INX game servers blog

I need to be given some credit on this. Going back 20 years, I had an Amstrad CPC 464. An early Alan Sugar invention. In fact, one of his better inventions when you wonder what Amstrad have bought out over the years- email machines, fax / email machines, hybrid Sega / PC’s. It was a fantastic computer.

My dad was into his computers. So our second one was a Commodore Amiga 500. When you go from early basic graphics, to 16bit, it’s quite a jump. When we first had the Amiga setup, Dad had it hooked up to the TV (and it was a big TV at the time- had you shown me my 50″ 1080p Samsung at that time I’d have fainted). We upgraded to an Amiga 1200. I am to this day a big fan of the Amiga….what a fantastic gaming machine it was. While all my friends had Mega Drives, and a few Super Nintendos, I maintain to this day, my Amiga was far superior.

Then we bought our first PC….and it went on from there. I was hooked on PC gaming.

Then in 1995ish the Playstation, appeared- and I still resisted. I just found it shite. The graphics were substandard. I’d be better off taking a jolly to Skegness and going in the arcades. Those were the graphics.

The PS2 I finally submitted to. And while I had a crap PC (this is going back 8 years) and had no money, it was a cheaper way of gaming while building a good PC wasn’t affordable. MOHAA brings back memories

Fast forwarding. I own a PS3, an XBOX 360 and a WII. I play games on them all- albeit not much at the moment. You would NOT play FIFA on a PC. No way, it’s a console game. I do not want to use keys to play against my mates. Go away.

My brother Tom and Lawrie are both avid console freaks. Everytime I call and see my Mum, I can hear TAT TAT AT AT AT AT coming from upstairs. Lawrie is playing Battlefield Heroes. XBOX 360, and it looks utter turd.

Tom is really into COD4 and 5. He’ll play COD6 like a heroin addict when it is released in a month or two. He thinks he’s fantastic as these games, and I say to him.

‘Aim noob’

Why?

Going back a few years, I got very very very good at CS 1.6. I am talking playing for hours and having scores of 100/6. It was pure practise and instinct (and vodka). I probably sound big headed, but I was high skilled. I became very very good with the mouse.

Have you tried aiming on an FPS game on the consoles? It’s TERRIBLE. With the mouse, if you are really really good, you SNAP the mouse onto a target and blow their brains out. On the console you laboriously push in the general direction of the opponent. Try it- it’s linear. It’s terrible. It’s low skill.

FPS gaming on consoles is low skill. The controller don’t work for FPS games.

Console gamers would get shat on if they had to use a mouse- they simply don’t have the ability or intelligence.

The irony is that the vast majority are playing console FPS all day long- Jeremy Kyle’s contestants. The real skilled players come out at dark- after work, college or university.

So it would seem the developers are dumbing down gaming. Gaming used to be for geeks. For the intelligent. It’s becoming increasingly for dip-shites.

I am quite sure when I speak to my grandchildren in 40 years time, I’ll be telling them how good gaming used to be

Add a comment below and just tell me I am wrong.

Now, you can’t tell me you having noticed anything different, because there’s a whole brand new look to our site. Even if you’ve been lazy and only gone to the forums, you will have noticed the difference and all the threads telling you about our new site.

Now, if you haven’t had a chance to look round, how many of you have thought, great, it’s a new site, but how does it really benefit me except more bugs and a new slim look!? Firstly, just make sure your not in punching distance of Carl or Olly, because OMG their is SO much benefit for you, it’s really unbelievable how much we have been depriving you over the last 5 years.

Well start with

MyINX

MyINX is a unique login system for all INX systems. Can you remember when you used to have to remember the billing link, support link and the panel link, and as if that wasn’t enough, you had to  remember the different usernames and passwords. Well not anymore, with MyINX, it is a simple one click log in to any of the INX Services. No need to remember your billing pass, just log in and click billing. How much easier could it get? Not much im glad to say! So, if your not already signed up, do I have to say it… I hope not but I will anyway, What are you waiting for?

