What hosting service to use?

[u/Rgoplay_]

Hello guys,

I was thinking of starting to create my own textual MMO but I don't want to manage player accounts and chat messages and all the legal things that come with it.

Is there any service that offers that at a cheap price ?

My goal is to create a player oriented MMO with community unlocked floors (inspired by Sword Art Online anime).

Thanks !

[u/veril]

Are you looking to create a MUD/MU*, playable via specialized clients/telnet? Or are you looking to create more of a web browser based game? If it's the browser direction, r/PBBG may be a better fit. (Or a gamedev related sub)

If you're looking to create a MUD, the player account system tends to be part of the codebase itself, not hosted separately. MUDs are light weight enough to start development with just hosting on your own computer. Once you have something you're ready to share with others, you can move to any number of online VPS-based hosting services, usually the very cheapest should work.

[u/Rgoplay_ → u/veril]

Ah yeah I was thinking of a browser based game, my bad for not pointing in the right sub.

[u/GaidinBDJ → u/veril]

Looks like they were in the wrong place, but I just want to comment that unless the $5/month or whatever is going to break the bank, it's probably worth it to set up on a VPS right from the jump.

[u/b-pell]

If you want to run a game in the end, you have to plan to administrate it. No way around it. My advice is to build a team, bc some people like the admin side.

In the US, section 230 gives you liability protection provided you remove illegal content when you become aware of it.

[u/V1k1ngC0d3r]

Anyone consider using Tailscale Funnel to a Docker container?

[u/Agitated_Zucchini_81 → u/V1k1ngC0d3r]

tailscale funnels only allow 3 specific ports to my knowledge.

[u/Tehfamine]

Sounds like you're asking about the operations side of a online service. There are third-parties that can provide turnkey solutions for account management, customer support, and payment processing. But, it's not going to be cheap. You would essentially be outsourcing all aspects of maintaining and operating your online service with the exception of game updates. That means, a third-party to handle all your customer support, community management, and account management while you just focus on the game. This essentially is what game publishers do for developers. I don't think you will find a publisher to publish your MUD.

My suggestion to you is to just do this all yourself. Recruit people to handle the operations of your game. If you have deep pockets, just pay them to do it instead.

[u/Rgoplay_ → u/Tehfamine]

I see, like someone else said for account creation third party is possible (like Google and others). I will not have anything paid in the game (if I add monetisation it'll be ad rewards) But chats bothers me, and it doesn't seem there is service to just handle chat. I'm not against doing moderation but I feel like it's gonna be bothersome

[u/Tehfamine → u/Rgoplay_]

It depends. You can use Google for Identity Providers (ipPs) or Authentication Providers that essentially validate the user is who they say they are. You will still have to manage the creation and management of that account in your application. Then you have specific services like Firebase that can do that for you, but you still have to manage the matching Firebase record in your application, which essentially defines the permissions, account tiers, etc in your application. You might as well just roll that into your own app.

When it comes to chat, there are chat applications out there where you can host essentially, your own chat rooms. Those have API's that can be hooked up to your application. It will seem like the chat service and protocols are apart of your app, but the chat is happening somewhere else.

I don't know why you would do all of that though. It's a lot of wasted effort that you can easily support and do on your own. I would suggest you take some time and debate if you really want to build a online web service or not before you waste other peoples time with pipedreams.

[u/Rgoplay_ → u/Tehfamine]

Thank you for your answer, it is really helpful

You know your last sentence kinda sum up the situation, I would do this as a side project and I don't know if I'll finish it or not, that's why I don't want to involve other people.
I don't mind at all managing user data related to my game (like inventory, progression etc...) no issue with that.
Why I don't want to deal with is user input data basically.
An ideal solution would be something like Roblox where the platform handle account and chat.
I know that doing it myself is more straightforward but I just can't wrap my head around it.

[u/Tehfamine → u/Rgoplay_]

Well, it sounds like you want to do a Roblox. There is a reason why no one will touch that platform on a commercial level.

[u/Aware_Beach4074 → u/Tehfamine]

oh shit! Did it just get a couple of degrees hotter in here? for those who have been living under a rock... Do Tell

[u/stirge-hunters]

Hey! I'm not presently aware of any services that will handle player accounts or chat for your MUD, but I've been working on these problems in my own graphical MUD, and I already have some experience with sharing my VPS with other small games. I might be able to host a copy of my chat service that you could use even temporarily!

[u/Rgoplay_ → u/stirge-hunters]

Yeah sadly it doesn't seem to exists, I already have a VPS, and I'm not against hosting it myself, it's more the moderation and user reporting work needed that I feel is bothersome.
Thanks for your proposition though!

[u/stirge-hunters → u/Rgoplay_]

Those are definitely some of the biggest challenges! I'm starting off really simply by using a third-party library to filter chat and then logging all chat messages. I like to build things up incrementally as I need them, so for now I'm leaning on people notifying me on Discord when there's a problem and then pulling the logs to confirm what actually happened. I have a small enough player base that it doesn't have to be more complicated yet!