Joining Servers

How players join servers in multiplayer is a critical touch point to engage users and insulate servers from traffic waves. As a result, Nodecraft Studio’s approach is nuanced to keep the focus on setting player expectations up until they connect to the server.

Pre-Connect Checks

Unlike most legacy Player-Created multiplayer games, Nodecraft Studio handles Moderation, Server Access, and other access control features so that the Game Server doesn’t have to. This provides substantially more functionality that you don’t have to implement into your Game Server executable and configuration to keep your multiplayer a friendly and safe space.

Before a player can join a server the platform will ensure:

• The connecting player has access to the server based on access control rules
• The connecting player has accepted the Server Rules if it’s a Community Server
• The connecting player has provided the correct Server Password, if the server is password-protected
• The connecting player is not actively banned from the server
• The server being connected to is online and ready to accept connections, if it’s not it will actively restore the server in the Just In Time configuration.
• The connecting player has completed the Server Queue process, ensuring the order of joining matches their position in the queue.

Server Queue

As outlined above, parts of that Pre-Connect Check may be asynchronous. To ensure these async interactions occur without affecting the Player's expectations, Nodecraft Studio leverages a Server Queue process. To learn more, read the Server Queue guides.

Connecting to the Server

Once the player has finished the Server Queue, they will get connection details to the server. Unlike legacy game servers, these connection details will also require the Game Client to provide a Server Authorization Token. This token gives the Game Server a verification of that the above steps have been completed as well as giving identity information & session details to the server. It’s critical that you read the Server Authorization Tokens guide to implement this feature.