I'll say this first, I'm going to make this into a petition of sorts, people that want to play this server, say "AYE" in your post at the beginning.
Three categories of requirements:
First is People:
Problem: I don't want to low ball this, if people want the server back up, I wanna know about how many are wanting this. Last time we hosted, everyone left because there were no players, and there were no players because everyone was leaving. So this is a mutually beneficial requirement, the more players we have, the more people want to play. So, just how many people care about TDS? This also would boost the morale of our team, so by gathering people, we rally the team.
Requirement: I don't want to say a number of people that are required to start this up, however, I have to know how many so we can gauge the steps to take.
Second is Hardware:
Problem: As it is right now, we have no physical server computer... We also are not in a prime location to run localized hosting on site. That is, sub-par internet connection, and insufficient router power.
Requirement: We will need off-site secure hosting -- to be clear, secure that only we can access, not hosted at someone's house.
It may seem picky, but this is a requirement. We want our server to have the ability to handle the traffic we want. We don't want only 15 players on the server anymore. After the years we hosted the server, the major problem was every time we'd get more than 25+ players, it would get super laggy. Later on, eventually with only 15 players on it would get laggy still.
We want this to be able to support 70+ players easily. With that, does anyone know of a hosting service that is reliable and generally good?
The potential problem with this is that it will cost monthly to run the server, which means we may have to bump up on purchasable goods (more reliable), or rely strictly on donatable amounts (less reliable), maybe even subscription (highly reliable).
I still hate with a fiery passion 'buying' into games. So what we decide to make purchasable -- if we decide to go that route, shouldn't give too much of an edge over everyone else. But this is a possibility if it becomes too costly to run the server.
Here's a breakdown of the server we're looking at getting:
Processor: Intel®Xeon® E3-1270 V3 - 4 Cores (HT) x 3.5 GHz
RAM: 16 GB DDR3 ECC
Storage: 1,000 GB (2 x 1,000 GB SATA) + 260 SSD <-- I realize this may be a bit too much but we can't change this
With a domain that would run to 163 a month, our initial start-up is around 160. Not bad, however we're cutting cost on the operating system, it's 35 a month extra for a Windows OS, we're wanting to try for Linux, but we're unfamiliar with Linux. (At least TR and I, not sure yet about Quint)
We'll see how this goes.
Another option would be to see how much money people are willing to donate for the server computer -- if we wanted to host it on our own. Then we'd have to get a business class internet connection.
If you've read this far into the post, that's amazing!
How do you feel about subscription based fees?
How do you feel about purchasable goods?
Should we stick with donations?
