Hosting Your Own Server - MaxIsJoe/TWC GitHub Wiki

Introduction

The Wizards Chronicles is an online multiplayer game, that means that in order to play the game there needs to be servers online to join, just like any other online game out there, BYOND -The engine that TWC runs on- gives us the tools that allow us to easily host servers within minutes.

Requirements

  • A Windows or Linux operating system
  • A stable release of BYOND
  • A stable internet connection
  • Port forwarding

Port Forwarding your router

Servers require an open port to receive data from other connections, if you don't have any open ports available you cannot start a server as no one will be able to connect to you.

Getting started :
Each router has it's own unique settings and way of configuring ports, a website that's simply called Port Forward has a list of helpful instructions for plenty of routers, just simply find your router and follow the instructions they give you.

Checking if your ports are open :

Congratulations, you just made your first open ports, but how do you make sure that they are working?

To see if you have successfully managed to open a port up, use a tool like OPCT (Open Port Check Tool)

Compiling the game

Harry Potter : The Wizards Chronicles is an open-source game, meaning that the game's code and files are free for everyone to download, modify and host their own versions of the game, To obtain the files that you will need to start your server you will need to download the source code from this branch or you could use another branch of your liking to host the game with,

Once you have downloaded the files you will need to download the libraries that the source code uses from BYOND, all of these libraries are listed in the README file

By default, once you open the TWC.dme file the Dream Maker will auto detect the libraries and enable them for you, if it doesn't do that then just open up the lib icon and enable all the libraries that the code needs

Now, let's compile the game, Go to Build -> Compile or press Ctrl+K on your keyboard to compile the game you should get 0 errors and 0 warnings

Hosting the server

BYOND uses a tool called Dream Daemon to host games that are built on it's engine, it is simple to pick up and use, assuming you have setup your ports, just add the port number that you have opened inside the port field, browse for the TWC.dmb file and choose it then click on the green GO button the the right, if everything goes correctly BYOND will give you a green text telling you that the game is finally live and now you have hosted a server, yay!


From here you can contribute to the game by keeping a server live for everyone to join at any given time.