Knowledge Base

Now, I know we’ve already had a knowledge base, so your probably thinking, ohh, just get on with it your boring me to death, it’s same old same old. But oh no, not this knowledge base, in the famous words of M & S, “This is not just any old Knowledge Base, this is an INX, advanced and edited my professionals regularly knowledge base.” Go and take a look, you’ll be surprised at it’s tidyness and effectiveness.

 Staff Blog

Well, your reading this, so you’ve obviously seen the new look to our staff blog and our integration with the new site. So, what do you think? We think it’s just what the doctor ( or in our case Olly) ordered. Now unfortunately, with great power, comes great responsibility, so that meas myself, Olly, Carl and John are going to have to entertain you with our terrible stories.

About Us

So what? Every GSP has an About Us page, so what makes INX special? Well that’s exactly it. What makes us different from every one else? Not sure, head over to the About Us page and find out, it contains, why you should you use us, why our existing customers chose us. Our setup, what makes us superior to other GSP’s and our hand built control panel. Then take a look at our panel with a tour create by no one other than the creator.

More to Come

Now, we don’t want you to get your knickers in a twist, so were releasing bits at a time. There is still plenty to come, so don’t worry, your not missing out. Upcoming features include the new and improved Download Core and an impressive ….. , now that would be telling now wouldn’t it and we can’t have any of that!

So in the famous words of Julias Ceaser, or as of now Olly, “Veni, Vidi, Vici – I came, I saw, I conquered”

That’s all for now but don’t blink, or you might miss something.

Happy very belated Easter all

I didn’t receive any Easter Eggs this year, I’m far too old for that kind of stuff. Anyone wanting to send some chocolate through to me can do so through our contact page Anything, to get me away from Call of Duty 4. It’s far too addictive

One thing I’ve been thinking about over the Easter break, is how do people choose a game server provider? Back in the day (/me gets out tweed hat and pipe) it was a relatively easy task. When we started five years ago, you had three, perhaps four providers at max to choose from.

As the price to rent dedicated servers has decreased, so has the number of game server hosts. Again, at risk at sounding an old git the first dedicated server we rented was £100 a month, and we paid £100 setup. That was for a Pentium 4 2.4 with 1GB RAM

Many dedicated server providers have in turn, completely ignored that power and space costs are around 5x + what they were 2-3 years ago. But that said, servers are now way more power efficient, so you get more bang for your buck You can now pick a dedicated server 4x as powerful for less than £70 a month. Granted, we don’t rent dedicated servers anymore. In fact, we rent them out to lots of smaller GSP’s and clans. But, basic fact – cheaper dedicated servers = more game server providers!

The majority of game server hosts rent these cheap dedicated servers. Now the hardware itself has to come at a catch right? So very often that dedicated server is no better quality than a cheap desktop stuck in a rack. Stick a copy of Windows XP on it (naughty, naughty) and bang a control panel on.

HAI, I’m A GAME SERVER HOST<3

You then have game server hosts that invest in quality hardware, quality network infrastructure, and try and keep those middle men down.

So, tip #1. Ask your game server host, is your next Call of Duty 4 server going to be hosted off someone’s second hand desktop PC? Or are they running nice business class hardware. While the cheap end makes it easy to host at daft prices (we’ve seen below 50p a slot!), it isn’t going to give you and your clan / community the quality it deserves.

If you go into town, and you want a service, whether it be paying cash in at the bank, getting something horrible removed from your foot at a chiropodist, or chewing on a muffin…in a coffee shop, you know their opening hours, yah?

It’s not like they can shout, “Er hai, eat your muffins 24/7″ and lie about it. Because if you had the hankering at 2am for a chocolate chip, and you found they were closed, they’d get found out.

It’s a lot easier on the internet. I’ve seen web hosts, game server hosts claim the funniest of things.

