heRO going private hosting

[GM-Pandora]

Been thinking about it for a very long time, as long as it wasn't necessary I delayed it. But now the server is growing, slowly but steadily, it's gonna become a necessity soon, specially to avoid lag.

What it means in short:
+ less lag
+ more future-oriented (if we wanna go 200+ player it's a must)
- more costy of course
- server will be down a few hours when comes the time to transition

If you don't like computer mumbojumbo you can stop reading here lol but if you don't mind read on, and if you have comments/suggestions on my plan they'll be most welcome.

My current home connection (10mps) is great, it's the best I can get in terms of personal connection where I live, you can't even get that in all countries. But we've reached the limit of the home-connection, to get better than that we need the server to be hosted professionally.

I'm considering iweb: http://iweb8.com/
iweb are leaders in their domain as I understand, and they are hosted in my home town which is a nice plus. It's what GM-Ben (one of the other starting admin here, who left a while back to start his own server) had chosen for his server and since he's far more aware than me in these department I trust his judgment. iweb might be a little more expensive than some cheap offers I see when browsing other hosting services, but at least I'm sure they are reliable. I'd rather pay a little more but be certain of what we get. They offer 24h uptime garantee and live support, it looks entirely professional and we'd be in good hands with them, it's not some cheap re-seller who splits the resources and oversells their half-working shared servers (I've heard bad stories hehe).

More specifically, I'm looking at their colocation option (what that means is I bring them the server computer and they only charge me for renting the space in their facility, as oppose to paying for one of their computer server there). Seems it would cost $119 monthly for having our server on 100Mbps port. It's not that bad actually, and considering I don't have to re-install everything on a new computer is very welcome from my point of view, it's much less hassle for me.

The server has donation buffer (accumulated donations) to pay for well over 6 months, even if we didn't I could probably absorb the cost but obviously I'd rather not pay it all out of my own pocket. I'm happy we have generous donators who are willing to help the server ^_^ still, if we ever ran out of donation funds to pay I still wouldn't bother people for donations, those will always be voluntary, so no worry in that department.

So whatcha guys think? Well obviously faster connection is good and I'm sure no one would object to less lag, but aside from that, any input?

Putting the thread in suggestion section, cuz it's still just that, looking at our options before taking a decision.

[Fatalis]

I vote to go for it, but I can't really argue many points for/against since my knowledge of RO server's works doesn't extend past customs >>;;

[Loveless]

The bad thing I see is that you will have to pay it for your own pocket.

Since the day I joined the server you proved to be a worthy person, and your devotion for the server is amazing. heRO is indeed a server worth donating for, so as soon as I can, count me on for a donation.

[GM-Pandora]

Might be even less expensive that I thought, I'll have to measure the server, if it fits in "Mini-Tower Max Size : 6? x 14? x 14?" it will cost about 99$ instead 119$ ^_^

[Loki]

Only thing players should be aware of then would be the downtime of the transfer to the hosting space? Since you have to physically take the server computer there so they can hook it up. Would be a good time to make a physical backup of the server info

oh as far as my opinion I say go for it, it should reduce lag for majority of players but some will more than probably still have some.

[GM-Pandora]

Ah yeah true, forgot to mention that in the -, yes the server will need to be down while I transport it to their office place and such obviously, can go up to a few hours I assume. But I guess it's not that big a deal, it's only a few hours compare to how much it will help for a long time to come.

I'll probably add some ram to the computer too before bringing it there, just to be on the safe side for the future.

[Raccoon]

If anyone complains about the time it takes to move, they can go somewhere else and do other non-fun but still essential things; like sleep.

Well.. Maybe sleep isnt an essential. But they can do without for a few hours.

Happily waiting to see :D

[Bloody]

The lag is not getting any better. It has been lagging very bad since ToH or even before it. And I've noticed heRO's average moving from 60ish to a steady 100. And it goes as high as 150+ (161 at one point) during WoE.

The easy and obvious question is:
Do we need to upgrade?
Yes

The hard and vague question is:
Can Panda afford to?
Please answer this and clear my doubts.

If she starts paying more from her pocket, she will suffer on a financial scale. Despite the donations made by people (Even though Panda still managed to save a nice sum of money in case we needed to upgrade). Someday that amount will run out.

Running out of money and having to pay a lot for this new host out of her pocket might either:
- Cause a lot of stress to Panda.
or
- Push Panda to alternate methods of raising money (Such as the new donation-services).

The second option will of course lead to:
- People whining and objecting to Pandora's ideas of raising funds --> No money to host anymore --> Server closing OR Going back to the current laggy state.

OR

- People accepting the fact that better donation rewards are inevitible and are a must --> Overpowered donation rewards --> heRO joining the ranks of other "If you got money, you got the power" RO servers (Not PRIVATE RO servers only, OFFICIAL ones as well).


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Up to this point, we all know it for a fact that heRO is the best server because we have this awesome admin <3 Panda, and our balanced donation system.. Will upgrading to a new host effect either in the future? It's a big risk to upgrade if it will :\

Do I want you to upgrade?
YES T_T Mvps are abusing the lag to kick my butt

But I am afraid of what I mentioned above..

feedback.get()

[GM-Pandora]

Nuuuuu we will never be a "donation milking server", I vow this will not happen. I'd rather pay out of my pocket than have pvp-woe ran by donation gears ewwwww. And no need to suck up lol I do what I can.

The new donation service we added have yet to be used by anyone so I assume they are not overpowered, mostly cosmetic anyway to change name,sex,allegiance or switch a gear from one account to another.

Btw saw 163 yesterday, on a non-woe night! so yeah, it's getting more necessary to update fast o_O;

Hopefully people will keep donating out of their good nature and free will so I don't pay it all alone, but don't worry I have a full time job. The cost is actually not as high as I expected since it's colocation, I've seen some servers say they paid much much more (either they were lying to get more donations or had some sort of very expensive buffed up dedicated server).

[Kyouhei]

as long as its not too much of a strain on your financial needs I say hell yea. 163 ppl is a LOT of people even with vending mercs. Server is holding out fairly ok on my side but I imagine people who live much further away is probably having a lot of lag. I can probably help out with donations when I get my part time job which should be soon.