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Real costs of the server

T

tejdi

Guest
Hello!

I think it would be great to have a thread where we have information about the real costs of the OTS.

0. What are the costs of having your own server?
1. Maybe we can create a simple calculator to create estimations? (map size + estimated players online needed?)
2. What are good options for hosting [for server + website]? (EU/NA)
3. Anything that would handle both regions at once? (Dura server doing that pretty well)
4. What should new owners know about DDOS and how to protect the OT?
 
I think this is actually a topic worth having a more robust discussion on, I am surprised it didn't get more interest when originally posted.
I'll try to answer each point from my experience.

0. What are the costs of having your own server?
The costs vary pretty wildly depending on the server:
  • A small custom project can typically be contained on a single VPS and depending on a few factors may only realistically cost USD$15/month or less.
  • A mid sized custom project or real map server can typically be contained on a single more powerful VPS for about USD$30/month or less.
  • A large project may want a dedicated server for greater resource guarantee & control - prices for these vary but for a single server you probably wouldn't be looking outside the USD$80-130/month range.
Note: All of the above prices assume Linux based hosting. You can tack on another ~USD$20/month for a Windows licence if you want one.

Additional costs worth considering are:
  • Domain Registration: Initial registration ~$5, renewal ~$20
  • @yourdomain email address: ~$5/month
  • DNS Hosting: Free (cloudflare) or ~$2/month AWS Route53
  • Separate VPS for web hosting: ~$5/month
  • Separate VPS for proxy server: ~$5/month each
  • Email marketing plans: ~$10-$100+/month depending on mailing list size

1. Maybe we can create a simple calculator to create estimations? (map size + estimated players online needed?)
You could, but it would need to be highly vendor & region specific or otherwise pretty inaccurate. Probably not worth the effort unfortunately!

2. What are good options for hosting [for server + website]? (EU/NA)
The most used hosting provider for OT is OVH by far. DDoS attacks are unfortunately common in the gaming community and OVH offers very good protection* included with all of their products.
I'd recommend them for Small-Mid sized projects because they are highly available, generally reliable and cheap.

*I would not recommend OVH for large projects because their services are highly vulnerable to "internal attacks". Unfortunately all internal connections bypass their DDoS Mitigation technology entirely. Generally OVH will suspend the attackers accounts without you needing to contact them, but this isn't always the case and every minute of downtime costs you reputation.

3. Anything that would handle both regions at once? (Dura server doing that pretty well)
Providing acceptable latency to the whole world is a challenge. Ultimately the game server will need to be strategically located to best serve your players.
  • US-EAST locations like New York, Vint Hill and Beauharnois (Canada) will typically provide good latency to South America, North America & Western Europe.
  • European locations like France, Amsterdam and London (United Kingdom) will typically provide good latency to North America, all of Europe & UK. There is also a new deepsea fibre cable linking Brazil and Spain (EllaLink) which may improve latency for Brazilians connecting to European servers.

Proxy servers can help by getting the player on to the internal network infrastructure of your hosting partners as quickly as possible in the hope that this will provide a more direct connection than the player would otherwise get.

4. What should new owners know about DDOS and how to protect the OT?
  • DDoS Mitigation is important. It isn't a matter of if you'll get attacked but rather when it will happen;
  • Configure your firewall correctly - if you're unsure, ask for help;
  • OVH is a good choice for DDoS mitigation for small-mid sized projects;
  • OVH is vulnerable to internal attacks due to the way their mitigation infrastructure works;
  • Hosting your website separately and protecting it with cloudflare will decrease your vulnerability to attack.
 
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