A few years back I rented a dedicated box from you. I continued to rent that box for some time. My experience with your company was exceptional. It inspired me to write a flattering testimonial sharing my experience with AoWC and encouraging people on the fence to sign up. The only reason I canceled that account was because we decided to colocate our own machines.

So, when the economy crashed and we all got laid off, hosting three boxes for a hobby just wasn't feasible. The obvious choice was to return to the company which had provided me such an amazing experience in the past.

Sadly, this time around was much less than satisfactory. I decided to rent individual servers as opposed to a dedicated box this time, due to pricing. I rented one at first and was planning on using it as a test server to determine whether or not renting additional servers was a good idea. The first thing I noticed about my rented TF2 server was the port. It was 27016. I thought that was strange, considering the default port is 27015. I then received confirmation from "Deadheart" that he had "Sent this to working for a web tech to install your stats for you."

In the same support thread confirming the transfer to a web tech about stats, I decided to ask about the secondary port issue.

"Not sure where my other support ticket went, but I asked why I was assigned the non-standard port of 27016 instead of 27015."

Pugnacious replied with:

"The standard ports are 27015 through 27019, any of those are standard. Most likely the 27015 port on your IP is already in use."

I understand this concept. What I don't understand, however, is why I'm paying the same rate for a secondary port. When people connect via IP, as my reserved slot plugin requires, they usually don't bother entering the port. Simply entering the IP sends you to the 27015 server. You have to specify the port 27016 in order to connect to my server. A minor inconvinience, but an inconvinience at that. I didn't want to press the issue, as I was worried that upsetting the techs right off the bat wouldn't boad well for me down the road.

A day later, I opened another ticket asking a few things, specifically where my stats were, as it had been confirmed the previous day that it was moved to "working" for a web tech. Pugnacious asked me what admin program I was using and I responded with "Sourcemod."

Again, Deadheart sent it to "working" for a web tech.

A day later I asked once again where the stats were. Deadheart responded that I was still using the trial, and therefore stats weren't available to me. That makes perfect sense, but it took three days to explain that to me, as I couldn't find that info on the site. Had I known that, I would have paid for it immediately. The responses from the support team, however, seemed to indicate that stats were being set up.

Now, since I was planning on hosting more than one server, I decided to order my stats directly from hlstatsx.com, as it would be cheaper for me than ordering stats from you for three servers.

The next thing myself and my admins noticed, as well as my playerbase, which was still, at this point, strong, was the horrible server performance we were getting with the initial server, as well as the two subsequent servers. Server #1 would turn itself into a slug when the player count exceeded 24 players. We had paid for and rented 32 player servers. But the server FPS would crash to single and double digits when the server exceeded 24 players. I assumed it was an anomoly for server #1. Server #2 seemed to run fairly smoothly, but we never managed to fill it up enough to really test it.

Server #3 was unplayable. The server FPS, with 0 players, would drop. This lead me to believe the machine in which it was hosted on was overloaded. Now, server #3 was completely funded by one of my community members as a donation for the community. This did not look good. I filed a support ticket on the issue and answered the questions it asked of me.

"207.210.252.204:27015
1. 19

2. Never until today. Even at capacity it has never even stuttered... until now.

3. 19/32

4. Stable. Mega choke. Everyones experiencing it.

5. Nope

6. Everyones getting it.

7. 67.183.142.21"

I later updated the ticket to change the answer of whether or not pings were spiking to yes.

When I ran the "stats" command via rcon, I noticed that cpu load was at 95% The box was overloaded.

Pugnacious responded with:

"A server was using up too much memory, this has been fixed, try it now. Thanks."

I returned to the community and said the problem had been addressed. I was wrong. I reopened the ticket:

"Problem is not resolved. 29 players showing 97-100% cpu usage when using "stats" command. Global pings go from 20 to 200 ."

