Cracked it boys and girls, figured I'd share my findings with the rest of you rather than holding all the cards close to my chest. I'm open beta, I figured this one out off my own back, and I'm not breaking any NDA sharing my findings.

1) So, first off you need the source dedicated server program, which can be found here: http://www.steampowered.com/download/hldsupdatetool.exe

2) Run it, choose a directory to install your dedicated server to. Avoid using spaces in your folder name, and wherever possible try to keep it somewhere simple like "C:\myserver", anywhere like "c:\ program files" is subject to the no spaces rule, the update tool does not like spaces so unless you know the MS DOS name of the folder you're installing to you WILL run into problems.

3) You now need to start a Windows command prompt (Start -> Run -> type cmd -> hit Enter), and navigate to the directory you installed your dedicated server to.

The command to do this, if you've never used DOS before, is "cd \whatever\whatever\myserver". If you need to go up one directory (which you will do, since it starts you in the documents and settings folder by default on XP) use "cd.." to do so.

Example: If you installed your server to c:\myserver you would type the following in the command prompt - cd.., enter, cd.., enter, cd \myserver.

4) Ok, so you're in the command prompt and have navigated to your server folder, you now need to type the following:

hldsupdatetool -command update -game hl2mp -dir <dedicated server directory>

Replace the section in angled brackets with your actual dedicated server directory, using the above example would be c:\myserver.

This will now start a fairly lengthy download in your command prompt window, let this run it's course as it's downloading the neccesary files to run a source server. If you already have HL2 you can speed this up considerably by copying your hl2 and hl2mp subdirectories into the server folder before entering the update command.

5) Ok, so you now have all the server files downloaded, but they aren't set up to host Dark Messiah yet. Open your server folder and create a new subdirectory named mmdarkmessiah, you then need to locate your DM multiplayer beta folder and copy it's entire content into that subdirectory. You can find your dm beta folder in steam\steamapps\<yourusername>\dark messiah multiplayer open beta\.

6) In theory that should be all you require but the original guide stated to extract some resources from your GCF files, so to be safe let's do that too. Download GCFScape from: http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?p=26

Start it up, navigate to your steam\steamapps\ folder, and extract the following files: dark messiah multiplayer open beta.gcf, mightandmagic generic.gcf, mightandmagic materials.gcf. You need to extract everything listed beneath "root" into your mmdarkmessiah subdirectory of the dedicated server folder.

Next you need to copy the Bin and Platform subdirectories from inside your mmdarkmessiah subfolder and paste them into your server folder, say "yes to all" when asked if you want to overwrite. Then copy the Bin and Platform folders from the server directory, and paste them back in the mmdarkmessiah subfolder saying yes to overwriting again. Finally copy um.dll from the mmdarkmessiah subfolder to your server folder. Contorted, yes, but it makes sure that the neccesary binary and platform files are merged together and where they should be.

7) Alright, that's the files sorted out, a few more things you'll need to take care of before your server is up and ready though...

8) Firstly, if you're using a router to connect to the internet you will need to set the network card it is on to use a static IP, this is usually 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1. If you have any other network cards in your system you may want to disable them as they *will* most likely interfere with the dedicated server, in order for it to broadcast to the "find servers" list it needs to be showing the 192.168.1.1/192.168.0.1 IP address in the dedicated server program. Alternately you can add the "ip xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx" command to your server.cfg file, replacing the X's with the IP address of the NIC your router is connected to, this will tell the server program to use that network device instead of some random LAN NIC or some such.

You're also going to need to ensure that neither your router or any software firewall is blocking the ports required for steam/dark messiah. Easiest way to do this if you're unfamiliar with port forwarding is to go to portforward.com and click the port forwarding link. They actually have guides catered to individual routers and games there so you can pick your router out from the list and then choose Half-Life 2 as the application. For the sake of simplicity though I'll list the ports you need here:

TCP: 27030 - 27039, 27015
UDP: 1200, 27000 - 27015, 27020, 26900

Remember to forward these in both your router and any software firewall you may be running.

