Important: This topic is outdated
If you're looking for information about playing multiplayer, please have a look at this topic: Multiplayer
To find more information about setting up a dedicated server, please see this topic: Dedicated Server Setup
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If you want to play multiplayer, and host the game on your computer, there are two possible ways doing it:
- Go to the singleplayer menu, select a world and hit the green "Play with friends" (Steam) or the red "Open for LAN" button. This starts a multiplayer session, so other people are able to join your game (please note that your server will not appear in the serverlist, so your friends have to connect via friend list or via IP).
- Download the Rising World Dedicated Server from Steam and run it. SteamCMD and anonymous login are supported. It's highly recommended to have Java 8 installed in order to run the server. Java 9 is currently not supported.
In short: If you simply want to play with some friends, it's recommended to start a LAN game. If you want to run the server in background (or you don't want to join the game), it's recommended to start a dedicated server.
You should be aware that when hosting a server on your machine, it's usually only reachable inside the local network. In order to give your friends the ability to connect over the internet, you need to forward your ports. You find plenty information about port forwarding on Google, it always depend on the type of router you have etc.
Note: If you and your friends have an IPv6 address, you usually don't have to forward your ports, and can connect directly. You can find out if you have an IPv6 address by visiting this site: http://whatismyv6.com/ (your IPv6 address should look like this, for example: 2b08:314:cd22:7950:696f:1c4e:1h32:5af2). When running the Steam version, it may be necessary to add +ipv6 as launch option (rightclick on Rising World in your Steam Library -> Properties -> Set Launch Options).
The default port the game uses is 4255, the internal Http-Server uses the serverport-1. This can be changed for the dedicated server, but when using the default setup (or when starting a singleplayer game), you need to forward the ports 4254-4259 TCP and UDP (both protocols are required)
As you see, the server port as well as the following four ports need to be forwarded (so when using 5600 for example as your server port, you must forward 5599-5604).
Now the final step to let your friends connect to your server is to give them your IP. If you want to play in a local network, you give them your local network ip (or when playing over hamachi, accordingly your hamachi-IP). But when playing over the internet, you need your internet IP, which you can - for example - get here: http://www.whatismyip.com/
That's it! By the way, it's recommended to restart the server periodically. Usually a daily restart is sufficient.
Please keep in mind that the flag "server_hive_verification" is enabled by default for dedicated servers. It ensures that everybody who connects to the server will be validated through our HIVE, it is highly recommended to keep this setting enabled.