Should server hosts charge for zandronum hosting?

General discussion of the port and Doom-related chat.
mifu
Retired Staff / Community Team Member
Posts: 1075
Joined: Tue May 29, 2012 10:34 am
Location: Aussie Land
Clan: Demon RiderZ

Should server hosts charge for zandronum hosting?

#1

Post by mifu » Sat Mar 10, 2018 6:41 pm

Hi,

Here is an interesting one for ya all. I have learned today that a particular server cluster actually charges money for hosting zandronum. For example, we are going to call this guy "Jeff". Jeff pays this particular server host $120 a year to just host ONE zandronum server, that probably does not use much ram at all.

So i figured id ask everyone here to tell us, is this ok?

In my opinion, this is very dirty business and possibly a scam since well, other server hosts offer this stuff for free.
I would not mind also if a dev can chime in to let us know if they are also violating anything on the licenses zandronum uses.

Feel free to discuss this as, this thread exists because of this but please for the love of god, keep it civil.

EDIT: While other hosts do it for free is a pretty bad argument, this one is not: Its price gouging..... alot
Last edited by mifu on Sat Mar 10, 2018 6:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: UGH TYPOS. MY FAV

User avatar
dantos123
New User
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Feb 15, 2016 10:01 pm
Location: Doom II : Hell on Earth Map25

Re: Should server hosts charge for zandronum hosting?

#2

Post by dantos123 » Sat Mar 10, 2018 11:14 pm

interesting

User avatar
BlushBerry
 
Posts: 90
Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2016 11:12 pm
Location: root
Clan: Nuclear Empire
Clan Tag: [NE]
Contact:

Re: Should server hosts charge for zandronum hosting?

#3

Post by BlushBerry » Sun Mar 11, 2018 5:58 am

I personally Disagree, Nobody should have to pay for "ZANDRONUM" hosting. They should be paying for KVM Sessions in which they have access to a vps in which they share resources and they can do w/e they want as long as they are not using too many resources and pay monthly/semi-anually/yearly for that. You should not have to charge for a single Zandronum server. Zandronum servers for the most part do not use nearly enough ram or cpu to warrant any sort of payment. 120$ is an insane price to pay even yearly for Zandronum.

User avatar
Ænima
Addicted to Zandronum
Posts: 3523
Joined: Tue Jun 05, 2012 6:12 pm

Re: Should server hosts charge for zandronum hosting?

#4

Post by Ænima » Sun Mar 11, 2018 6:47 am

lol Mifu, just tell us who it is
­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­
Doom64: Unabsolved: New weapons, monsters, and gameplay features for coop !


ZandroSkins
: a pack made by our community

Bloodhaven
New User
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Apr 15, 2017 2:14 pm
Location: Canada
Clan: Nuclear Empire
Clan Tag: [NE] & [TSPG]

Re: Should server hosts charge for zandronum hosting?

#5

Post by Bloodhaven » Sun Mar 11, 2018 6:59 am

For this specific *cough* instance, it's completely disgusting what they're doing. It's a form of exploitation if what's been said is true. $120 is even more than some of the more popular clusters.
I have no Mouth and I must Scream ぉ陰波ごイ ちジす
Image

User avatar
Mluminoth
Registered just to make one post
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Mar 11, 2018 7:00 am

Re: Should server hosts charge for zandronum hosting?

#6

Post by Mluminoth » Sun Mar 11, 2018 7:17 am

https://www.patreon.com/tspg
Its worth mentioning VGP is doing the same thing, asking for donations to pay for infrastructure. I am sure running a bare-metal dedicated machine is expensive... I would never fault TSPG for asking for support to keep things going. We are not as advanced as TSPG and script everything by hand. We are not looking to make a profit, only support those with less free time and technical skill who wish to run a game; for fun and for the love of GNU/Linux. And not just Zandronum, anything classic FPS. Feel free to contact me or miles directly if you have any questions.

User avatar
nax
Lead Administrator
Posts: 116
Joined: Fri Aug 30, 2013 4:06 am

Re: Should server hosts charge for zandronum hosting?

#7

Post by nax » Sun Mar 11, 2018 8:44 am

Mluminoth wrote:
Sun Mar 11, 2018 7:17 am
https://www.patreon.com/tspg
yeah you can cut the bullshit right there. you don't get to use an optional patreon that barely has $32 per month to justify what the OP is talking about. i don't know who you're trying to represent but you're on thin ice for this.

mifu
Retired Staff / Community Team Member
Posts: 1075
Joined: Tue May 29, 2012 10:34 am
Location: Aussie Land
Clan: Demon RiderZ

Re: Should server hosts charge for zandronum hosting?

