DragonSoul is a from-scratch Go server for the 2011-12-12 DragonSoul client. One process serves everything a player's computer reaches: the login on TCP 28100, the gateway on TCP 28101 and the launcher's status port on TCP 28102. A control panel runs beside it.
There are two downloads. The server archive carries the server, the control panel, GoMMO Manager and the game content. The client is its own, much larger download, already installed, with dslauncher.exe in place of the original launcher and patcher.
Run the server
Unzip the whole server archive and run GoMMO_Manager.exe. It starts the game server and the control panel from the archive's folder, shows their logs, takes database backups, and on first run walks you through creating the owner account and setting the address players connect to. On Linux, run server/start-server.sh for the game server; server/linux/ holds systemd unit templates for both servers.
The database is SQLite and needs nothing: the files appear under db\ on first run, and an account is created the first time a name logs in. To use MySQL instead, set DATABASE_PROVIDER to mysql in settings\settings.cfg and run the scripts in database-mysql\, starting with 00_create_ds.sql.
If the game server stops straight away, logs\history.log names the cause.
Install the client
Unzip the client download to a folder you can write to, such as C:\Games\DragonSoul, not Program Files. The client writes its log and your saved account name inside its own folder.
Start the game with dslauncher.exe. It shows whether the server is online, keeps the client up to date when the server publishes updates, sets the window size, and starts the game, where you sign in. It connects to 127.0.0.1, the server on the same computer.
To play on another server, change Host under [Server] in launcher.ini, beside the launcher, to that server's address. Use a numeric address; whether the client accepts a host name is untested.
Any name and password will do on a fresh server. The account is created on first use.
If you already have DragonSoul installed from the original installer, the server archive's client\ folder holds dslauncher.exe and its launcher.ini. Copy both into your client folder, beside gameclient_release.exe.
Letting other people connect
GoMMO Manager's Server Setup sets the address players use and writes it into client\launcher.ini, and its Check Ports button lists TCP 28100, 28101, 28102 and the control panel's port and adds the firewall rule. Forward the same ports on your router. The login tells the client which address to use for the gateway; by default that is the address the player reached the login port on, which is correct on a LAN and for a server with its own public address. Behind NAT or a port forward, set ADVERTISE_IP in settings\settings.cfg to the public address players use.
Before opening a server to the public, set AUTO_REGISTER to 0 if you do not want accounts created on first login, and leave DEV_COMMANDS at 0: when it is 1, every player can use the GM chat commands.
Changing the content
content\ is the original server content in its original format: data\ holds the item, monster, skill, shop and activity tables, scripts\ the NPC, quest and event scripts, and maps\ the map grids and spawns. It is unconverted, so anything you already know about editing this game's data applies, and you can replace any of it. Point CONTENT_ROOT in settings\settings.cfg elsewhere if you keep your content in another folder.
What works, and what does not
This is an alpha and a proof of concept. Whether it grows into a full server depends on whether people play it and tell us what they find, so expect rough edges and report them.
Checked by hand in the real client: the launcher, logging in and creating a character in every class, entering the birth map, walking, map changes, NPC dialogs, fighting monsters, dying and reviving, skills and buffs, loot, levelling, and with two players: seeing each other move, teams, trading, chat, friends, mail and guilds.
In the server but not yet checked in the real client: equipment depth (durability, repair, binding, the depot), upgrading and socketing, NPC and personal shops, the cash shop, most of the quest chain, PvP, pets and mounts, the kingdom posts and the nation war, rankings, the scheduled activities, the dungeons, the arena and treasure maps. Our own test client exercises all of it, which catches a lot but not everything, so this is where problems are most likely.
Game rules, formulas and balance follow the original server where we could read them from its files, and are ours where we could not.
If something looks wrong, we would like to hear:
- what you did, and what you saw in the client
logs\history.logfrom the server- the
log\folder from your client