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AC Server Installation and Documentation

This is the documentation for use of the emulator, client patches, and the server commands itself.

Installation
First off, download and extract the server, login client, october to may patch, and the ips patcher (this one is a program, not a zip) into your Asheron's Call directory. It's also a good idea to create a backup of your client.exe, portal.dat, and cell.dat since these files might get corrupted during use of the emulator.
Now then, there are 3 main steps to logging onto the emulator:

1. Patching
2. Setting Up (only if you are the one running the server)
3. Running the client

Patching
The first step is patching. At the moment you need to use a client that is patched back to may. So make a copy your client.exe, and rename it. I use "clientn.exe" for mine, and I'll use that as the example here. Unzip SMARTIPS.ZIP to the directory of your choice. Unzip ClientPatch_Nov2May.zip to a directory of choice as well. Then run SMARTIPS.EXE in the directory that you unzipped it to. The program will launch a windows dialog box. Find your CLIENTN.EXE file for the "Original File" and find the Nov2May.ips for the "IPS / IPS2 File" and click Apply. It should pause for a couple seconds and then say that it was successful. Congratulations, you now have a patched May client!

Setting Up
The second step is setting up the server so that you and others can connect to it. Here's where it gets tricky. There are two real ways to run the emulator. The easiest way is single-user, where just you can get onto the emulator. To do that, the IP addresses at the top should read "127.0.0.1", with port 9002 to the right of it (127.0.0.1 is the local host). However, the emulator automatically detects your IP address and puts it in that box for you. A multiuser server requires that you run it on your IP address and give that address to others (most people have a dynamic IP address, and their number can change frequently!) If you are behind an NAT firewall (ie, a router) you will need to configure port forwarding to allow external users to connect to you. Once you are satisfied with the IP number and port that the server is listening to, click "start listen" on the server. If the server is all set up correctly, it should be sitting in the background, and displaying messages saying its listening, and displaying the status of all connections. Now you and the other users can move on to step three.

Running the Client
The final step is connecting to the server. You will need to run the login client before connecting. Enter a username and password, then enter the IP address of the server you are connecting to in the lower left with the port extension (usually :9002). Then click send. You might get a winsock error, don't worry though, it worked. This login client is for account-specific coding, and tells the server which characters are yours.

Open up your MS-Dos prompt and go to you Asheron's Call directory again. To launch the client type "clientn.exe -h [IP address] -p 9002". Remember, clientn.exe is the name of the patched client, IP address is wherever the server is running (ie 127.0.0.1), and the port is usually 9002. Notice the -'s come before the letters h and p, not after. If you try running the client from Windows it will just tell you that it can only be run from the zone.

In the game, type "!help" for server commands. Their usage is told there. Enjoy!

For any questions not answered here, post on the boards. I will be checking the boards all the time, so don't hesitate to ask about any problems. I will add a Q&A to these docs as soon as people start posting Qs. :)

Note: If anything starts going wrong and the server has odd crashes (but didn't before), close the server then delete the objects.dat, password.dat, and charlist.dat files. After this you can reopen and restart the server. It's also a good idea to delete these files from release to release because they change.

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