FULLOBBY

Frequently Asked Questions

The short version: real players, no bots, no hacks, free for players.

What is server seeding?

Multiplayer servers need a handful of players before others will join — an empty server stays empty. "Seeding" is the community practice of being one of those first players so a server fills up and live matches can start. Fullobby automates the tedious parts of doing that for community servers across the games we support.

Which games are supported?

Fullobby is a multi-game seeding platform. Current lineup:

You opt in per game: the app offers only the enabled games it detects in your own Steam library, and you choose which of them to seed for.

What does the app actually do?

With one click it launches your chosen game through Steam and connects you to a target community server. It can cycle through a list of servers (skipping ones that are offline or already full), run on a schedule so servers get seeded unattended, show live player counts, and credit your seeding time toward a community leaderboard.

Is this a cheat or a hack? Will it get me VAC/EAC banned?

No. The app does not read or write game memory, inject DLLs, hook game functions, or interact with any anti-cheat (such as Easy Anti-Cheat or VAC) in any way. It launches games the same way Steam does (steam -applaunch) and at most sends a couple of harmless key presses to skip intro screens. It does not touch game binaries or any anti-cheat-protected files, and every game we add follows the same rule.

Is automated seeding against the rules?

No, it's not. Server seeding is a long-standing, openly discussed practice in the Hell Let Loose community, and community server owners rely on it. Team17 has responded to this topic before without being definitive either way, so nothing here is a permanent guarantee — but the app is built to stay squarely within normal, expected player behavior. It works by sending your game a plain Steamworks +connect shortcut, the same mechanism Steam and server browsers use to join you to a server; nothing about that is automatable on Epic Games or Xbox / Microsoft Store installs, which is a large part of why those platforms aren't (and can't easily be) supported the same way.

The point of the app isn't to replace players — it's coordination at your fingertips: seeding a rotation without needing to keep Discord open and watch for pings, tracking opt-in statistics, and giving community leaders real analytics on their genuinely active members instead of guesswork. We are an independent community project and are not affiliated with Team17 or the developers of Hell Let Loose; their policies can change, and you use the app at your own discretion. See the Terms of Service for details.

What is "efficiency mode"?

An optional setting (currently supported for Hell Let Loose) that temporarily lowers the game's graphics (low resolution, minimum settings, capped framerate, muted audio) while you seed, so the game uses fewer system resources. It edits the same GameUserSettings.ini the in-game menu writes to, backs up your original settings first, and restores them automatically when seeding ends — even if the app crashes mid-session.

How do sign-in and the leaderboard work?

You can sign in with Discord and link a Steam account. Linking lets the server confirm you were actually present on the server you seeded, which is how seeding time is credited to the public leaderboard. You can opt out of the leaderboard at any time in Settings, and you can delete your account and all associated data whenever you like.

Is my Steam account safe? Do you have my password?

We never see your Steam password. Linking a Steam account uses Steam's own OpenID sign-in — you authenticate directly with Steam, and we only receive back a confirmation of your Steam ID. The app launches the game through Steam's own launch mechanism, the same as double-clicking "Play" in your library; it never asks for, stores, or handles your Steam credentials.

What data does the app collect?

As little as possible — account identifiers from the providers you link, seeding-session activity, and minimal technical data for security. We never sell your data and run no advertising. See the full Privacy Policy.

Does the Discord bot read my messages or my whole server?

No. The bot only acts on the specific slash commands you run and the button presses on the messages it posts, plus the role information it needs to map Discord roles to in-app permissions. It does not read, log, or store the content of ordinary Discord messages.

How do you stop people from gaming the leaderboard?

Seeding time is only credited once your linked Steam ID is confirmed present on the server you claim to be seeding — self-reported time alone isn't enough. We don't publish the exact verification logic, since doing so would just hand out a recipe for beating it, but it's designed so that faking credit takes real effort, not a lucky guess.

How do updates work?

The app checks for new releases and can install them for you. Update downloads are restricted to a trusted domain, require HTTPS, and are verified against a published SHA-256 checksum before anything is written to disk.

Is it free? Is the source available?

For players, yes — the desktop client is free and open source under the AGPL-3.0 license (the source lives on GitHub), and individual seeding, stats, and leaderboards don't cost anything.

Fullobby's planned revenue comes from the other side of the table: gaming communities and server operators who want their servers integrated into the platform (rotations, verified seeding, analytics) will be able to choose between free and premium subscription tiers. Pricing isn't live yet; when it is, it will be published clearly and covered by its own terms.

Why is the API closed source?

Security. The desktop client is open source because there's real value in letting anyone inspect exactly what runs on their own machine — that's the part that touches your game and your system. The server side is a different tradeoff: publishing it in full would make it meaningfully easier for someone to go looking for ways to abuse the leaderboard, impersonate other users, or attack the service itself. Keeping it closed isn't about hiding anything from you; it's the same reasoning most services with any anti-abuse surface land on.

Who makes Fullobby?

Fullobby is built by Cat Tree Gaming LLC, a small Michigan company founded by a longtime member of the Hell Let Loose community. What started as one community's seeding tool grew into what Fullobby is today: a multi-game platform for keeping community servers alive. Healthy, well-populated community servers make games better for everyone, and community-developed tools like this one are how that happens.

Why is Fullobby a brand of Cat Tree Gaming LLC, a for-profit company?

We will never sell your information. Never. Registering as a for-profit LLC was the fastest path to offering paid, supported service to the communities who run servers — free and premium integration tiers — on top of a client you can already trust on your own computer. Players don't pay; communities who want their servers on the platform eventually will. It is not a step toward monetizing your data. The alternative structures came with their own tradeoffs (a nonprofit, for instance, generally means answering to a board instead of a notepad). This is a dictatorship that loves you.

The LLC itself is part of that trust, not in spite of it. It means there is a registered legal entity that takes full ownership of — and responsibility for — the (limited) data you hand over, with real, enforceable obligations behind our promise never to sell it. Compare that to a project run out of someone's basement on a handshake and good intentions: no accountability if "Joe HellLetLoose" changes his mind, loses interest, or just disappears. A real company is the harder, more accountable path — and that's the point.

How do I get help?

Ask in the Fullobby Discord, or open an issue on the project's GitHub repository.