Gaming Servers

jesus_thats_gre

Having read this thread:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054901105

It struck me that boards.ie is in a perfect position to offer gaming servers in partnership with some of the gaming clans that frequent boards.

Has any consideration been given to it? What about the forming of a boards.ie multi gaming clan or something?

rsynnott

Why is boards in a perfect position to offer that?

Asok

Where would we get these servers? the ones we have are struggling to run the site let alone slap games servers on.

jesus_thats_gre

1. There is a large community of gamers that use boards - specifically BF2, COD, WOW, CS:S, Pro Evo and upcoming games like the new Unreal should bolster numbers.. Alot of these players converse with each other about these games either on Boards or with their Clans..

2. I am not sure how close boards are to Hosting 365 but hosting365 do offer game servers. I know boards.ie is not a business but I do know that one of its primary aims is to be an online community. Could clans and boards.ie work together to offer the gaming element of the boards community somewhere to play online? Could boards become the home of Irish online gaming? It could be managed/admined by boards regulars/established and trusted members.

The thread I linked to contains information about an Irish Battlefield 2 clan who have renamed their server title to contains boards.ie and the server is being run by boards.ie members. I just thlught that someone might have seen an oppurtunity to take advantage of this for boards's benefit.

Lump

Money Money Money.... you seem to have all the answers, where do you expect them to get it?

John

jesus_thats_gre

You are right, at the end of the day, money does do the talking. I am more enquiring has this sorta of thing every been discussed before? Has any thought been given by hosting 365 or other server hosting company to align themselves with board.ie (thousands of users and high profile amoung Irish gamers).

Take my clan for example. We host a server with Rackage.com. On the server, we have 3 CS:S (2 public and 1 match) and a Teamspeak server. We pay CoLo fees and bandwidth fees. Our server is particularly popular and 1 of the 2 is full for 75% of the day. As a direct result of us having a high profile, Rackage offered us a BF2 server with the pre-condition that their name and our name appeared as the server name.

So there is a few Irish clans all trying to increase their profile. Server companies are trying to sell to these clans and some have realised that they can benefit from hosting a high profile clan. Boards.ie has a hugh profile amoung Irish gamers and also does a fair big of business with a hosting company that offers game servers.

Is it just me that sees the possibility of something maybe working out there?

Incidently, to host a 64 man BF2 server with them cost in excess of 150 euro a month.. So yes, it is all money but you don't always have to pay.

Lump

AFAIK, they ran a TFC server..... them or one of their "Other" groups.

John

jesus_thats_gre

Out of curiosity, I emailed someone I know who works for rackage asking what their stance is on what I suggested.. He said they would certainly consider a server/bandwidth for advertising on boards deal. I stated to him that there is next to no money for what I suggested so advertising was what he suggested.

Its up to the powers that be I suppose.

What about bringing this a step further? I know a few Irish clans wanted to start their own Irish league.. Would boards be able to step in here too?

I don't mean to be overstepping the mark here - only making suggestions and loosing the run of myself

Lump

Maybe e-mailing regi/devore/cloud would be better then posting here.

John

Endurance Man

I like this idea a lot. I would actually be willing to chip in and help pay to setup such a server as im sure many other CSS players would (maybe) . A boards mini league could be organised, friendly clan matches between boardsie's, could be good.

CuLT

Boards could be a lot more than it is, would need dedicated staff though, and unfortunately none of the admins are youthful students anymore, they're old, old men with bills.

I don't think there's enough in the kitty for a boards.ie payroll just yet A couple of hundred euro a year for a salary isn't too appealing. DeV'd be eating 75%-ash catfood and drinking from urinals.

That said, I like your thinking jtg.

RuggieBear

it would be going back to roots kinda

CuLT

RuggieBear wrote:

it would be going back to roots kinda

^H 2 /

Endurance Man

CuLT wrote:

Boards could be a lot more than it is, would need dedicated staff though, and unfortunately none of the admins are youthful students anymore, they're old, old men with bills.

I don't think there's enough in the kitty for a boards.ie payroll just yet A couple of hundred euro a year for a salary isn't too appealing. DeV'd be eating 75%-ash catfood and drinking from urinals.

That said, I like your thinking jtg.

What if the money for the server was coming from us boardsies? People who chip in could be given admin (if they are suitable) and we could advertise the server. We could also organise various compo's ect..

RuggieBear

forgive me if this sounds really stupid but would it be possible for boards to make money from hosting a games server... some sort of rakeback deal or something

Nevyn

A lot of the clans pay for thier hosted servers no reason why they would not pay for a boards related hosted service esp if the servers were infact in the country and not in the UK or Germany which should give better pings.
IF this can be done and made possible is for the admins to sort out.

Berns

Has been some things mentioned with a few people about getting a irish gaming community thing goin on our (TiG) forums. I aint involved in it but will mention this thread. The idea had been brought up to try and get web hostin for a site that all gamers could come too. But would need assistance from a number of people from different gaming communities.

CuLT

Endurance Man wrote:

What if the money for the server was coming from us boardsies? People who chip in could be given admin (if they are suitable) and we could advertise the server. We could also organise various compo's ect..

That's an interesting thought; essentially boards.ie branding.

"Now ye're creating high quality goods 'n' services".

Boards.ie could be a really good brand

"Now ye're gamin" - Boards.ie Gameservers

"Now ye're surfin'" - Boards.ie Internet (remember that one DeV? )

...etc

jesus_thats_gre

RuggieBear wrote:

forgive me if this sounds really stupid but would it be possible for boards to make money from hosting a games server... some sort of rakeback deal or something

If boards got the the servers without having to shell out any/much cash, then yes it could make money.

In my experience, you do not give anyone admin on a server without making em pay. Then paying up adds some revenue while also proving that they are committed to certain degree.

