SONA have been involved with online gaming for several years now on both PC and consoles.  With a good understanding of what makes a gaming clan run succesfully from an administrative angle, we are now offering a number of useful services aimed directly at gaming clans.

Fast Download URL Hosting
Non-standard maps and content such as banner ads, skins and sounds are great fun to add to your gaming server, but for anyone joining who doesn't already have the content, it can be a pain that often leads to players disconnecting immediately without even joining the game because they just do not want to wait.  If you have  ever owned and run a game server you will know the frustration of this, and you are often faced with having to remove the content or get used to having a quiet server.

Game servers typically "trickle" content to new players meaning that a combination of a few skins, a custom map and a few sounds take minutes to download. We have even experienced servers on Gary's Mod to take over 20 minutes to dump all of the custom content.  The solution is to have all of your custom content stored remotely on totally seperate web space, thus allowing new players to download the content at the maximum speed of their internet connection.  This can cut a map download time from minutes to seconds and make the process of joining a customised server totally painless.

So how is this done?  Essentially a game server's configuration file will usually dictate where to download content from, and by default it will be the game server.  On most games literally adding a download reference will be enough to start streaming content from an external source, all you have to do then is make sure the custom content on your remote host is the same as on your game server.

What do SONA offer?  Quite simply, we can deliver hosting for your game server's remote downloads, together with enough space and bandwidth to run other applications at the same time for as little as £3 per month (see our Hosting section for the Basic Hosting Package).  We can even create the necessary configuration file changes for you (for most games) if you so wish, or link you to a tutorial for doing it yourself.

Psychostats
This open source utility is essentially a statistics program that allows players to view in-depth stats about their game play, but it is also a great tool for server owners to monitor traffic etc. on their game server.  It supports a number of Half-Life/Half-Life 2 based games, and others such as Call of Duty 4 are being added by the developer.  One of the other benefits of Psychostats is that it can generate increased traffic to your own website as the full stats can only be viewed through a browser, ideally with the portal being through your website.

Check out the developer's website for more details of this great utility, or take a look at a live Psychostats site at Moonlit-Circle Gaming UK which was created and customised by SONA.

Clan Websites
Of course every clan needs a website if only for administration and a place to communicate.  It is also a requirement of most reputable gaming leagues to have one containing specific information.

Our web space offers all the essentials to run a clan website, whether it be using a PHPNuke based or similar Content Management System (CMS), our free Web Builder (see the demo pages for a live demo) or perhaps one of your own design.

We will even do a basic installation of PHPNuke, PNC, Nuke-Evolution, Webspell etc. for you plus PHP Bulletin Board if required at no cost.  You can then customise to your heart's content.

We plan to offer fully configured gaming clan websites very shortly, with a range of designs and prices to suit every pocket.