Hi guys, Well I'm developing a new MMO at the moment and I will soon be looking into servers. From what I have seen most servers go for around 200$ a month which is a bit pricy for me, seeing as thats how much I almost make a month lol (I'm a student with a part time job.) I've been thinking of using a home server. I'm not really sure of all the specifics when it comes to software, but I do have an old computer sitting around my house. A bit dated though... I'd put about 1gig of Ram into it, and I'm not sure but I belive its a p3. I would then get some better internet at about 2mbps unimited bandwidth. I would run a server and DB from here, and probably also use the internet on my other PC for normal uses and working on my MMO stuff like web sites, emailing etc... Now I only expect at first to have mabe a few hundered at the most so I belive a p3, with a gig of ram and a 2mbps connection should be able to handel that... If you have any tips for me or any help such as some software I may need or different hardware specs, you advise will be greatly appreciated :) Also if you know any good cheap server rental sites I could vistit please let me know. I'd prefer not to spend more than 70-100$, and a internet connection that could support a hundered or so players. I've seen some people have about 500 people on a server like the one I stated only with about 512 RAM. So thanks in advance for any advise :) ~Stargate005~

http://www.jhservers.com (re-sells for HiVelocity)
http://www.hivelocity.com

Just my suggestion for 'cheap' servers. The other option is VPS.

'course you probably should wait until you got something a good way to done before spending money on such.

I really recommend hosting the website and forums else where. So when people get upset and flood it, it won't take down your game server. I also seriously recommend making some sort of firewall/IDS/monitor box to get between your game server(s) and the internet. This central box can be a P2 and easily handle anything throw at your line (your line will saturate before the box CPU gets too busy). Thinks like SNORT can detect and automatically stop ping floods and the like. It can even do bandwidth shaping, giving your game servers or home PCs higher priority etc., which can be changed on the fly, if you want to try and stress test your game server(s).

Good luck, hope this helps a bit.

That sounds like a good idea Mike.
No reason you can't run a server at home for a small MMO game (if that's not an oxymoron) while it's in beta or whatever. But if it takes off you will need to move fast to get a 'proper' server - you don't want to get a reputation for shoddy servers.

How long has this game been in development for - are you just thinking in advance or do you actually have a game already?

I don't know how much you value your own time at, but I'd guess that even if it's very cheap, the cost of a (dedicated or colo) server is *very small* compared to what you'll spend developing and maintaining it.

Therefore it's a nonissue really.

A lot of people on here seem to worry about servers before they've actually even got their MMO to the early beta testing stage - which strikes me as a mistake.

I don't know what kind of system you were quoted for, or what kind of dollars your $200 is, but I guess it's not very competitive unless it's a very high spec system and/or they are some really cheap kind of dollars.

Mark

Maintaining a server or two, as long as they're not Windows boxes should be a 1-2 hour weekly ordeal (and keeping up on a few mailing lists for the latest on security news on your particular OS).

He's likely to have two lower end boxes. One network monitoring/security and the other the game server. Bandwidth isn't an issue (and it's so cheap now-a-days if you pay for it at a co-lo you have issues a friend co-los a box for $150 a month (decent setup was bleeding edge in late 2004) and gets 990GB of xfer a month. Each 100GB over that is $10).

If you're in alpha or early beta I'd say park it at home and save your $ for when you really need it.

Quote: Original post by Mike2343
Maintaining a server or two, as long as they're not Windows boxes should be a 1-2 hour weekly ordeal (and keeping up on a few mailing lists for the latest on security news on your particular OS).

...

Assuming you know how to administrate a *nix box. =)

If he never used *nix before, it could be quite a bit more effort than that.