A while ago I had rented a Counter-Strike: Source server to promote my website however, things did not turn out the way I hoped they would.
The server had 10 slots and was running on the standard 66 tick rate. It had been running the standard map cyclus for the duration it was online. I was unable to decide if I should have made it into a specific game server (for example, only de_dust2 or surf maps). So I had left it like it was to see how it would go, if the project went well I might have considered renting another server or upgrading the amount of slots on the current one.
The gameserver host was gtxgaming.co.uk, they are a UK based company that is a daughter company of a datacenter business, so they can offer a low price per slot. Because I had previously rented a Counter-Strike: source server from that same company, I decided to do chose gtxgaming over the more expensive services. Even though said services offer free voice server hosting, but I didn’t need a Ventrilo or Teamspeak server.
For some reason the server wasn’t updated into the master server list, so no one could see it beside the people that knew the ip address. I send the support an e-mail, I got a response within an hour! Anyhow, the server-rental guy said that I had to wait for at least 6 hours to allow the master server to pickup the new CSS server. After a day had passed, I still was unable to see it in the master list. So I sent another e-mail and I got a reply saying if the problem still existed in the morning I would get a new server. The next day the problem was still there, so… I send another e-mail! Meanwhile I had experimented a bit myself with adding more/other master servers to the server.cfg but it didn’t help. After waiting for 72 hours on my new server, I received an automated message that the ticket has been closed because I didn’t respond for three days. So I quickly replied, thereby reopening the ticket, that I still was unable to see the server in the master server list. I got an reply if I wanted a new server and I replied that I would like that if it was at no extra cost. A day later I had two servers, but the problem still wasn’t fixed so I sort of gave up.
Four months later, the server had been rarely visited, I suspect due to the fact that it was very difficult for it to turn up in ones master server list. The number of visitors to my website, that was advertised in the server name and ‘message of the day’, did not increase. Perhaps this was to be expected, one could only hope to find a cheap way to advertise websites using game servers. I had hoped that the server might attract a specific audience to my website, mainly gamers, that would then come and play a few games. Although this is not necessary false because the server itself was not attracting any visitors which of course did not lead to an increase in traffic to my site. It might be more convenient to just advertise on websites rather than renting a css server.