Thinking about renting a server...
 

Hey all, I'm brand-spaking new here, but I was wondering if you could help me out. I am most likely going to bring up my own server (maybe 2) and my own log-in server, so that people can play everquest for free. However to do this I'm gonna really need your all's help finding deals and showing me how to hook it up and everything (as well as a player-base of about 20 people to a server if that could work). I do plan on renting a dedicated server so the "O crap, my family needs the computer" thing is on a minimum for the server itself. Anwyays, any help would be great, I've been looking for a way to play EQ in the classic phase (EQ, RoK, and SoV) and this may just be it! O yeah, and, btw, what are the cheaper prices for a server that I could rent? 'Cause if they're too high, I have a friend who is getting rid of some of his from his old office and was wondering if it would just be worth it to buy a used server to run it from (don't know how I would connect it to the internet then, other than doing my DSL at home, which I think would be pretty slow for a server). So, yeah, any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance! :grin:

Be prepared to spend a lot of money.

Heh, it will cost alot of money i don't think there cheap, well good luck

I just searched Google, you're looking at about $80 - $130 per month, not to mention the amount of time you're going to have to put into it. I'd be willing to bet that most of the operators of the successful emu servers spend around 5 hours a day (on the low side) tweaking their emu to make it the best it can be. This is NOT plug and play software.

Good luck!

excuse me if I laugh but , your own Loginserver lol , good luck prying that from someone. But seriously good luck on everything else

The company that hosts this site www.dmgnetworks.com also rents servers for use as gaming platorms. If you would be intrested i would make anyone associated with the eqemu project special deals for hosting DEDICATED EMU servers. Let me know if your intrested by sending an email to mlnovak@dmgnetworks.com aka:Krusher.

Thanks

how hard would it be for me to set one of those servers up Krush without knowing anything at all about the CentOS they use? ive only ever used windows.

Not a bad price, though, couldn't we form a "pay-for" server to simply cover the cost of a dedicated server? I mean, if we just did the bare minimum, and, say, 100 people played, at their rate of 60 bucks a month, that would only be 60 cents a month per person. Anyway we could put together a legitimate/safe/secure "community pot" to pay for the server?

now you are talking about charging for a game you have no rights to charge for , may want rethink that

It wouldn't really be charging for the game, it's charging for the server as a community... no profit involved, was just a suggestion. It would kind of be like a clan renting a server to plan Call of Duty on, same thing, just with EQ, which, if we're going to get on the legal side, EQEMU isn't exactly legit (not that SOE cares), but once again, it was just a suggestion. 8-)

Yeah no, you can take donations, and that is done on many servers, but as soon as you start charging to play (in most circumstances), thats a big no. And EQEMu, afaik, but I'm no legal expert, you can search the forums for more answers for legal questions about this, is fully legal under international law. The DMCA was enough to shut down bnetd, but that was outrageous.

Hell I have a dedicated Windows Server 2003 box... I had a hard time setting up the new Emu ver.

I will give you hosting on it if you would like.

Also, what is CentOS?

I'll tell you this.

A lot of people have tried to run servers based on donations. Out of all that have tried (including GuildWars), only two have ever made it.

Scorpious2k and Winter's Roar. Both have custom content and are very actively expanded/maintained.

If you wanna to run a server and rely on donations to keep the server running, be prepared for one of a couple of things:
1) Your server won't last.
2) You'll be footing part/all of the host bill yourself, which will lead to #1.
3) You need to be spending -a lot- of time actively doing custom content and custom code or you'll lose your player base, which will lead to #2.

I'm not trying to be a nay-sayer. If you can pull it off, more power to you. But many have failed on that path before you, so watch for the bodies if you tread that path.

Guildwars did good with expansions, i know tons of players who donate $20-40 for a nice "donator's" ranged slot

Got a question for Krusher, how much would hosting be for a 20 person or so server with your company? I'm some-what considering opening a server, if i do i might as well repay the person who funds all of this.