = 112.

I’m pulling a cool £2/month profit off that dedicated server. For the effort of providing support, maintaing a website an admin panel, and the constant stress 24/7 in my life that stuff might be going wrong.

Now let’s say I give you not great routing and run 12 servers with that hetzner box. 14 * 8 – 60 = £108/month. Right now it’s maybe worth doing!

Let’s say i want to compete with CKRAS (who’re probably using good hardware like I said above), and charge £20/month. 20 * 8 = 160. So 160 – £110 = £50/month. Meh.

Sure if you’re a company like Multiplay you can cut your costs by buying higher end hardware that can run more servers and get deals with data centers, but joe server company can’t do that.

That’s why nobody offers solid servers anymore.

If I had like 8-16 people who said they would 100% be happy to pay like £16/month or something sure I’d do it, but as it stands it’s just not worth the effort.

tldr: Good Routing/pings, Never Laggy, cheap. Pick two

gps servers, paying 5quid/month, using kimsufi boxes (ovh network) so its mostly great ping for anyone… lags? had some at start but after complain they moved it to server that isnt overloaded so yeah… 5/5 if u can get any server for promo price like that, i can’t see whats the point of paying 15quid for server like hiperz that is hosted on same network with same performance

there was a guy like month ago who also provided kimsufi boxes for like 5-6 quid/month, as long as they aint overcrowded its much better than using anything like hiperz or other overpriced servers that come with same problems (lags, pings, etc)

ofc if u got just a little more money, say 15-20$/month you can just rent a dedi together with someone, use shell access (dunno why would u need admin panel) and have much better performance/reliability than any pro game server provider out there