nfo... maybe not?

[alexisonfire]

well i have had a nfo server for 2 months now and i love it and i love nfo and how thier always willing to help,but they are kind of expensive for a 17 year old and i say some 16 slot servers for $16 and i was just wondering why are the other companies able to sell servers for so much cheaper what makes nfo so much better?

please help me out my friends are trying to get me to switch i would just like to know why i should stay besides the fact that i love it just what makes your servers better?

[alexisonfire]

why is there such a dramatic change in price from 12 slot to 16 slot its only 4 slots. $31 to $48 so 4 slots equal 19 bucks that doesnt make sense to me

[Edge100x]

Our prices are based on our actual costs. For instance, the cost of bandwidth and colocation, hardware, and employing staff. We try our best to keep our costs low (for instance, by negotiating the lowest price possible on InterNAP bandwidth, and building all our own machines) but there is only so much we can do without cutting the performance or service level to our customers. And any extra money we have each month goes right back into the company, usually to buy additional machines.

There are various reasons for other providers having lower prices. Most of the time, it is because they are using lower quality bandwidth and hardware (it's hard to top the combination of InterNAP and the type of hardware we buy), which means the game server is more likely to have lower performance or go down entirely. You'll also frequently see cut corners on service, in that it might seemingly take forever for the server to come online or for them to answer a support request, and they might not know what they're talking about when they do. Sometimes a provider will have a very low price because it's new and has no idea how expensive it is to run gameservers, or because it's running at an unsustainable loss (not everyone in this business breaks even) -- if that is the case, you could expect the company to quickly either raise its prices or go under.

The bottom line is that with game servers, like with so many other things, you "get what you pay for" to some extent.

To answer your question on the slots, again it's based on the cost to us. 16 slots costs much more to run than 12, and the difference is not linear in relation to the number of players.

[alexisonfire]

i love you guys i didnt want that to sound like i disliked you i said your exact phrase to my friend "you get what you pay for" and he just doesnt listen but like i said i love my server its always dependable its gone down on me twice and was back up in seconds and your staff is great i just want to make sure you guys know im a satisfied customer just 19 dollars is a big leap thank you for explaining it to me which is yet another thing i love about you always willing to explain

[IcEWoLF]

Our prices are based on our actual costs. For instance, the cost of bandwidth and colocation, hardware, and employing staff. We try our best to keep our costs low (for instance, by negotiating the lowest price possible on InterNAP bandwidth, and building all our own machines) but there is only so much we can do without cutting the performance or service level to our customers. And any extra money we have each month goes right back into the company, usually to buy additional machines.

There are various reasons for other providers having lower prices. Most of the time, it is because they are using lower quality bandwidth and hardware (it's hard to top the combination of InterNAP and the type of hardware we buy), which means the game server is more likely to have lower performance or go down entirely. You'll also frequently see cut corners on service, in that it might seemingly take forever for the server to come online or for them to answer a support request, and they might not know what they're talking about when they do. Sometimes a provider will have a very low price because it's new and has no idea how expensive it is to run gameservers, or because it's running at an unsustainable loss (not everyone in this business breaks even) -- if that is the case, you could expect the company to quickly either raise its prices or go under.

The bottom line is that with game servers, like with so many other things, you "get what you pay for" to some extent.

To answer your question on the slots, again it's based on the cost to us. 16 slots costs much more to run than 12, and the difference is not linear in relation to the number of players.

Damn, that was a good explanation!

[Edge100x]

If your friend's not convinced, you might suggest that he buy one of the cheap servers and see how it stacks up. I wouldn't recommend cancelling your server with us in the meantime, though

[IcEWoLF]

Id also recommend to stay with NFo..
Trust me i tryed many gsp's
NFo has a piece of mind for their customers..their support is unbeatable....
This guys actually know what they are talking about.
Their knowledge about the games are unreal.

[alexisonfire]

he said it was great but he only had it for a month

[BnD|Sleeper]

I will defend John (Edge100x) here. Recently within the past month, a very famous gameserver company, GriffinRun went up for sale on eBay. Their prices are quite high if I must say myself - their hardware is/was quite decent, however, they went above their heads and therefore, kept a very small client database. Since they offered specialized products and prices out of range for the majority of clients, they did not break even and instead, went into major debt. They bought from Internap just like NFo, but since they got on Internap's bad side and signed a contract a very bad price for bandwidth, they lost the edge on gaming. Since their overhead (price to keep the company running) was above their profit margin (money earned from product/service sold), they cut their losses, therefore, selling their company. My point is, there are companies like GriffinRun who try to hard and get screwed over and in turn lose money because prices are too high, then there are companies on the other end of the spectrum. I will not name any of these companies but let's just say they use Cogent and Level3 bandwidth (neither of which are wonderful), poor support staff, poor hardware configuration, shotty operating system optimization (linux almost always), etc... - these companies may offer $1.99/slot for all public servers and $1.49/private slot. Congratulations, they are making a profit but with poor quality. Nuclearfallout is at a stable medium in between rip-off and low-quality, rock-bottom prices. They make a profit, no doubt about that, but they also keep it realistic and affordable for the customer.

Take it from me, an ex-client & ex-staff member of many low-end server companies and now a client of Nuclearfallout's for 2 years with a clan that is very well-known. I could and would never have been this successful had it not been for Nuclearfallout...

BnD | Sleeper
Owner of bnd.nuclearfallout.net

[Edge100x]

All of the profit goes back into the business 'round here, too . Mainly on new hardware.

Surprisingly, GriffinRUN had some pretty poor hardware. No dual-core systems, for instance, and mostly old dual Xeons. Because of their losses, they probably couldn't afford new stuff.

[IcEWoLF]

Remmember this..NFo is here to help out the community...to help out gamers and providing them the best of the best that is out there.