#8

Post by mifu » Sun Mar 11, 2018 8:47 am

Ænima wrote:
Sun Mar 11, 2018 6:47 am
lol Mifu, just tell us who it is
Looks like your going to find out now.
Mluminoth wrote:
Sun Mar 11, 2018 7:17 am
https://www.patreon.com/tspg
Its worth mentioning VGP is doing the same thing, asking for donations to pay for infrastructure. I am sure running a bare-metal dedicated machine is expensive... I would never fault TSPG for asking for support to keep things going. We are not as advanced as TSPG and script everything by hand. We are not looking to make a profit, only support those with less free time and technical skill who wish to run a game; for fun and for the love of GNU/Linux. And not just Zandronum, anything classic FPS. Feel free to contact me or miles directly if you have any questions.
Thanks for replying. I do notice that you do have a patreon which is cool. But i need to be frank, the report I had received about this is that VGP is forcing atleast one person to pay $120 a year. For a patreon, its assumed that its optional for people to send money. The report I got however is alot different. You have a person forced to pay $120 a year currently to host 1 server.

So, it would be cool to get a explanation, perhaps find out whats happening so we can get to the bottom of this.

User avatar
Doomkid
Frequent Poster Miles card holder
Posts: 943
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2012 2:04 am
Location: Aussie Land
Clan: UniDoom
Clan Tag: [UD]
Contact:

Re: Should server hosts charge for zandronum hosting?

#9

Post by Doomkid » Sun Mar 11, 2018 9:35 am

You can buy a $120 a year linode powerful enough to run a cluster of 10-15 servers on all 3 multiplayer Doom ports, just saying
Image
Image

LanHikariDS
New User
Posts: 16
Joined: Thu Aug 11, 2016 7:52 am
Contact:

Re: Should server hosts charge for zandronum hosting?

#10

Post by LanHikariDS » Sun Mar 11, 2018 10:30 am

This is a reasonable idea in theory, and something I could definately understand, as bills need to be paid for this, and that money has to come from somewhere. But as with every reasonable idea, someone has to EA it up and go far beyond reasonable. $120 at a locked subscription rate (I'm assuming) for a single yearly server on a relatively primitave game is a tad outrageous to me.

User avatar
nax
Lead Administrator
Posts: 116
Joined: Fri Aug 30, 2013 4:06 am

Re: Should server hosts charge for zandronum hosting?

#11

Post by nax » Sun Mar 11, 2018 4:11 pm

what i propose is that any servers wishing to directly charge people for their services should meet first with zandronum staff so as to be vetted first before being allowed to host a commercial cluster on our master server. i was a co-founder for a professional gameserver hosting company that operated a pretty significant list of games (especially half-life and early source) and while doing this i encountered a ton of comments from customers as well as seeing with my own eyes how many shady people charge money for gameserver hosting and how badly it's handled. at best you'll see companies that are actually just a couple friends with terrible service and bad downtimes. at worst you'll see companies that directly attempt to scam their users or involve harmful content (like custom software that infects its users with adware).

while we may not have had to deal with these companies yet, i think this is a good time to step on the brakes and consider how we as a community would want this handled if this situation was indeed worst case scenario. before the pitchforks come out we don't know all the details. but that's one of the reasons i'm bringing this up; we would love to know all the details going forward when a cluster wants to charge its users money. this is relatively unprecedented as people in the past have either hosted clusters through professional server hosts in which they manage zandronum servers directly, or they befriend those that have these services and donate to help offload the financial burden.

we need to have policies in place that safeguard our community from bad actors. it does reflect badly, collectively, on us as a community to allow said bad actors to act with impunity. and at the end of the day the master server is a privilege; its not a right.

User avatar
Sean
IRC Operator
Posts: 951
Joined: Thu Jan 16, 2014 9:09 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: Should server hosts charge for zandronum hosting?

