If you’re still weighing whether a dedicated server is worth it, start here. If you’ve already decided – here’s how to get one running.
Before you start
Dragonwilds’ dedicated server is a free download on Steam. You can run it on the same machine you play on, on a separate home server, or on a cloud VPS. Minimum RAM is 4 GB. For a full 6-player server, budget 8 GB – the game uses roughly 2 GB as a base plus 1 GB per connected player.
Before you do anything else, get your Owner ID. The server won’t start without one.
Finding your Owner ID
Your Owner ID is your Dragonwilds player identifier. Open the game, go to Settings, and scroll to the bottom of the screen. There’s a copy button next to your ID – use it. It’s a long alphanumeric string and you’ll mistype it if you try to read it manually.
This is the single most common setup failure. The server starts, logs some initialization lines, and then exits silently because there’s no valid owner configured. Double-check the ID is pasted correctly before debugging anything else.
What to configure
The settings you’ll actually care about:
Server Name — The name shown in the in-game server browser. Pick something your group will recognize. Keep it to 15 characters or fewer – the server browser truncates anything longer and replaces spaces and dashes with underscores.
Default World Name — The name of the world. This is what players search for in the Public Worlds tab. It’s case-sensitive and has to be an exact match, so keep it simple.
Admin Password — Anyone who enters this password via Pause → Settings → Server Management gets admin access. Set something you’d be comfortable sharing with people you trust, because there’s no way to see who has entered it.
World Password — Optional. If set, players need this password to join. Leave it empty for a public server.
Max Players — The default is 6. Going lower doesn’t save much RAM – the base cost is the same regardless. Setting a higher value via CLI override appears to show additional slots in the server browser, but whether more than 6 players can actually connect and play hasn’t been confirmed yet.
Administrator List — Permanent admin access by Player ID, formatted as (id1,id2). Use this for people you always want to have admin access, regardless of whether they know the admin password.
Starting up and connecting
When the server starts successfully, watch the logs for CREATE SESSION - Advertise. That’s the confirmation it’s up and accepting connections.
Players find it in-game under the Public Worlds tab by searching for the exact world name you configured. If you’ve set a world password, they’ll be prompted for it. The server runs on UDP port 7777 by default – that’s the only port you need to open. There’s no separate Steam query port or beacon port; the server browser runs through Epic Online Services, not Valve’s server browser protocol. To use a different port, pass -port=<number> on the command line when starting the server:
./RSDragonwildsServer.sh -log -port=7778
Direct connect via IP isn’t supported yet – Jagex have confirmed it’s on their backlog. The Public Worlds tab is currently the only way in.
Understanding access levels
Dragonwilds dedicated servers have three tiers of access:
Owner is whoever’s Player ID matches the OwnerId in config – that’s you. Owners can ban and unban anyone, whether they’re online or offline.
Admins are players who have entered the admin password via Pause → Settings → Server Management. Admins can ban regular users who are currently online, but cannot unban. Admin status persists until you change the admin password – at which point everyone who used the old password loses admin status. You can see who currently has admin access by checking the INI file directly.
Regular users is everyone else.
The Administrator List is a separate config field that takes a list of Player IDs. We’re not yet certain whether it grants Owner-level or Admin-level access – Jagex’s documentation doesn’t spell it out. It’s worth setting for people you want permanently elevated, but treat it as experimental until we confirm exactly what it does.
Keeping it running
Two things worth setting up once and not thinking about again:
Auto-updates — Enable automatic updates on restart. Dragonwilds is in active early access development. A server running a version behind the current client will start rejecting connections, so staying current matters more than it would for a stable game.
Backups — Two directories matter. RSDragonwilds/Saved/SaveGames/ is your world data – obvious. RSDragonwilds/Saved/Config/ also needs to be in the backup because it contains the ServerGuid the game generates on first boot. Steam doesn’t know about this file. If you lose it and restore from a fresh install, the GUID won’t match your save data and the world may not load. Everything else – game binaries, logs, cache – is safe to skip.
We offer Dragonwilds hosting on shrug.games with auto-updates, daily backups, and everything above configured through a panel. Worth a look if you’d rather not manage any of this yourself.