1. Post #1

    January 2014
    445 Posts
    I have a Multiplay VA server and a HFB NY server. Here are my observations:

    The VA server attracts a LOT more players. Maybe they're giving lower ping times to more people. Remember it's not all about location, but network peers and quality of infrastructure. Neither server gets any advertising or promotion, this is all just from people finding us in the server list.

    I'm located about halfway between the two with a FIOS connection using Ethernet. VA's ping times are typically 20-50, whereas HFB is typically a little higher. Both sometimes jump into the 90s.

    HFB took about 14 hours to set up the server. Multiplay took two minutes.

    Gameplay on both is superb. Very little stuttering / lag even with two dozen players on.

    I haven't had to use HFB's support, mainly because we haven't been playing much. I did have to ask Multiplay for assistance when I couldn't log into Clanserver, and I got a response within about 15 minutes. Note that I used their ticket system.

    I'm going to step up to annual payment on Multiplay to get their sweet, sweet 20% discount. Both are good providers, but I'm sticking with Multiplay for now. Highly recommended.

  2. Post #2
    Pflame's Avatar
    December 2013
    161 Posts
    We have an HFB server and the lag/rubber banding is almost unplayable. We've dropped about 40 people from our daily playerbase because of it.

  3. Post #3

    April 2011
    72 Posts
    We have an HFB server and the lag/rubber banding is almost unplayable. We've dropped about 40 people from our daily playerbase because of it.
    I will agree with you that it does lag daily, however it is not unplayable, more so annoyance for my players. I asked them about this and they pretty much stated there is nothing they can do about it.

    Being a re-seller does not allow you to do much, essentially you support a ticket to them, they support a ticket to their data center. One day I hope to not have to use crappy re-sellers.
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  4. Post #4
    Gold Member
    Sievers808's Avatar
    December 2013
    2,322 Posts
    I have an HFB server in Seattle and lag for me and most other players is not a problem at all. Sure, there are slight bouts of lag every couple hours or so but they generally pass within a couple minutes.
    I head that Multiplay does not allow server owners to manually update their server and they must submit a ticket in order to wipe the server..... This is bad news.
    I've had a couple small issues with HFB, they have no DDoS protection anywhere really, you can get 10Gb/s at Quebec for free, but it's $50 a month more in Dallas and nonexistent around other parts of the US, as far as I know. I'm not sure what Multiplay's net protection looks like but honestly it's probably similar.
    Frankly, being unable to update and wipe my server when necessary is a huge deal breaker. I'm not sure if Multiplay allows FTP access but HFB does and it's great to have an auto-FTP backup running on my home machine.
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  5. Post #5

    October 2013
    401 Posts
    I have an HFB server in Seattle and lag for me and most other players is not a problem at all. Sure, there are slight bouts of lag every couple hours or so but they generally pass within a couple minutes.
    I head that Multiplay does not allow server owners to manually update their server and they must submit a ticket in order to wipe the server..... This is bad news.
    I've had a couple small issues with HFB, they have no DDoS protection anywhere really, you can get 10Gb/s at Quebec for free, but it's $50 a month more in Dallas and nonexistent around other parts of the US, as far as I know. I'm not sure what Multiplay's net protection looks like but honestly it's probably similar.
    Frankly, being unable to update and wipe my server when necessary is a huge deal breaker. I'm not sure if Multiplay allows FTP access but HFB does and it's great to have an auto-FTP backup running on my home machine.
    Interesting, I'm looking into servers now. Can anyone confirm that you cannot update your own server with Multiplay?

  6. Post #6
    kimmando's Avatar
    December 2013
    8 Posts
    You cannot wipe or update easily with Multiplay.

    Wipes require a support ticket.

    Updates are done when they get around to it. Depending on when the update hits, I've seen the servers updated anywhere from 1 -12 hours after the fact.

  7. Post #7

    January 2014
    16 Posts
    My main problem with my multiplay server is they dont support mods at the moment and I contacted them and they said they are not sure when they will allow full FTP access because of potential security risks.

    "As Rust is ran on Windows we unfortunately will not be able to provide FTP access for it anytime soon. Minecraft/Starbound have FTP because we run them on FreeBSD which allows us to guarantee security.

    This does not mean we will be neglecting mod support however of course it may not be as simple as FTP while we get it sorted."

    Basically, they might be working on it but no guarantees.

