Dayz.st and HFBservers.com review

[2gunz 46]

I have rented from both for a decent period of time, with a significant number of players and this is my review.

My goal is to keep it simple, to the point and hopefully help others. As with such things YMMV.

They will be rated on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being best and 1 being worst.

Dayz.st

Info

Rental period - 4 to 5 months ( terminated service)

Server size - 50 players

Min player count - 0

Max player count - 44 ish (could never do 50 it would lag and people would leave)

Average player count - 25-35 ( this is a guess and at prime time)

Server location - Utah then later moved to LA

Scores

2- Server performance - Never able to fill the server as more than 35-40 players caused it be laggy, have LONG load times or constantly get the "something went wrong error"

5- Network performance - Awesome, little downtime and great consistent pings

5- Control panel - Neat, clean and VERY easy to use

2- Access to files - Many of the files needed to do custom work to your server are not available for you to modify

1- Customer service - Horrid, Im not even sure they read the entire ticket.

5- Setup time - Instant

What did I like the best?

The control panel was awesome.

What did I like the least?

Customer service. It was bad. They failed most times to give me legitimate answers to anything. To the point after the second email I had pretty much given up hope.

My final thoughts.

Dayz.st is perfect for the new server owner/op. The control panel is EASY any you can have your server up in moments. If this is your FIRST dayz server and it is for you are not computer savvy, look no further than dayz.st.

However if you are computer savvy or have run a game server before, then you should look elsewhere. This is the "Fisher Price" of game server rentals and in time you will be ready to move onto something that is more powerful and more customizable. The lack of access to files will leave you wanting more, and the server performance issues will make you crazy.

HFBservers.com

Info

Rental period - 4 months+ ( Currently with them)

Server size - 55 players

Min player count - 5

Max player count - 55

Average player count - 35 - 50 ( this is a guess and at prime time)

Server location - LA

Scores

5- Server performance - Its a tank never go past 50% CPU usage

4- Network performance - Have had a few issues but they where resolved

3- Control panel - Gets the job done, but lacks some advanced features that Dayz.st has.

5- Access to files - We run a bunch of custom things and have never had to ask help because we couldn't access the files.

5- Customer service - Staff is knowledgeable, response times less than 12 hours, many times in a few mins. The owner of HFBservers dropped INGAME to make sure my issue was resolved.

?- Setup time - I cant rate this. We transferred the Database from Dayz.st and it took over a week. (this was because of my schedule not HFB)

What do I like the best?

Access to ALL files. Support that is actually interested in fixing problems, instead of just closing tickets.

What do I like the least?

The control panel, however IF I had NEVER seen the Dayz.st version, I would think that the HFB one was fine.

My final thoughts.

HFBservers.com uses TCadmin for server control (The same as MOST game server rental places). People new to server rental and operation may find it frustrating (compared to dayz.st)

Experienced server operators will find the more "open" control and access to everything refreshing, and exactly what they needed.

If your ready to jump into the "big leagues" or expect to desire that in the near future, then I recommend HFBservers.com. This is as close to you get to having a dedicated server without having the hassle and expense of one.

If anybody has any questions, please ask away.

Thanks!

Edited May 20, 2013 by 2gunz

[2gunz 46]

I apologize for the formatting of this.

I attempted to use 1 to 5 Thumbs up for the rankings, but it wouldnt let me use that many emotions.... so this is the result.

[R.J. 70]

I've been with ST for about 6-7 months now and my main gripe is the extreme lag at times. Filters or no filters, 100 vehicles or 500 vehicles, the lag makes it impossible to even walk at times. Other than the occasional DDos and sarcasm in the IRC channel, it's been pretty decent.

[Femme Fatale 49]

As a HFB user for little under a week I find them quite good in all areas and for the price 20$ for a private dayz ultimate hive 20 person server I am quite pleased. Also they are having that half off for life sale at the moment for new accounts, so for anyone else that opted for a similar account like mine it would be only 10$! :)

[2gunz 46]

Im glad Femme :)

[2gunz 46]

Updated

[Bernardo (DayZ) 13]

I have just switched from dayz.st to HFB.

I was with dayz.st for 7 months and at the beginning they were amazing, but the problem now is they have too many customers and the support has gone completely down the toilet.

They never respond anymore to emails, last one I sent took 3 days to get an answer, and it takes them an eternity to get updates rolled out.

The biggest problem I have though with dayz.st is the lag of the servers- they advertise 50 slot servers but anything over 25 players and the server grinds to a halt.

Also the complete rudeness provided on IRC by a certain Allanstrings is unacceptable.

I am glad now I left dayz.st as they had their day, they are a good server provider to people who want to get started hosting a server for the first time and don't have a population but after that they are awful.

Scores - Dayz.st

2 - Server performance - As stated anything over 25 players and the servers lag out

5 - Control panel - The best control panel without a doubt of any server provider.

3 - Access to files - Have access to Mission.pbo and server.pbo and incredibly easy to upload - BE scripts upload via FTP

1 - Update Availability - 1.7.7 still isn't up and Epoch 1.0.1.1 took an eternity to appear and kept going told it would happen tonight, 4 days in a row.