#12

Post by Sean » Sun Mar 11, 2018 5:11 pm

Doomkid wrote:
Sun Mar 11, 2018 9:35 am
You can buy a $120 a year linode powerful enough to run a cluster of 10-15 servers on all 3 multiplayer Doom ports, just saying
Unless you're hosting MM8BDM, you could run a lot more than 45 Doom servers on 32 GB of RAM.
(Source: we're hosting 133 Zan servers, a Minecraft server, Terraria, a couple Source engine servers - 39GB of RAM used.)
<capodecima> i dont say any more word without my loyer jenova

Mobius
Banned
Posts: 815
Joined: Wed Jun 13, 2012 3:43 am
Location: The center of the A3's controversial and machiavellian conspiracy
Clan: Cube
Clan Tag: Aᵌ
Contact:
Banned: Permanently

Re: Should server hosts charge for zandronum hosting?

#13

Post by Mobius » Sun Mar 11, 2018 7:13 pm

Oh wow VGP being duplicitous and scummy? Who would have seen that coming, but I suspect Miles is not above doing something like this really. Nothing but dog fuckers over there anyway

I think whoever pays into it deserved getting fleece by Ferengi like practices to begin with, because anyone familiar with doom knows there's MANY free options available to them. Shit you can host a server from your home connection if for no other alternative.
dewsome: i can do this all day
dewsome: do you think you're somehow special? i spent years arguing with nostar, jenova, mobius
<+Thomas13> Mobius u r inferior, go outside and get beaten up
Alfonzo ~ "I wonder who will hear him trash talk when the dirt closes over him?"

Bloodhaven
New User
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Apr 15, 2017 2:14 pm
Location: Canada
Clan: Nuclear Empire
Clan Tag: [NE] & [TSPG]

Re: Should server hosts charge for zandronum hosting?

#14

Post by Bloodhaven » Sun Mar 11, 2018 7:22 pm

Mobius wrote:
Sun Mar 11, 2018 7:13 pm
I think whoever pays into it deserved getting fleece by Ferengi like practices to begin with, because anyone familiar with doom knows there's MANY free options available to them. Shit you can host a server from your home connection if for no other alternative.
I agree if someone were to know about the free services, but the person doing this is taking advantage of the payer's lack of knowledge of modern hosting solutions that are free. Pretty sure it's a form of extortion, too.
I have no Mouth and I must Scream ぉ陰波ごイ ちジす
Image

Mobius
Banned
Posts: 815
Joined: Wed Jun 13, 2012 3:43 am
Location: The center of the A3's controversial and machiavellian conspiracy
Clan: Cube
Clan Tag: Aᵌ
Contact:
Banned: Permanently

Re: Should server hosts charge for zandronum hosting?

#15

Post by Mobius » Sun Mar 11, 2018 7:36 pm

I'm curious as to how licensing handles a situation like this. What's the legal ramifications of such a service if anyone with real knowledge can answer my inquiry.

Not because of the moral implications. I am just concerned about Doom being open just enough for mods but not open enough for profit.
dewsome: i can do this all day
dewsome: do you think you're somehow special? i spent years arguing with nostar, jenova, mobius
<+Thomas13> Mobius u r inferior, go outside and get beaten up
Alfonzo ~ "I wonder who will hear him trash talk when the dirt closes over him?"

User avatar
AlexMax
Forum Regular
Posts: 244
Joined: Tue May 29, 2012 10:14 pm
Contact:

Re: Should server hosts charge for zandronum hosting?

#16

Post by AlexMax » Sun Mar 11, 2018 8:58 pm

To answer the question in the OP, Yes, you should be able to have somebody pay you for hosting. How much? I think it completely depends on context, and thus I don't like the idea of settling on any sort of explicit monetary amount.

I think that in this particular instance, preying on somebody's ignorance is pretty scummy. If this is a server that could have been hosted on TSPG, and the mark simply wasn't aware about his alternatives, that's awful. However, I can certainly see a situation where somebody might pay somebody else to host a server. Perhaps they prefer a specific server cluster to TSPG on a location basis. Perhaps the other cluster simply performs better and has less lag. Perhaps they want to run a set of WAD's or PK3's that TSPG has banned. Perhaps they don't want to maintain the server, and just want to pay somebody else for the trouble. Those are reasonable things.

However, you have to price it accordingly. You are not GameServers, and can't reasonably charge GameServers prices unless you have GameServers infrastructure, support, and guarantees of service. Also, it wasn't clear if this is what was happening, but taking $120 for an entire year's worth of service of a single server up front is also kind of ridiculous. A lot can change in a year, and even a server that's popular right now could be sitting there, abandoned and with no players, a year from now.
The only limit to my freedom is the inevitable closure of the
universe, as inevitable as your own last breath. And yet,
there remains time to create, to create, and escape.

