RuneScape: Dragonwilds Server Settings and Startup Variables

Every configurable value on a RuneScape: Dragonwilds server lives in the Startup tab of your control panel. This is the complete reference: what each one does, what it ships as, which ones you should change, and which ones you should leave alone.

The rule that saves the most time

Change settings in the panel, then restart. Do not hand-edit the six values the panel manages in DedicatedServer.ini and expect them to take effect — your edit stays in the file, but the panel passes its own values on the command line at every boot and the game uses those instead. The panel is the source of truth for those six.

The settings, at a glance

All nine are visible and editable. There is also a hidden, locked value identifying the Steam application the server installs from — you cannot change it and should not need to.

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Server Name

Variable: SERVER_NAME · Ships as: A Dragonwilds Server · Required

The name of the server itself. Jagex describes it as "the name of your server, no matter what world it may run" — so it identifies the machine, not the world it currently has loaded.

This is not the name players search for

Server Name and Default World Name are two different settings and only the world name is searchable. If you set a great server name, tell everyone to search for it, and nobody finds anything, this is why.

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Default World Name

Variable: WORLD_NAME · Ships as: MyWorld · Required

The most consequential setting on the list. It does two jobs:

1. On first boot, when there is no existing save, it names the world the server creates.
2. It is the string players type into the search box on the Public tab to find your server — and Jagex notes that search is case sensitive.

Change this before your first boot

Left at the default, your world is called MyWorld — which is also what every other untouched server is called, making yours effectively unfindable. Worse, changing it later does not rename an existing world; the name is baked into the save. Pick something distinctive before the server first starts. If you have already booted, see Worlds, saves and backups.

Pick something a friend can spell correctly after hearing it once over voice chat. Capitalisation counts.

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Admin Password

Variable: ADMIN_PASSWORD · Ships as: ChangeMe · Required

Grants admin rights in-game. A player who enters this password in the Server Management screen (ESC → Settings → Server Management) is treated as an admin from then on.

Change this before anyone else connects

It ships as the literal string ChangeMe. A server left on the default hands admin to anyone who guesses the most obvious password in existence. Change it on day one.

Jagex is explicit that "anyone who knows this password can enter the Server Management tab" and that admin status persists "until the Admin Password is changed again". There is no per-player admin list — changing the password is the only way to revoke admin, and it revokes it from everyone at once. See Admins, bans and player management.

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Owner ID

Variable: OWNER_ID · Ships as: PLAYER_ID (a placeholder, not a real value)

Your personal RuneScape: Dragonwilds Player ID. It marks one account as the server's owner, which is a strictly higher level of authority than admin — owners can ban and unban anyone, online or offline, while admins can only ban players who are currently online and cannot unban at all.

To find yours: launch the game, open Settings, scroll to the bottom, and use the copy button next to your Player ID.

Required, or optional? Jagex's own sources disagree

Jagex's dedicated-server guide, last updated 2 April 2026, says "The server will not start without your owner ID." On 13 April 2026 Jagex announced that "The Owner ID requirement is becoming optional. You'll be able to claim your server with an admin password when you first join." — and has not since updated the guide. Set it regardless. It is correct under both versions and eliminates a confusing class of startup failure.

Leaving it on the placeholder PLAYER_ID is not a valid configuration under either reading.

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World Password

Variable: SERVER_PASSWORD · Ships as: empty · Optional

Locks the world so only players with the password can enter. Jagex describes it as a value that "will supersede any password stored in the world" — so it overrides whatever password the save file itself carries. Leave it empty for an open server.

World Password and Admin Password are completely different things

This trips people up constantly, so, plainly:
World Password (SERVER_PASSWORD) = permission to enter the world at all. Give it to your players.
Admin Password (ADMIN_PASSWORD) = permission to kick, ban and manage the server. Give it to nobody you would not trust with the delete button.
Setting them to the same string hands every player full admin. Do not do that.

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Max Players

Variable: MAX_PLAYERS · Ships as: 6

The player cap. Six is not an arbitrary default — it is the figure Jagex raised dedicated servers to. From the 2 March 2026 update: "we're going to support the increased player count from 4 to 6 players on Dedicated Servers." Standard in-game co-op worlds remain capped lower.

Raising this above 6 is unsupported

The field will accept a larger number, but Jagex has only ever stated support for six players on a dedicated server, and its own sizing guidance stops there. Going higher is untested territory: expect degraded performance, and do not assume the game will behave. Lowering it below six is safe.

Jagex's memory sizing formula is "2Gb + 1Gb per player" — so six players works out to 8 GB. Worth knowing if you are deciding how much you need.

