[Larsen]

So, I'd like to hear your guys' experience with your GSPs. We are thinking of switching, and since we all share a great majority of software/game engines in common, I figured this is the best place to get the input.

Please indicate your rating of: pricing, support itself, availability of support, and service.

So far I've heard about artofwar and nuclearfallout as prime choices for servers. We're looking to get: 1 pub, 1 private (both 32 slot), and one 50-slot vent. Our point of reference is gameservers.com, whom we hate at this point.

Right now ultimate gameservers is the most lucrative in terms of price, but we know nothing about their reliability and service.

[amohanlall32]

I'd suggest End of Reality

Been renting boxes from there for about a year now and I haven't had a problem yet. They offer DDoS hardening and all sorts of perks that make you want to love them.

Pricing: 9 (.99/slot ; Although I pay for a box)
Support: 10 (These guys know what they are talking about. They'v even gone ahead and reinstalled a full server for me when things got screwed up. They also did a server migration for free for me, they are very accomodating)
Availability of Support: 8-9 (Nobody can be around to answer a million questions all the time, but they've done an awesome job of responding to my tickets fast, and they are on live chat frequently)
Service: 9 (I know I've been running boxes, therefore it's my choice on how to load servers, but the quality of the network and the machines is just great. The free DDoS hardening is a definite plus as well)

[Fearts]

discountgameservers.com

Sister company of NFO. Have all my servers from them and no one ever complains about lag. They offer no support but I have never had to use it. They automatically update the servers for you and have a bunch of 1 click install mods (although if you visit this site you should know how to install mods).

It's basically a cheaper version of NFO because they offer no support. Also they don't allow more than like 3 bots on the server at a time which I found weird but w/e.

[Larsen]

I forgot to mention - if you know offhand that they offer CST/EST timezone servers (Chicago, Dallas, or New Jersey generally) that would also help.

Thanks guys, please keep them coming.

My own experience with GS has been that they're all about quantity and not quality. They have a lot of guys filling out tickets and their knowledge is hit or miss, and just recently admitted to me that updating their sourcemod/MM install buttons was on the backburner (they're both over a year old) because of MW3/BF3. That's all fine and good, except you shouldn't be telling me that. It shouldn't have been a problem to begin with. I'm more than capable of doing it myself, but why clutter the control panel with stuff I won't even use then? I don't even think it's POSSIBLE to run a server nowadays on those versions of the mods.

Fearts - discountgs intrigues me. Will they allow me to define my own command launch line? And how much cheaper than NFO would you say they are? Same machines and everything else?

[Dravu]

We've had great experiences with NFO, both with their gameservers as well as their dedicated servers. They don't overload their servers like many providers do (gameservers.com does this) and provide very good support. I just recently submitted a ticket and each reply from them was polite, personal (non-scripted), and was recieved 5min or less after my own message. They also have a few neat services in their control panel like automatic server restarts if your gameserver hangs or crashes, optional nightly restarts (since srcds is a memory leak in itself), Sourcemod/Metamod installers, etc. They update your server for you when there's a game update and will sometimes update or disable Sourcemod for you if they notice it will have issues with the game update.

[Larsen]

Phone support for NFO or discountgameservers?

[databomb]

GSPs should only be used as a last resort. You should get a Linux VPS box and learn how to host the server yourself. Not only is it much cheaper (~$0.25/slot) but you'll actually be learning something which could be useful at some point in the future.

[Jstn7477]

Originally Posted by databomb GSPs should only be used as a last resort. You should get a Linux VPS box and learn how to host the server yourself. Not only is it much cheaper (~$0.25/slot) but you'll actually be learning something which could be useful at some point in the future.

GL finding a decent VPS from a non-gaming network. Most are either overloaded, full of torrent boxes taking up all the bandwidth, using crappy virtualization software (Xen is the only decent virtualization software, most companies use OpenVZ to give you a certain "MHz" and not a dedicated core) or don't give a crap about routing.

I use NFO virtual dedicated servers (Xen virtualization with dedicated RAM and CPU cores) for my community, and they are solid. Counter-strike, XFactorServers, GameServers and Thrust VPS were all laggy as shit and/or the server would go offline for hours at a time, not to mention support was a joke. NFO doesn't offer phone support, but there's no need for it when you can just ask for John, the CEO, at ANY TIME. I talk with him regularly whenever I may have an issue (which hasn't happened for a few months).

[Larsen]

Originally Posted by Jstn7477 NFO doesn't offer phone support, but there's no need for it when you can just ask for John, the CEO, at ANY TIME. I talk with him regularly whenever I may have an issue (which hasn't happened for a few months).

If there's no phone support, how do you ask for him? Email?

I also forgot to mention, please comment on whether they offer linux servers. We would prefer not to redo all of our stuff for a windows setup.

[Powerlord]

Originally Posted by Larsen If there's no phone support, how do you ask for him? Email? I also forgot to mention, please comment on whether they offer linux servers. We would prefer not to redo all of our stuff for a windows setup.

MetaMod/SourceMod's binaries and any extensions are the only stuff you have to change between operating systems... I know, I run both Linux and Windows servers (and have test servers for both as well).

Now if only someone would explain to me why Linux extension binaries are larger than Windows extension binaries...