In case you didn't already know, my new hosting service, HammerHost, is going to start the closed beta stage on March 10, and probably release publicly 1 week after.
This means I need to find a VPS provider in 3 days. Unfortunately, I do not know what the community would like and if you're okay with one in Europe.EDIT: Servermania has been picked.
I've now finally chosen ServermaniaInitial specifications of the VPS: (I will get a more powerful VPS or dedicated server depending on HammerHost's popularity).
CPU: 4 cores of an Intel Xeon E5-2620 v2
RAM: 4 GB
Estimated Blockland capacity: 10 servers
Should Steam authentication be brought back?When I started making HammerHost (right on the day Ephialtes quit), I decided to implement Steam authentication for the service. This would allow many users to purchase a server.
However, I found out that it is against the Steam terms of service for a user to distribute their Steam username and password. I was quite disappointed that Steam authentication for multiple dedi-servers was impossible without Badspot's intervention. Non-developers can only access the Steam
web API.
But today, I re-thought the issue, and came up with a workaround:
Option A: Allow HammerHost clients to pay extra for Steam accounts.This method definitely does not violate any Steam or Blockland licensing agreements. It works by using a unique Steam account for each Blockland server:
When the client registers and chooses Steam authentication, they pay a one-time fee of $10 (in addition to the monthly or 3-month price), and specify what Blockland username they want. I use the money to create a brand-new Steam account, and buy a new copy of Blockland on it. After that, I run Blockland for the first time and change the username from "Blockhead######" to the username the client specified earlier. Then I make their HammerHost account use the Steam account's credentials. I will never give the client the Steam account's credentials because it is not allowed.
This new Steam account lasts for life. This means if they don't want to pay anymore and quit, they don't have to pay the $10 again once they rejoin.
Option B will come after once I find out if it's legal.
Poll