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Dedicated Server..possible?


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I've been searching this forum for a while and the official and I can't seem to find any info about it.

 

Anyway, I dont mind a homebrew, modded files or whatever to get it started. Now I was thinking when I'm hosting my server to play with my friend what if I kill the client process, restart the game and join my former server as if I'm a player that isn't hosting and my friend as well. Then if my client would crash (seems to have stopped after uninstalling Elite texture due to memory leak) the server is still intact and it won't ruin for my friend and I can just restart and join again. Now preferably, I have more computers in my home so I could always install the game and leave a 24/7 game/server running for even better server stability since it would even still hold if my computer crashed.

 

We connect through Tunngle if that matters. Quite awesome, we have 9ms ping between each other and we live perhaps 3 kilometres from each other and we have different internet operators as I read in some thread about being kicked off in VPN hosted games due to high ping.

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AFAIK, one of the EXE files in the Sacred folder will start a dedicated server. I am sure I read about here, but I have never had the need to try it.

 

Yes, I remember that too from when I first bought this game however I have no idea how to add any specific settings nor which file unless it's s2gs.exe which is the one that runs as process for the server when I'm hosting normally via the client.

Edited by Noizic
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It's s2gs.exe. It works only from command line; to get a list of options available to configure you should launch it with -help switch. Since there are too many switches that are required to launch server and get it working, maybe you would like to create a .bat script to start the server.

 

PS. I couldn't get it to work, server simply does not show up in LAN Lobby.

Edited by ololcat
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Gave it a go, just for grins. Ran this command:

s2gs.exe -name=mySacredServer -connmode=lan -diff=silver -mode=hardcore -type=free

I started Sacred, went into LAN, checked show all servers and mine showed up. This was just on my local machine, but my server was running.

 

You might also check over at SIF. I could have read about dedicated servers over there.

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Thanks guys, I will try it out!

 

EDIT: Ahh, great. it worked! At least for myself but I didn't see the server until I turned Tunngle on which weird, I should be able to see my own server via LAN without a VPN. Anyway, this should mean that it will work for my friend.

 

Now the next question, what exact files are needed to host a dedicated server because if it's a only a few dlls along with s2gs.exe then I could move the files to a separate computer and keep a 24/7 dedicated server! :D

Edited by Noizic
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Okay this is what we know from Lars Hammer:

 

SACRED2 GAMESERVER

commandline switches:

 

-act_as_user - force server to act as helper server for an user and not as session hosting server

 

-autoshutdown=<num> - automatic gameserver shutdown in <num> seconds if no client has connected

 

-broadcastport=<num> - set broadcast UDP port to <num> (1024..32767) (server broadcast port must be the same as listening port of client!)

 

-connmode=<mode> - changes initial connection mode:

lan - LAN multiplayer mode (default)

opennet - opennet multiplayer mode

 

-cpu=<num> - bind gameserver process to the specified cpu

 

-diff=<difficulty> - set game difficulty:

bronze - bronze difficulty mode (default)

silver - silver difficulty mode

gold - gold difficulty mode

platin - platin difficulty mode

niob - niob difficulty mode

 

-exec=<filename> - set <filename> as main script file

 

-help, -h, -? - show this help page

 

-lobby=<lobby_address> - hostname or ip of lobby-server

 

-lobby_port=<num> - port of lobby-server

 

-lobby_name=<loginname> - lobby user name

 

-lobby_pwd=<password> - lobby password

 

-lobby_cdkey<keypool>=<key> - lobby keypool and cdkey

 

-lockconfig - configuration cannot be changed after gameserver has started

 

-log=<loglevel> - create logfile with one of these loglevel:

0 - no logfile (default)

1 - log critical messages only

 

-mode=<mode> - set game mode:

hardcore - hardcore mode

softcore - softcore mode (default)

 

-name=<name> - set server name

 

-description=<desc> - set server description

 

-nondedicated - start gameserver in nondedicated mode (launched from a sacred2 client)

 

-numplayers=<num> - set max. num of players in session (campaign=5 players, other modes=16 players)

 

-password=<password> - set a session password

 

-port=<num> - set fixed game TCP/IP port to <num> (1024..32767) or

 

-port=<num1>-<num2> - set game TCP/IP port range to <num1> to <num2> (1024..32767, <num2> must be greater/equal to <num1>)

 

-sessiontimer=<num> - set time limit for the session to <num> seconds (timer starts when first client is ingame)

 

-type=<gametype> - set game type:

campaign - campaign mode (default)

free - free game mode

pvp - playerkiller mode

 

-presentation - start in presentation mode

 

And here is the filelist needed to run dedicated(about 40MB):

system\MemMgr.dll

system\orcSystem.dll

system\plugin_filesystem.dll

system\plugin_fileZip.dll

system\plugin_win32platform.dll

system\plugins_srv.cfg

system\s2core.dll

system\s2gs.exe

system\s2logic.dll

system\s2logicdll.dll

system\s2vista.dll

system\stlport.5.0.dll

system\tincat3.dll

system\zlib1.dll

 

pak\generic.zip

pak\persector.zip

pak\spawn.zip

 

scripts\autoexec.txt

scripts\behaviour.txt

scripts\genMipMapInfo.txt

scripts\heightmap.txt

scripts\landscape.txt

scripts\roadmap.txt

scripts\startPos.txt

scripts\server\*.*

scripts\shared\*.*

 

You need of course a valid Sacred 2 license key to connect your server to lobby servers for opennet.

