Here's my own experience, still not a pro but, maybe it could be useful to you. SERVER HOSTING
For Learning - Digital Ocean as they offer a $100 worth of free credits, good for 2 months.
- Down side if you wish this to be your main hosting provider, I believe they don't offer DDOS protection and mitigation out of the bat
- Another good thing is they charge you on a usage basis, so if you wish to destroy the VPS you are not charged for the remaining month.
For Going Live - OVH, I highly recommend this as they offer DDOS Protection and auto mitigation upon your purchase
- You are automatically charged for the full month DOMAIN and WEB HOSTING
- There are alot of domain hosting providers out there, but I suggest since you are still learning, get a web hosting provider that offers monthly billing and of course free SSL, one is HostMantis who offers free SSL.
- You will need this for your registration if you go live, hence you can just turn on creation of new accounts on your game login window on your conf setup.
- Flux CPanel is Free. GAMEGUARD
- You got no other option but Gepard, contact Functor. AVG of $255 one time payment.
- If you are still developing, you don't need this. DEV
- Check third party services ADVERTISEMENT
- Facebook is one of the best, You control your reach and daily spending
- You can advertise your server here on rAthena.
- Ratemyserver is another
- and the top gaming sites which I'm not sure if they are still effective.