If you’ve been playing RuneScape: Dragonwilds with friends, you’ve probably run into the usual co-op hosting headaches. The host needs to be online for anyone to play. Someone’s internet hiccups and the whole session stutters. You lose progress because the host’s PC crashed overnight.
Jagex added dedicated server support in the 0.11 update, which changes things. Here’s how it compares to the default peer-to-peer setup, and when it’s worth paying for a hosted server.
Peer-to-peer: how Dragonwilds works by default
When you start a co-op session in Dragonwilds, one player’s machine acts as the host. Everyone else connects to them. This is fine for a quick session, but it has some real limitations:
- The world only exists while the host is running the game. Nobody else can play when they’re offline.
- Performance depends on the host’s PC and internet connection. If they’re on Wi-Fi or their hardware is modest, everyone feels it.
- There’s no automatic backup. If the host’s machine crashes mid-save or their drive dies, the world is gone.
- The host gets better latency than everyone else. In a game with combat and timing, this can matter.
For casual sessions where everyone plays at the same time, this works fine. The problems show up when your group plays at different hours, or when you’ve sunk 50+ hours into a world and don’t want to risk losing it.
What a dedicated server changes
A dedicated server is a separate machine that runs the Dragonwilds world independently. Nobody needs to be “the host.” The world is just there, running, all the time.
The 0.11 update also bumped the player cap from 4 to 6 on dedicated servers, which is a nice bonus if your group is on the larger side.
From a practical standpoint:
- Friends in different time zones log in whenever they want. The server doesn’t care.
- Performance is consistent because it’s running on hardware that’s only doing one job, with a stable wired connection.
- Backups run automatically. A crash or a bad patch means rolling back to yesterday’s save, not starting over.
- Updates get applied without waiting for someone to remember to update their install.
Self-hosting vs paying someone
Jagex provides a free dedicated server tool on Steam, and they’re also shipping a container image for people who want to run it in the cloud. If you’re comfortable with Docker, port forwarding, firewall rules, and keeping a machine running 24/7, self-hosting costs nothing beyond the hardware or cloud compute.
The trade-off is your time. You’re the one applying updates, monitoring uptime, managing backups, and fixing things when they break. For some people that’s fun. For most people it’s a chore they’d rather skip.
That’s where hosting services come in. You pay a monthly fee and someone else handles the infrastructure. Shockbyte is Jagex’s official partner, and we offer Dragonwilds hosting too – $15/mo during early access ($20/mo after) with everything included.
The difference between us and a bigger provider is scale. Shockbyte hosts over a million servers. We’re three people who play Dragonwilds on the same infrastructure we sell. It’s a different approach. Smaller, more hands-on. We have opinions about how servers should be configured and we act on them.
When it’s worth it
If your group plays once a week at the same time, peer-to-peer is probably fine. Don’t overthink it.
If your group is spread across time zones, if you’ve built a world you’d hate to lose, or if you’re just tired of one person always being the host – a dedicated server solves all of that. Whether you self-host or pay for it is a matter of how much you value your time relative to $15 a month.