1 - Customer service - Make a complaint and you will be called a Douche, submit a ticket and wait 3-5 days.

5 - Setup time - Incredibly quick setup as happens instantly.

Scores - HFB

? - Server performance - Can't judge yet as in the process of using this server as a test. But do get much better FPS and AI now runs and not stutters

2 - Control panel - Basic and feels clunky, but gets the job done

4 - Access to files - Have access to all files on the server, gets marked down as nowhere near as easy to upload as dayz.st

5 - Update Availability - 1.7.7 was up instantly, same as Epoch 1.0.1.1

? - Customer service - Never contacted customer service.

3 - Setup time - Completed within 24 hours as promised

I can't really review HFB as of yet as don't have it set up to run the server at present, when it switches I will update the scores above.

[2gunz 46]

Thanks for the Update!

[ReallyBadKarma 0]

I've used Dayz.st, HFB, Vilayer, and now XstreamGaming.

 

DayZ.st

Let there be no doubt that DayZ.st has the best admin map out of all of them. They don't go down as much as HFB and Vilayer. Support is slow to respond and at times can have a little attitude when they do. In my experience with them, I felt as though they tried to jam every dayz map into the same database. Which became problematic when playing maps other than Cherno.

 

HFB and Vilayer

I put these two in the same review because they both seemed to go down at least once daily. When I reported the outages, they both said they were under constant ddos attacks. Their admin tools were just ok. Nothing more. Nothing less.

 

XstreamGaming

I am now with Xstreamgaming. Their admin tools are great. The admin map is not as good as DayZ.st, but far better than HFB and Vilayer. Support is responsive. The server ping averages around 24 (the others were around 45). My server cruises right along w/o lag when it's at its 50 player capacity. And, most important, I've had the server for about 2 weeks now and it has NEVER GONE DOWN.

 

I do not regret my time on DayZ.st (like I do with HFB and Vilayer), but I am very happy that I found XstreamGaming.

 

That's my two cents.

 

Peace!

[beatSTV 631]

Just like to put in my 2 cents on a few server hosters 

 

I have used ST, OVH and gaming deluxe

 

Scores - ST

3 - Server performance - Ok went down occasionally, laggy as hell at high player numbers
4 - Control panel - Pretty good some nice features very clear
1 - Access to files - What access?
2 - Update Availability - meh

2 - Customer service - Ok but took ages to respond
5 - Setup time - quick and easy

 

Scores - OVH ~(dedicated server)

1 - Server performance - Aweful laggy and would just crash for no reason 
/ - Control panel - N/A
4 - Access to files - Good choice of OS etc
4 - Transfer time - good

-20 - Customer service - never ever ever ever ever use them it is shocking they couldnt give a shit there is a reason they are cheap
4 - Setup time - good

 

Scores - gaming deluxe (Dedicated server) 

4 - Server performance - Good never drops although we have has some server issues on restart
/ - Control panel - N/A
/- Access to files - N/A
/ - Update Availability - N/A

5 - Customer service - Spoke with director and he got set up and ready to go in a day
4 - Setup time - same day took a couple of hours more than told but still really quick

[Bernardo (DayZ) 13]

I have been with HFB servers for about 2-3 months now, although the server performance is very good, there support is beyond a joke.

 

My server went down Thursday morning whilst I was asleep it has now been 48 hours and the response I recieved was:

 

"Hello

Sorry for the long response time, Two of our main support reps have been away due to personal issues. As such we have had nobody around for the past 48 hours to handle support.

First off I want to say the situation regarding your server is a bit hard to explain, but I will do my best to explain.

We have recently began preparing for upcoming product launches and have began attempting to change all of our servers with the several providers we use to be due on the same day. Our US billing changes have gone off without issue however due to a language barrier our France changes have not. We have servers with 3 separate providers in France, Two employ English speaking support reps and one does not (the one you are with) As such the others for the most part have been able to understand what we want to do, but due to a misunderstanding the provider we use for a few machines (yours included) thought we wanted to cancel the servers and re-order them on a certain day, however when they responded google translate made it sound like they understood our request and would change billing to the certain date. So I of course said perfect that is what we want to do. Then starting on the 21st around 3am in the USA (while I was sleeping) they began shutting down all of our servers with them and reformatting them, once again, because they thought we wanted to cancel and re-order on a certain date, so we have lost about 5 machines worth of clients due to this mistake and now must re-order, but the re-order time frame is going to be several days due to a backlog of servers they need to setup.

Once we get the new replacement machines in we will be setting up all the people with down servers on the new servers.

Anthony Henson
CEO/Owner
HFBServers LLC"

 

According to their website they have servers available in France, so why couldn't he set me up with a new IP.  I will probably lose alot of players and donators due to this in my opinion poor response.

Although AllanString is the rudest person you are ever likely to encounter in your life, least when something went wrong with DayZ.st the problem was always fixed in a few hours and if your server went down, you went onto IRC(Internet Rudeness Chat) and DayZ.st would have your server fixed within 10 minutes.

 

The problem looks very unlikely to ever be fixed so I will be switching over to another provider again.

