Dedicated Server Specs for >100 players

[Talrain]

Hey there,
Well I've been developing an original content server for 9 months now and it's becoming time to make it public and start advertising. I've heard SoftLayer recommended for dedicated server hosting and I like what I see from them thus far. I'm looking to start out with something that can host circa 100 players.

Here are the specs for what amounts to be the lowest price offering. Some of the specs looked a bit strong for 100 players, but just about everything that's in it is included and doesn't cost extra.

Datacenter  	 	
Seattle

Server 		
Single Processor Dual Core Opteron 1212 - 2.00GHz - 2 x 1MB cache 	
$159.00 	
$0.00 

Ram 		
2 GB DDR2 667 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Remote Management 		
Reboot / KVM over IP 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Uplink Port Speeds 		
10 Mbps Public & Private Networks 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

      Public Network Port 		
10 Mbps public uplink 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

      Private Network Port 		
10 Mbps private uplink 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Public Bandwidth 		
2000 GB Bandwidth 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Primary IP Addresses 		
1 IP Address 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Public Secondary IP Addresses 		
4 Public IP Addresses 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Public Static IPv6 Addresses 		
None 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Disk Controller 		
Non-RAID 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

First Hard Drive 		
250GB SATA II 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Second Hard Drive 		
None 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Third Hard Drive 		
None 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Fourth Hard Drive 		
None 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Lockbox 		
1 GB Lockbox 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

EVault 		
None 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Operating System 		
Windows Server 2008 R2 Web Edition (64bit) 	
$10.00 	
$0.00 

OS-Specific Addon 		
None 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Parallels Virtuozzo 		
None 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Control Panel Software 		
None 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Parallels Plesk Billing 		
None 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Database Software 		
MySQL 5.0 for Windows 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Web Analytics Software 		
None 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Anti-Virus & Spyware Protection 		
McAfee Total Protection - Windows 	
$5.00 	
$0.00 

Insurance 		
None 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Monitoring 		
Host Ping 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Notification 		
Email and Ticket 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Advanced Monitoring 		
Monitoring Package - Basic 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Response 		
Automated Notification 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Intrusion Detection & Protection 		
None 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Hardware & Software Firewalls 		
Microsoft Windows Firewall 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

VPN Management - Private Network 		
Unlimited SSL VPN Users & 1 PPTP VPN User per account 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Vulnerability Assessments & Management 		
Nessus Vulnerability Assessment & Reporting 	
$0.00 	
$0.00 

Server Quantity 		
1

Does this look alright for circa 100 players on 3.3.5? Anything look deficient or like it's overkill? Input is greatly appreciated seeing as this is a financial decision and I'd like to get what I'm looking for without overspending (got to have room for advertising).

PS: If anyone has any insight into how much money should be spent on advertising in the first 30 days such input would also be appreciated.

Thanks!

[stoneharry]

Is this monthly or annually?

Looks a bit much for monthly, I'm sure there are cheaper out there unless prices have gone up in the last year... Also it comes with McCaffe, everyone knows that is terrible, the only way they sell is by including it in every known computing package to man. Also you don't really need a anti-virus software if you got the firewall and are only using it for hosting on.

But yes, that should be able to handle up to 100 people easily, can't say the same for the emulator though. You will need to fix any crashes that occur, crash fix, crash fix, crash fix... Eventually you'll get something stable.

Also, with advertising don't do any at first. Build up for the first month without the server on, get an active audience, promise them everything. You want people to know about you and spread the word about what makes your server better than others, then when you open your server you should have an active audience already of 5-10 online. If you manage to hold that, by then advertising and promising more shortly etc, then you can go up the ranks... Clever advertising rather than paying for advertising works better, just post adds on all the sites related to emulation about why your server is better than others, at first.

[Talrain]

I see. That sounds like a plan.

As I mentioned, I thought some of the specs looked a bit strong. What specs should I be shopping around for regarding a dedicated for around 100 players?

Still no stable 3.3.5? Argh. Crash fix sounds like what I'll be doing then.

[stoneharry]

There's no exact specifications tbh, best thing is to start as a cheaper project, see how it goes, and if you need to upgrade then upgrade.

Trinity / Mangos are both very good for blizzlike (mangos is more stable whereas trinity has more game content), but no emulator is perfect. It WILL crash, and you can't be waiting on the emulator to fix it when it's crashing every 5minutes. That is why you need to fix crashes.

[The-Eradicator]

There's no exact specifications tbh, best thing is to start as a cheaper project, see how it goes, and if you need to upgrade then upgrade.

Trinity / Mangos are both very good for blizzlike (mangos is more stable whereas trinity has more game content), but no emulator is perfect. It WILL crash, and you can't be waiting on the emulator to fix it when it's crashing every 5minutes. That is why you need to fix crashes.

I'll note that TrinityCore is still going to be better than any other public emulator if you want class spells and talents to work, but creating custom content will take a larger amount of work and time.

[Talrain]

Thanks for the input!

I've repped you too often Harry it won't let me do it again til I spread it around some more haha. Appreciate your help of course

[MadameGrip]

I agree with stoneharry about the crash fixing, most servers claim that their host is bad, when it's actually the emulator itself that's full of bugs :P

Anyway, i'll go back and lurk in the model edit section