How would you feel about player run servers?

Vermillion_Raventhal

Give the player the ability to run a server, monetize it and share in the profits with developers. Have the players be able to make some server rules, police players and more. 

Seems like an interesting idea because it seems survival games tend to do well with player run servers.  Of course, MMORPG are not survival games.

AAAMEOW

How will the revenue sharing work? 

Obviously developer can make money selling the client.  But I'm not sure how the money goes back to the developer since the player have the control of the server.

Are there any example of games that currently work this way?

Po_gg

AAAMEOW said:

Are there any example of games that currently work this way?

Not that I know of.

Turbine had plans for such of a setting with AC. Give the servers to players, while they provide only the support. It was an interesting experiment, but of course when at the whole Turbine-SSG transition and the close of AC the private server initiative went down with it.

Many asked if the game is cancelled anyway, why not just make the last steps and let the player-run servers spread, but they said they're "unable to do" it, for whatever reasons.

http://mmofallout.com/turbine-reneges-on-private-server-plans-shutting-down-asherons-call/

AAAMEOW

There are player run server in legend of aria.  But I don't think the player run server is monetize.  

Once the player get ownership of the server.  Don't seem like the game company can monetize it(other than selling future expansion).

Scot

What survival games are doing well with player run servers?

RexKushman

Scot said:

What survival games are doing well with player run servers?

Rust, Ark, 7days2die, Conan Exiles just to name a few. It is pretty standard in the survival genre.

Vrika

No thank you. Player run servers works really well as long as it's small enough that one person can handle everything as a hobby, but above that scale dev run servers are better.

Mendel

If the person running the 'server' is also running a character in that game, there's simply too much opportunity for corruption.

Also, if the 'service' is running on a home computer with a home internet connection, there is a very good chance that it is using an asynchronous communication service.  Running a persistent service from the 'client' or 'home' connection is usually against the service agreement of any ISP.  If the game is in any way sensitive to connection speed, this setup will ensure that anyone playing on this 'service' will experience an inferior performance experience.

So basically, no.

Dauzqul

Most people can't control power. So much abuse.

"This guy ganked me." Ban.

Sovrath

I don't think most players have what it takes to run an unbiased, "professional" experience.

I have no problems with developers creating games where players can run their own servers such as Conan Exiles but when you start asking for money people want a better experience.

Scorchien

        

                                               Exploits

FlyByKnight

How do I feel about hyena ran zoos?

anemo

Screeps includes the ability to host and join private servers when you buy it on Steam.

For most that use the feature it's to rapidly test builds/strategies, a few use it for contests, and there are a couple full servers as well. 

Nilden

RexKushman said:

Scot said:

What survival games are doing well with player run servers?

Rust, Ark, 7days2die, Conan Exiles just to name a few. It is pretty standard in the survival genre.

Actually third party server hosting is big business.

https://www.bestarkhosting.com/

Thats just one site for some ARK hosting. This is what I instantly thought of when the OP said player hosting, they already do that and tons of third parties offer it.

RexKushman

Nilden said:

RexKushman said:

Scot said:

What survival games are doing well with player run servers?

Rust, Ark, 7days2die, Conan Exiles just to name a few. It is pretty standard in the survival genre.

Actually third party server hosting is big business.

https://www.bestarkhosting.com/

Thats just one site for some ARK hosting. This is what I instantly thought of when the OP said player hosting, they already do that and tons of third parties offer it.

Yep. I tend to prefer player run/owned servers in these types of games. They offer different features than official ones like mods, increased xp and gather rates, whitelisting, quicker admin responses etc..

cochs

What value exactly would you bring to the table to warrant sharing revenue?  Just running the server doesn't count.  If the game is popular if it's not your server it will be someone else.

To have any real value you need to bring people into the game that the studio wouldn't acquire by other means.   Which is why streamers have value. 

The only other potential area I can think of is content.  Companies like Roblox have a healthy ecosystem where players can make money off of their own content. 

Every known avenue to players making money involves significant time and skill in some form.  That's just the game industry, everyone wants to be involved so the bar is incredibly high. 

Limnic

We can reference any survival game with player servers as a good general indicator of how it'd generally play out.

Players will generally tailor servers, and most of them will be meh, or small with the point of being a playground for a few friends. The larger servers will tend to have a range between dictatorial shitholes to communities that try really hard to be for everyone yet still deals with arbitrary bouts of drama.

And that's not really any worse than official game servers in this regard. The issue is weeding through all of them to find the one's that are decent enough to want to stick around on. And unfortunately the overhanging question of "how long will this server be maintained" kind of looms rather closer than with official ones.

I personally would still say private servers for persistent world games as an alternative to MMOs would be a good thing, but they out all the more stress on the community to become a community if you want the game to survive/thrive.

But having a centralized support for a bunch of private servers, and extending content over time for those player hosted servers via content packs and what-not is viable.

The big thing is making sure the game you make is one that fits well to fostering these communities and has enough reason for players to stick around. Expecting them to "make the fun" in the game world has been the running joke of many survival titles that have taken this format and a big hand in why they eventually fall off.