 

What actual decent server providers are there with decent server performance like HFB and full FTP acces but without the really shit support that comes with HFB?

Edited August 24, 2013 by Bernardo

[bloodbullet 11]

I have been with HFB servers for about 2-3 months now, although the server performance is very good, there support is beyond a joke.

 

My server went down Thursday morning whilst I was asleep it has now been 48 hours and the response I recieved was:

 

"Hello

Sorry for the long response time, Two of our main support reps have been away due to personal issues. As such we have had nobody around for the past 48 hours to handle support.

First off I want to say the situation regarding your server is a bit hard to explain, but I will do my best to explain.

We have recently began preparing for upcoming product launches and have began attempting to change all of our servers with the several providers we use to be due on the same day. Our US billing changes have gone off without issue however due to a language barrier our France changes have not. We have servers with 3 separate providers in France, Two employ English speaking support reps and one does not (the one you are with) As such the others for the most part have been able to understand what we want to do, but due to a misunderstanding the provider we use for a few machines (yours included) thought we wanted to cancel the servers and re-order them on a certain day, however when they responded google translate made it sound like they understood our request and would change billing to the certain date. So I of course said perfect that is what we want to do. Then starting on the 21st around 3am in the USA (while I was sleeping) they began shutting down all of our servers with them and reformatting them, once again, because they thought we wanted to cancel and re-order on a certain date, so we have lost about 5 machines worth of clients due to this mistake and now must re-order, but the re-order time frame is going to be several days due to a backlog of servers they need to setup.

Once we get the new replacement machines in we will be setting up all the people with down servers on the new servers.

Anthony Henson

CEO/Owner

HFBServers LLC"

 

According to their website they have servers available in France, so why couldn't he set me up with a new IP.  I will probably lose alot of players and donators due to this in my opinion poor response.

Although AllanString is the rudest person you are ever likely to encounter in your life, least when something went wrong with DayZ.st the problem was always fixed in a few hours and if your server went down, you went onto IRC(Internet Rudeness Chat) and DayZ.st would have your server fixed within 10 minutes.

 

The problem looks very unlikely to ever be fixed so I will be switching over to another provider again.

 

What actual decent server providers are there with decent server performance like HFB and full FTP acces but without the really shit support that comes with HFB?

 

Whats wrong with that response? At least they are being honest and not just saying "hardware failure" like vilayer does when they don't pay the bills. Also, I don't think "According to their website they have servers available in France, so why couldn't he set me up with a new IP" is a valid thing as if you look at the bottom of the stock thing it says last updated 7/29 almost a month ago. Im not sure why you would think this is "Unlickely to ever be fixed" as HFB has been around longer then anyone else its not like they are just going to close up and leave, they will fix your issue.

[desrat 4]

I'm also issues with HFBServers.com and wanted to just tell people about my experience.

I initially ordered an ArmA3 server (for a very respectable price I have to admit) from their New York location. Setup was quick and reasonably hassle free, until I joined the server and noticed a higher than expected ping. I double checked the servers IP address online and low and behold found that they had set me up in their Chicago data centre!!

Our members are largely based in the east of the US and central Europe so New York was selected as a reasonable middle ground for all. I actually expected this was a simple oversight or human error so I alerted them to the mistake and was told :
 

We are out of new york at the moment. As such we placed the server in the closest available location. Chicago was that location.

 

No apology, no consultation on whether I even wanted that location, it was just assumed that would be good enough. When I did question further I was then offered an apology and that should stock become available (which I would have to check for myself) I could request the server to be moved. Not ideal but as the server was paid for and the ping wasn't astronomical I begrudgingly agreed to wait it out a little.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and I notice they have stock availability for New York once more and so put in the request to move the server, as they had advised me to.

Once again setup was relatively quick (no mods/missions were transferred) but once again though the location is wrong, only this time its been setup in Phoenix Arizona!! 

Needless to say I'm plenty pissed at this point and immediately log a support ticket - That was 4 days ago (Wednesday), I've had no update (despite several prompts from me over those 4 days), no contact and my attempts to contact them in other manners have thus far been unsuccessful, so basically I'm here to advise others that while HFB do have highly competitive prices, the staff are at best incompetent fools or at worst blatantly poor at customer service. 

I guess you get what you pay for as they say...

EDIT - UPDATE 

Finally received word after 4 days and only after I mentioned I'd posted here and on the BI forum - turns out the server location is new york and the IP address reports as Phoenix (inaccurate geoinformation) so apologies for that, it does not however explain why it took 4 days to get that response.

Edited August 26, 2013 by Desrat

[web11 3]

Dayz.ST is HORRIBLE! Their control panel is very restrictive and won't allow you to choose your server time, they won't let you customize your dificulty settings and other simple things that you are allowed to change with any other host. Also they will provide you with NO SUPPORT AT ALL! I've been emailing them back and forward for almost a week, it took them 3 days to reply to my first e-mail only to completely ignore my request. All I want is to have auto aim disabled on my server and they are refusing to help. also their servers have these terrible lag spikes, they gave me a 50 slot server but it lags with only 5 people online. It got so frustrating to the point I am purchasing another slot with a different host and will hit them with a charge back.