I was informed that the issue was forwarded to "Deadheart." He informed me that he was not seeing the spiking issue and that I should forward him a tracert, which I did. This is where I began to get irritated. It was clear that he either hadn't read my initial support ticket explaining that it wasn't just me experiencing the issue, but that the issue was experienced globally. He had also checked the pings of people when there were only 8 players in it.

He then informed me that: "These ping issues start on comcast nothing we can control, you need to contact your isp"

And that's where I got angry. I've run game servers since Counter-Strike beta 3. I know when something is client side or server side. This was definitely server side.

My response:

"I am not expecting to have low ping personally. I am located in Seattle. Server is in Dallas. The idea was to have equal distance between our east and west coast members.

As I stated in the initial post, I am not the only one having issues. These spikes are being felt by the entire server. 32 players. Distributed over the country. Three of my admins have brought it to my attention as well, two of which are on the east coast, one of which is located in Dallas. The server shows CPU usage at 97-100% when fully loaded. Having run a dozen servers on my own colo rigs, I can safely say that the cpu is overloaded. I''m assuming this box runs multiple servers, and it''s clear that at peak hours, the core this server uses is overloaded."

Pugnacious forwarded it back to deadheart, and deadheart replied with:

"I have made some changes to the server this may fix your problems but i will need you to test the server first to let me know how the server is performing if you are still getting lag please inform me what what of lag you are getting so i can work with you on this issue. Thank You"

Unfortunately by this point the community had given up on this server. It would remain empty for the majority of the time after this incident. I was unable to test it. Our community member who donated the funds for it decided to no longer fund it. Out of the entire community I host, which consists of over 250 members, we were lucky to see 5 on the servers at this point. Everyone was tired of it.

A few days later I opened my final support ticket, which expressed my frustration:

"Ive been patient. Ive notified you a few times that the lag solution has not been resolved and that the machine that runs 207.210.252.204, in my opinion, is overloaded.

207.210.252.204:27015 - lags to all hell when 8 *or* more players are in it. The server fps, when running empty during what wed consider peak hours, jumps around like crazy, from 250 to 20fps... and thats when its completely empty. Adding any players whatsoever equals unplayable.

207.210.252.108:27016- Functional up to 18 players. Above that, it begins to lag heavy as well (tremendous server fps drops).

The third server not mentioned hasnt been full enough to know if its working either way. So heres the deal. Ive been told that the problem is comcasts fault after sending you a Tracert even after I said a few times that I wasnt the only one experiencing the issue and that, instead, it was a global issue with all players. Ive been told that 27016 is a default port when, in fact, it is not. It is a standard useable port, but it is not the default port, and this is the first time Ive paid for a server and been given a secondary port. Ive been told that the lag situation with 207.210.252.204 has been resolved. It hasnt. Ive watched my player base dwindle away due to sub-par server performance and Ive been patient, hoping that maybe it was just a hiccup. Overall Ive been pretty disappointed with my experience this time around with AoWC, which is sad, because the last time I was a customer with you I was ecstatic about the service.

If you cannot manage to provide the resources to run a 32 player full TF2 server without severe performance effects, Ill be canceling all three servers immediately and finding a different provider."

Farchord moved it to management.

Deadheart replied: "I have made some changes to the server this may fix your problems but i will need you to test the server first to let me know how the server is performing if you are still getting lag please inform me what what of lag you are getting so i can work with you on this issue. Thank You"

He essentially copy/pasted his response from the other ticket. I was losing patience. I left town for a few days. Came back calm and collected, and decided to give it one final shot working this out. I asked Deadheart for advice.

"Ok, two of the servers havent had players in them at all, but we were able to get 207.210.252.108:27016 full for testing purposes.

Weve identified the issue as severe drops in server FPS above 22 players. Weve been using the graphing system of hlstatsx to track it actively. http://tempest.hlstatsx....server_id=1&game=tf

If you look at the 24 hour view, youll see the sharp decline in server FPS above 24 players. Above 24 players is where things start to get a little hairy. At 32 players, it becomes pretty choppy and people begin to bail out.