  8. Post #8
    Pflame's Avatar
    December 2013
    161 Posts
    You cannot wipe or update easily with Multiplay.

    Wipes require a support ticket.

    Updates are done when they get around to it. Depending on when the update hits, I've seen the servers updated anywhere from 1 -12 hours after the fact.
    That alone means I'll never switch from HFB. Being able to wipe and update myself in just a few seconds is something I wont part with.

  9. Post #9

    January 2014
    71 Posts
    I've been running an HFB server in Chicago for about 2 weeks. I haven't had everyone complain about lag, only a few individual users and never consistently. Having access to the whole server structure is awesome and being able to update myself is helpful, especially after setting up a few sub-users that can help with it.

    I can't really comment on set up time as I ordered my server on Christmas day. I didn't find it unreasonable for it to be set up late on the 26th/early on the 27th.

  10. Post #10

    December 2013
    103 Posts

    Wipes require a support ticket.
    Please ensure you double check the information you are posting is correct

    https://clanforge.multiplay.co.uk/news/article3978.html

  11. Post #11
    Gold Member
    Sievers808's Avatar
    December 2013
    2,322 Posts
    My main problem with my multiplay server is they dont support mods at the moment and I contacted them and they said they are not sure when they will allow full FTP access because of potential security risks.

    "As Rust is ran on Windows we unfortunately will not be able to provide FTP access for it anytime soon. Minecraft/Starbound have FTP because we run them on FreeBSD which allows us to guarantee security.

    This does not mean we will be neglecting mod support however of course it may not be as simple as FTP while we get it sorted."

    Basically, they might be working on it but no guarantees.
    Multiplay is full of shit...
    I have full FTP access to my Rust server, just because it's on Windows does not mean that FTP cannot be set up.

    Edited:

    Please ensure you double check the information you are posting is correct

    https://clanforge.multiplay.co.uk/news/article3978.html
    Well considering this happened last night I don't think it's unreasonable that people are unaware.
    Still though, there's no reason they shouldn't have allowed this sooner.
    HFB is the way to go, you'll never find a PERFECT hosting company, but at least HFB gives you all the tools you need to control the server.
    FTP FTW.
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  12. Post #12

    October 2013
    401 Posts
    Well, looks like HFB allows manual server updates and wipes and allows for FTP access. Combined with the handy drop down menus they have and I think Imma go with them.

  13. Post #13
    Gold Member
    Sievers808's Avatar
    December 2013
    2,322 Posts
    Well, looks like HFB allows manual server updates and wipes and allows for FTP access. Combined with the handy drop down menus they have and I think Imma go with them.
    I have a sweet WinSCP script that uses FTP to automatically back up my Rust server save every hour to my computer at home. This currently wouldn't be possible with Multiplay and it really should be...

  14. Post #14

    December 2013
    103 Posts
    Well, looks like HFB allows manual server updates and wipes and allows for FTP access. Combined with the handy drop down menus they have and I think Imma go with them.
    TCAdmin?

  15. Post #15

    January 2014
    445 Posts
    When you say "update", what are you referring to? Settings? The app?

  16. Post #16
    WallaceWM's Avatar
    October 2012
    24 Posts
    I have a sweet WinSCP script that uses FTP to automatically back up my Rust server save every hour to my computer at home. This currently wouldn't be possible with Multiplay and it really should be...
    Hey friend, I've hear that playrust.eu support automatic backups there. You could check them out if you have more questions.

  17. Post #17
    Gold Member
    Sievers808's Avatar
    December 2013
    2,322 Posts
    When you say "update", what are you referring to? Settings? The app?
    Update as in updates to the server software... the actual rust server program itself.
    Also, I just noticed that the TCAdmin console now has a one-click install for Rust++, im sure more will follow. Apparently Multiplay has a one-click for Oxide...
    So that's pretty cool.

  18. Post #18

    January 2014
    338 Posts
    people need to stop making new servers, the players are spread out so thin right now. I search servers and find like 75 in Seattle and like 70 have 1-10 players on them.

  19. Post #19

    December 2013
    13 Posts
    I've had a couple small issues with HFB, they have no DDoS protection anywhere really, you can get 10Gb/s at Quebec for free, but it's $50 a month more in Dallas and nonexistent around other parts of the US, as far as I know. I'm not sure what Multiplay's net protection looks like but honestly it's probably similar.
    This same issue forced me to drop HFB. I'm likewise not comfortable with Multiplay's requirement to request server wipes. And honestly, servers are so ridiculously dilute at this point that there's not much point to running a server (IMO).

