Thinking About The Future And A Bf1 Server

[lakaelo]

well, BF1 is not that far away anymore and i think we should think about how we manange our future with that.

think most of us are waiting to play BF1 and also that we got our own BF1 server. the current situation is that only official EA hoster can host a BF4 server. so i can imagine that will be the same if BF1 get launchend.

at that point we can already check the prices / cost of the current BF4 hoster and compare it with the suspected BF1 hosting fees.

our current hoster for the BF4 hoster and monthly fees are that one:
www.gameservers.com
55.- € / 47.- GBP / 62.- $

later you can see, its not the cheapest one but its hard to change the server hoster because you have to do all the plugins / settings again and even more, the ip will change and you loose all your regulars if they not update the new server in there favorites.

thats why i will talk earlier about that topic. same reasin is, that i will do it in the open forum area. think some of our regulars will be also a part of this conversation.

however, i think now its time to do a overview about the current bf4 hoster and the prices and also what we do with the current bf4 server. how will we start with bf1? how many slots? 32/48/64 ?? if i compare it with the BF4 fees i think prices could be around that one:

32 slots = 50.- €
48 slots = 65.- €
64 slots = 80.- €

because our current hoster is one of the expensive one, we should start with a new one, which have also good valued prices with BF4.

i compared some hosters and think this one is very interesting.

Battlefield 4 Server mieten - BF4 - 4Netplayers
its with TS3 and a procon layer included . We actual paying for that extra each month around 8.- €. alone the teamspeak server cost us 5.- € each month. that as a little hint for all the guys using the TS

so we would pay for a 50 Slot BF4 server just 39,92 € compared with around 63 .- € for our 48 Slots BF4 server.

because of this we should directly start with a good and cheaper hoster for BF1.

also we should think about what should we do with the BF4 server. are we enough player to run both? have we enough money for both? for sure we have to look at the amount of BF4 player we still have if BF1 is started and than we have to make a decission if we run both or only a one. in practical knowledge from the other releases like BF3, BFBC2 and even BF4 the "old" server will be empty really fast so i think the decission will be to close it down after some time. even more we have only pay for one.

about the new , higher costs for the BF1 server i hope we get some more donation from all the guys playing with us. its easy calculated. if we have 20 guys paying 5.- € each month we have all our costs well organized. and as always, the guys who can affort this money are glad to pay for the guys who can´t affort any money.

 

[glenwilson]

I think it is a good idea to think about this now. We probably need to know how many of us will be playing BF1 and how many will continue playing BF4. Hopefully BF1 will not be another Hardline and later this week we should get to see. I've gone all-in with premium (or whatever it is called) and provided it isn't a pile of poo would imagine playing it a lot. However, BF4 is still a fun game and some of the maps are enjoyable to play so it still may have some life in it yet.

My pension is fixed and I know exactly what bills I have to pay and budget accordingly. Sometimes you get an unexpected bill (car, I'm looking at you) and that mucks things up but I try and catch up when possible. I was playing on a TDM server and also donated to them too. It is a bit like using Starbucks WiFi without buying a coffee every so often, if you are playing on a server frequently then drop them some € to help out. There are quite a few regulars on the BF4 server and if they were to donate the price of a coffee (or beer) every so often that would help.

Maybe something in chat like "Having fun? Donate the price of a coffee to help us run the server." Just a thought.

I do wonder if some players think servers are just there and they have no consideration how much work goes in to keeping them running, maintained, up to date, and admined by a few folk in the background who largely go unrecognised for the effort and time they put in ( thank you guys).

 

[lakaelo]

Maybe something in chat like "Having fun? Donate the price of a coffee to help us run the server." Just a thought.

Done

 

[Mr.X]

I think a 32 slot server should be enough for the beginning. (Presuppose reserved Slots for all our BF1 playing members) We later can increase the slots if needed.

 

[waxxzer]

To be honest.. Ill wait a bit till prices drop to a more reasonable level. Starterpack is already 60E, ultimate 130E what in the end you would spend either way if new maps are going in to rotation.
You might take this into consideration.. if peeps dont have the money to pay for the game, they might also find it difficult to support every month.
Maybe it would be nice to consider having paypal payments to be recurring. Recurring Payments and Subscription Billing - PayPal. I tend to forget about donating or often have no single clue when i did it for the last time.

 

[lakaelo]

prices are really a bit over the top, not to say "outrageous". BF1 premium shal cost around 129.- €. thats nearly a joke.

the recuring payment is always a good idea and if everyone would only do a little donation of 2 to 5.- € as monthly recuring payment than i think this is nearly possible for everyone.

yesterday i heard some rumors about the "rent server" for battlefield 1. they said it could be possible that you only can rent servers directly at EA and same settings like we run our server in official mode. so no plugins, no reserved slots or anything else. if this would be true all clans are fucked. what reason should we have to "rent" a server which we can´t do any settings and/or have any advantage for our clan ( like reserved slots )? hopefully that rumors comes not up as true.

 

[glenwilson]

I had a reoccurring payment set-up for a while but from what I can remember there was also a fee for it. Whilst it was only a small(ish) amount I would rather NRU get the full amount or keep it myself than give it to PayPal.

BF1 is £100+ for the everything bundle. Which does look/is rather a lot (about 25 Starbucks coffees, 40 cans of my favourite beer) but when you look at the average price of a PS4 game you would get about 3 games for that and how long would you play some of them? BF4 wasn't quite that expensive but given how much time I have played it then it is very good value. However, it is still a big chunk of cash to splash. Once you have the game there are loads of servers to play on so there are no costs from then on. With the BF4 server being well populated recently, and with a lot of regulars playing it has been fun playing on there recently. The effort put in by tweaking settings and even ghosting to get it going has paid off. People moan about the language filter (still) but when you explain it is to stop player abuse and that they will need to be more creative with their banter most seem to understand.

If some of the regular server players contributed a few £/€/$ every so often then that would probably help a lot. There are quite a few faces that are seen every day so we are doing something right and that is good.

 

[lakaelo]

i can just echo that. the BF4 server is really good running now and you can see lot of regular player now. and lucky to say, nearly all of them are really nice guys.

updated my post above. the ultimate edition with included premium pass costs 129.- € not 179.- €. but still a lot of money even if you have to pay it in one step just for a game. but how glen said before. if i imagine how many time i play and have fun in that game, than it is also a good value.

however, the first DLC shall release at march 2017 so nearly a half year after the game release. so we can start the server also with the vanilla maps so everyone can play on, even with the basic game. you can upgarde your game all the time for around 50.- € with premium so its a easier decission to start with the basic game and you really have fun, upgrade it to premium at some point.

also the open beta will start this week and everyone, even if you not ordered the game yet, can download and test the game for free. thats also a nice bonus to see how you like it.

i hope a lot of guys will test the beta and we can play some decent rounds.

 

[glenwilson]

With the first DLC being some time away that should give them time to get rid of the inevitable bugs that will be in there initially. No matter how good you test there will ALWAYS be bugs!!

 

[FortunaMagica]

i think its an awsome idear, im lacking Cash though so even though i have the pc to run it, im missing the 70 €uros to buy the game :-/ pretty annoying but putting that aside, ild say 32 slot server is a good place to start mate, then it doesnt get too crouded (that is if the Price for a bf1 server wont be as crazy as the Price for the game XD)