Im not sure if this is due to the fact that were only renting the 250FPS servers and not the 500FPS servers. I suppose at 500 wed have a bit more room to work with.

I know that 207.210.252.204:27015 was having issues before at 0 players with violent fluctuating FPS drops, but I believe that has been sorted now. We havent been able to test it though, as peoples opinions of our servers have soured lately and weve lost a lot of regulars due to performance issues.

Ive been looking around at other hosts. Price seems to be the only issue. I assume its a "get what you pay for" kind of thing. However, the pricing for your 500FPS servers is competitive with the other companies, and I have a fondness for AoWC that I dont have for other hosting companies (as I explained in my testimonial: http://forums.artofwarce...com/showthread.php?t=97).

So, with that in mind, I really want to get this resolved. I guess Im wondering what our options are here. On one hand, I believe that if I rent a server at 32 slots, the server should perform as expected. I wasnt expecting super l33t performance with the lower FPS settings, but at the same time had I rented a 22-24 player server, we wouldnt be experiencing the issues were experiencing now. It runs like a dream below that count.

So, I guess Im asking your advice on what the next step should be. Is there something you can do server-side to correct the dipping issue *or* is it a matter of having to upgrade to the boosted servers? If its the latter, I guess I feel as if you should have a disclaimer explaining that performance of TF2 server will be impacted above xx # of players.

Third option, I suppose, is returning to the dedicated box option, as last time I did that I had a fantastic experience with you, but for the same reason as I pulled my boxes from our datacenter, I decided to rent servers singularly due to cost restrictions Im facing because of the economy.

So, with all that in mind, I suppose Im looking for advice on what you think I should do in terms of hosting solutions. I need to get this resolved, however. Our community is donation driven and weve taken a tremendous hit due to people not wanting to play/pay for a mediocre server when there are way better ones out there.

Thanks in advance!"

Notice that I had assumed that the "boosted" tf2 servers you offer meant that we'd be bumped from 300 to 600 FPS (which translates to about 512fps), as this is what other server rental companies offer as their "boosted" servers. Notice that I continually refer to your "boosted" servers as "500FPS."

I wrote all of those questions, and Deadheart replied with:

"Do you want to upgrade to the TF2 boosted servers?"

...Really? That's it? First, please notice that he does NOT correct my assumptions that your boosted servers are, in fact, NOT 500FPS. Notice that he does not address any of my concerns or questions.

My reply:

"I''m not sure, that''s why I''m asking for advice. I know that if we did, we''d have to drop one server due to financial reasons. But I also want to know if that''s the reason for the problems to begin with. Could you comment on the current FPS drop situation as well as address my other concerns?"

Response:

"If you want me to read though the entire ticket and comment on everything i have moved this to mangment till I have time to read this.

If you want a quicker response keep your tickets small with questions, we try to keep a good responce time to all of our clients. You are catching us during a rush so your ticket is being put on hold."

...If I want you to read through the entire ticket? Am I inconviniencing you by asking you, the support techs, your opinion on the future of my business relationship with your company? I guess so. I informed him that I would be fine with waiting. He replied the following day.

"Yes a boosted server will take care of this issue if you want to upgrade."

"Do you want me to work on this problem with this server?"

"I understand, but for 24 players in TF2 if you want the FPS to stay good you need a boosted server"

This is the important response. You offer 32 player servers. You don't, however, mention that they will be unplayable at 32 players unless you upgrade to "boosted." Also, please notice once again that he makes no effort to correct my assumption that your "boosted" servers are 500FPS.

He continues:

"The game servers are working as normal settings, performance is still the same, but as more players join the lower the fps is, its how all games work you just notice it more in Tf2 because it''s a fast pace game."

Then why offer 32 player servers?

"We can give you anything you want but as you know dedicated boxes cost more and boosted servers do also either option will work for you."


