Server rentals :: NFOservers.com

I currently run the top #5 minecraft server in the world. It takes about 5 hours a day to operate properly and some days I find I am working through the night. After needing a reliable host, I decided to use nfoservers. I bought a 75 player package and it did not support even 30 users properly. The CPU and RAM were barely used, but the server would throw out latency of 1500ms to users. The support staff told me that "I may have a router issue on my end." Really... Well it wasn't just me. All of our users were complaining of problems and having severe lag issues. I even tried to connect to our server from a super network at my work (a 1gbps line) and still very high latency (this time about 700ms).

I was worried and throught "ok maybe we need some more horsepower." I upgraded to 300 users, but nope. Once the server was half full, insane lag problems.

Was it my fault? After switching to our new host, I figured out it wasn't ram, nor CPU, it was actually the line speed of the NFOservers machine. Either the virtual machine was not properly configured or there was too little bandwidth available. Our new dedicated host runs at insanely fast network speeds and I never see anythign over 250ms for my connection.

Now, the only problem I have is that NFOservers promised through a contract of money that my server would support 300 users. But in fact they didn't and the OWNER of NFOservers, "John" agreed with me that INDEED the servers cannot support that level of players.

So what did John do? He changed the Minecraft packages on NFOservers.com and basically cut them in half. So now, 400 player servers could only hold 200, 300 player servers could only hold 150.

But how did that help or fix my situation? It didn't... As I mentioned, I had to stay up all night on February 10th and 11th to change our server host so that the players could have a dedicated host to play on. The funny thing is, this new dedicated host has way slower CPUs, 4 gb less ram, and have virtually no problems, with FULL CAPACITY on the server during peak hours of play.

John has refused to refund us for the month of February, even though we cancelled on the day of our billing. He has over promised with their servers and I feel it is only right that he refunds us for basically lying about what his servers support, then doing nothing to remedy the situation.

Cheers!

Our server ran like a joke up until Stickmenz shifted to a new host a few days ago. Thank you Stickmenz for being smart enough to drop this second-rate host. Oh, and "John?" Refusing refund for a defective product? You're a crook.

It's important to note that the limits that we put on the order page cover both the number of players who can connect and the RAM amount. Customer who run base Minecraft servers, or who use lightweight plugins, can easily fit within the memory limit and run into the player limit first; those who run many heavier-weight plugins will often have the opposite situation, and run out of memory first.

We cover this on the order page and it stems from the nature of having a double-limit. You could think of it something like the limits in your personal machine, which has many components, each with their own limits. Fill up the hard drive, and it doesn't matter how much RAM you have.


You later determined, following an upgrade of your package, that this was because you were hitting your memory limit.


There are always many things that any problem can be, until troubleshooting pins down the real culprit. In your case, you determined that the culprit was running out of memory, which in turn was due to your heavy plugin requirements. Your server was easily able to handle 75 players after your upgrade.


You are talking about in-game latency, and yes, this makes sense. The problem was in your resource requirements, not the speed of the connection.


After you upgraded once more, this turned out to also be a memory problem. At my prompting, you also found that you had your view-distance set far too high (at the default of 10, which simply does not work for a large server).

These measures fixed your problem at that player level, but you continued to load the server with more players. You eventually had the server running with a peak of 255/300 players and complained of further performance problems. While I didn't see the server at its peak at the end (I only saw it running fewer than that), it was clear that you were using more than two entire CPU cores and that your main Minecraft thread was hitting constraints. At this point, it was possible that more RAM might help, but your heavy plugin load was clearly also a factor and the more likely culprit. Quite frankly, running 255 players is not an easy task with generic and unoptimized plugins. I explained this to you.

To cover all the bases, I also offered to change the command-line and Java interpreter, if you thought that different settings for these would help. I also asked for your tracert to the server so that I could investigate your routing. You declined to look at these.


We do not put our standard Minecraft servers onto virtualized systems, in order to maximize their performance. You floated the theory about the network card before and I checked it out; your machine's 1 Gbps Intel network adapter is performing normally and highly under-utilized, and our 10 Gbps connection is similarly under-utilized. (Additionally, if you were actually seeing a network problem, you'd see that in a MTR/traceroute.)


You will need to test the new host with the same memory limit, configuration, plugins, and player load to be able to draw any conclusions about its performance. I will be interested to hear what you find.


The game itself likely can support 300 users, although we can't guarantee that. I can say with confidence, however, that if any host can support this many players with that memory limit, we can. Our performance guarantee actually covers this.


After your complaint that our memory usage numbers weren't in-line with actual requirements with plugins, I adjusted the packages on the page. While lowering prices overall, I changed the player slot numbers to be more in line with what a heavy plugin user would expect.


I haven't refused anything yet. Our policy is clear that we do not allow refunds, but there's always the possibility of an exception under extreme circumstances, and if our performance guarantee applies, then you'll get credit from that.