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Auto Update

Variable: AUTO_UPDATE · Ships as: 1 (enabled)

When enabled, the server checks Steam for the current version of the Dragonwilds dedicated-server package every time it starts, and downloads it if there is a newer one, before launching the game.

This is what makes the most common Dragonwilds instruction work. Jagex writes it in nearly every patch note — "Dedicated Servers will need to be restarted to sync updates" — and with auto-update on, restarting the server is the update. There is no separate step.

Setting this to 0 pins your server to an old build

A server on an older version than the client does not throw a helpful error — it disappears from the server list. Jagex describes exactly this symptom: "If you cannot see your Dedicated Server any more, use the logs to ensure that the version it runs matches the one your game does. This is likely to happen any time an update or hotfix is released."
Unless you have a specific reason to freeze a version, leave this at 1. See How to update your server.

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Extra Arguments

Variable: EXTRA_ARGS · Ships as: -log -unattended -NoCrashDialog · Optional

Additional command-line switches appended to the server launch. Dragonwilds is built on Unreal Engine, and these are standard engine switches:

• -log — write console output to the log, which is what makes the panel console useful at all.
• -unattended — tell the engine no human is present to click through dialog boxes.
• -NoCrashDialog — suppress the crash dialog, which on a headless server would otherwise hang the process waiting for a click nobody can give.

Do not clear this field

All three defaults exist to keep a headless server running without a desktop attached. Emptying the field is a good way to end up with a server that hangs silently instead of restarting after a crash. If you need to add a switch, add it — do not replace what is there.

Jagex's own guidance recommends -log -NewConsole — but that advice is written for someone running the server on their own Windows desktop, where a pop-out console window is useful. On a hosted Linux server there is no desktop to pop a window onto, which is why the defaults differ.

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Query Port

Variable: QUERY_PORT · Set from your allocation · Editable

A real, editable variable, passed to the game on every boot as -QueryPort. It is the query port used for server discovery over UDP, and it is separate from the main game port, which comes from your server's primary allocation.

The egg's stock default is 27015, but that is not what a server of ours actually runs: when your server is provisioned the value is set from the ports allocated to you, alongside the game port. Check the Network tab in your panel to see which ports are yours.

Only ever set this to a port allocated to you

Ports are allocated per server. Typing in a number that is not on your Network tab does not open that port — it just breaks discovery, and the symptom is a healthy-looking log and a server nobody can find. If you need a different port, contact support rather than guessing.

For context on Dragonwilds ports generally, Jagex documents that a self-hosted server "use[s] ports starting with 7777 by default. The second server will use 7778 and so on", over UDP. On a hosted server the allocation is handled for you and the port-forwarding section of Jagex's guide does not apply.

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Where the settings actually go

Worth understanding, because it explains why hand-editing config files does not work the way Jagex's guide implies.

Jagex documents dedicated-server settings as living in a file called DedicatedServer.ini, under RSDragonwilds/Saved/Config/, and warns that "Changing those values while the server is running will result in those changes being lost."

On our platform the file exists and is a perfectly normal Unreal Engine config file. What is different is that six of its values are overridden on the command line every time the server starts. Unreal gives a -ini: command-line override higher precedence than the file, so for those six the file is read and then ignored.

The six are Owner ID, Admin Password, Server Name, Default World Name and World Password (all in the DedicatedServerSettings section), plus Max Players, which lives in the engine's Game config rather than in DedicatedServer.ini at all.

The practical consequences:

• Nothing rewrites the file. Your hand-edit is still sitting there after a restart, exactly as you typed it. This trips people up: they edit the file, restart, see their text still in place, and reasonably conclude it worked. It did not — the server is running the panel's value.
• For those six values, editing the file has no effect at all. Change them in the panel instead.
• Any other key in the file works normally, because nothing on the command line contradicts it. If you are setting something the panel does not expose, the file is the right place for it.
• You cannot change settings on a running server. Same rule Jagex states: change the value in the panel, then restart for it to take effect.

If you are following Jagex's guide

Jagex's article points at a Config/Linux/ directory. On our platform the server's configuration lives under Config/LinuxServer/. If you go looking for the file via SFTP, that is where it is — but see above for why you probably should not be editing it.

After you change anything

1. Save the setting in the panel.
2. Restart the server — nothing takes effect until it does.
3. Watch for START SESSION - Success in the console. That is the line that means the server is fully up.
4. If the server does not come back or stops appearing in the list, work through Server not showing up.

New to the server? Start with Getting started with your RuneScape: Dragonwilds server. For what changes at the 1.0 release on 15 September 2026, see Dragonwilds 1.0: what changes for server owners.

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