Is it feasible to let users run dedicated videogame servers with no user accounts?

Question

I apologise if something like this has been answered before, I just can't figure out a good way to word my question well enough to include all details about my problem.

I'd like users to be able to host servers for my indie game in a way virtually identical to, for example, Minecraft. I don't want any official servers, the game is mostly intended to be played with friends and not random strangers.

I've thought of many ways to accomplish this but I could never solve one important detail - I want the server to be able to remember users and put them where they left off when they reconnect (give them their character, the character's inventory, etc).

But any solution I could find or think of either made it potentially very easy to steal someone's character and connect to the server pretending to be them, or required me to make players have a way to register with accounts, something I can't afford to host myself.

I guess what I need is a way for the server to send a token to a new connecting player, and then have a way to see if the player sending that token back is the same person, and not an attempt to replicate the token. That to me sounds like public key cryptography, but the game engine I'm using doesn't seem to have any libraries for that (unsurprisingly), and I certainly am not qualified to make a library like that myself. But maybe there's an easier solution I'm somehow missing.

This might be a stupid question, but I hope it's worth a try asking. Thank you in advance for any help. Sorry I was so wordy by the way.

TLDR: I want users to host game servers that can remember reconnecting players without risk of players' progress being stolen.

Answer 1

If you have not already, look into sessions. Session cookies. But also setting up a basic log in system with php or whatever server code your server uses is not hard, and most basic hosting provide the mysql and php needed to do a basic log in page, you just have to code it yourself.