What costs are there for hosting a server? Maybe you guys run server-grade machines and your own internet pipe... which costs money. Just curious how the "real" servers run, since mine is on a w/s class machine and Cox highspeed internet, and works fine for low-population servers.

We did that at first. By the time we had 10+ players on, it was lagging, even after I optimized some code to reduce bandwidth.

We went to a dedicated server which handled the 70+ players on the server very well.

Can you give me a rough estimate how many Gigabytes per Month a well populated Server would need? Just a rough estimate. Do we talk 10ish or 100ish GB/Month here?

May I ask if that optimization is only in the S2k server or did it made it into the official EQEmu code too?

I don't have any real stats. The server we had gave us 2000GB/month and we never used it all, but we didn't get any reports saying what we used.

I put what I could into EQEmu. The biggest would be the use of string numbers instead of literal strings. In the string file are commonly used phrases. Instead of sending a several byte text line, you can send the number to the same text in the string file so the client uses that instead. From the player point of view it appears the same, but the server sends fewer bytes in packets. This can add up over time.

Along the same line, I went in and reduced the range of some messages like in /say, emotes, spell messages, battle messages, etc. A smaller range can reduce the number of packets sent to players because they are outside the smaller range. It can also reduce spam messages, by reducing the range of spell messages and battle messages for example. This didn't go into EQEmu, since it is intended to be like live.

Long Long LONG time visitor and player of eqemu and specifically s2k. Scorp please bring it back. I voted yes and I was also one of the original donators and continued to donated after I stopped playing. I will definitely donate if it looks like this is going to really happen.


-Drozes

YES! Based on this poll, it really is going to happen. It'll be great to see you and all the other "old timers" back as well as new players. We will bring it back as soon as we have enough donations. So the server will be up soon.

Cant host the forums for the server there, thats what the C&D stated and I will loose my host if we do it again. They were cool and let me take it down instead of booting me as a customer, we will find an alternative place.

I'll be donating tomorrow.

Cool, that's what I was looking for. I knew residential modem access is likely not going to be good enough. But I'm too tight to spend money on anything but EQLive, heh!

Quick Question
 

I will definitely be donating again as well. Only question I have, now that I know my character is still there, would be, did you guys add any new material after putting in the MattMeck mob? The details of the server are a bit fuzzy to me, but I do remember when you guys put him in, but quit shortly thereafter.

sweet
 

I would definalty vote yes for the server to be brought back up.

It's nothing similar to SoD.

I voted yes. S2K was my first emu server i ever played and still the best that i've ever played.

I would love if the server came back.

I don't see why you noobs don't just work on Sarland. I host it for free.

Sarlaiel_G

i say yes to bring back S2k.. i need something to play... id play Sarland if it was hidden or whatnot lol/ on lockdown or whatever