    But any HFB site can be DDOS'ed for extended periods of time (and we're not talking the "French event" here) by one pissed off user. My server was slammed for *4* days. HFB offered Dallas for an extra $50/mo.

    Must be nice to have a near-monopoly on product. :( Looking forward to the release of the server files....

  20. Post #20

    December 2013
    151 Posts
    Multiplay Live Support is now open ... so .. it's stated that they are sorry for what happened.... still there's a bit queue on server launches, as they are in high demand ..

  21. Post #21
    Gold Member
    Sievers808's Avatar
    December 2013
    2,322 Posts
    people need to stop making new servers, the players are spread out so thin right now. I search servers and find like 75 in Seattle and like 70 have 1-10 players on them.
    If people want to spend money on it I say go for it... The players don't have to spread themselves out if they don't want to.
    For me I got a server for two things: one, I wanted to try a server with events and games and prizes... just something that wasn't normal gameplay all the time.
    and two, because I've never ran a remote hosted server before and frankly i was curious about it.

  22. Post #22

    July 2013
    42 Posts
    I have a Multiplay VA server and a HFB NY server. Here are my observations:

    The VA server attracts a LOT more players. Maybe they're giving lower ping times to more people. Remember it's not all about location, but network peers and quality of infrastructure. Neither server gets any advertising or promotion, this is all just from people finding us in the server list.

    I'm located about halfway between the two with a FIOS connection using Ethernet. VA's ping times are typically 20-50, whereas HFB is typically a little higher. Both sometimes jump into the 90s.

    HFB took about 14 hours to set up the server. Multiplay took two minutes.

    Gameplay on both is superb. Very little stuttering / lag even with two dozen players on.

    I haven't had to use HFB's support, mainly because we haven't been playing much. I did have to ask Multiplay for assistance when I couldn't log into Clanserver, and I got a response within about 15 minutes. Note that I used their ticket system.

    I'm going to step up to annual payment on Multiplay to get their sweet, sweet 20% discount. Both are good providers, but I'm sticking with Multiplay for now. Highly recommended.
    From my experience, both were able to set up your server almost as soon as you paid for it. Multiplay's customer service is horrendously bad on multiple levels whereas HFB will pretty much bend over backwards for you. I think the biggest difference is the control panels. HFB you've got complete access over everything and with Multiplay you can pretty much stop, start, restart, and wipe the world (not character data) whenever you please but when you need anything other than those options you have to send in a ticket. Which will take approximately 1-2 days of waiting. Fortunately I've never experienced any lag with either of them they were both located quite near to me however.

  23. Post #23

    December 2013
    9 Posts
    Im a HFB server owner, and ill tell you what erks me about both of these companies. Ive administered a number of games over the years with numerous gsp's. I always passed multiplay by because i just cant get over their branding BS.... Im paying them for a service and branding isnt one of them. Thinking they can make me pay to remove their branding is laughable at best. Probably the only reason ive not used them over the years. I cant comment much on their service aside from being a sub-user and admining servers as a sub-user. They have been in the game a while, which is an advantage (if your that bad you wont be around that long...). They seem to easily be on par with like services that have been in the game while.
    My HFb experience hasnt been too bad i suppose. The server runs good and I dont experience any lag. Once a Russian guy came on and complained my server was laggy and i promptly booted his 500 ping ass, fixing his, and my, problems concurrently... FTP access is indeed included and works as intended. There are not a lot of additional tools available really, but the needed ones are there. Recently there has been hype about the oxide plugin being available to gsp's, and of the gsp's providing rust servers, HSB has been very slow to adopt it and is perhaps the last on the list now. My Rust server was advertised with a mumble service which required a support ticket to enable. When i returned the following morning my 10 slot mumble server had been set up on my 100 slot rust server... Hope everybody doesnt jump on at once! Lol, while its been common place for gsp's to bundle cheap voice with their services, this is a new standard in cheap!
    So there it is.... Im looking for gsp who understands what it is im doing... Doesnt impose strange monetary requirements, or make me wear their flag on my forehead when i play... Can respond to support requests in a timely manner while being concise and honest. This may seem like a long list, however, I can guarantee that there is a waiter at a local restaurant who is easily able to meet all my demands when i sit at their table... How hard is it to server me really...

