I have been running ARMA servers for 5 years straight. NO JOKE! 5 YEARS! JUST 1 GUY! ME! 🙂

It’s been so much good, bad and ugly for sure. I can’t say how many late nights and countless hours I have poured into keeping these servers going, but every fun / good thing must come to an end… I am playing many other games right now, which of course include survival genre, which is for some sick reason my favorite type… Lately it’s been Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds. Man that’s a fun game, even though I am not great at it.

Q & A:
Why are the servers retired?
– Not enough players play constantly to justify the money I spend to keep them online.
– I don’t play ARMA anymore at all. In just ARMA 3, I have 1271 hours. In ARMA 2, it was around 1600 hours. Not bad for a husband, father of 2 kids, a guy that sings / plays guitar every week in a band (see: http://breedingstock.farm), and a dude that holds a full time senior software engineer job (see https://github.com/sirfrostingham for dumb side projects I wrote that didn’t go anywhere).
– Some day, ExileMod.com devs will release the next update and I have SO MANY customizations, it will be more LONG HOURS trying to get the servers up and running. This includes struggling with BattlEye filters, addons, scripts, custom code I have written, etc. etc. If you have run your own ARMA servers before, YOU KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!! It’s fucking insanity! LOL. And no one really cares that much. Just recently we have gotten some great donors, and I thank you for your donations!

Will Terd Fergasen / moosepuncher / Aaron Reed ever run servers again?
– I still plan to run servers, but for games I actively play… If I get sucked back into ARMA (at this time it feels like that may be a miracle), then yeah I’ll run this shit again… SOMEONE has to roll up the sleeves and run decent servers! But for now… NO THANKS! I’m burned out and there just isn’t enough support to keep my interest. Again, thank you to those who supported me throughout the years.

Can we change your mind to keep your servers up and running?
– No, not unless someone wants to donate some serious cash (like $300-$500) to draw my interest. It’s seriously not fun anymore and it costs roughly $100/mo just to run the servers 24/7. I run a little data center out of my house! heh. When an ARMA update comes out, I’m talking with ARMA developers… I have run custom ARMA server builds to help them fix issues… NUMEROUS TIMES! When a new MOD developer’s code ships, I am scrambling like a MAD MAN, trying to keep the lowest amount of downtime for players. ALL FOR WHAT? Right around $0/hr. Thanks to those that have made it more like $0.03/hr (3 cents/hr). 🙂 There is no making money at this and you need to love it to do it…

So why did you do it in the first place?
– I ran my own ARMA servers after playing DayZ Mod back in the day. I got trolled by admins on their servers, who were power hungry DICK HEADS and I got sick of it. So I ran my own…

I want to run my own servers, can I do it?
– Anyone can do it… You just need testicular fortitude and be willing to put up with a sheer endless amount of shit from many directions. 😉

Will you release your custom Exile server configuration, missions, BattlEye set up, scripts, database implementation and custom built server tools?
– Honestly, only if I truly know you, OR more to the point, you are willing to pay for it… I want you to pay for it, not because of the massive hours I poured into it, but because I want to know you are a serious server owner. Plus, I would need to go through my code with a fine tooth comb and remove personal data. That will take HOURS! 🙂 Otherwise who really gives a shit… Go out there, learn how to run your own server and git ‘er dun man!!

OK… Q & A over… It was fun and now I’m done. *insert fart noise here* *PHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT!*

GG!

-terd