What refund? I still havn't received my 300 player server. Where is it? I havn't received a 300 player server. Now part of our daily voting requirement to receive in game cash (about 300 unique ips) will be viewing a youtube video on NFOservers.

Refund the money John. I switched hosts, it was ENTIRELY your machines and your lag. Other users are complaining on these forums about the chicago lag. You havn't supplied to product in the intitial contract that I was promised. Thus you have voided the contract on your end. I cancelled the server on the DAY 1 of my next month of billing. Stop being a liar and a cheat and refund a server that dosn't work.

When we were on NFOServers we had nothing but lag server crashes and rollbacks which was ruining the server, Stick tried upgrading this server but your host still sucked, We have now switched server hosts and got new plugins and we are running 100x better then we were on your host we hit 250 everyday now, and its that much better stick thank you for your decision by changing hosts best thing for the server.

John states about "this was due to my resources requirements"

What an absolute crook. This COMPLETELY contradicts his statement when he told me in a support message that my CPU and RAM were immensly underused. He states that I didn't need a ram upgrade as I wasn't even using half.

Chicago server lag. Lag on your end. Stop lieing John.

Yeah, you guys should really refund the money and have this over with before you get attacked by hundreds of players from our server.

We constantly had lag even when we tried removing dozens of plugins.

stickmenz, posting flames and having all your guys register to post follow-up flames in your thread while your case is still being considered pushes me in the opposite direction of an exception to our no-refund policy, as does spamming flames across our forums in unrelated threads.


You're misremembering this, unfortunately, and I hope that it didn't cause too much confusion for you previously. I told you repeatedly in your support request that your server was using entire cores on its own, indicating that the Minecraft main thread was exhausting its single-threaded performance. Your RAM was underused every time I looked, and I suggested that you refrain from changing it until the real problem was nailed down, but I trusted you after you did it and told me that upgrading made a difference for you.

I did say that the machine itself was underloaded, which was, and continues to be, true. Possibly this is what you are thinking of. The fact that the machine is so underused told us that there was not a problem with other customers slowing you down.

John,

I tried for 3 full days to talk cordially to you. I tried, I spoke honestly and true. Your product has been faulty since day one. You refused to even answer my concerns and talk about any refund I would experience. To charge a client for a service which they cancelled on the billing date, because of not being satisfied at all, is really shady. Do you not see our server http://www.RealmC.net?

We switched hosts, its plain and simple. I have spent ZERO time, since setting up the new host, fixing anything. We run on less ram, less processor speed, and a 1gbps line. It runs like a dream, compared to what we had with NFO servers. Like I told you several times, over the past few weeks, the server had LAG/Bandwidth problems. You did nothing to fix it, therefore, our "300 player" server was virtually a 150 player server. The product I ordered was not supplied.

A refund should have been the first thing you offered to remedy the situation. Ignoring your customers for 3 days is just plain wrong and yes it makes us upset and it gets our community after you. Which will keep up. We can keep flooding forums, make a YouTube video and have players view it and comment in order to register.. A whole lot of creative ways to get the message out about our experience. But it dosn't have to go that far. You can end the process by doing what is right. Cmon John, do what is right.

Cheers,

Stickmenz

you guys are scammers and should refund Stick. Don't advertise a product you can't sell.

Stop scamming people! Players do no stand for this kind of behavior from a payed service. NFO SERVERS SUCK! REFUND REALM CRAFT!

- Michael J Seufert

Give Stickmenz back HIS money you guys are scumbags who steal innocent people money. How dare you do this to the top #5 server in the WORLD!!!

Wow, what is wrong with you?

Honestly, you are going about this all wrong. You seem to think that just because you own a cookie-cutter server and website that hit a one large player count, that you all of a sudden know so much about servers. Do you realize how much bandwidth a gigabit connection can use and how much bandwidth a server will use with 250+ players? I highly doubt you do, so stop acting like you know, because frankly you are making yourself look like an idiot. Also, you are rolling around 150 players on your server and I know you are raking in donation money, don't deny it... Why don't you use that donation money and buy a dedicated server, instead of pocketing it? If you are trying to host 250+ players on 3 gigs of RAM and a shared server, you are out of your mind and that shows how little you know about hosting and how cheap you are.

You are acting in a very immature manner, just like a stuck up and clueless about hardware server owner would. Honestly, I hope that they do not give you your refund at all and terminate your account.

You guys should lock this, you do not deserve this crap, from this arrogant, trash server like this.

Dear NFO,

You guys cant just rip stickmenz off like that. Stickmenz runs the realmcraft server tirelessly to make sure as many people can go on the server as possible and because of you he has wasted alot of money. I know a few people who run servers and you can believe me when i say you will not be getting there business. So i recommend you refund Stickmenz in full.

Thanks,
Dan

With the new server hosting switch, The server has been running significantly better!
Stick deserves his money back!