‘We’re 24/7 because my MSN is signed in all day’ – Erm, come again. My msn is signed in 24/7, but you certainly wouldn’t want to catch me on there before I go to bed.

We’ve seen one-man-bands who go to college / school / work all day claim to be 24/7 -We answer all emails within 24/7′.

Continuing the rather enjoyable food theme of this article, please, don’t be such a donut! That’s not 24/7 support. It’s not even part time.

Good support would be 9-5. And that means, always someone logged in 9-5. Excellent support is 12 hours, i.e. 10-10. INX and a few other game server providers properly manage it. Amazing, theoretical support is 24.7 support, which we haven’t yet seen a GSP claim, and live up to Although like any professional internet service provider, we monitor all our equipment 24.7. And if something breaks, we don’t hang around to fix it.

So, tip #2 - Find a host that’s good with support, but honest with support. Because there’s far too many bullsh*tters out there.

And for our final tip, I shall try and keep off the thoughts of food, as its a recipe for disaster. Oops, ok, it’s Friday, I finish work soon and I have pizza to look forward too

How long as your new potential new gaming server host been around? 5 years (we and a few others have ), 5 months? 5 weeks? 5 minutes? There are so many fly by nighters. Going on the point above, how long do you think a small host can survive on unrealistic pricing margins. Every week or so we see a host disappear, along with customer’s hard-earned pre-paid money.

While age isn’t everything (as someone with a younger girlfriend, I wouldn’t so much agree, but that’s not suitable for a company blog) it’s not a bad indication of how long a potential host will stay around to look after you.

Tip #3 – wisdom comes with old age.

Until next time, enjoy your weekend’s gaming

- Olly

This month sees us celebrate out fifth birthday. In the world of game server providers, where some last as little as a week, I don’t think that’s bad going. Thank you to everyone that has supported us over the last five years!

With the birthday celebrations, we’re going to be launching a new website! What we want from you, is your feedback.

While we can’t promise to include everything, what would you like to see on the INX website?

Please leave your comments below!

- Olly

One the most frustrating things of being the UK’s leading game server provider, is your unimaginative ‘competitors’ copy overything you do.

Whether it be game servers for a quid a slot….fast downloads…..hardware….

Over the years our competitors have copied all our good ideas. And generally executed them in a sucky way. ul.

It does suck, but as Del Monte just said to me on Yahoo Messenger….’It’s a compliment really‘.

Having just seen a medium sized competitor create their own blog, I did cough and screach ‘FFS! Get an imagination!‘ at the top of my voice, but then started cackling after that. The kind of competitor that uses poor performance Windows for game servers (rofls), and an off the shelf control panel they can’t alter….because they don’t have that ability to do otherwise.

There are game server providers out there we have lots of respect for. These aren’t one of them. I suppose I just pity them at the end of the day

gg lads, but always one step behind.

*sings Nobody Does It Better at the top of his voice*

Last night we committed some changes to the forum, mostly rearranging some existing forums, merging a couple together and adding one or two more.

What does this mean for you? Well not much really All the good stuff is still there waiting for you to add your 50pence worth.

To go into a little more detail, the forums have been divided up into two main categories.

The first is Community and Entertainment, which is for discussing everyday life, sharing a joke, or talking about that brilliant film you’ve seen and just wanted to share with everyone. You can discuss who won the latest football game or you can meet up with potential clan members or opponents if you’re looking for a match.

The second is Gaming and Technology, for discussing Gaming and Technology surprisingly enough Wanna show everyone the cool maps or mods you’ve got on your INX gameserver? Got a handy gadget you think everyone needs? Want to debate whether Counter Strike Source is better than Counter Strike 1.6? Well you can!

As ever, we always listen to suggestions, so if you have ideas for almost anything you think INX Gaming should do, please drop a post in the suggestion box.

Finally before you go and catch up on the forum posts, please sign our Battlefield 2/2142 petition. You know it makes sense