With builds, art or 3D models it’s very easy for buyers to understand what they’re receiving before they purchase a resource. This isn’t the case for more technical in-game functionality since a screenshot can’t convey the quality and polish of what you’re offering.
Hosted Testing Servers, created in partnership with PebbleHost, solves this by providing free hosting to show off your creations to buyers. They are available for all Pro resources created in the Plugins, Server setups, and Configs category. If you’re selling a build or model, you can instead use our 3D Previews: 3D Preview
Our Hosted Testing Servers are far better than simply hosting one server and giving that IP to all prospective buyers because a unique server instance is generated for each user, completely automatically, when requested. After generating a server the user is given an IP address and version to join on, and they’ll have 30 minutes to play around.
The main benefit of this is that users receive full /op permissions on the server, allowing them to properly understand how the server works from an admin’s perspective rather than only seeing it from the perspective of a player. This means they can use advanced commands that you otherwise wouldn’t want to give them access to as it could ruin the experience for other testers.
If a user starts a server and invites their friends to come grief it with TNT then that won’t affect anyone else and is completely fine (although not recommended!)
Testing Server tab shown on resource product pages to users when this feature is enabled
For server setups, it’s pretty simple. You just need to ensure that you include all necessary dependencies in order to fully operate as described by simply running the jar. These files will not be available for download and may contain premium dependencies.
<aside> 📌 The zip you upload must be a zip of the server folder’s contents, not a zip of the server folder itself
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For plugins and configs it’s a bit more complicated because you can’t simply upload those files. You’ll need to create a full server to show off your creation. We recommend making your setup as simple as possible and with your plugin/config as the main focus. After all, buyers will be only joining your server to view your unique creation, not the server surrounding it!
Edit your resource and navigate to the ‘Media’ tab. Select ‘Enable test server’ and attach your fully operational server files. Enter the server version required, such as “1.8” or “1.19”, and the name of the server jar. Click save and you’re done!
Note that the server setup you upload is stored by us, not PebbleHost. It is only when a test server is requested that we’ll send the file to PebbleHost for them to host for 30 minutes. After the 30 minutes the files will be deleted from PebbleHost’s servers.