I've searched around the XNull site and haven't found any posts discussing server providers other than AAAA hosting. So here's one. Over the years I've had my share of experience with quite a few different server providers. I'm just curious as to everyone else's experience with the various hosts out there. Also this might be useful to those doing their research before switching hosts, or starting a server.
Before we begin, I feel like it would save tons of headache a few posts from now if we lay out some ground rules for this thread:
1) Do your best to keep everything in an unbiased, pros vs cons format for each host you describe here, regardless of your personal experience being positive or negative.
2) Try not to make this a promotion page for your host if you're getting a kickback on referrals.
3) If someone has a different experience than what you've posted or had, that's fine - post your experiences too, it's always nice to have more than one persons feedback when making a decision.
4) Only review the hosting companies that still exist, please. Tons of re-seller sites come and go, so if they're not around anymore they're not worth reviewing.
Now that that's hashed out, I'll get started on my list with the following criteria:
Time Frame:
Company:
Website:
Package:
Cost:
Location:
Pros:
Cons:
Value (1-10):
Performance (1-10):
Support (1-10):
Comments:
Time Frame: August 2008 - September 2010
Company: Art of War Central [CLOSED]
Time Frame: October 2010 - December 2011
Company: eXtreme Gaming [CLOSED]
Time Frame: November 2010 - April 2011
Company: Escaped Turkey
Website: http://escapedturkey.com/
Package: "1 Game Server"
Cost: $15.00 USD / Month
Location: Chicago, IL, USA
Pros: The servers are super cheap and hold 64 players. You get root server access which isn't super common for a single server.
Cons: No real control panel, I think there's maybe a "start/stop" button in your billing panel somewhere if I remember correctly, but you have to use a third party FTP client to change files. The servers were very unstable and even on a nearly stock server (sniper only weapon mod), it would crash with twelve players in it or become extremely laggy. The support from these guys was pretty rough as well, their forums are pretty much dead and they don't look at the tickets too often.
Value (1-10): 10/10
Performance (1-10): 5/10
Support (1-10): 4/10
Comments: Not bad if you're looking for a test server. It'd probably be less headache to just unblock the ports on your home router given the performance of these servers.
Time Frame: May 2011 - April 2012
Company: Gameservers
Website: https://www.gameservers.com/
Package: Public, 32-Player MoH:AA
Cost: $31.95 USD / Month
Location: Dallas, TX, USA
Pros: The servers were very stable, no issues with them crashing. Gameservers support is pretty decent. Never really had any issue getting them to reply to support tickets if you give them some time. Their control panel is easy to use. Free web hosting package.
Cons: While the control panel is easy to use, it's very limited. You cannot change the username so you have to remember your account number, and then it's only good for starting and stopping the server - no built in FTP. We had an issue with the files in the root of the server being overwritten frequently. They're linux servers so back in the early days of the reborn patch trying to get them to help install that was a headache (this issue has since been fixed I believe). Not many "affordable" dedicated options - you've got to buy a whole box or a single server, no VPS solutions through GameServers.
Value (1-10): 7/10
Performance (1-10): 8/10
Support (1-10): 9/10
Comments: Overall decent, but for the price it was definitely time to switch to a VPS --
Time Frame: December 2012 - Current
Company: Nuclear Fallout Servers
Website: https://www.nfoservers.com/
Package: 3-Core VPS
Cost: $40.97 USD / Month
Location: Chicago, IL, USA
Pros: By far the best host we've had. Their support is unmatched - at any hour of the day or night I can put in a ticket and hear back from somebody within fifteen minutes. It's an unmanaged VPS so there aren't many reasons to put in support tickets, but when I do, they deliver. The price is unheard of for the quality of the machine we're getting (granted, the price back in 2012 was about 75 bucks for the same specs.. it's come down quite a bit in cost). The forum and knowledge base for NFo are expansive and active, there's been many times I haven't had to open up a ticket because of this feature. Their control panel gives me decent enough access to what I need for a VPS - emergency access through VNC console, and free OS reinstalls. I host about 10 MoHAA servers, a TS server with 500 slots, and three (very light) web-based applications from this thing and it purrs like a kitten. I had a few members with some odd ping spikes, and spoke with the tech support from NFo and they contacted their InterNAP provider and re-routed the hops that those clients IPs were taking to get them better performance - awesome support.