I was willing to ignore the fact that these were fairly "matter-of-fact" responses, and not open to discussion like I had been hoping for. We decided to cancel one server and boost the other two to, what I assumed was, 500FPS.

I responded:

"Ok. Please cancel IP: 207.210.252.102:27015 at the end of our billing period.

Please upgrade the remaining two to 500fps.

I still feel you should post a warning to those renting non-boosted servers. Would have saved us a lot of headache and lost traffic."

Again, please notice that I asked him to upgrade the remaining two to 500FPS.

He replies informing me of the difference in pricing. He, once again, does NOT correct my assumption of the FPS issue.

I sent one more support ticket update:

"I''ve restarted both services and am still showing 250fps."

He replied:

"boosted for TF2 does not increase the fps thoes are hard coded, it boosts your fps for stable fps thank you"

No, thank you. Thank you for the lousiest service I've experienced in a long, long time.

Steve, if you've made it this far in this letter (and I am sorry about length), here's my conclussion: Over the short lived run I had with AoWC, deadheart lied to me twice, and allowed me to mislead myself into thinking the "boosted" servers, which were significantly more expensive, were something they weren't, thus ensuring that I would piss more money away. As one of my admins put it:

"With these tough economic conditions, it takes a strong company to stand behind an unusable product, and offer to upgrade you to one that may be usable."

There are no disclaimers that an unboosted 32 player server won't run at all at 32 players. There is no disclaimer that the "boosted" server does not actually increase server FPS, but instead boosts cpu priority on the already overloaded machine, ensuring that the FPS remains somewhat constant.

Bottom line:

27016 is a standard port, but not the default port. Same price, less quality.

300FPS is NOT the limit for srcds. With a ping booster, or even media player running in the background of the machine, you can achieve roughly 512FPS. In Server 2008 with HPET enabled, you can achieve 1000FPS.

Other hosting companies provide "boosted" servers which are actually FPS boosted. Your company provides "boosted" servers for the same price as the other companies without providing the same level of service upgrade. You mislead your customers.

Furthermore, your company runs random nonsense promotional deals that confuse the living hell out of anyone trying to rent from you. The first server I rented from you was around $44/month. The following two were around $48/month or whatever. Why? Because the "deal was over." Meaning the highly obnoxious popup ad with the random chick holding the MSPaint cardboard sign wasn't there that day. The popup that you have to close to access your server control panel link. Absurd.

When I was informed of what "boosted" meant. I canceled my servers and called up my colo, requesting pricing on bandwidth and rack fees. They hooked me up hardcore. I'm now running 600FPS servers (must be magic, as according to Deadheart it's hardcoded at 300).

The poor performance of your servers in which you rented to me cost me time, money, and effort, as well as community opinion. Our once constantly full and thriving servers sat empty for weeks. Donations, which are the life-force of our communnity, completely dried up, and your support staff mislead and deceived me, and, in my opinion, treated me like some chump kid who doesn't know any better.

Well, I do know better. So long.

-James


P.S.
The personalized email asking for our opinions is a nice touch. Too bad it's automatically generated. Kinda loses it's touch when you get the same message sent each time you cancel a service.

]Legal action?!

Please for heavens sakes don't be one of THOSE guys.

The ones that sue for everything.


There will be no legal action. The owner sent me a reply today saying he had received my letter and had copied deadheart on it. He's wanting to take the time to carefully read it so he can write back a detailed and thoughtful response. I will give him that.

I've dealt with the owner of AoWC before and he was awesome. I have no issues with him. Deadheart, on the other hand, is the operations manager. That, I believe, is where the problem lies.

]Thats fine, don't implicitly insult us just because another recommendation was that he NOT spend time and money going the legal route. Its just as valid a suggestion as yours. I am guessing you haven't actually read the rental agreement and don't really have any real idea of any guaranteed performance, or metrics that may have been included in that agreement.