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  • 8 months later...

Server keeps shutting down I also got S2Laucnh and it works good minus the server shutting down all teh time.

Can you post the output from the DOS window?

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Server keeps shutting down I also got S2Laucnh and it works good minus the server shutting down all teh time.

Can you post the output from the DOS window?

 

I fixed it by running every thing as admin my dedciated server is up is there a way to host a lobby like the real lobby that we log in to or no.

Edited by kidxrated
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I do not think you will be able to host your own lobby. What exactly are you trying to accomplish?

 

 

We would like to privately setup a login system similar to the CDV/Ascaron lobby.

Where people could use a optionscustom.text file to login to continue playing the characters that were created and played in Closednet, or Opennet.

 

optionscustom.txt file would be like this:

 

network.lobby_name = "xxxx" (your user name)

network.lobby_password = "xxxx" (your password)

network.lobby_ip = "us.sacred2.net" (this would be changed to reflect the private site)

network.lobby_port = 6900

 

 

Alternatively, is there any way to continue playing the characters that were created in the Open or Closed net games?

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AFAIK, Open Net characters were always saved on your HDD, so playing them should not be a problem. With Closed Net characters, if you exported them before the servers went dark, they also exist on your HDD. If you did not export them, I am afraid they are most certainly gone for good.

 

For continuing MP play, I would suggest you start by looking at Tunngle. I do not really see a lot to be gained by recreating the Lobby.

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I wouldn't pooh-pooh at their effort just yet Lujate. Tunngle is all good and well for simulating LAN games over the internet, but there's some definite advantages to a dedicated server (if we can find anyone to foot the bill for the server hardware that is).

 

Also I don't think we as a gaming community should be responsible for enforcing Deep Silver's forced obsolency scheme. Remember Deep Silver is not our friend. We are merely their customers.

Edited by Little Faith
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AFAIK, Open Net characters were always saved on your HDD, so playing them should not be a problem. With Closed Net characters, if you exported them before the servers went dark, they also exist on your HDD. If you did not export them, I am afraid they are most certainly gone for good.

 

For continuing MP play, I would suggest you start by looking at Tunngle. I do not really see a lot to be gained by recreating the Lobby.

 

 

I wasn't aware that you could export your characters.....

Was there a thread on that somewhere?

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I wouldn't pooh-pooh at their effort just yet Lujate. Tunngle is all good and well for simulating LAN games over the internet, but there's some definite advantages to a dedicated server (if we can find anyone to foot the bill for the server hardware that is).

 

Also I don't think we as a gaming community should be responsible for enforcing Deep Silver's forced obsolency scheme. Remember Deep Silver is not our friend. We are merely their customers.

Not trying to be a buzz-kill, just trying to understand what benefits this would provide.

 

AFAIK, Open Net characters were always saved on your HDD, so playing them should not be a problem. With Closed Net characters, if you exported them before the servers went dark, they also exist on your HDD. If you did not export them, I am afraid they are most certainly gone for good.

 

For continuing MP play, I would suggest you start by looking at Tunngle. I do not really see a lot to be gained by recreating the Lobby.

 

 

I wasn't aware that you could export your characters.....

Was there a thread on that somewhere?

I am not sure if there was a dedicated thread, but it came up a number of times in the Closed Net end-of-life discussions.

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I wouldn't pooh-pooh at their effort just yet Lujate. Tunngle is all good and well for simulating LAN games over the internet, but there's some definite advantages to a dedicated server (if we can find anyone to foot the bill for the server hardware that is).

 

Also I don't think we as a gaming community should be responsible for enforcing Deep Silver's forced obsolency scheme. Remember Deep Silver is not our friend. We are merely their customers.

 

I'm already running a 24/7 LAN server through tunngle.......

Would only need server side program that was used to create the lobby to make the switchover.

 

I have found server updates, but not the actual program.

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I guess at this point I wish I was a programmer......... but alass, just a tech. lol

 

on a side note, every program contains some type of propritary information, but all that is required is the ability to be able to receive the connection from the client.

 

For example,people have hacked WOW servers and run them independantly from the paid servers.

 

I'm sure Blizzard didnt' release their code....

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I guess at this point I wish I was a programmer......... but alass, just a tech. lol

 

on a side note, every program contains some type of propritary information, but all that is required is the ability to be able to receive the connection from the client.

 

For example,people have hacked WOW servers and run them independantly from the paid servers.

 

I'm sure Blizzard didnt' release their code....

Quite right. People did the same thing when they used packet sniffers to replicate Windows Networking on Linux. In that case (and WoW I assume) they had a connection to sniff. Since the Lobby is gone, it is not really possible to reverse engineer the Lobby by analyzing packets.

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