Dragonwilds Server Settings Explained

A Dragonwilds server has a short settings list — five values you choose and two the plan fixes — and an unusual rule about how they are applied. Understanding that rule saves a lot of confusion, because it is the opposite of how most game servers behave.

The settings

SettingRequiredWhat it does
Player ID (OwnerId)YesNames the owner: the only role that can ban and unban whether a player is online or not. The server will not start without it
Admin passwordYesTyped on the in-game Server Management screen to gain admin powers
World nameYesThe world created on first start — and the name players search for in the Public tab
Server nameYesThe server's display name
Join passwordNoLeave empty for a world anyone who finds it can enter
Player capFixedSix on every plan, the game's own maximum. No setting raises it
PortFixedOne UDP port. Must be the same inside and outside

That is the entire list. There are no difficulty multipliers, no resource rates and no PvP toggles to set on the server: Dragonwilds keeps its world rules in the world, not in the server configuration.

On a server hosted with us, those rules are still yours to change: the World Settings tab in the dashboard moves the world you already play between Standard, Hard, Custom and Creative, turns PvP on or off, changes every rule of a Custom world, and starts a new world of any type. Elsewhere, the way is to create the world in the game and upload its save file. Our guide on changing world settings covers both.

Every setting is applied at restart, and that is deliberate

The server keeps its configuration in DedicatedServer.ini, and on servers deployed here that file is REGENERATED from your settings every time the server starts. Change a value, restart, and the file is rewritten to match.

Tip:This is why there is no config-file editor in the panel. Editing the file directly would appear to work and would be discarded on the next restart, so the settings themselves are the thing you edit and the file is always a faithful copy of them. Your settings and your server can never drift apart.

The practical consequence: a settings change needs a restart to take effect, and a restart is quick to ask for from the dashboard. Nothing takes effect live.

Choosing a world name

The world name is not decoration — it is the address. Players find your world by typing it into the Public tab, and the search is case sensitive, so a good name is one that survives being retyped by somebody else.

  • Short beats descriptive. It gets typed by hand.
  • Avoid leading and trailing spaces. They are invisible and they must be typed too.
  • Avoid characters that are awkward on a controller, if anyone in the group plays on console.
  • Be aware it is public: anyone can search for it. The join password, not the name, is what keeps strangers out.

Public or private?

A world with no join password is open to anyone who searches its name. A world with one is effectively private, because the name alone gets nobody in. There is no allow-list — the join password is the whole access control, with owner and admin bans on top of it.

Administering the server

Dragonwilds has no remote console and no web admin API. Everything is done from the Server Management screen inside the game, which is why the admin password is a required setting rather than an optional one: without it, nobody can reach that screen, including you.

The owner outranks an admin. The owner can ban and unban anybody at any time, online or not; an admin who has entered the password can ban regular players who are currently connected.

Updates

The server revalidates its game files against Steam every time it starts, so it moves onto the current build on a restart with no image change and no manual patching. That is how a server picks up 1.0: one already running on the Early Access build moves onto it at its next restart, and a new deployment downloads it outright.

Deploy a Dragonwilds server →

Frequently asked questions

Where is the Dragonwilds server config file?

DedicatedServer.ini, in the Unreal save tree at RSDragonwilds/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/ (WindowsServer on a Windows host). Its settings live under the [/Script/Dominion.DedicatedServerSettings] section.

Why do my Dragonwilds config edits disappear?

Because the file is regenerated from the server's settings on every start. Change the setting rather than the file, and the file will be rewritten to match on the next restart.

How do I make my Dragonwilds server private?

Set a join password. The world name is public and searchable by anyone, so the password is what actually restricts entry.

How do I become an admin on a Dragonwilds server?

Enter the server's admin password on the Server Management screen in game. The owner — named by the Player ID in the server settings — has stronger powers and does not need to.

How do I turn on PvP or change the difficulty on my Dragonwilds server?

Neither is a server setting: both are saved inside the world. On a server hosted with us, the World Settings tab in the dashboard turns PvP on and switches between Standard, Hard and Custom in the world you already play, changes the rules of a Custom world, and starts a new world with any difficulty. Elsewhere, create a world with the rules you want on your PC and upload its .sav file to the server.

Can I change the player limit on my Dragonwilds server?

There is nothing to change: every server we deploy runs the game's own maximum of six, whichever plan it is on. Six cannot be raised by any setting — that part is Jagex's — but no plan of ours holds you below it either.

Related RuneScape: Dragonwilds guides