subject: What Is To Come For Online Gameservers And Computing Gaming Enthusiasts [print this page] The year is 1996, and servers are born for Quake. Multiplayer online gaming was a new drug for gamers, where Unreal Tournament on dialup was as good as online gaming was. To some, it still is.While playing COD now on our XBOX might seem normal, or a right, 15 years ago the whole idea of competing against a friend in another room via a network cable dragged between rooms was incredibly exciting. Now, shooting someone in a different part of the world, or even more amazing, someone in another country was an amazing buzz.Since then, servers have evolved, rapidly. At the crux of growth for online gaming, arguably, Counterstrike was at its peak. Thousands of gamers across the world would pit their wits against each other. Counter-Strike was the ultimate competitive game. In fact, watching people play COD is nothing compared to CS!In 2003, Call of Duty hit shelves and was a massive success. As with all the first gameservers, there was no platform bias. The servers ran on Linux as well as Windows (although with the early Call of Duty series there was always a delay for Linux binaries!). Here, started a trend -Future game servers then often had a 'Windows only approach'. And this was To the dismay of seasoned Linux admins, and linux gameserver companies, such as INX gaming servers. There has always been the argument that Windows game servers are easier to administrate, which makes them more friendly to manage. But on the other hand, hosting game servers on Linux gives so much more freedom and scope!It's only fair when talking about game servers, that we mention Valve. While Valve receive a lot of bad press (usually because then they release software updates it can cause problems with gameservers), they deserve a thumbs up, they deserve an incredible amount of credit.And with the recent blockbuster Modernwarfare 2, there were NO dedicated game servers for the game- instead Activision set up a 'match making' system- again, much to the dismay of the game server enthusiast. EA / Dice only allows a few number of 'trusted partners' to host their game servers.Valve on the other hand have always provided Linux and Windows support for their gameservers. From the early days of Counterstrike, to the mega popular release of Counter-Strike Source Servers. And recently Team Fortress 2 servers.So where now for the future of gaming server hosting? Speculation says clanserver will be obselete, as they are in two years. While Valve continue to release games on Linux and Windows, with free, easy access to the game files, game server hosting will never die. Console gaming is tempted, and will pull gamers away from the PC. Although expect gameserver hosting to be around for another 14 plus years!.
