Getting Started With Your RuneScape: Dragonwilds Server

A RuneScape: Dragonwilds dedicated server keeps your world of Ashenfall running whether or not anyone is logged in — so progress carries on, nobody has to be the host, and your group is not tied to one person's PC. This guide takes you from a freshly installed server to standing in your own world.

The short version

Set four values — Server Name, Default World Name, Admin Password and your Owner ID — start the server, then find it from the Public tab of the Worlds screen by searching your exact world name (it is case sensitive). That is the whole first-boot path.

What a Dragonwilds dedicated server actually is

Dragonwilds gives you two very different ways to play together, and they are easy to confuse.

Hosting from inside the game. You create a world from the main menu, choose Play With Friends or Play With Community, and other players join your session. Jagex's own support material describes this route as creating an online world from the Main Menu, and it works — but the world only exists while you are in it.

A dedicated server. A separate copy of the server software runs the world continuously. Jagex added this in the 0.11 update on 31 March 2026, announcing it as "Dedicated Servers are now available. We've reworked the front-end user flow to get you in-game with up to 5 friends smoothly!" Nobody has to host, the world persists, and the save lives on the server rather than on a player's machine.

The rest of this guide is about the second kind.

How many players?

Jagex confirmed in its 2 March 2026 update post that dedicated servers "support the increased player count from 4 to 6 players" — so six on a dedicated server, against four in a standard in-game co-op world. Your control panel exposes this as a Max Players variable, and it ships set to 6.

Before you start: find your Player ID

The one value you cannot invent is your Owner ID. It is your personal RuneScape: Dragonwilds Player ID, and Jagex documents where to find it:

1. Launch RuneScape: Dragonwilds on your own PC.
2. Open the Settings menu.
3. Scroll to the bottom of the menu — your Player ID is displayed there.
4. Use the copy button next to it to put it on your clipboard.

Paste that into the Owner ID field on your server before the first boot. The owner is the account with the highest level of control on the server — see Admins, bans and player management for what that actually buys you.

Owner ID: required, or optional?

Jagex's dedicated-server guide (last updated 2 April 2026) states plainly that "The server will not start without your owner ID." Eleven days later, on 13 April 2026, Jagex announced a change: "Simplified ownership: The Owner ID requirement is becoming optional. You'll be able to claim your server with an admin password when you first join." Jagex has not since updated the written guide, so the two sources disagree. Set your Owner ID anyway — it costs nothing, it is correct under both versions, and it removes a whole class of "my server will not start" problem.

Step 1 — Set your startup values

Your server reads its identity from a small set of values that you set in your control panel before the first boot. Four of them matter immediately:

There is also an optional World Password. Jagex describes it as a value that "will supersede any password stored in the world. Can be left empty if you want anyone to be able to join your world." Leave it blank for an open server; set it if you want the world locked to people you have given the password to.

Your world name is your address — choose it before you boot

Players find your server by typing your exact world name, case sensitive, into the search box. A world called MyWorld (the default) is effectively unfindable in a list of other people's MyWorld servers, and renaming later means telling everyone the new spelling. Pick something distinctive now.

The full reference for every value your panel exposes — including the ones this guide skips — is in Server settings and startup variables.

Step 2 — First boot

Start the server and watch the console output.

A Dragonwilds server on our platform runs the Linux build of the game server and, on the way up, checks Steam for the current version of the dedicated-server package before launching. That means the first boot does real work: it downloads the server files, then starts the game. Give it time.

The line that means "it worked"

Your server is considered fully started when the console prints START SESSION - Success. That is the exact string the panel watches for to mark the server as running. If you see it, the world is up and accepting connections. If the console goes quiet before it, something failed earlier in the log.

On that first boot the server creates a world for you. Jagex documents the behaviour precisely: "When a Dedicated Server starts, it loads the latest .sav file available in RSDragonwilds/Saved/Savegames. If the folder doesn't contain a .sav file, the dedicated server will create a default Standard world." So a brand-new server always comes up on a fresh Standard world named after your Default World Name.

If you would rather start from a world you have already built, or one created with custom settings, do not boot it blind — follow Worlds, saves and backups first, because the order of operations matters.

Step 3 — Find your server and join

Once the server reports a successful session start:

1. Launch RuneScape: Dragonwilds.
2. Hit PLAY to reach the Worlds screen.
3. Open the PUBLIC tab.
4. In the search box, type your exact world name — capitalisation included.
5. Wait a few seconds. Your server should appear in the results.
6. Select it and hit ENTER WORLD.

If you set a World Password, you will be asked for it here.

Search matches the world name, not the server name

These are two different settings and only one of them is searchable. If you search your Server Name and get nothing, that is why. Search the Default World Name instead.

Nothing appearing at all? Do not start changing settings at random — the causes are well understood and there is an ordered checklist in Server not showing up.

Step 4 — Claim your admin powers

Admin access on a Dragonwilds dedicated server is granted by password, from inside the game, not from a config file listing account names.

1. Join your server.
2. Press ESC to open the pause menu.
3. Go to Settings, then the Server Management tab.
4. Enter your Admin Password.

You are now treated as an admin. Jagex's guide notes that this status persists "until the Admin Password is changed again" — so changing the password is the mechanism for revoking admin from everyone who previously used it.

The admin password is a shared secret, and it spreads

Jagex is explicit: "anyone who knows this password can enter the Server Management tab." There is no per-person admin list to prune. If you hand it out casually, the only way to take it back is to change it and re-issue it to everyone you still trust. Full detail in Admins, bans and player management.

Keeping the server up to date

This is the single most common cause of a working server appearing to break, so it is worth knowing on day one.

Every Dragonwilds patch and hotfix requires the server to be restarted before players on the new client can connect. Jagex says so in essentially every patch note — the 30 and 31 July 2026 hotfixes each open with "Dedicated Servers will need to be restarted to sync updates." A server running an older build than your client simply stops appearing in the list.

On our platform the version check happens automatically at boot, so restarting the server is the update. The mechanics, the setting that controls it, and the one precaution Jagex asks you to take before a forced restart are covered in How to update your server.

Scheduling that restart rather than remembering to do it is worth ten minutes of setup — see How to setup Schedules.

Protect the world before you need to

A Dragonwilds world is a single save file, and Jagex's own "how to back up" instructions amount to copy the files somewhere else. That is fine advice and a poor safety net.

Take a backup before your first patch day, not after your first bad one. How to create a backup covers the panel-side mechanics, and Worlds, saves and backups covers what a Dragonwilds save actually consists of and where it lives.

Where this is heading — the 1.0 release

RuneScape: Dragonwilds is still in Early Access as this is written. Jagex announced on 5 June 2026 that the game "is leaving Early Access and arriving onto consoles on September 15th for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S", and the same date is displayed on the game's official site. Nintendo Switch 2 was added four days later, at a Nintendo Direct on 9 June, and the Epic Games Store shortly after — so the full 1.0 platform list is PC (Steam and Epic), PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Switch 2.

For a server owner that raises two obvious questions — whether console players will be able to join, and whether anything about running a server changes. Both are addressed, with a clear line between what Jagex has announced and what is still unknown, in Is RuneScape: Dragonwilds crossplay? and Dragonwilds 1.0: what changes for server owners.

Everything about 15 September 2026 is announced, not observed

Anything in this knowledge base describing post-1.0 behaviour is based on Jagex's public announcements before the fact. Where Jagex has not said something, we say so rather than guess. Re-check the specifics after launch day.

Quick reference

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