9) Everything should now be set to broadcast your server to the servers list, so it's time to set up the server to run. Open your dedicated server directory and create a shortcut to SRCDS.exe (you can put this shortcut anywhere you like), then right-click on the new shortcut and choose properties. In the "target" field after the quotation marks you should add the following:

-console -game mmdarkmessiah +exec server.cfg +map L_MP2

This is basically telling the server executable to run in console mode instead of the fancy GUI, it's faster, it uses less resources, and it allows you a greater deal of control over your server's settings. Note I also execute a file called server.cfg? You're going to need to create one of those now, this is where you will specify your game settings, server name etc. So, open the mmdarkmessiah subdirectory of your server folder, and then go into the cfg subdirectory of that. You need to create a new CFG file, these are plain text so simply right-clicking and choosing to create a new text file is fine but you WILL need to rename it so the extension is .CFG instead of .TXT, make sure you have set Windows to show file extensions or you won't be able to see them (in the folder click the tools menu -> folder options -> view, uncheck "hide extensions for known file types", then click OK).

There are a bunch of resources on source server console commands but again for the sake of simplicity I'll paste a few basics here in a quote, paste these into your server.cfg file, alter to your liking and then save:

quote:

hostname "Put the name of your server here"
sv_password "if you want a password place it here, if not you do not need the sv_password line"
hostport 27015
sv_lan 0
sv_region (ok, regions are as follows: US East = 0, US West = 1, South America = 2, Europe = 3, Asia = 4, Australia = 5, Middle East = 6, Africa = 7, Rest of the World = 255. So a server on the east coast of North America would use sv_region 0)
rcon_password "the password for your remote server console goes here"
sv_rcon_banpenalty 15
sv_rcon_maxfailures 4
sv_rcon_minfailures 2
sv_rcon_minfailuretime 30
mp_forcerespawn 1 (1 for on, 0 for off, if it's turned on people automatically respawn after dying instead of having to click to start the countdown)
mp_campaigntimelimit 60 (60 = 1hr, 120 = 2hrs, etc. this is the time limit for the match, I've extended it since I thought they were a little short)
mp_friendlyfire 1 (1 = yes, 0 = no, this states whether you are able to harm your own team, I'm sure a lot of you have been aching to set this to zero)
net_start

So that's a good basic set up, you should now be able to run your shortcut and it'll load your server up, listing it on the "find servers" list as well. There is a lot more you can do though with a little tweaking...

If you set sv_cheats to 1, you can use the command mm_skills_give_all 1 in your server.cfg to give everyone on your server EVERY skill/spell right from the word go, also if you look in your CFG subfolder of mmdarkmessiah you'll notice L_MP2.cfg is in there. Ever wonder how Mana changed the tickets on his server? Simple, open that file and add the following line:

map_initial_tickets <number of tickets here>

You can also adjust the countdown time to respawn after dying with respawn_time <number here>. Enjoy.

Edit: If your server is still not displaying after following these steps, try running your DM client first and alt+tabbing at the title screen to start your dedicated server program. This seems to work flawlessly every time.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MorlockeX,

Sticky imo.

<3 u ^^. Please get hosting people!!!!

I've never seen a better guide than this one

I'm pretty sure I followed the instructions correctly, but running the shortcut produced the following error:

What might I have done wrong?

nice work! they should sticky this but they wont cos the mods are pretty inactive

quote:

Originally posted by Breadblade:
I'm pretty sure I followed the instructions correctly, but running the shortcut produced the following error:

What might I have done wrong?

Where it says Game.dll loaded for "(null)", it should be saying "Might and Magic Multiplayer". Double check you've set your shortcut up correctly and are using the mmdarkmessiah folder.

quote:

Originally posted by brad086:
nice work! they should sticky this but they wont cos the mods are pretty inactive

'Scuse me? Who are you to judge the activity of the mods? Just because we're not posting doesn't mean we're not reading the forums. And just because you don't see the actions we take doesn't mean we're not taking any.
If you must know, I didn't sticky this because we already have too many stickies. I'm trying to avoid having a full dozen pinned up there.

quote:

Originally posted by FCY-JMDK-WLKY:

quote:

Originally posted by brad086:
nice work! they should sticky this but they wont cos the mods are pretty inactive

'Scuse me? Who are you to judge the activity of the mods? Just because we're not posting doesn't mean we're not reading the forums. And just because you don't see the actions we take doesn't mean we're not taking any.
If you must know, I didn't sticky this because we already have too many stickies. I'm trying to avoid having a full dozen pinned up there.