    Perhaps expand the list beyond the 2 mentioned gsp's...
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  24. Post #24

    January 2014
    22 Posts
    No meaning why multiplay uses windows as host os instead of a linux if they've knowledge in freebsd already. Also there are some tricks to get linux binaries running within freebsd.

    But I understand the concerns by not allowing ftp on windows hosts.

  25. Post #25

    December 2013
    151 Posts
    considering it cost $2 to remove the branding .. I wouldn't hang on to hard against that! I have had my share of servers .. but .. on the other hand, I never used HFB :D

    I am now about to upgrade my Multiplay server to a nonbranded server ( I can afford those $2 ), just to get rid of the name!
    The things I do like about them is auto update, now their new reset world/player, easy to add mods ( whenever they come )
    Now as Live Support is back online again it does help!
    From what I can read ( I don't know this myself ) MP is one of the very few who have phonesupport!
    I see that HFB has been rated much higher than MP .. so .. it might be a hard choice to do mate!

  26. Post #26

    December 2013
    9 Posts
    considering it cost $2 to remove the branding .. I wouldn't hang on to hard against that! I have had my share of servers .. but .. on the other hand, I never used HFB :D

    I am now about to upgrade my Multiplay server to a nonbranded server ( I can afford those $2 ), just to get rid of the name!
    The things I do like about them is auto update, now their new reset world/player, easy to add mods ( whenever they come )
    Now as Live Support is back online again it does help!
    From what I can read ( I don't know this myself ) MP is one of the very few who have phonesupport!
    I see that HFB has been rated much higher than MP .. so .. it might be a hard choice to do mate!
    I can afford $1000... What i can afford isnt the point... and its $4.92 to remove it....

  27. Post #27
    teamvortex's Avatar
    May 2009
    325 Posts
    I had some DDos issues with my server hosted with HFB. I contacted them cause the IP got null routed for 24 hours due to the ddos attack. We went back and forth a bit in the ticket me saying its unacceptable that my IP just gets blackholed on ddos and them saying its industry standard they are sorry and they are working hard to resolve it.

    After a bit of back and forth they said they would move our server to a ddos protection server they had one spot on and they were going to give it to us for the troubles.

    HFB ticket response times are REALLY slow. On average I did not get a response back from them for 3-4 hours and sometimes I would not hear back from them till the following day. HOWEVER they did do right by us as a customer and move us to a ddos protection server so that alone will make me stay with them.

    Their support may be slow but at least they addressed my issues while other server hosting companies were telling me they do not have ddos protection servers.

    Happy with HFB here.

  28. Post #28

    April 2006
    1 Posts
    No meaning why multiplay uses windows as host os instead of a linux if they've knowledge in freebsd already. Also there are some tricks to get linux binaries running within freebsd.

    But I understand the concerns by not allowing ftp on windows hosts.
    It's a lot easier & less mess when applications come with native Linux/Unix binaries. Last thing anyone wants to do is run a server through emulation :(

    I had some DDos issues with my server hosted with HFB. I contacted them cause the IP got null routed for 24 hours due to the ddos attack. We went back and forth a bit in the ticket me saying its unacceptable that my IP just gets blackholed on ddos and them saying its industry standard they are sorry and they are working hard to resolve it.
    While being blackholed for 24 hours is annoying & we (Multiplay) have seen our fair share of 24 hour blackhole's it's often down to who the specific provider is in the location.

    As a general point, we try to keep any blackhole to under 2 hours where possible.

    I have a sweet WinSCP script that uses FTP to automatically back up my Rust server save every hour to my computer at home. This currently wouldn't be possible with Multiplay and it really should be...
    You can actually do that :D
    You can FTP to clanforge.multiplay.co.uk & download world saves/logs etc

    But we're also going to offer automated daily world backups this week hopefully!

  29. Post #29
    SinMach1ne
    SinMach1ne's Avatar
    December 2013
    95 Posts
    I had some DDos issues with my server hosted with HFB. I contacted them cause the IP got null routed for 24 hours due to the ddos attack. We went back and forth a bit in the ticket me saying its unacceptable that my IP just gets blackholed on ddos and them saying its industry standard they are sorry and they are working hard to resolve it.