Cons: The control panel, while easy to navigate, is limited - even when purchasing an individual server (no built in FTP is to be expected with an unmanaged VPS but that's how it's configured with traditional game servers as well). By definition, unmanaged means you've got to do all the game installing on your own which means you have to spend some time doing the initial setup or things wont work - definitely not plug and play. Also, if they ever have sales, you have to manually apply the discount, they wont do it automatically for you (over time the prices have dropped about 30-35 bucks on all of their virtual solutions).
Value (1-10): 10/10
Performance (1-10): 9/10
Support (1-10): 10/10
Comments: Overall a good solution, you can get a whole virtual box for less than the price of one MOHAA server and 25 slot TS server from Gameservers, and run it on Windows - what's not to love?
Time Frame: January 2015 - February 2015
Company: End of Reality
Website: http://eoreality.net/
Package: "Ember VDS"
Cost: $40.00 USD / Month
Location: Chicago, IL, USA
Pros: The support from these guys was pretty incredible. I could put in a ticket and have a response within half an hour the majority of the time. The VDS was set up very quick and they were willing to work with me on getting the files for MOHAA installed again since it wasn't a game they traditionally supported. TCAdmin is always a nice plus, (easier than hoping OGP works or teaching my admins how to use TeamViewer and hoping they don't break anything) and it was configured correctly with FTP to the server so there was no need for an additional FTP client. They were also super willing to give us a trial of their servers before we made the switch, I offered to pay and their support team insisted that I try for free for a week.
Cons: While running one TS3 server with 25 clients connected and one fresh install of a MOHAA server with no mods aside from Mefy's FreezeTag mod and a weapon mod, the server was a bit laggy. We have a few members in Alaska and the nether regions of Canada who were getting much higher pings than we had seen from other hosting companies, and End of Reality was unable to do much to counteract that so we ended up leaving after a month with them. Also, no included web hosting or voice servers
Value (1-10): 9/10
Performance (1-10): 7/10
Support (1-10): 9/10
Comments: I thought I could save a few bucks from our hosting provider, NFo (at the time about $50/month compared to EOR's $40/month) but unfortunately they were unable to do much for the members who were experiencing higher than normal latency to their Chicago based servers. We ended up sticking with NFo. Overall though, they had some nearly unbeatable prices for some pretty solid performance servers.
Time Frame: March 2015 - April 2015
Company: VULTR
Website: https://www.vultr.com/
Package: 2 CPU Cloud SSD VPS
Cost: $35.00 USD / Month
Location: Chicago, IL, USA
Pros: The price is decent, the support was quick, and the server worked "alright".
Cons: The connection to this server was a bit less stable than to other servers we've rented from. I had an unmanged VPS running Windows Server 2012 (not my top pick, but that's what they had so I went with it), and all the security features were enabled. After fiddling with it for two hours, I finally got the security features turned off so I could use IE to download Chrome to download the patched MOHAA server from the XNull site and set that bad boy up. I did send in a support ticket asking if unblocking ports was normal for game servers hosted through them and they assured me it was (through EOR and NFo, the ports were always unblocked to begin with). This is a new company and their billing system is a big buggy, they billed me two months rent after running the server for one week - sent in a ticket and got it squared away, but still a con in my books.
Value (1-10): 8/10
Performance (1-10): 7/10
Support (1-10): 8/10
Comments: For $35 a month, I again thought I would save a few bucks from NFo (at the time of this trial, NFo was about $50 a month) - unfortunately, the connection to this VPS wasn't as stable as NFo, so we're still going strong with our original hosting company.