I agree with FCY... That 1 user doesnt write in the forums doesnt mean that him/her doesnt read them

I've found the server displaying in the "Find Server" list is still tempramental with the standard Source srcds.exe (as opposed to the optimized one intended for M&M multiplay use but not distributed to us yet), but have also discovered an easy work around. If you start up your M&M client first and just leave it sat on the main menu, then alt+tab and start your dedicated server with the client already running in the background, it seems to work every time.

Breadblade, did you resolve your problem yet? If not you might want to grab a screenshot of your mmdarkmessiah subfolder contents for me so I can take a look, it might be I forgot to mention a DLL file required or some such. If I can compare yours to my own (which is working right now) I can figure out what was missed and adjust the guide accordingly.

Bumpage

Yep, I've been gradually adding to and altering the guide as I've discovered more. There are now a few more ports listed in there and some extra information about dictating which NIC the dedicated server should use if you have more than one network card in the system (means you don't have to disable them). I'd really like to see a few more servers in that server list though, come on people - got to be a few of you who want to host out there.

I saw over 8 different servers pop up since few days ago, none of which stayed up for more then a day though... Any problems people? Apart from hight CPU usage? I can try to help.

MorlockeX the -autoupdate is linux only and at this point DM server has not had a linux version released, so it's useless (not that it would update on linux as it's not set up for that anyways).

Cheers, Mana. I've noticed that it seems tempramental with the listings, it seems certain times of day it just won't list them at all despite the settings for both hardware and software on my end having not changed at all, a few hours later and it'll show up just fine. I suspect this is either to do with network traffic between the server machine and the Steam server list or just the fact that we're running Dark Messiah as a source mod using the source dedicated server rather than using the Kuju DM dedicated server program that some members of the closed beta are privy to.

The issue with the server not showing up unless the M&M client had been started up first appears to be attributable to UDP port 26900, which isn't documented as needing forwarding but I noticed was actually being polled by srcds.exe in my firewall diagnostics. I've had my server listing quite frequently despite it being private, but I know of at least one person who despite having everything set up correctly didn't seem to be getting listed, I don't know whether that was the same time specific issue I mention above since I haven't had a chance to ask if he's run it at a different time of day to compare.

quote:

Originally posted by Breadblade:
I'm pretty sure I followed the instructions correctly, but running the shortcut produced the following error:

What might I have done wrong?

Have this problem too. Help please

There's obviously a file missing from the mmdarkmessiah directory, but without a screen grab of your folder I can't really do much.

quote:

Originally posted by MorlockeX:
There's obviously a file missing from the mmdarkmessiah directory, but without a screen grab of your folder I can't really do much.

Here:
-----------------

Well, I've moved/deleted files from my own folders till they matched your screenshots (I originally was lazy and just copied the MM resources into the server folder, then copied *everything* into a new mmdarkmessiah folder) and as far as I can see there is nothing wrong with your mmdarkmessiah subfolder contents. The server still starts up listing game.dll being loaded for "Might and Magic Multiplayer", so unless some resources are missing from your mmdarkmessiah subfolders I can't see what is wrong there. Your HLserver folder seems fine too, all the files are in the right place for it to run.

Could you paste your server shortcut for me? Short of there being some typo in it I'm thinking the problem is actually you're missing some files from the dedicated server download or the GCF files for Dark Messiah.

quote:

Could you paste your server shortcut for me?

D:\HLServer\srcds.exe -game mmdarkmessiah +exec server.cfg -console

This error i'm have when try extract mightandmagic meterials.gcf:

D:\Games\Steam\steamapps\mightandmagic materials.gcf loaded.
Extracting to D:\HLServer...
Error writing D:\HLServer\root\reslists\precache.lst (Error: Unexpected end of GCF stream (0 B of 656 B).  Has the GCF file been completely acquired?)
Error writing D:\HLServer\root\reslists\preload.lst (Error: Unexpected end of GCF stream (0 B of 656 B).  Has the GCF file been completely acquired?)
Done.

Can u give me please preload.lst and precache.lst?

You don't need those two files that you're getting error messages on, don't worry, everyone gets that same error message.

Your shortcut is fine, I'm just running through everything making a second server installation to see if I run into the same problem you have, will let you know the results once it's done.