    After a bit of back and forth they said they would move our server to a ddos protection server they had one spot on and they were going to give it to us for the troubles.

    HFB ticket response times are REALLY slow. On average I did not get a response back from them for 3-4 hours and sometimes I would not hear back from them till the following day. HOWEVER they did do right by us as a customer and move us to a ddos protection server so that alone will make me stay with them.

    Their support may be slow but at least they addressed my issues while other server hosting companies were telling me they do not have ddos protection servers.

    Happy with HFB here.
    Was your server status Unknown?
    Cause I am also hosting with HFB and my server is down with that status
    I am wondering if that DDOS

  30. Post #30

    April 2011
    72 Posts
    Was your server status Unknown?
    Cause I am also hosting with HFB and my server is down with that status
    I am wondering if that DDOS
    It is a DDoS, blackhole'd. Just got to sit and wait.
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  31. Post #31

    January 2014
    7 Posts
    You cannot wipe or update easily with Multiplay.

    Wipes require a support ticket.

    Updates are done when they get around to it. Depending on when the update hits, I've seen the servers updated anywhere from 1 -12 hours after the fact.
    this is not true can manual wipe you just have to know how to.....
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  32. Post #32

    December 2013
    9 Posts
    DDos attacks are still very difficult (and expensive...) to deal with. Also worth mentioning; it was a ulink router exploit that was permitting the continued ddos attacks. Generally, adding real ddos protection to any server (web, game, whatever) is going to double your service costs... All ddos protection is going to be limited to specific methods anyhow. New, unknown or un-patched exploits are going to make ddos possible no matter what protection you have. New exploits used by ddos'ers wreak havoc on networks because it takes physical people analyzing the traffic to determine the source and specific exploit. Then it requires formulating a solution and then it takes implementing the solution without causing any further harm to the network. No easy task... No little black box that you can plug in and walaa, no ddos... It requires a team of seasoned pros. Some dude on his android in a coffee shop is not going to be able to handle it by running a couple scripts remotely...

  33. Post #33
    Radsy's Avatar
    December 2013
    18 Posts
    Oh god don't go with Multiplay i was with them for 2 days bad ping's.

    Cant do jack shit with the server you pay cant install mods cant reinstall server with out doing a support ticket.

    don't rate them as a host

    Edited:

    Interesting, I'm looking into servers now. Can anyone confirm that you cannot update your own server with Multiplay?
    You Cant update you server on Multiplay at all

  34. Post #34
    Gold Member
    Sievers808's Avatar
    December 2013
    2,322 Posts
    this is not true can manual wipe you just have to know how to.....
    From what I understand, Multiplay does not allow you to browse and edit the file system on the server, which is why they cannot wipe the maps themselves.

  35. Post #35

    January 2014
    49 Posts
    We have an HFB server and the lag/rubber banding is almost unplayable. We've dropped about 40 people from our daily playerbase because of it.
    I co-admin a HFB server and for the most part we don't have any issues, well aside from the DDOS attacks and all.

  36. Post #36
    kimmando's Avatar
    December 2013
    8 Posts
    Please ensure you double check the information you are posting is correct

    https://clanforge.multiplay.co.uk/news/article3978.html
    That is what they're planning on adding. It is not possible to do a full wipe on a Multiplay server as of right now until they implement it. You can do a world wipe by deleting the .sav file, but all characters would still have their inventories and researched items.

  37. Post #37

    January 2014
    18 Posts
    Paid for a HFB server yesterday. More than 24 hours and still waiting to recieve an email saying "server is fully setup.."

    Not a good start

  38. Post #38

    December 2013
    118 Posts
    I went with HFB because they were cheap and offered a server in The Netherlands. Setup times was about 30 minutes. Before that I used the Ticket question for a question which got answered within the hour. I also have no lag.

    Guess I am lucky then :) I have no other hosting experience to compare it with.

  39. Post #39
    mav
    Gold Member
    mav's Avatar
    January 2014
    36 Posts
    Paid for a HFB server yesterday. More than 24 hours and still waiting to recieve an email saying "server is fully setup.."

    Not a good start
    Submit a ticket, your location server might be full.

  40. Post #40
    racerlynx's Avatar
    January 2014
    6 Posts
    I have a 100 slot from HFB and for the last two days its been laggier than hell; and for the last hour the server isn't even accessible... don't really know what to do as I've never had this problem from a server host before...