Is there any way to turn a public IP into a code or phrase so people can join a listen server?
In this way it would be better than just giving out your ip to strangers I’ve been trying to find a way to list my dedicated server but that doesn’t seem to be going well so I’m opting for this
Any help would be appreciated thank you.
No, at least not with null online subsystem, it’s a raw networking in that case and UE4 simply gonna listen on the port of you computer. You need a external system that will list servers. Cheapest solution is to use 3rd party online subsystem like Steam, for now you can use test id (which is 480 aka spacewar), only limitation of that is Steam does not support non-seamless travel (default map switching) and on test id it region locks the sessions.
Note that clients will need IP to the server regardless of your attempt of hiding it, thats simply how internet works and you don’t need to be pro hacker to figure to which IP your client is connecting to, you can do this by simple commands in windows command line. Also note that people who hosts game server don’t mind reviling IP and don’t really prevent game to be popular, that how games generally worked before game networks been made and some games like Minecraft (which don’t even have master list), Ark and even all Source engine (HalfLife2 based) games like CS:GO or TF2 on steam still work work this way to this day.
UE4 also will resolve any DNS domains that you use insted of IP, but again this won’t hide IP address and IP can be checked with simple DNS query
Thank you for the detailed response. I ended up using the steam subsystem, but this definitely clarified some confusion I had.
Also when you said “non-seamless travel (default map switching)” does that mean I would be unable to switch to different levels once the server is hosted?