Your RuneScape: Dragonwilds server runs Jagex's official dedicated server on native Linux. There is one thing to set before the server is truly yours — your Player ID — and one way players find the world: by searching its exact name. This is the path from checkout to your group standing in Ashenfall together.
1. Find your server
Open your dashboard and select the new Dragonwilds service. The Overview tab shows the server's status and the live console. The Server Settings tab holds every value the game reads.
2. Check your Player ID took
We ask for your Player ID at checkout and build the server with it, so for most people this step is a glance: if the Overview tab shows no notice about the Player ID, it took, and you own the server. If it was mistyped or skipped, fix it now. In RuneScape: Dragonwilds on your PC, open Settings, scroll to the bottom, and press the copy button next to your Player ID. Paste it into Player ID (Owner ID) on the Server Settings tab, save, and restart the server from the Overview tab.
Until this is set, the server has no owner: it boots and is joinable, but nobody can use the owner's ban and unban controls. Full detail in Owner ID.
3. Name the world and set the passwords
While you are on Server Settings:
- World Name — the name players will search for; you chose it at checkout, and this is where to change it. Keep it short and easy to type exactly; the search is case sensitive.
- Server Name — the label shown against your server in the browser.
- Admin Password — anyone who knows it can open the Server Management tab in the game. Change the generated one to something you will share only with people you trust.
- World Password — optional. Set it to keep strangers out; leave it empty for an open server.
- Max Players — 1 to 6. Six is the game's own cap.
Changes apply on the next restart. The full list is in Server Settings.
4. Restart and watch the console
Restart from the Overview tab and watch the console. On every start the server checks Steam for the current game build first — Dragonwilds servers drop out of the world browser when their build differs from the players', so this is what keeps yours visible after each patch. The first start also creates the world named in World Name. When the console settles, the world is up.
5. Get your group in
There is no server list to scroll. Each player, on PC:
- Open RuneScape: Dragonwilds and go to Worlds → Public.
- Type the World Name exactly, with matching capitals.
Ashenfallandashenfallare different searches. - Enter the World Password if you set one.
Send the world name by copy-and-paste rather than from memory. Steam invites to a dedicated server are a known issue on Jagex's side and do not connect as intended — the search is the way in.
Jagex's 1.0 release added a crossplay option to dedicated servers. We are documenting how that behaves on our servers and will update this guide when the flow is verified.
6. Bringing a world you already have
If your group has a world hosted from someone's PC, you can move it to the server: upload its .sav into RSDragonwilds/Saved/Savegames without renaming it. World rules — difficulty and the like — live in the save, so this is also how you run a custom-rules world. Step by step in Upload a world.
7. Before you invite everyone
- Versions must match. Players update through Steam or their launcher; the server updates on restart. After a game patch, restart the server.
- Take a backup. The Backups tab snapshots the server; take one before your first experiment. See Backups & saves.
- Share the admin password carefully. An admin can ban players who are online but cannot unban — only the owner can.
If something is not right
- Nobody can find the world → work through Players can't join. It starts with the version check and the exact-name search — check those two before anything else; neither one is a bug.
- You cannot ban anyone → your Player ID is not set or was typed by hand. Re-copy it and restart.
- Anything else → open a ticket from your dashboard and paste the last lines of the console.