Escape will make me God.

User avatar
nax
Lead Administrator
Posts: 116
Joined: Fri Aug 30, 2013 4:06 am

Re: Should server hosts charge for zandronum hosting?

#17

Post by nax » Sun Mar 11, 2018 9:11 pm

Mobius wrote:
Sun Mar 11, 2018 7:36 pm
I'm curious as to how licensing handles a situation like this. What's the legal ramifications of such a service if anyone with real knowledge can answer my inquiry.

Not because of the moral implications. I am just concerned about Doom being open just enough for mods but not open enough for profit.
from my own experience i know that there's nothing illegal about paid servers for games that offer dedicated server solutions that do not require special authservs for connecting and cd key validation. it wouldn't be illegal for zandronum simply because the person is not paying for a zandronum service. even if it was a policy its not a legally enforceable one, because the customer is paying for the server equipment and service, not anything relating to zandronum itself.

Mobius
Banned
Posts: 815
Joined: Wed Jun 13, 2012 3:43 am
Location: The center of the A3's controversial and machiavellian conspiracy
Clan: Cube
Clan Tag: Aᵌ
Contact:
Banned: Permanently

Re: Should server hosts charge for zandronum hosting?

#18

Post by Mobius » Sun Mar 11, 2018 11:07 pm

nax wrote:
Sun Mar 11, 2018 9:11 pm
Mobius wrote:
Sun Mar 11, 2018 7:36 pm
I'm curious as to how licensing handles a situation like this. What's the legal ramifications of such a service if anyone with real knowledge can answer my inquiry.

Not because of the moral implications. I am just concerned about Doom being open just enough for mods but not open enough for profit.
from my own experience i know that there's nothing illegal about paid servers for games that offer dedicated server solutions that do not require special authservs for connecting and cd key validation. it wouldn't be illegal for zandronum simply because the person is not paying for a zandronum service. even if it was a policy its not a legally enforceable one, because the customer is paying for the server equipment and service, not anything relating to zandronum itself.
Alrighty then at least it can be narrowed down to scummy price gouging.
dewsome: i can do this all day
dewsome: do you think you're somehow special? i spent years arguing with nostar, jenova, mobius
<+Thomas13> Mobius u r inferior, go outside and get beaten up
Alfonzo ~ "I wonder who will hear him trash talk when the dirt closes over him?"

User avatar
buckshot
New User
Posts: 15
Joined: Sun Aug 02, 2015 3:55 pm
Location: Cape Coral, FL
Contact:

Re: Should server hosts charge for zandronum hosting?

#19

Post by buckshot » Mon Mar 12, 2018 12:46 am

I have servers through VGP, and VGP Miles has been nothing but awesome to deal with. He assists with a lot of setup, config, and keeping it all running for me. I know very little about game server stuff so anytime I have a question, change, or issue, I just let him know and he's on it usually within a few moments. He's helped me learn quite a bit of stuff for RCON, Linux zandro commands, etc, too.

VGP also hosts servers on east and west coast, and he gave me the option, so my DOOM FBG servers I have an average of like 30ping or so off the east coast where I'm close to.

We worked out a very nominal monthly fee for these services and support, and as they are providing the backend, infrastructure, isp, servers, and realtime support for any little thing that I might need on the fly... I couldn't be happier. Definetley do not feel like I'm needlessly spending or getting ripped off. Will also mention I'm very busy and don't have much time to mess with all of it myself. The little freetime I do have these days, I just want to jump on the server and play with other folks.

just my 2 cents. Some of us don't mind contributing for such a level of service.

-Buckshot_Strunk

User avatar
-Jes-
Frequent Poster Miles card holder
Posts: 975
Joined: Fri Aug 03, 2012 9:55 am
Location: Void Zone

Re: Should server hosts charge for zandronum hosting?

#20

Post by -Jes- » Mon Mar 12, 2018 2:05 am

Mobius wrote:
Sun Mar 11, 2018 11:07 pm
Alrighty then at least it can be narrowed down to scummy price gouging.
Which, while scummy, isn't really illegal. This goes for most kinds of snake oil, really.

Buyers Beware, everyone. Do your research before you fork over the cash.

Locked