Vermillion_Raventhal

cochs said:

What value exactly would you bring to the table to warrant sharing revenue?  Just running the server doesn't count.  If the game is popular if it's not your server it will be someone else.

To have any real value you need to bring people into the game that the studio wouldn't acquire by other means.   Which is why streamers have value. 

The only other potential area I can think of is content.  Companies like Roblox have a healthy ecosystem where players can make money off of their own content. 

Every known avenue to players making money involves significant time and skill in some form.  That's just the game industry, everyone wants to be involved so the bar is incredibly high. 

Niche services I don't think public servers will handle.  For example say WoW if you wanted to make a server where NPC were hard to the point of forced grouping but grouping exp was good.  Or a server where all exp was gain through faction PvP.  

I just was thinking about how could the genre open up some.  I see surival games and even anime MMORPG that seem so adventurous but reality of MMORPG is so formulated. Maybe developers need the man power to explore ideas and let players take the risk.  

Wizardry

"share in profits"bad idea.
I have played on player run servers,sometimes great,good,not so good and sometimes just different.

I don't think i have ever played a game where i thought the devs did a good job with server/game settings,so there is no way players could do any worse.

The main issue i have is player run servers tend to change too often or disappear too fast.Other than that ,if not legally run then the servers would be inferior to the legit servers.
In case of Atlas it is perfectly legit to run your own server and settings and mods.However most are no better with the settings than the devs and the few that are seem to get bored and make changes too often or shut down after a short while.

So in the great big picture,there is no perfect world,devs sometimes setup their game as doable/decent but  never really well.This is just one part of the equation to attaining a great game to play,first we need great ideas,great implementation and great settings,that seems to be 3 tough challenges for gaming.

Scot

RexKushman said:

Scot said:

What survival games are doing well with player run servers?

Rust, Ark, 7days2die, Conan Exiles just to name a few. It is pretty standard in the survival genre.

I am trying to see the benefits of player run servers, I have played on servers where a game had been modified into a new form. Is that the case here or what are the differences to official servers in those survival games you mentioned?

Limnic

Scot said:

RexKushman said:

Scot said:

What survival games are doing well with player run servers?

Rust, Ark, 7days2die, Conan Exiles just to name a few. It is pretty standard in the survival genre.

I am trying to see the benefits of player run servers, I have played on servers where a game had been modified into a new form. Is that the case here or what are the differences to official servers in those survival games you mentioned?

Generally, that's up to whoever is the host.

Most servers you can quickly setup as a "vanilla" server that would be no different to an official server in terms of content, rules, etc.

But with personal servers does come custom game settings, adjustments to items and stats, or even full-on mods and revamps of the game if they want to go extensive enough, and the game happens to have a robust enough toolkit for convenience's sake.

So variety in user experience and ability to see out a preferred balance, or even host your own, exists in the likes of player run servers.

The drawbacks sit more on the technical end. One is that the community fragments out across a lot more niche/variant server. The other is to get truly large communities on a server, you'd need a host willing to invest a pretty good amount of money into the game monthly.

And that means the potential for server fees, donations, or otherwise coming right back into the picture as something to be accounted for.

TEKK3N

Vermillion_Raventhal said:

Give the player the ability to run a server, monetize it and share in the profits with developers. Have the players be able to make some server rules, police players and more. 

Seems like an interesting idea because it seems survival games tend to do well with player run servers.  Of course, MMORPG are not survival games.

Absolutely awful idea.
Giving average Joe the power to run things, it's recipe for disaster.

Amathe

There are way too many douchebags to potentially give one this much power.

Kyleran

Nilden said:

RexKushman said:

Scot said:

What survival games are doing well with player run servers?

Rust, Ark, 7days2die, Conan Exiles just to name a few. It is pretty standard in the survival genre.

Actually third party server hosting is big business.

https://www.bestarkhosting.com/

Thats just one site for some ARK hosting. This is what I instantly thought of when the OP said player hosting, they already do that and tons of third parties offer it.

One challenge is the hosting costs can go up quickly,  I recall when Atlas first went live many players discussed how many maps they could afford to host, and the costs quickly grew to amounts most weren't willing to shell out for without some compensation.

Scot

I used to play on player run GTA servers donkeys back. They were radical departures, you had one where you started as a Cop or a gang member and tried to commit robberies while the cops tried to arrest you. The other was set up more like a MMO, I traded in "mats" for weapons using zone text like it as a radio advert. "Looking for metal, I can sort you out no problem". The police listened in though and could turn up, frisk and arrest you. Halcyon days.

Those mentioned don't seem to be that different, but I see the attraction.

Kevyne-Shandris

Anyone who played Battlefield with kids who rented game servers is familiar with "Admins from Hell".

EA gets away with it because of their tin ear to complaints. Allow those admins to run a WoW server, Blizzard wouldn't hear the end of the complaints. I've seen Admins from Hell kicking players for what role they played. I've seen then kick people using certain weapons and especially explosives (all despite it's legit game play). I've seen them pause the game then use the admin channel to cuss players out.

HELL NO! Giving tots a idea of control they will abuse it.

Private servers are run differently, it's not a one admin calling the shots.