Introducing DLobby

2025-03-27

I would like to introduce you to a project of mine called DLobby. This is the first in a series(?) of posts explaining various concepts, architecture, roadmap (maybe), and background surrounding the project ¹.

Today we’re going to look at the context of why I built DLobby, what it does, and why people might want to use it in their Discord servers.

If you have any questions or comments regarding DLobby, I’m happy to chat with you on the mailing list.

Note: SourceHut mailing lists only accept plaintext emails.

Background

Many video games that I enjoy playing have online multiplayer, where folks will get together and hang out in some type of “room” within a game while playing together. Fighting games and Monster Hunter games immediately come to mind.

Discord is the de facto platform for text- and voice-chat among most video gamers. Voice-chat in Discord works great, but correlating Discord voice channels that are disconnected from “lobbies” in a video game can be a bit cumbersome.

I have seen many Discord servers address this by creating a “lobbies” text channel. Members are instructed to drop a message in that channel with relevant information to their game lobby, then clean up (“delete”) the message once they’re done hosting. On paper this works great, but it places all functional responsibility on the lobby creator. That’s not inherently bad, but human beings can sometimes be forgetful. The creator may forget to include important information on their message. Their lobby may get lost in a long list of lobbies if the Discord server is busy. They may forget to delete their message after they’re done hosting causing confusion later.

I had the idea to build a web service that could manage short-lived lobbies for a Discord server, alleviating the need for members to remember to do all the different steps “just right.” An app that takes care of the creation and clean-up of lobbies provides some guardrails for users.

I was initially struck by the idea for this application by seeing one that worked very similar to DLobby in the Monster Hunter Gathering Hall Discord ². I loved the idea of this system, but it wasn’t open-source. This app served its purpose for Monster Hunter, but I wondered how useful it could be if it were more generic, for purposes other than solely forming Monster Hunter parties.

It was at this point that I started thinking about how an application to serve this purpose could be designed. I had been in search of a project to work on. This was a perfect opportunity to learn new technologies and libraries, and practice pushing myself on a project from beginning to end.

What does DLobby do?

DLobby is a web application that a Discord server admin integrates into their Discord server. DLobby installs a couple slash commands into the server for users to issue commands. The user issues commands to DLobby and it takes care of opening, closing, archiving, and deleting lobbies for server members. Members no longer have to remember specific creation criteria, or to clean up afterwards.

DLobby takes advantage of Discord’s Forum channel. Each thread within the DLobby controlled forum channel represents a lobby that is either currently open, or was opened in the past and is now closed.

After DLobby integration, the Discord server admin has the option to create fields that must be filled in by a server member when creating a lobby. This helps ensure important information is not accidentally left out.

Use the /dlobby create slash command to create a lobby. The create command asks the user for all relevant information before opening a lobby.

Once a lobby has been opened, it has an initial lifetime of 90 minutes. An expired lobby is closed and archived automatically by DLobby. The lobby creator has the ability to extend the lifetime of their currently open lobby with /dlobby extend if they wish for it to remain open longer than 90 minutes.

Use /dlobby close to close a lobby if you’re done with it early.

Why would I use DLobby in my Discord server?

DLobby can help your server remain a organized if it is a place where members regularly “host” gatherings in a voice channel that necessitates some information be displayed to entering participants (a room password, etc). This is most common in gaming communities, but of course not limited to that.

If your server currently has some kind of “lobbies” channel where members commonly forget to clean up messages afterwards, you would find DLobby useful.

Conclusion

I hope this has piqued your interest in checking out DLobby. I learned a lot of new things on this journey including lean project design and the Art of GYSHIDO. With your help, I hope to make DLobby a useful and reliable integration for Discord communities. Thanks!