Rackage are based in England. As I said, someone who works for them has said that a server for advertising deal is viable. An Irish hosting company would be the preferred option but would any of the Irish hosting companies be so willing? I know someone in Rackage, I am sure that there is someone here who knows someone with Hosting365 etc...


An Irish online gaming community would be more viable if it was created around something already establised.. Boards.ie is established as they come in Irish terms and there is plenty of forum space I imagine

TheHairyFairy

TiG was born out of boards.ie. Its where we all met etc. We had 2 BF2 servers sitting idle and an Irish gaming community playing BF2 on a multitude of different servers.

As we have always 2 public BF2 servers I thought that it would be an idea to offer it to the boards.ie community etc. If other clans where to do the same thing with their CS:S servers, DOD:S servers etc etc then you wont have much of a problem

Fairy

jesus_thats_gre

TheHairyFairy wrote:

TiG was born out of boards.ie. Its where we all met etc. We had 2 BF2 servers sitting idle and an Irish gaming community playing BF2 on a multitude of different servers.

As we have always 2 public BF2 servers I thought that it would be an idea to offer it to the boards.ie community etc. If other clans where to do the same thing with their CS:S servers, DOD:S servers etc etc then you wont have much of a problem

Fairy

Thats another way of doing it and is certainly viable if all see boards.ie in the same light that we do.



But I really do like that idea of a tournament where all games would be played on the on server.. Some benefits would be no bitching about lag as it would effect us all in the same way.

MartMax

just my 2 cents. i'm no gamers or a handsome man. but i propose sthing like a business, like this:

• set up a limited company to provide this service
• shareholders - boards.ie trust (if there is one)
• share capital - €1 will do it as single member companies
• directors - few will do like trustees from boards, people who know things
• initial working capital - at start pumped by trust, donated by anyone.
• hire few employees and put facility in place
• run it as a business - people pay for the service

as fo startup working capital, it's a "loan" from the trust so it's payable. and, as the company makes profit, excess cash can be transferred to the trust as an expenses, say it management fees. leave some profit and roll over as time goes by. if only the business is a success.

the hardest part is getting the startup working capital, it's a hard work but if there's 1,000 gamers willing to donate €10 each, it's a lot. but i'm not sure how much we'll need to spend, and how much we need to earn to break-even. anyhow, there must be a way to finance the company. personnel wise, few volunteers will help, just pay lunch and travel allowances, let them work part-time.

what's in for the boards? the trust money can go to the boards, do wat ever with it, buy and upgrade servers or bachelor parties for the admins. and where else the boards can milk the money down from? charge the company advertising fees, etc.

ehehe. that's only my wet dream to share wt u guys. btw, if this becomes a reality, i'm up to give a hand. after all, this can be a big party!

mart

p/s : co-incidently this is my 400th post. wohoo!

jesus_thats_gre

yeah.. .wtf?

MartMax

i was saying some money talk. oh man, maybe i'm still drowsy...

steve-hosting36

This is certainly an interesting idea, but the key will be who runs it? As has been said above, the boards admins have spread to the four winds. The current boards servers are fully sponsored (their bandwidth and colo) by hosting365 as are a couple of games servers. If someone was to put a plan to us, we would listen.

jesus_thats_gre

Well it seems that it is possible, its just up to the owners of boards to think it over and decide whether its workable or not..

Regarding the running, I am not gonna make a suggestion and then hide. Would be more than willing to help out with the running of the servers and whatever else. I think the key here is to get people who are trusted/known by/to boards.ie and are very much involved in the community already.

Nevyn

How much physical admining would it take ?
as it is each clan has a few people who have remote admin acess to thier servers surely it would be a case of doing something simular.

jesus_thats_gre

Hmmm it varys alot but this works for us... Currently my clan has about 15 active CS players. We have 2 public servers that are extremely popular and 1 match server that we use for pre-arranged competitive matches. The public ones are freely accessible to the public and remain up and running 99% of the day. The match server is passworded and is only running when needed. These three entities run in paralell on a single physical server. The physical server is scheduled to reboot early every morning in an effort to keep performance at its best.

Two senior members of the clan (was one until recently) have complete remote admin access to the servers in order to bring them up, shut them down, restart them and update software. The majority of other paid up members of the clan can perform admin functions through an ingame menu that is part of a plugin called Mani admin. This plugin allows an admin to perform 99% of the tasks required such as changing map, moving sides around, banning cheaters etc... If there is no admins on, players on the server can post in our forums to report anyone for cheating. Obviously they provide proof to backup their claim.

As far as I know, this system works quite well as our servers are extremely popular. We use our forums to log bans and request changes to be made by the senior admins. The 2 public servers running full (66 tick) use about about 3.5mps.

All the above pertain to my experiences in CS:Source. I imagine that COD and Unreal servers are something similar. BF2 is probably a different kettle of fish but that technically exists already thanks to the TiG.

Gone West

you realise that the company that provides boards.ie with free bandwidth and rackspace, power, etc also sells and rents dedicated game servers?

jesus_thats_gre

FuzzyLogic wrote:

you realise that the company that provides boards.ie with free bandwidth and rackspace, power, etc also sells and rents dedicated game servers?

I think we may have discussed that alright.. Hence Hosting365 posting that they would consider it..

PS: I thought the Leader of my Clan just worked for Rackage.. Its turns out he owns it.. There is a turn up for the books...

Vikings

A way I could see working out is... Hosting company offers a Boards.ie server at a slightly discounted cost, a very small percentage of that cost goes to boards.ie, and in exchange boards offers advertising space to said hosting company.

This would be benificial to both boards and the host as the host will be getting advertising at a discounted rate im sure, and the boards.ie servers will promote boards wherever they are played.